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THE CASE OF CIVILIZATION
AGAINST HITLERISM
ROBERT 0. BALLOU, PUBLISHER
2 WEST 13TH STREET
NEW YORK, N. Y.
THE CASE OF CIVILIZATION
AGAINST HITLERISM
PRESENTED UNDER THE AUSPICES
OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONGRESS
AT MADI SON
SQUARE
GARDEN
NEW
YORK , MARCH
7,
1934
The Pleaders
BAINBRIDGE COLBY
BERNARD S. DEUTSCH
ARTHUR R. BROWN
MICHAEL WILLIAMS
LEWELLYS F. BARKER
ABRAHAM CAHAN
HARRY WOODBURN CHASE
ROGER N . BALDWIN
MATTHEW WOLL
SETH WAKEMAN
MILLARD E. TYDINGS
GUSTAVUS T. KIRBY
SAMUEL MARGOSHES
ARTHUR GARFIELD HAYS
STANLEY HIGH
MIRIAM BEARD
EDWARD J. NEARY
RAYMOND MoLEY
ALFRED E . SMITH
FIORELLO H. LAGUARDIA
STEPHEN
WISE
SAMUEL SEABURY
JOHN HAYNES HOLMES
s.
ROBERT 0. BALLOU, Publisher
NEW YORK
1934
COPYRIGHT
BY AMERICAN
DD 253
American
The case
against
PRINTED
1934
JEWISH
CONGRESS
.A6 1934
Jewish Congress.
of civilization
Hitlerism
IN THE
UNITED
~234
STATES OF AMERICA
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION,
by BAINBRIDGECOLBY ------------------
3
Former Secretary of State of the United States of
America
THE
CASE OF AMERICAN
PUBLIC
OPINION,
by BERNARDS. DEUTSCH -------------·--·
-----------------------
6
President of the Board of Aldermen of New York
City; President of the American Jewish Congress
THE CASE OF THE PROTEST ANT CHURCHES,
by ARTHUR R. BROWN ---------------------------------------··-·-12
Chairman, American Committee on the Rights of
Religious Minorities and Secretary Emeritus for
-the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions
THE CASE OF THE CATHOLIC,
by MICHAEL WILLIAMS -------------------------------------------
20
President of Calvert Associates and Editor of The
Commonweal
THE CASE OF THE PHYSICIANS,
by LEWELLYSF. BARKER,M.D. --------------------------·--· 26
Professor Emeritus
University
of Medicine,
Johns
Hopkins
THE CASE OF THE SOCIALISTS,
by ABRAHAMCAHAN --------------------------------------------- 32
Editor, The Jewhh
Daily Forward
THE CASE OF THE EDUCATORS,
by HARRY WOODBURN CHASE --------------------------------36
-
Cha9cellor, New York University
THE CASE OF CIVIL LIBERTIES,
by ROGER N . BALDWIN----------------------··------------------- 40
Director, Civil Liberties Union
THE CASE OF THE TRADE UNIONS,
by MATTHEW WOLL -----------------------------------------------45
Vice-President,
the American Federation of Labor
THE CASE OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM,
by SETH WAKEMAN ----------------------------------------------Professor, Smith College
51
THE CASE OF AMERICAN OPINION
by MILLARDE. TYDINGS············· ··-········-···············
55
THE CASE OF SPORTS, by GUSTAVUST. KIRBY.. ·-···
63
Senator, from Maryland
Treasurer, American Olympic Committee
THE CASE OF AN EYE-WITNESS I,
by SAMUEL MARGOSHES................... .......................
Editor of The Day;
Jewish Congress
Vice•President,
67
American
THE CASE OF AN EYE-WITNESS II,
by ARTHUR GARFIELDHAYS ..................................
72
THE CASE OF WRITERS,
by DR. STANLEYHIGH ............................................
