The possibility grew Saturday that insurgent units of the United German Societies including the four Jewish constituencies which resigned a few weeks ago because of alleged Nazi sympathies, will rejoin the fold provided certain conditions are met by the parent body. What these conditions are were not learned but at a meeting to be held today in Turnhalle which will be attended by delegates of these groups, they will be thoroughly aired and debated.
An invitation extended to the Deutsche Israelitische Landwehr Verein, the Prospect Unity Club of Yorkville, the Centre German Jewish Club, the Damenbund, the Literarische Verein and the Verein der Schlesier, to send representatives to today’s meeting has been accepted, it was learned. The invitation came from the Rev. Dr. William Popke, honorary president of the Societies, the only remaining officer of the administration in power before the disruption in the organization. According to Dr. Fritz Schlesinger, former treasurer of the United German Societies, so “courteous and forceful” was the invitation that it could not be resisted. Bernard Ridder and Victor Ridder, the latter a member of the German Day Celebration Committee whose insistence upon the raising of the Nazi Swastika at the festivities led to the ferment and finally to the break in the united constituencies, were also partially responsible for the attemped rapprochement.
Dr. Schlesinger declined to reveal the conditions under which the breach will be mended, but it is taken for granted that unless the United German Societies goes on record as condemning anti-Semitism, a reconciliation will be impossible.
Meanwhile, the Commercial Association of 1858, which had been embarrassed by actions of improperly designated delegates to the meeting at which the crisis in Jewish and non-Jewish relations in German-American circles had come to a head, issued a statement denying its intent to affiliate with the German National Trade Association and through it, the German Labor Front, which that organization represents in this country.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
