By November 13, 2008 Read More →

Herr Hitler plans new steps against Jews, The Telegraph, Nov. 12, 1938.

German Jewry, after Thursday’s nationwide pogrom, last night awaited the announcement of the new measures against them which are being planned by Herr Hitler as a reprisal for the death of Herr vom Rath in Paris.

One decree was published last evening, forbidding Jews to possess any kind of weapon. Laws confiscating all Jewish property and capital and reviving the 16th century system of segregation in Ghettoes are expected to follow.

The construction of a series of buildings for this purpose has already begun on the outskirts of Berlin.

At least 35,000 men and women have been taken into custody, and many have been sent to concentration camps. In Munich mass demonstrations against Jews and Roman Catholics were held last night.

The British Charge d’ Affaires in Berlin, Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, has been instructed to draw the German Government’s attention to the attempt in a newspaper closely associated with Dr Goebbels, Propaganda Minister, to implicate leading British politicians in the murder of Herr vom Rath.

THOUSANDS OF PRISONERS

While anti-Jewish action continues in Germany today, although on a smaller scale, Herr Hitler and his advisers considered the new “laws and decrees” by which is it proposed to “regulate” the future position of Jews.

I am reliably informed that two measures will certainly be included in them. These will be-

Wholesale confiscation of Jewish property and capital; and

Establishment of Ghettoes on the pattern of the 16th century.

German Jews were recently forced to make an exact return of all their possessions. It is now anticipated that all property will be confiscated which exceeds the amount required for the bare necessities of life.

As reported in The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post of November 3, the “Schwarze Korps,” organ of Herr Himmler’s Protective Guards, recently demanded the establishment of Ghettoes.

BAN ON WEAPONS

It is understood that a system of buildings for this purpose is already under construction on the outskirts of Weisensee, a suburb in the extreme north-east of Berlin. This district is chiefly remarkable for its exceptional number of sewage farms.

One decree was issued tonight by Dr Frick, Minister of the Interior. It stipulates that-

Jews are prohibited from acquiring, possessing or carrying firearms, ammunition, or “weapons for cutting or thrusting”.

Any such weapons or ammunition must be surrendered to the police at once and they will become Reich property without compensation.

Foreign Jews may perhaps obtain exemption.

Violation of this law will be punished with imprisonment or fine, or in serious cases with penal servitude up to five years.

This decree legalises that issued yesterday by Herr Himmler, the chief of police, forbidding Jews to possess weapons of any sort on pain of 20 years’ confinement in a concentration camp. Since Herr Himmler’s decree has not been withdrawn, it appears that Jews found in the possession of weapons are liable to be punished with the 20 years’ sentence as well as with the penalties provided for in the law.

35,000 ARRESTS

20 YEARS SENTENCES

About 8,000 Jews are now believed to have been arrested in Berlin alone. The total in the whole Reich is put at about 35,000.

It is believed that many are being given the 20 years’ term on the pretext that some form of weapon was found in their possession.

Most of the prisoners are being drafted to the concentration camp at Buchenwald, near Weimar, and Sachsenhausen, near Oranienburg.

Today the main shopping streets of Berlin look as if they had been hit by a typhoon. Rough wooden boards have been placed over the broken windows, and the glass, which was still lying about last night, has been swept up.

It is almost certain that none of the shops will ever open again under Jewish ownership. Many have already been bought by Aryans at knockdown prices.

FOREIGN VICTIMS

Heavy losses

Inquiries which I have made here prove conclusively that outrages in yesterday’s pogrom were by no means contained to German Jewish citizens and their property. Apart from the incidents involving foreign diplomats and the revolting cruelty to a Rumanian citizen of Dortmund reported in The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post today, personal assaults and damage totalling many thousands of pounds have been suffered by nationals of al least half a dozen important countries.

The department store of Messrs Israel, which is owned by a British citizen, was sacked and gutted, the loss in this single case amounting to tens of thousands of pounds. It is understood that the store was insured with a London firm.

The United States consular authorities have been notified of at least three or four cases in which shops owned by Americans have been smashed to atoms and the stock ruined.

The Czech diplomatic authorities have also been informed of outrages to Czech-owned shops. I personally witnessed the sacking of a large and fashionable café owned by a Hungarian citizen.

DUTCH SUFFERERS

Poles also hard hit

Dutch subjects appear to have been among the severest sufferers. The assistance of the Netherlands Legation in Berlin has been invoked by Dutch subjects all over Germany, whose premises have been plundered and ruined or who have been physically assaulted.

It is believed that Polish citizens were also badly hit, but in this case as in the case of a number of other Powers, exact details are not yet available, as Armistice Day is being kept as a holiday by diplomatic and consular staffs of ex-allied countries.

Dr Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, today summoned a meeting of Berlin’s foreign correspondents to give them a final version of yesterday’s outbreaks. Although, he said, he did not doubt the good faith of the correspondents present, he declared that the reports in the foreign Press this morning had been full of “misunderstandings”.

The demonstrations had not been organised but were “typically spontaneous and popular”. He protested strongly against reports that Jewish shops had been plundered.

SPONTANEOUS OUTBREAK

Dr Goebbels’s Claim

He also objected to statements that the police had failed to interfere; 200,000 police in Berlin alone, he said, would have been required to protect the Jewish shops from the rage of the population. It was impossible to order them to fire on the crowds.

This apparent admission that the authorities are unable to maintain law and order in a country such as Germany, which prides itself on its “discipline”, seemed to conflict with Dr Goebbels’s subsequent statement that the demonstrations stopped immediately he gave the word.

He also declared earlier in his address that he had prevented “spontaneous demonstration” after the murder of Gustloff, the Nazi leader in Switzerland in 1936.

TRAMPLED TO DEATH

Elderly Jew’s fate

Dr Goebbels, who was in Munich yesterday and only in telephonic communication with Berlin, said that no physical attacks had been made on Jews. Apart from the cases that were reported yesterday I can now state that an elderly Jew was trampled to death last night on the Lehnienerplatz, off the Kuerfuerstendamm, in the West End of Berlin.

In an article which will appear in the Press tomorrow, Dr Goebbels ascribes yesterday’s outrages to the “healthy instinct” of the German people. He accuses the foreign Press of telling lies about the demonstrations and of twisting the facts.

“The anti-German Jewish foreign Press must know,” he writes, “that by exaggerating the events and by lies and misrepresentations it will benefit neither itself nor the Jews living in Germany. The opposite is more likely to be the case.

“The German people is anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its right restricted or to be provoked in future by parasites of Jewish race.

“Anti-German foreign countries would do well to leave the solution of this problem to the Germans. If they feel the necessity to stand up for the case of the German Jews, they can have as many of our Jews as they like.”

Dr Goebbels asserts that Grynszpan, the murderer of Herr vom Rath, was sheltered and systematically trained for his crime by a Jewish organisation.

“There is no need to emphasise,” he concludes, “that the public reaction is now finally concluded throughout Germany. No one has the right to take any further action on his own responsibility Laws and decrees which will settle this question are to be expected.”

A violently worded statement was issued here tonight in reply to suggestions in the French Press that the anti-Jewish outbreak may be made the subject of a debate in the British House of Commons.

“Berlin,” it is declared, “would be equally justified in staging a debate in the German Reichstag about British actions in Palestine. The only difference would be that the British work of destruction and atrocities would provide the Reichstag with matter for several weeks’ discussion, while the House of Commons would only have some broken window panes and burnt synagogues to debate.”

I now learn that the pogrom extended during the course of yesterday to the Sudeten areas, recently added to Germany.

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