The charge of a so-called Jewish Communist link made by Reichsfuehrer Adolf Hitler at the recent Reichstag meeting at Nuremberg was repudiated today in a declaration to their fellow citizens issued by the heads of three major Jewish organizations in the United States: Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of the American Jewish Committee; Alfred M. Cohen, president of the B’nai B’rith, and B. Charney Vladeck, chairman of the Jewish Labor Committee.
The charge is labelled a pretext under cover of which “the Nazi government has in practice robbed the German people of their civil rights; suppressed freedom of speech, of the press and assembly; has destroyed the free labor unions and confiscated their funds; and is now engaged in a pagan assault upon the religious conscience of the Protestant, Catholic and Jew alike.”
The statement cites facts taken from the election figures of recent periods in Germany in support of its contention that Jews have played an insignificant role in Communist activities.
“A study of German conditions,” the statement points out, “indicates that the majority of the Jews who are permitted to vote in Germany during the Republic were affiliated with the liberal democratic parties. In the presidential elections in which Hindenburg, Hitler and Thaelmann were candidates, Jewish leaders appealed to the German Jews to vote for Hindenburg and against the Communist and National Socialist candidates. German Jews were chiefly engaged in occupations and in callings from which Communists are not recruited; indeed, their own economic interests made them diametrically opposed to Communism. The most influential German dailies in the pre-Hitler period, such as the
Frankfurter Zeitung and the Berliner Tageblatt, which were owned by Jews, were bitterly opposed to Communism. Not one prominent or even well-known German-Jewish leader was ever identified with the Communist Party in Germany. According to authentic figures given under the auspices of the present government, there was only one Jew among the 70 Communist deputies in the Reichstag of 1930, and not a single Jew among the 81 Communist deputies of the Reichstag of 1933. Finally, not even the most brazen official mendacity can obscure the fact that while there were less than 300,000 German Jews who were enabled to vote, there were fully 6,000,000 Communist votes cast during the Republic.”
The statement concludes with an appeal to Americans “not to permit this campaign of slander and libel to go unreproved.”
“We are confident,” it declares, “that our fellow Americans of all faiths, familiar with the lesson of history that oppression sets no limits to its victims, will add their voices in protest against the destruction of the innocents in Germany.
“We are firm in our belief that the American sense of justice and fair play will influence our fellow citizens to express themselves unmistakably against the ruthless suppression of liberty of conscience, against the destruction of human lives and human ideals, and against the revival of pagan barbarism in the heart of the civilized world.”
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.
