Starhemberg Says No Force Against Jews

Prince von Starhemberg, commander-in-chief of the Fascist Heimwehr, declared today in the course of an interview with American newspapermen that the “Jewish problem cannot be solved by force.” He said that the problem was soluble only through the application of “Christian laws reflecting the feelings of the Austrian people.” The Heimwehr leader characterized the numerous clauses as “spiritual terror” and said that “worthy” Jewry should be maintained in the Austrian state.

The interview with von Starhemberg lends fresh credence to the report first carried in a Budapest newspaper of a projected Heimwehr plan to deprive a large number of naturalized Jews of equality in citizenship rights and to prohibit Jews naturalizea since 1918 from practicing in the liberal professions, the arts and holding public office.

The Budapest report was published in full by the Wiener Tageblatt, one of the official organs of the Dollfuss regime. The project aroused grave apprehension among Jews because the censor permitted the newspaper to carry the report and no denial was forthcoming from government officials.

CONTRACTS NOT RENEWABLE

A report was published today in the semi-official government organ, The Reichspost, that “Vienna Jewish and atheist doctors” had been officially notified that their contracts with the municipality were not renewable.

The ominous classing of Jews and atheists together is regarded as an indication that Austrian officials are determined to carry out their attack on Jewish medical men. In Vienna and Linz a large number of Jewish physicians employed by the municipal governments were summarily dismissed under one pretext or another and all applicants for the posts were told that they must present incontrovertible proof that they were “Christian Germans.”