R. D. B. Speaks

If you speak to a sincere Nazi sympathizer in and out of Germany, he will make a point of declaring that, officially, the Hitler government no longer countenances attacks on Jews; nor does it give official sanction to the boycotting of Jewish merchants and traders. Of course, he will say, it is impossible to control the unofficial elements of Germany in that matters and that if there are, here and there, derelictions from good taste and good feeling it should not be held against the kind-hearted, generous Hitlerite rulers. Especially reprehensible is it for the outside world to blame the government and to countenance the wicked, unfair and disastrous boycott of German goods, and so on.

I imagine if one looks on the other side of the question, the official leaders of Jewry in all parts of the world are in exactly the same position as the German camarilla. The officially constituted Jewish leaders do not countenance the boycott and therefore they decline to accept responsibility for it. Yet I have so far failed to encounter a single leader of Jewry, official or otherwise, who has not been privately in whole-hearted sympathy with the action of the boycotters.

If it is policy for them to disclaim responsibility, a thing which I understand but do not endorse, it must, of course, be admitted that the Hitler camarilla have an equal right to disclaim responsibility for the action of the people of Germany whom they have led to this pitch of national disgrace and humiliation. One definite word, one order from Hitler would put an end to the story of German disgrace which continues to blacken the record of a once honorable nation.

Let me quote from the report of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency which may be relied upon not to exaggerate its information. It says under date of the 27th of March: “That two Jews were fatal victims of an anti-Semitic outbreak at Gunzenhausen in Bavaria. One of them was so badly manhandled that he committed suicide. Another was stabbed to death. Eleven Jews were arrested and put into concentration camps, in protective custody.’ “

I have seen nothing to indicate that Herr Hitler has sent compensation or even flowers or messages of sympathy to the families of the victims; nor have I seen anything to show that the murderers are to be prosecuted. On the same date this Agency informs us that “the ‘Spring Propaganda Campaign,’ for instance, in upper Franconia, is in full blast and that the boycott of Jewish shops is prosecuted with great vigor: At Anspach, for in stance, they have a pleasant habit of stopping automobiles at the entrances to the town and all Jews are searched. If they are traders they are turned back.”

Yet, in spite of this the poor, misunderstood Nazis cry out against the anti-German boycott which grows and grows so effectual, particularly in the United States. I have always said that the only argument which the Germans understand is one where emphasis is mostly felt–in the German pocket. Germany’s dwindling export trade will act as the soundest of arguments against anti-Semitism.