World Press Digest

The Manchester Guardian brings the following report from its Berlin correspondent:

The total number of Jews who have fled from Germany, according to the Secret Political Police, is 90,000. The number of “Aryan” refugees who, because of their political opinions, have fled abroad to escape Nazi vengeance is stated to be 20,000. About 10,000 German subjects—of whom it is stated ninety-nine per cent are Jews—have subsequently returned to Germany.

These statements are made by the Nazi Voelkischer Beobachter in the first of a series of articles on “The Winding-up of the German Jewish Question.” Refugees who come back to Germany from abroad are placed in an internment camp or as the Voelkischer Beobachter calls it, “an education camp.” The reason for their internment, the paper declares, is to prevent the flooding of the labor market, since recently the numbers returning have greatly increased. The newspaper proceeds to attack the Jews, who are stated to have profited from the chaotic conditions prevailing after the war and succeeded in amassing capital from the pennies of the German public. When, however, the fiscal authorities, under growing financial difficulties, made serious efforts to tax the alleged profiteering Jews they sent their capital abroad. The Ministry of Economic Affairs estimates the amount of capital so lost to Germany at 400,000,000 marks, and this the article regards as very conservative. It adds that probably the effective damage caused to Germany is nearly 1,000,000,000 marks.

The article, which accuses the Jews of being responsible for the flight of capital in the winter of 1932-3 until its export was stopped, is significant in view of the renewed wave of anti-Semitism as recorded in a message at the end of last month. Another symptom is the agitation against Jewish shopkeepers, especially in Southern and Western Germany.