Persecution of Jews in Germany

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 7, 9 January 1936, Page 5

Persecution of Jews in Germany

WORK OF JULIUS STREICHER “Up from Franconia, blazing with hatred and stuttering with rage, comes Julius Streicher, arch-enemy of the Jews. At his disposal now is the whole streamlined propaganda machinery of the German Government, and ho is making full use of it,” writes I. R. Ybarra in Collier’s Weekly, giving bis impressions of tho founder and editor of the bitterly anti-Semitic weekly Der Stuermer, who is known all over tho world as Jew-Baiter Number One. As Nazi leader in Franconia, he has made the Franconian metropolis, Nuremberg,, .the most notorious centr.. of ruthless anti-Semitism in all < tormany. says Mr. Ybarra of Streicher. And. conscious of still being a prime favourite of Adolf Hitler, as he has been ever since he started working for the Nazi cause 15 years ago,' ho is putting new venom into his utterances, in the firm belief that the day is near when the Jews in Germany, deprived of the little protection which they still-enjoy there, will be definitely crushed by. the Nazi campaign against them.

Since his speech in Berlin the circulation of Streicher’s anti-Jewish newspaper has increased enormously. A short time ago it was little seen in t>.o Germaa metropolis; now it may ho bought at any news stand there as readily as in Nuremberg. A year and a-haif ago its most notorious issue—the one which devoted a dozen pages to the accusation that Jews committed “ritual murders’’ of Christians na part of their religion, • and asserting that German Jews were plotting suefl a murder against Adolf Hitler was confiscated soon after its appearance, by the Nazi Government. But now, though Streicher makes similar chargqs in his ■ paper and prints others equally fantastic, Dcr Stuermer remains unmolested. Accusations Against Jews

Der Stuermer teems with charges against Jews of immoral attacks-* on girls, of white slavery, and financial dishonesty. Sometimes entire pages are given up to accusations against one individual, in which his full name, address and photograph are prominently displayed. Every issue of Der Stuermcr carries on its first page, iii big black letters, the words: “The Jews.are our misfortune.” Scattered through the rest of the pages are assertions, such as “German women and girls, the Jews are your perdition!” or “He who fights tho Jews wrestles with the devil,” or “Jews are masters at lying,”or “Germany will live as long as she sees in the Jew the mortal foe of the human race.”

Streicher’s position as Nazi chief in Nuremberg gives him great power, which —as one would expect he uses largely to make tho life of the local Jews as unhappy as possible. Next to Frankfort-on-Main the city has the highest percentage of Jewish population in Germany—about 2 per cent out of a .total of about 400,000 inhabitants. Since Streicher got supreme control there, something like half of these Jews have left the city, the constant indignities to which they are subjected having at last become intolerable. Ruthless Anti-Semitism.

Mr Ybarra says that the venom which Streicher instilled into his antiSemitic campaign was at times too much even for the Hitler Government, Nevertheless, editor and paper continued to grow in importance and influence. And when, at the Berlin Sportpal as t, he was allowed to speak from the platform sacred to the great leaders of Nazidom, he seemed justified in believing that he hal definitely downed all opposition. Mr Ybarra states that the memory of June 30, 1934, and what happened on that day to Captain Ernst Roehm, may lead Dr. Hjalnmr Schacht, president of the Kcichsbank, and others hostile to Streicher’s blind persecution of German Jews, to hope that their efforts may one day lead to the permanent suppression of Der Stuermer and the elimination of its editor as a power among the Nazis. But as these lines are being written —with copies of Streicher’s sheet on sale even in the lobbies of Berlin hotels, and with the fruits of his ruthless anti-Semitism visible on every baud all over Germany—there seems little chance, for the time being at least, of any such drastic change in Nazi polic}'.