The Prussian Diet this afternoon was the scene of vigorous anti-Semitic attacks by National Socialist deputies in connection with a motion to censure the Socialist premier, Otto Braun, and the minister of the interior, Dr. Carl Severing, for permitting the showing of the now prohibited American picture, All Quiet on the Western Front.
The Hitlerite deputy, M. Schwech, abused Carl Laemmle, the American producer of the picture, as “a Hungarian Jew who utilized German heroism for Jewish-American business,” alleging that the dialogue of the film contains a passage describing death for the Fatherland as “filthy.” The left wing deputies, on the other hand, maintained that Laemmle was a non-Jewish German-American.
The debate culminated with a statement by the Jewish deputy, M. Kuttner, who charged that Paul Goebbels, leader in the agitation against the film, had remained at home while his Jewish classmates had gone to war. This effectively silenced the National Socialist deputies who then turned their oratorical batters on the UFA producer who arranged the German version of the picture.
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.
