Deputy Otto Nuschke, the head of the Central Office of the All-German Democratic State Party, denied in an interview with the J.T.A. here to-day that there was any truth in the assertion made in the “Montag Morgen” that the All-German State Party had adopted a similar decision to that of the Wuerttemburg State Party, to join in coalition with the Hitlerists as part of a Protestant Alliance against the Catholic Centre Party, and that it was making the Jews scapegoats for the Party’s recent collapse at the elections, with the result that antisemitic tendencies were becoming dominant in the Party.
The whole story is a lie from beginning to end, he declared, and the “Montag Morgen” will find it very difficult to bring forward even the shadow of proof for its assertions. What is true, he proceeded, is that large numbers of Jewish electors gave their vote this time to the Centre Party and in Berlin Jewish supporters of the Centre Party issued a leaflet appealing for votes for the Centre. But the German State Party is far too well aware that many votes were lost to the State Party outside the Jewish electorate. We have in mind the activity of Hugenberg and Oberfohren, who diverted votes to the Nazis. The leaders of the German State Party have always held that people should vote according to their convictions. People who are not Socialists or clericals cannot give their votes to other Parties than those which they support. It is due to the fact that a great many voters adopted a thoroughly opportunist attitude in the last elections that the German State Party last a great many votes, with the result that the Nazis gained a success, because the German State
Party was unable to emerge as an effective counter force. But there is nothing more absurd than to suggest that all these votes we lost were those of Jews. The Party leadership is rigidly opposed to this contention whenever it is put forward by its own members, and in those places where it is made, it has never been made with antisemitic motives.
As for the allegation that the State Party did not put any Jews on its list of candidates in the last elections, the fact is that there were two Jews among our leading candidates, Law Councillor Faldk, in Cologne, and Dr. Zeitlin, in Upper Silesia, and two Jews lower down in our list-Professor Madame, Wunderlich, in Potsdam, and Herr Wolfe, in Hanover.
No other non-Socialist Party dared in the last elections to present Jews as leading candidates. The German State Party did that because it felt that it was now more than ever necessary to show that we were not giving way to antisemitic terrorism. That was why we submitted the named of prominent men and women of Jewish faith as candidates. This fact in itself proves the allegation of the “Montag Morgen” a libel, which has roused indignation, not least, among the Jewish members of the State Party.
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.