78
THE CASE OF WOMAN,
by MIRIAM BEARD ···································-···········•·••
86
THE CASE OF THE AMERICAN LEGION,
by EDWARDJ. NEARY ·····-·······································
93
THE CASE OJ; THE LIBERALS, by RAYMONDMoLEY
99
Member, National
American Legion
Executive
Committee,
The
Former Undersecretary of State of the United States
of America; Editor of Today
THE CASE OF AMERICAN
PUBLIC
OPINION,
by ALFRED E. SMITH ·····················-·······················
Former Governor, the State of New York
THE
CASE OF AMERICAN
PUBLIC
104
OPINION,
by FIORELLOH. LAGUARDIA..................................
111
Mayor, New York City
THE CASE OF THE JEWS, by STEPHENS. WISE........
113
Honorary President, the American Jewish Congress
SUMMATION OF THE CASE OF CIVILIZATION,
by SAMUELSEABURY·····-·········································
THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT,
by JOHN HAYNES HOLMES ....................................
fu:inist~r of the Community Church of New York
City
120
139
INTRODUCTION
by
BAINBRIDGE COLBY
W
E have come together tonight in the
?reatest place of assembly to be found
m our country.
The thousands who crowd this huge auditorium make up a mighty host, but they are only a
fraction of the millions whose thoughts are centered here and who await with eagerness every
word that shall be spoken.
America is speaking tonight-not
only for
herself, but for civilization and human brotherhood.
We are piously met. We bow reverently before the Lord and Master, who hath commanded
of us that we love our neighbor as ourselves. And
thi .:1love he has defined as the feeling for our
fellow man that worketh no in jury.
A great oppression has descended upon mankind. A grievous affront to the world's sense
of justice and to humanity has been committed
by the infatuated usurpers 0f public power in
Germany.
The wanton and cruel injuries inflicted upon
hundreds of thousands of peaceful German cit-
4
INTRODUCTION
izens because of their Jewish blood have
shocked the world. They cry aloud for redress.
They have planted hostility to the present regime in Germany in every quarter of the globe
-where no hostility was felt before.
The love of justice, which is the highest attribute of man, has been stirred to its depths by
the unending story of outrage and brutality
which, despite all efforts at suppression, steadily
flows out of Germany.
Abhorrence of such cruelty and oppression is
felt throughout the United States. In common
with every civilized nation in the world, America detests it.
And tonight, the stern reprobation which such
acts deserve and inspire in every right-thinking
man will find expression in this meeting.
You will hear spokesmen of the church, of the
state, of the bar. You will be addressed by representatives of civic and social' bodies of national membership and the widest influence.
The great body of the nation's workers have
sent their chosen leaders to speak to us. Our institutions of learning will be heard. Never has
there been assembled upon a public platform so
broadly representative a group of speakers.
Every party, every creed, every section of
public Oijinion is authoritatively present at this
hour.
BAINBRIDGE COLBY
5
The truth will be uttered by men who love
it and serve it. And the truth is mighty and
it will prevail.
..
THE
CASE OF AMERICAN
OPINION
by
PUBLIC
BERNARD 8. DEUTSCH
NE year ago, on this very platform, the
first indictment against Adolf Hitler
was laid. Then he first commenced upon
the execution of his announced programme. The
admonition that he stop the forces which he had
then unleashed before irreparable injury were
inflicted upon the people of Germany, remained
unheeded. That warning was sounded again and
again from all parts of the civilized world and
yet, instead • of moderation, there resulted, as
though in defiance of and as in challenge to
the aroused public opinion of the civilized
world, an intensified programme of violent
propaganda, conceived in iniquitous intolerance,
bigotry, and hatred.
The civilized world, up to one year ago, had
come to believe that by education and culture
the peoples of the world would be expected to
become tolerant and to understand one another.
The progress of education and culture in Germany, ov.er a period of more than a thousand
years, gave us the right to expect and to hope
0
BERNARDS. DEUTSCH
7
that a country with a history of education and
culture over so long a period, could never revert
to the practices and principles which animated
those who lived in the dark or mediaeval ages.
Today, after the lapse of one year of Hitlerism, public opinion justly indicts Adolf Hitler
and his cohorts first with the crime of having
destroyed the faith and belief that education and
culture were the requisites for the eventual creation of the spirit of the brotherhood of man.
Public opinion here indicts Hitlerism as the
attempted destroyer of the most precious heritage of the people of modern times, the right
to live in peace and security; the right to think
and to speak freely; the right to worship one's
God, and to adhere to one's own religious beliefs.
