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David Hermanus Olivier, one of the defendants in the celebrated trial of anti-Semitic Grey Shirt leaders at Grahamstown, writes in Der Rapport, of which he is editor, that he has been sadly mistaken about the wickedness of the Jews.
(The Rev. Abraham Levy was awarded judgments totalling £1,775 (approximately $8,900) and costs August 21 in his defamation suit against Olivier. Harry Victor Inch and Johannes von Strauss von Moltke, which grew to the stature of a cause celebre while it was being heard.)
“The truth now is,” Olivier writes in his weekly, “that I used my paper as an instrument to sow the seeds of calumny.”
WILL FIGHT “ALL CORRUPTION”
Continuing, he admits that “what is true about the Jew is also sometimes true about the Gentiles.” He promises that in the future his paper will fight all corruption, “be it Jew or Gentile.”
Further explaining his stand, Olivier writes as follows:
“What we believe: We believe that a Jew who does not observe the Sabbath has a bad influence on the Christians and cannot be looked upon as a good Jew. We believe that the immigrant who does not assimilate himself with the Christians is no asset to our nation and our country. We believe that the most dangerous immigrants are those who come from countries which have Communistic tendencies. We believe that the existence of the Jewish Board of Deputies is not desirable. We believe that where our government has failed in its duty in allowing the influx of undesirable immigrants, we have the right to purge our nation of this element. We believe that it is necessary to fight all Christians (non-Jews) who use un-Christian methods, as they come to the fore as wolves in sheep’s clothing, and are the greatest danger to Christianity.
BELIEVERS IN DEMOCRACY
“We consider that race loyalty is a characteristic which any nation should admire. This race loyalty is evident in the Jewish race, and it is our work that this quality should be emulated. To make our ideals desirable, our methods must be of a Christian pattern. We believe in pure democratic government, and it is not our wish that our people should he deprived of this freedom and liberty.”
A notice in Afrikaans reads as follows:
“From the date hereof I withdraw from the South African Christian National Socialist movement, as well as from the South African Greyshirt movement. D. A. Olivier, Jun.
The P. E. Weekly Telegraph publishes the following announcement which is repeated in the Port Elizabeth Advertiser:
“I, Alfred King, of 53, Richmond Hill, Port Elizabeth, have resigned from the South African Greyshirt Movement.”
King, who is also known as Koenig, is the man who distributed Der Rapport, containing the alleged defamation. He was the fourth defendant in the case, but his case was settled out of court on payment of £150 towards costs and an undertaking to publish an apology in all the papers in the Eastern Province.
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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.
