What may or may not be the final chapter in the lurid history of a militantly anti-Semitic publication, the Deutsche Zeitung, a Yorkville weekly, was written yesterday.
In a lengthy and effusive apology for the criminally libelous articles it wrote about former Magistrate Joseph Goldstein, which led to the conviction of William L. McLaughlin, managing editor, the newspaper promises to eschew all expressions of anti-Semitism in the future. The apology was a condition made by County Judge Franklin Taylor when he acquiesced to a dramatic plea by both Mr. Goldstein and Samuel Untermyer that he suspend execution of a year’s sentence in city prison on McLaughlin.
While the apology, which is accompanied by a statement announcing a complete change of editorial policy, the crux of which is its intention to eliminate all “encouragement of racial prejudice,” was being received with satisfaction in Jewish circles, a new publication was born.
The new paper, also a weekly, is called the Deutscher Beobachter. Ostensibly published by the American League of the Friends of New Germany, of which Dr. Herbert Schnuch is president, the paper gives evidence of assuming the toga of anti-Semitism publicly discarded by the Deutsche Zeitung.
In a page one announcement, the Beobachter, over the signature of Dr. Schnuch, accounts for the new publication as being the result of “special circumstances as they were reported in detail in the daily press of Greater New York on November 13 and November 14.”
‘FRIENDS’ QUIT PAPER
The special circumstances alluded to were the reports of the McLaughlin conviction. As a result of this, Dr. Schnuch announced, the Friends of New Germany have been obliged to sever
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
