Latest measures for forcing remaining Jewish directors off the boards of German banks, and preparing legal channels for creating bankruptcies in Jewish-controlled business concerns will be brought forward at the extraordinary meeting of the Central Association of German Bankers tonight, it is learned. The purpose of the special meeting is to “bring the banks more in line with the policy of the present regime,” which is interpreted to mean bringing about the enforced resignation of such Jewish directors as have not yet been dismissed.
This action will come as a tremendous blow not only to the banking world, but also to Jewish merchants, who will henceforth be helpless before the diabolic scheme which has been contrived to reduce even the most important of Jewish firms to pauperism. The new method for legal sabotage of Jewish concerns simply involves cutting off their bank credits, making it impossible for them to meet their obligations on time. As soon as the slightest irregularity occurs, the government declares a Jewish firm bankrupt, and invites the creditors to appoint a Nazi liquidator. His first act is to oust the Jewish proprietors and to confiscate their private bank accounts. Resistance of any sort is countered by arrest for “swindling.”
This method has been used to break the Jewish firms of Alfred Cohn, Charlotte Hans Sittenberg, Alice, Heilborn, and other well-known Berlin houses. At the creditors’ meeting in the case of the firm of Alfred Cohn, Dr. Foekert, one of the creditors, opposed the handing over of the concern to Nazi commissars. He was threatened by the political police, and compelled to leave the meeting.
This procedure is supposed to conform with the Nazi injunctions to use only legal means in driving Jews out of business and banking.
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.