Public opinion here indicts Hitlerism as the
attempted destroyer of world peace and that
amity and accord among nations which our own
gre"t President Roosevelt has been attempting
to procure ' and which, in these trying days, are
so essential if civilization is to progress and the
world of tomorrow is to be better than the world
that was and is.
Public opinion here indicts Hitlerism upon
the charge that the Nazi government in Germany has not only destroyed the foundations of
the German Republic, but, under penalty of
8
CASE OF AMERICAN PUBLIC OPINION
death, torture, and economic extermination, and
by process of progressive strangulation, has reduced and subjugated to abject slavery all sections of its population, so that they no longer
are free men.
Public opinion here indicts Adolf Hitler and
his cohorts with attempting, by subsidy, by propaganda, and by the creation of forces of reaction
here and abroad, to reproduce Hitlerism, with
all its implications and with all its dire results,
in many of the countries of the world. The
process by which municipal government in Germany, long considered a model for the rest of
the world, has been destroyed, is being repeated
in Austria under the aegis of a Nazi · International. The spirit of racial, political, and religious discrimination, formulated according to
the Aryan principle, is being fostered through
Hitler and his agents in other parts of the world.
Public opinion charges that these movements
are neither spontaneous nor sporadic, but are
inspired by the Hitlerites, financed by the Hitler Government , and directed and manned by
Hitler agents.
We charge as counts in this indictment that:
Agents of the Hitler government are invading
our schools and our Universities.
Emissaries of the Nazi regime are being
smuggled into America as members of ships'
BERNARDS. DEUTSCH
9
crews, and otherwise, merely for propaganda
purposes.
Nazi propagandists are attempting to colonize
our labor organizations.
Nazi spies, directed to spread the gospel of
Hitlerism with all its implications, are hidden
in our own public institutions.
Nazi cells, created for the sole purpose of
spreading the virus to which I have referred;
the virus of bigotry and hatred, exist in every
public center in our ,land.
Nazi funds finance American organizations
created for and devoted to the spread of this
filthy propaganda.
Nazi literature is disseminated through and
litters our subways, the shelves of our public
libraries, and even penetrates freely through the
the United States mails.
German consuls, accredited by the German
Reich, ostensibly for the purpose of cementing
frie11dly relations between our government and
their own, are likewise acting as propagandists
to spread the gospel of Hitler, and thereby, instead of cementing friendly relations between
the two countries, are here sowing seeds of discord and are here adding to the efforts of those
who are attempting to set up one part of our
people against another. They are capitalizing
here , as they have capitalized in Germany, upon
10
CASE OF AMERICAN PUBLIC OPINION
the tragic economic depression which has enmeshed the world and which has brought suffering and want in its wake to millions of people.
Nazi agents here seek to create in this country
the same scapegoat, to wit, the Jew, upon whom
to place the blame for the ills of the world, as
they have attempted in their own land.
Nazi efforts in this country, and in other
lands, have for their ultimate goal, the complete
breakdown of the democratic foundations of
government.
Hitlerism menaces all that is humane and civilized. It is a direct attack on the progress of
the race and the advancement of society. It is
a threat to the maintenance of peaceable relations between nation and nation. In essence, it is
mediaevalism,
rendered
even more cruel
through • the employment of the implements of
so-called civilization.
Public opinion, in support of this indictment,
here charges that the philosophy and the practice of Hitlerism is grounded in the appeal to
force. I ts policy is the extolling of militarism.
I ts dreams are those of world dominance.
Public opinion contrasts with the charges in
this indictment the principles which are the concern of civilization-safeguarding
democratic
ideals and institutions; the freedom of the individ ual; the progress of society.
BERNARD S. DEUTSCH
11
In the light of this record, based on these
charges, none of which have ever been, or could
in truth have been denied, civilization makes
this indictment and calls upon the jury of enlightened public opinion to render its verdict;
that this verdict be not inspired by hate or animosity, but that it serve as an expression of the
horror of civilization over what has transpired;
and so that condemned Germany herself may not
be destroyed and that the steady progress of civilization may be unimpeded in its course; and
that those who come after us may have, as their
heritage, a world free from the dire and sinister
influences that have done so much to destroy our
faith and our hopes for the future.
