General Ludendorff, on trial for treason in connection with his participation in the “putsch” of last November, which was unsuccessfully engineered by Adolphi Hitler, confessed in his testimony of Friday to a strong anti-Semitic bias and gave his reasons for his prejudice.
General Ludendorff said that he had become acquainted with the “Jewish question”, during the war and that he recognizes it as a question of race. Announcing himself as opposed to all Marxist and Communist elements the former Commander-in-Chief of the Kaiser’s armies during the World War made the following statement: “In connection with this is the Jewish question. I made its acquaintance during the war. For me it is a question of race, Little as the Frenchman or Englishman can be permitted to obtain dominion over us, so little can the Jew be permitted. Freedom of the nation can not be expected from him. Therefore I was against him. The Jew does not understand German interests and therefore it is necessary to abolish Jewish influence”.
Ludendorff also launched an attack against the Pope and the Catholic Clergy because he said they had lately taken the Jews more under their protection. “I want a Germany without a predominance of Marxist Jews and Catholics”, he exclaimed and attributed his failure of success in the November “putsch” to the mythical Protocols of the Elders of Zion, because, he said, Judaism had pitted their universal forces against him.
At the end of his address, which lasted the entire afternoon, General Ludendorff said that this is not the time to discuss the monarchy. The nation does not exist for the dynasty, but the dynasty for the nation.
When Germany finds itself it will have a dynasty ready to serve it. I wish the German Empire to be strong and free and belong only to Germans”, he said.
Another statement made by Ludendorff was to the effect that the Jewish race has had a detrimental influence on German psychology and German morals. He charged Louis Hagen and other Jews with being responsible for the present state of Rhine politics and said that he was attacked by the Jewish press because he wanted the Voelkisch movement to be racial and anti-Jewish.
Colonel Kriebel, Commander-in-Chief of the Hitler troops last November, was also on the stand Friday. He declared that at a preliminary conference of the followers of both Hitler and von Kahn, there arose a discussion in the presence of the Jewish Commercial Councellor Beuhler as to whether Jews should be allowed to participate in the “putsch”. The decision not to permit their participation, Kriebel declared, loosed a storm of indignation, representatives of a number of associations protesting that Jewish non-participation was unthinkable because large numbers of Jews were members of their organizations.
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.
