A number of Nazi leaders were arrested here today for calling upon the population to massacre the Jews and for spreading posters bearing the slogans “Death to the Jews!”
A pogrom of Jews in Nuremberg was averted due to the quick action of the police, who removed the posters after Julius Streicher, the Nazi leader of Franconia, declared that they had not been spread upon his order. Streicher himself, though the most notorious Jewbaiter in Germany, issued an order to arrest all those guilty of calling upon the population to attack the Jews.
Those who were arrested are being questioned today to establish the originators of the plot. All those arrested are members of the Nazi party. They are accused of spreading a rumor that the Jews are seeking to assassinate Hitler, by this means hoping to enrage the population against the Jewish inhabitants.
POSTERS PUT UP AT NIGHT
The posters alleging that the Jews attempted to kill Hitler and should therefore be exterminated had been pasted up in Nuremberg during the night hours. Early in the morning thousands of Nazis, incited by the posters, gathered on the streets, shouting “Avenge our leader! Death to the Jews!” Many of them spread throughout the city in a house-to-house call, urging the non-Jewish population immediately to start the pogrom and to ransack Jewish houses.
Special police forces were immediately commanded to check the wild crowds, and urgent requests for instructions were dispatched to Berlin as to how to handle the situation. A few hours later, Julius Streicher, the Nazi ruler in Nuremberg and district leader of Franconia, issued an order to remove the dangerous posters and to arrest all those who are involved in the pogrom plot.
ARRESTS ORDERED
“I responsible elements,” the order said, “started a rumor that the Jews have made an attempt to assassinate our leader. They followed up this rumor by inciting the population to kill the Jews.
“The only person who issues orders in Franconia is myself. I therefore order the expulsion of one of the party leaders in our district and disciplinary measures against others involved. Anybody who will permit himself to be carried away by lawless impulses will be arrested, no matter whether he is a member of our party or not Members of our party will in addition be expelled from the 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.
