The disappearance of thousands of well-to-do Jews has had disastrous consequences upon the economic life of Germany, writes J. C. Segrue, Berlin correspondent of the News-Chronicle. Rents have fallen steeply in the better-class districts where Jewish families resided, the restaurants they frequented report poor business, an army of maid servants and other domestics of Jewish households have been thrown out of work at a most unseasonable time.
More and more do Nazi economists recognize that the campaign against the Jews has brought Germany more harm than advantage, he states. An unexpected effect of the one-day boycott of Jewish businesses has been the permanent loss of trade to many non-Jewish shops. It appears that Jews, who formerly were indifferent as to the shops they dealt with, now only go to shops owned by their co-religionists.
“Non-Jewish professional men report the same experience. A dentist tells me that he has lost nearly all his Jewish patients. They now go to Jewish dentists and I can hardly blame them,” he commented.
“Whilst its position still remains unassailable, the Nazi regime is passing through a somewhat troublesome time,” he continues. “After lasting for nearly six months, the phase of sheep-like docility on the part of the German people seems to be drawing to a close. The Nazis are having to face criticism. Clouds, at present of no great dimension, but symptomatic of a changed atmosphere, have arisen on the political horizon. Nazi leaders display a nervousness ill befitting the men, who claim to have at least 70 per cent of the German nation at their backs. There is much grumbling by the public and doubts and misgivings are voiced in many quarters. People wonder why the promised trade revival is so slow in appearing. The present restlessness of large number of Germans suggests that the regime is less popular, and that force will always have to be used to bolster it up.”
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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.