Economic insecurity and ignorance are the basis of Hitlerism, declared Dr. I. M. Rubinow, secretary of B’nai B’rith, in an address tonight at the Williamstown Institute of Human Relations.
In an address on “Social Insecurity and Intergroup Relations,” Mr. Rubinow pointed out, “Back of the paranoic, religious, biologic and historic vagaries of the National Socialist political philosophy there lie obvious economic causes.
“It is significant that the real origin and strength of the Nazi movement was not in the working masses,” he said, “but in the combination of the lower middle classes with the Lumpenproletariat. There was a very stupid but unmistakeable aggravation of group antagonism as the result of some unconscious longing for social and economic security which first the Versailles treaty and then the world crisis had destroyed.”
He urged a “foundation of fact and economic security” to build a peaceful society.
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.
