The anti-Jewish note injected by some elements in Germany into the national election campaign was intensified today on the eve of the elections–which will be held this Sunday–to a point where the youth division of the Social Democratic Party wired a protest to the Federal Minister of Interior.
The telegram charged that a “concerted and well-planned campaign” is being conducted to turn German voters against the Social Democratic Party by falsely representing its national chairman Erich Ollenhauer as a Jew. “This reprehensible piece of knavery is obviously designed to arouse the passions that are responsible for the darkest and most cruel events in German history,” the telegram stated.
Meanwhile, Mainz police posted a $240 reward for the persons who defaced Ollenhauer election posters with a Star of David bearing the inscription, “Jude,” the symbol which all Jews were compelled to wear during Nazi rule.
Werner Buchstaller, chairman of the West Germany-wide “Young Socialists,” demanded in his telegram to Minister of the interior Gerhard Schroeder that he take “unequivocal counter action against such tendencies which are injurious to the prestige of the Federal Republic.”
Germans placing the Stars of David on Ollenhauer election posters were understood to do so with the specific objective of giving tangible expression to a widespread anti-Semitic whispering campaign warning “good Germans” against supporting a party which might pick a Jew to be Chancellor.
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.
