American Publisher Calls on Hauptmann to Halt Nazi Insanity

Why does not Gerhart Hauptmann raise his voice against the berserk madness of the Nazis, asks B. W. Huebsch, his American publisher, in a statement made exclusively for the Jewish Daily Bulletin, in reference to the projected auto-da-fe of books of Jewish authorship planned at every leading German university next Wednesday. Mr. Huebsch, as publisher under his own name, and as a member of the firm of the Viking Press, has brought out in translation the works of such important German-writing authors as Lion Feuchtwanger, Arnold and Stefan Zweig, Hugo von Hoffmansthal, and Hauptmann. Mr. Huebsch’s statement follows:

“It does seem fitting that the theatre of the present absurdity should be the university town, as has been reported. Boys will be boys ! Here is an unexpected justification of the excessive attention to sports in American universities; if the dull wits who are preparing to burn books by Jews and political radicals had put in a few hours a week at medicine ball, swimming and rowing, they would not now indulge in the projected infantile outlet for their accumulated energies.

“The Germans are long on logic, hence it may be expected that they will do a thorough job. If Marx,—then all the Jewish social scientists—down to Franz Oppenheimer and Werner Sombart. If the works of such as the Mann brothers who are not Jews, why not those of Lessing because of his ‘Nathan the Wise’. Since music, too, is perpetuated in print, let them not forget the works of Mendelssohn whose ‘St. Paul’ will burn nicely.

“In the realm of music Busch and Fuertwaengler have raised their voices in protest nobly. How doubly significant and disappointing is the silence of Hauptmann. His challenging cry would intergrate the forces of intelligence and entitle him to the leadership that he hoped for when the republic was formed.

“There is a legend that an ambitious maniac, desiring that his name should be forever remembered, set fire to the Alexandrian library, the then greatest in the world. The library was destroyed, but the incendiary’s name is forever lost, all that is remembered is that he was a maniac ! So may it well be with these poor German fools.”