passing automobile and beat up every passenger resembling a Jew.
A rough estimate today gives the number of Nazis who participated in the riot as 800.
Berlin newspapers today refrained from giving details of the attacks. They carried the official version of the event issued by the Deutsche Nachrichten Bureau, which states that the riots started because the Jews attempted to disturb the presentation of an anti-Jewish film in a Berlin moving-picture house on Kurfuerstendamm.
BLAME INIMICAL ELEMENTS
An official police communique declares that the riots were instituted by elements “inimical to the State.” The statement carefully avoids to mention that the chief instigators of the attacks were Nazis.
“Elements inimical to the State sought to take advantage of a comprehensible demonstration against the arrogant attitude of Jews and attempted to bring the State and the party movement into disrepute,” the police report says.
Though the official police version seeks to create the impression that the riots were not instigated by the Nazis, all foreign observers in Berlin who witnessed the scenes testified to the fact that the attacks were started by uniformed and civilian Nazis. Three members of the Nazi party, dressed in full uniform, motored up and down the Kurfuerstendamm, giving instructions and shouting encouragement to the hooligans.
The riots, continuing far into the night, were not checked by the police. Flying patrol squads, arriving on the ecene, did not intervene. At midnight the disorders spread from Kurfuerstendamm to Kanstrasse, a neighboring parallel street, where Jews were dragged out from cafes and severely beaten.
JEWS IN ‘CUSTODY’
A number of Jews were taken by police into “protective custody.” Some of the rioters who were arrested after the intervention of bystanders were later released.
The official news bureau of the Nazi government issued the following statement last night:
“Attempts by Jews to disturb the presentation of the film ‘Peterson and Bendel’ in a Berlin photoplay house on Kurfuerstendamm resulted Monday evening in demonstrations before the theater. A large crowd expressed displeasure with the provocative behavior of the Jewish patrons of the photoplay house.
“In nearby cafes the public protested against the increasingly arrogant behavior of the Jews. The appearance of outraged citizens was sufficient in most cases to induce the Jewish patrons to leave in what amounted to a flight. In the Cafe Bristol excited disputes arose, during which a window was broken.
“Minor accidents occurred before the arrival of the police, but the latter and emergency squads prevented further clashes.”
It is believed that the signal for the riot, the worst anti-Jewish outbreak ever witnessed in Berlin, was given by Dr. Goebbels and by Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler’s right-hand man. The Angriff, the evening paper published by Goebbels in Berlin, came out a few hours before the riots with an article inviting Nazis “to protest energetically against Jewish insolence.”
Six German women and six Jewish men were arrested yesterday in Breslau for intermarriage, on the charge of violating the principles of racial purity.
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.