I ask civilization to record that verdict and
you, the representatives of the public opinion,
to accord your approval.
THE
CASE OF THE PROTESTANT
CHURCHES
by
ARTHUR
W
R. BROWN
HAT is civilization's case against Hitlerism? It is not her form of government, not her demand for equality, not
her protest against the restrictions imposed upon
her by the Treaty of Versailles. Whatever we
may think of these things, we are not here to denounce them. Let us recall that, before Hitler
rose to power and while Germany, under the
wise leadership of those great statesmen Von
Hindenburg and Stresemann and his successors,
was struggling to re-establish the shattered national structure, other European governments,
under the leadership of France, subjected Germany to humiliating restraints that aroused the
just resentment of the German people, and that
fair minded men in England and America saw
would inevitably result in an explosion. It was
this ill treatment that gave opportunity to a fanatic like Hitler to ride into power on a mighty
wave of popular indignation.
We gladly recognize that a new spirit of life
and enthusiasm has been developed among the
ARTHUR R. BROWN
13
German people, and if this were all, this great
meeting tonight would not have been held.
What we do object to is that Hitler's praiseworthy effort to rehabilitate and inspire the national life is accompanied by a persecution of
Jewish citizens which was utterly uncalled for
and which is isolating Germany from other nations, alienating their goodwill, and outraging
every sense of justice and humanity.
It is said that the first reports of physical maltreatment were exaggerated.
I do not believe
they were. The presumption, in such circumstances, is that many cases were not reported.
But the question is not whether there were 2,000
or 20,000 cases of violence. Far more serious,
is the announced determination of the Government to eliminate a vast majority of the 600,000
Jews in Germany and the larger number of
others who are counted Jews on account of
mixed Jewish and Gentile ancestry, from the
poE~ical, commercial, professional, and cultural
life of the ~ation. The evidence of this is clear
and based on official statements of government
authorities. Any man would rather suffer physical injury than be ruined in business or driven
out of his profession and thus be deprived of
the means of support for himself and his family.
The resultant suffering . of women and children is worse than assaults upon men. Peculiarly
14
CASE OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES
trying is the fate of Jewish children who are
compelled to live in an atmosphere of fear and
hatred which dooms them to an abnormal life.
We do not overlook the fact that political and
economic, racial and religious factors are all
involved, and that it is difficult to disentangle
them; but the main fact is indisputably clear
-that hundreds of thousands of loyal Germans
of Jewish descent are being treated with grave
injustice.
We believe that the fundamental question is
not one of Christians versus Jews, since the discrimination against the Jews is not being made
by Christians as such, and since we understand
that Jews are not being molested in the personal
observance of their religion, but are stigmatized
because they are "non-Aryans".
We freely admit that the people of Germany
have the same right as other nc:.tions to handle
their domestic matters without outside interference. We are concerned solely with the question of justice and humanity, the common, inalienable rights of men everywhere, irrespective
of race or religion; rights imbedded in the legislation of all civilized nations. But laws and
treaties do not create, they simply express a basic
right of humanity morally binding upon all nations, hether incorporated in a formal treaty
or not.
ARTHUR R. BROWN
15
It is a grievous thing that, at a time when the
world was struggling to emerge from a period of
racial hatreds and national jealousies, from
which Germany itself has suffered, this outburst
should have occurred against a people whose ancestors have been in Germany for a thousand
years, who have fought for their native land in
many wars and who, in language, loyalty and
culture are as thoroughly German as their persecutors.
We earnestly hope that the present anti-Jewish policy will soon be abandoned and that the
German Government will come to realize the
truth of William Penn's aphorism that, "whoever is right, the persecutor is always wrong."
