The Hitlerite press has been full of assertions and “statistics” which aim to show that the Jew dominates every phase of German life, thus tending to de-Germanize it.
An article in a recent issue of the Central Verein Zeitung, the newspaper published by the Central Verein of German Jews, quotes statistics based on the census of 1925 which show definitely the percentage of Jews engaged in the principal vocations of Germany.
In 1813, the article says, ninety of every hundred Prussian Jews were engaged in trade and inn-keeping. Today about sixty of every hundred German Jews are in trade and commerce. A fourth of all Jews in any vocation are in the handicrafts and in industry. The figures which follow are submitted as giving a truer picture of the vocational distribution of German Jews than those presented in the Nazi press.
Chief Vocational Occupations of Jews in the German Reich (1925)
Economic Section Jews Gainfully Employed Per 100
(a) Agriculture and Forestry 4,974 1.91
(b) Industry and Handicrafts 63,276 24.24
(c) Trade and Commerce 160,106 61.33
(d) Promotion of Health and Welfare 10,626 4.07
(e) Administration and Free Occupations 14,745 5.65
(f) Housework 7,331 2.80
Totals 261,058 100.00
Women, children, students, members of professions are of course not included in these figures.
Most of the commercial enterprises in the hands of Jews are on a small scale, i.e., engaging only the owner and one or two members of his family or a few hired assistants. It can therefore scarcely be asserted that this group dominates German trade. For in spite of the fairly large representation of Jews in Trade and Commerce, the percentage per 1,000 of Jews and non-Jews engaged in these fields in given as follows by the C. V. Zeitung:
Non-Jews Jews
Trade and Commerce 970 30
Production and Trade in Real Estate 942 58
Peddling and Street-Selling 963 38
Small-scale Trading, where the participation of Jews is strongest 976 24
Employees (including executives) 984 16
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