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Dies Denies That Anti-semites Are Fascist or That Fascism is Anti-semitic

February 3, 1943
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A denial that persons who express anti-Jewish views are necessarily pro-Nazi or pro-Fascist or that Fascism is anti-Semitic was voiced in the House of Representatives yesterday by Rep. Martin Dies in an oblique attempt to defend his committee against the charge that it had neglected to probe Nazi and Fascist groups in the United States.

“There have come repeated demands that this person or that person be branded as pro-Fascist or pro-Nazi simply because he expressed anti-Jewish views,” Dies said. “I do not hold with those who condemn anyone an account of the misdeeds of some people in that race, but there is no law against a man’s denouncing the South. God knows I have heard Southerners denounced as viciously in certain quarters of this country as I have ever heard Jews denounced.

“When they say Fascists, what do they mean by Fascist?” he continued. “Most of them mean people who have expressed anti-Semitic views; but that is not Fascism, for Fascism is not anti-Semitics with all its faults, with all its sins representing an evil form of government, one thing cannot be charged to Fascism, and that is that it was anti-Semitic at the time of its origin.”

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