New Prussian Code Would Exclude Jews from the Right to Inherit Land

The Minister of Justice published figures today revealing that 2,158 Jewish lawyers have been admitted to practice in Prussia, instead of the 3,515 previously readmitted after the general exclusions. Simultaneously with this announcement, however, it was learned that 37 more Jewish attorneys in Cologne had been barred from their profession, 50 in Frankfurt, 11 in Wuppertal, 6 in Coblenz and 4 in Bonn. Banned Jewish attorneys will not be allowed to be represented in court even by non-Jewish advocates, with the result that they will be compelled to reject cases. Whether the Minister of Justice’s order will affect this situation it is as yet impossible to judge.

Deprivation of the Jews of the right to inherit land is a feature of the new land code, one of the most revolutionary innovations in land laws in many years, which was announced last night by Hans Kerrl, president of the Prussian Diet. The law restricts inheritance of land to “German citizens of German hlood.” The cabinet is expected to approve the bill soon. The bill provides for the revocation of the right of inheritance of large estates and provides that land must be handed on from father to oldest son, undivided. Whether land owned by Jews in Prussia, in which state only the new code applies, would be confiscated, could not be learned today.

Employees of the Epa chain of stores announced today that they had begun a general strike against the concern demanding the resignation of Jewish directors. The strike began with a walkout yesterday which closed the company’s thirteen stores in Berlin and spread today to all fifty-eight stores operated by the Epa company throughout the country. Banners carried by pickets in front of the stores bore the slogan, “We want to be German.”

The management of the Ullstein firm, one of Germany’s largest publishing houses, has agreed to the immediate dismissal of Jewish editors remaining in its employ following a demonstration by Nazi employees yesterday which delayed afternoon editions of Ullstein publications about half an hour. The Rudolf Mosse organization, another great newspaper, magazine, book publishing and advertising concern, which published the Berliner Tageblatt, has previously been “co-ordinated.”

A novel case was aired in court yesterday when a Christian woman was sentenced to twenty-one months’ imprisonment because she intended to follow her Jewish suitor, Solomon Paszkalski, back to Poland and was suspected of planning there to spread “atrocity” propaganda.

Frau Gerda Goehring, who was divorced from her Christian husband, had witnessed an attack on an aged Jew who had his beard torn out by Nazis, had seen another Jew hanged from the branch of a tree and a Jewish child stabbed in the neck. The prosecuting attorney asserted that the woman planned to relate these incidents in Poland. He referred to her cohabitation with Paszkalski as “a sin against her German blood.”

Isadore Klein, a horse dealer, sixty-three years old, was sentenced to fifteen months’ imprisonment because he alleged that he had seen Nazis stab a Jewish child and spread salt and pepper over the wounds.