Blumenfeld, Bernhard Cable Views on Germany

Chairman of the Board of the London Daily Express and cable contributor of the Jewish Daily Bulletin

The Herr Von Neurath who, by the grace of God and the consent of Herr Hitler, uneasily occupies the position of Germany’s Foreign Minister is, personally, a decent, inoffensive representative of the Junker class. It is said of him, perhaps with much truth, but for him the Nazi bludgeon would long since have descended on the heads of the German diplomatic corps. Up to now Neurath was believed to have stood between the Swastika swashbucklers and the professional diplomats who, in their hearts, are known to harbor the most bitter feeling of whom the ineffable Von Papen opened the door of power and the eventual humiliation of Germany.

Being Foreign Minister under Hitler requires a certain amount of lip service on the part of Von Neurath and this he rendered by emphasizing that which J. L. Garvin in The Observer aptly describes as “every hope for the future of mankind.” I listened on the radio to Neurath’s pronouncements on disarmament and Germany’s determination to smash the Versailles policy. It was a firebrand speech delivered in the tones of a man who has the halter round his neck and a loaded pistol pointed at his heart. That indeed appears to be the condition of nearly all of Germany’s spokesmen except those members of the Nazi camarilla like Goebbels and Goering, and one can sympathize with them.

I had a visit recently from a German of importance. He was full of enthusiasm for Hitlerism, principally on the ground that but for the intervention of Hitler, his cohorts in Germany would now be in the throes of Communism. That being so, he said, how can you expect us to be anything but grateful to Hitler? I agreed he had good reason for being thankful, for it is undoubtedly true that there would not have been an escape from Communism, but what excuse was there for starting this stupid, cruel and devastating war on Jews? What was the reason for attempting to rouse the smouldering fires of international hatred? What did all of this have to do with the flag-waving, flamboyant speechifying braggadocio of the average Hitler oratory?

I see my name prominently connected with the so-called campaign of British Jewry to inaugurate a widespread boycott of German goods. That is true to the extent that I am among the sponsors of the call for the conference, but I can be of no further assistance in the matter than to emphasize that the convention devote its time for organization and not oratory. I am not in the least interested in excluding German goods merely because they are German. That is not the point. I am, however, interested in bringing to bear pressure on the present German government until such time when they exercise justice, honesty and decency towards their German Jewish citizens who are innocent victims of hallucinations and goose-stepping buffoonery.

There are signs here and there that the Hitler gangsters would like to find a way out, but they started something which it is difficult to check; so much the worse.

I am glad to see that the orange deal with Germany will not be carried out. It was a humiliating thing to contemplate such a breach of good faith.

The study of the proceedings of the reconstructed Nazi religion under the soon-to-be appointed Archbishop Mueller gives one cause for reflection. Pastors are working under a mot d’ordre which preaches the doctrine that Jews are an inferior people not worthy of relations with Nordics; also they are now pronounced to be people without a constructive sense, but merely parasites clinging to healthier humankind.

After such declarations these fervent pastors prepare venomous attacks based on the Scriptures, and read aloud to their gaping congregations passages from the Bible, every book of which, except possibly two, were written by Jews. Then, to complete their inconsistency they invoke the blessing and the protection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Jew born and brought up in a pious Jewish home, who fed his spirit on the prophecies of the Jewish seers and on the records of Jewish saints.

Jesus, Moses, Isaiah, St. Paul, St. John, Mendelsohn, Spinoza and Einstein; throughout every age such representatives of an “inferior” race has enriched the treasures of the world and brought benefits to millions upon millions who, on their part, merely contributed further darkness to the various repeated dark ages under one of which humanity now seems to be cast.

I mention these known facts because I think it is time that Jews everywhere arise and publicly assert the virtues of their superior, and not inferior, race. Certainly, superiority in heart and spirit, compared to the so-called Nordic chivalry, which, I begin to believe, even Torquemada would have scorned.