No Jewish Question As Such for Hitlerists Says “voelkischer Beobachter”: Very Simple Issue: Germany

There is no Jewish question as such for us National Socialists (Hitlerists), the “Voelkischer Beobachter” writes. There would be a special Jewish question facing us only if there were no absolute certainty in our own ranks about the mortal danger which threatens our people because of the invasion of this racially-strong, alien Jewish people, exploiting all and everyone; if there were any doubt in our own minds as to the facts of the terrible extent of Jewish domination over the peoples of the world.

That, it says, is our answer to the question whether we Hitlerists have made up our minds about the practical steps we are going to take when we are in power, to solve the Jewish question.

The Hitlerist, it proceeds, starts out from paragraph 4 of our Party Programme, which definitely lays it down that “no Jew can be a German” (Volksgenosse). Clearly, then, the Jew stands out here as something other than and opposed to the German. This separation of the two peoples is the fundamental and binding principle behind every step which will be taken by the Hitlerists in power. We accept the definition of a Jew provided by Dr. Guenther, the Professor of Anthropology at Jena University, who says that the Jew is alien to us in race and blood.

RESTORATION OF MEDIEVAL LEGISLATION AGAINST JEWS.

It is difficult to define the Jew in cases where the Jewish element has invaded non-Jewish elements, causing a certain admixture of Jewish racial elements. The only thing we can do where that has happened is to establish the origin of the parents and grandparents on both sides. Beyond that it is impossible to rectify in a few years the sins of past centuries. Any Jewish blood that exists further back, must be left where it is, with the hope that gradually this Jewish infiltration will be absorbed and disappear. The aim behind it all, is to act up to the declaration contained in the Programme of our Party, that German citizenship is open only to members of our German race. Those others who are not citizens can live in Germany, but only as our guests and under the provision of the aliens laws.

The recognition of the Jewish element as a minority in German life will have to be followed by a new type of citizenship rights, to regulate the position of this category of inhabitants, and similarly of other national minorities like Lithuanians, Poles, Danes, etc. The population will have to be divided into Germans, on the one hand, and residents of the country, on the other, enforcing in this regard the communal laws of medieval legislation. In practice this will mean that everyone belonging to the German State, whether German or Jew, is so far as the outside world is concerned, under the power and the protection of the German State, and in this respect will enjoy equal standing. In internal affairs, however, the Jews must obviously hold inferior rank in matters of citizenship and social position. Their equality of rights, so far as the outside world is concerned, will have the purpose of making impossible foreign reprisals which might come about as the result of the storm which would be raised by the whole of world Jewry.

Raising the Jews to the status of German residents will have the logical consequence of restricting their purely citizenship rights, especially their right to vote and to belong to political bodies. The Jewish minority will like all others belonging to the German State participate in the general welfare institutions, insofar as this is possible without infringing the rights of Germans. There can be no question of their bearing arms, but in time of war they could be drafted into labour battalions, which will not be armed, a measure which will certainly meet with the wishes of the Jews themselves, and will be accepted by them with gratitude.

On the basis of the constitutional powers, laws will have to be introduced from time to time to regulate the position of the various categories of residents, including the Jews, in regard to freedom of movement, freedom of occupation, freedom of association and of meetings, the right to attend schools which are not maintained exclusively by their own funds, the direction or publication of periodicals in the German language, and the right of acquiring land.

In setting out these proposals, which denote nothing unusual or novel in the Hitlerist programme, we have formulated our aim, which is nothing more than to protect the soule and the body of the German people, and to liberate it from Jewish domination and prevent it from ever coming back.