JEW-BAITING IN GERMANY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 13 (Supplement)

JEW-BAITING IN GERMANY

Representatives of the Christian Churches are participating in the protests made by American Jewry against the anti-Semitic outbreak in Germany. It is very significant that Mr. Alfred Smith, who is a Catholic, has joined with Mr. O’Brien, the Mayor of New York, in protesting from the public platform against the Nazi treatment of the Jewish minority. The Democratic policy in the United States has always been toward the protection of minorities, and the Jews in America can hardly ignore American opinion in view of the fact that Germany has been largely dependent on American money for financing her needs. Hitler will have opposed to him also the very considerable body of Catholic opinion, both inside and outside Germany. The “Osservatore Romano” do-

clared as far back as 1931 that no good Catholic might become a member of the National Socialist Party. The Catholics represent the Centre Party, which is a compact organisation with considerable political experience. The original Nazi programme laid it down that there should be freedom of religion ‘‘in so far as the. religions do not endanger the moral feelings of the Germanic race. n This leaves the- door open to religious persecution, since. it could easily be maintained by the Nazis that any religions organisation opposed to them politically was endangering the moral feelings of the German people. Hitler seems to associate the Jews with the Eisner regime in Bavaria, which was almost Communistic; but the fact that some of the men then in power were Jews does not show that the Jews as a race are Marxist in their tendencies. Probably he find.-- his gospel of Nordic superiority helpful in promoting his nationalist programme, and ho has seized on anti-Semitism as a convenient, rallying cry. Germany owes much to the Jews in her midst. Though small in numbers they have won distinction in many intellectual fields, and Hitler will have to face the opposition not only of the Jews in his own land, hut also of the very influential bodies of Jews dispersed in other countries of the. world.—Auckland Star.