Neurath’s Assertion of No Censorship Disproved by Official Letter to J.t.a.

The repeated assertions made by Baron von Neurath, German Minister of Foreign Affairs, and other government officials, that no censorship has been imposed upon the transmission of news is disproved by a copy of a letter from the Head Telegraphic Office in Berlin, to the Berlin office of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The copy of the letter which has reached the New York office, informs the Agency that a dispatch from its Berlin office had been excluded from transmission.

The telegram from the Agency’s Berlin office dealt with the ejection of Jewish judges from the Breslau court, a report of which had, in the meantime, been carried by other agencies and newspapers, and whose veracity has since been confirmed. The letter from the postal authorities to the Berlin office reads as follows:

HAUPTTELGRAPHENAMT

Berlin N, den 12 Marz 1933

An die Juedische Telegraphen Agenture Berlin.

ANHALTEN EINES TELEGRAMMS

Ihr heutiges Telegramm an “Jewcorrau London” betreffend Vergaenge im Landgericht Breslau, ist auf Grund des Art. 7 des Welttelegraphenvertrags von der Befoerderung ausgeschlossen worden.

Der Artikel lautet:

“Die hohen vertragsschliessenden Teile behalten sich die Befugnis vor, die Befoerderung eines jeden Privattelegramms zu verhindern, das fuer die Sicherheit des Staates gefachrlich erscheint oder gegen die Landesgesetze, die offentliche Ordnung oder die guten Sitten verstoesst.”

Gegen diese Entscheidung ist die Beschwerde an die Oberpostdirektion in Berlin-Charlottenburg 5 zulaessig.

The article reads:

“The high contracting parties reserve the right to detain any private telegram which appears to endanger the security of the State, or which is contrary to the law of the country, or to good manners.”

An appeal against this decision may be addressed to the Oberposdirektion, in Berlin-Charlottenburg 5.

Many other dispatches from the Berlin office of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency were not permitted to go out of Germany, or held back for many hours, so that they lost their news value. The treatment accorded the Agency was arbitrary, as other correspondents were frequently permitted to file dispatches of the very same contents, indicating that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has been singled out by the authorities in order to prevent the Agency from functioning normally, obviously because of its specific interest in the Jewish situation in Germany.