We note, too, that the Christian churches of
Germany are involved. It is startling to read
that pastors and church officers have been deprived of their posts in the church or made to
feel that they are outcasts or inferiors simply
beca .2sethey are of Jewish birth or descent. We
are concerned also by the apparent determination of the Government to make the German
churches subordinate to and the instrument of
the State in carrying out a political policy: dispossessing pastors and professors who do not
yield the right to liberty in the exercise of their
religious duties, and destroying the freedom and
integrity of the Christian youth movement of
16
CASE OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES
Germany. Knowing, as we do, the high Christian character of many German pastors and university professors, we were gratified, but not
surprised, when we learned that thousands of
them had courageously made public protest.
Another result of the present policy is also of
grave concern. The bitter anti-German prejudice in America and Great Britain during and
immediately following the World War had
gradually softened, until in recent years American and British public opinion had become increasingly friendly to Germany. There had come
to be real respect for Germany's effort to establish a government on a basis of full equality
with other nations. It is a lamentable fact that
the present policy of the German Government
in relation to the Jews has thrown American
and British public opinion back toward the distrust of fifteen years ago. The effect upon international friendship is calamitous .
I am aware that fear has been expressed that
criticism may simply harden the Government's
policy and be misrepresented in its censored
press as fresh evidence of opposition to Germany
upon the instigation of Jews. As friends of the
German people, we cannot, however, acquiesce
in the assumption that humane and liberty-loving pe6ple should fail to protest against injustice
lest the perpetrators be hardened in their deter-
ARTHUR R. BROWN
17
mination, nor can we admit that it is "a purely
domestic matter" which is not the concern of
people in other lands.
We believe it to be not only the right but the
duty of all right-thinking men and women to
voice thefr protest against injustice wherever it
exists. The question whether protest should be
made has been settled by the conscience of mankind. If wrong be done to great numbers of
innocent people, humane men and women cannot hold their peace, ' but must voice the protest
of their souls. Silence does harm, but timely
protest has often been a mighty force for good.
Moreover, it is now too late to argue that "protest will do more harm than good", since it has
been made both in Europe and America on such
a scale that whatever harm it can do has already
been done . The only question now is whether
that protest shall be supported, or whether it
shall _be weakened by objections which however
well meant, will inevitably give the German
government ' the impression that its ruthless
course is approved.
We are painfully aware that there are manifestations of race prejudice and mob violence
in other countries, including our own land. We
deplore such inexcusable manifestations
in
America; but it should be noted that they do
not represent a policy of the Government of the
18
CASE OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES
United States . but are in clear violation of its
constitution and laws and are condemned by the
overwhelming public opinion of the country. It
is a far more serious matter when, as in Germany today, it is the official and avowed policy
of the Government to deny to a whole class of
its people their equal rights as citizens on account of their Jewish descent, and even virtually to order Christian churches to become an
instrument in the carrying out of this policy.
We appeal to public opinion throughout the
nation, and especially to the Christian churches,
to express their sympathy with their oppressed
brethren in Germany and those in exile from
Germany, to voice their protest against the
wrongs to which they are being subjected, and
to develop everywhere a stronger moral consciousness of the inestimable vaJue of political,
economic and religious freedom and the urgent
necessity of emphasizing it in these days when
the maintenance of this inalienable right is being seriously jeopardized. At this late day, must
we again resume the struggle for human liberty,
the inalienable right of man to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness, irrespective of race,
color or religion?
The q, let us say in the ringing words of
Whittier:
ARTHUR R. BROWN
19
Our fathers to their graves have gone,
Their strife is past, their victory won,;
But sterner trials wait the race
Which rises in their honored placeA moral warfare, with the crime
And folly of an evil time.
So let it be. In God's own might
We gird us for the coming fight,;
And strong in Him whose cause is ours,
In conflict with unholy powers,
We grasp the weapons He has givenT he light and love and truth of Heaven ..
THE
CASE OF THE
by
MICHAEL
W
CATHOLIC
WILLIAMS
HAT I have to say, is said entirely in
my individual capacity as a Catholic
layman and a journalist, based upon
the results of a trip to Germany last spring, and
upon information gathered by me then and since
as a journalist. I have every reason to believe
that my views concerning the evil nature and
the deadly menace of Hitlerism-so
far as its
effects on personal and religious liberty are concerned-are
shared by the great majority of
Catholics, but I speak solely for myself.
My deliberate opinion, then, is that the
Catholic religion in Germany is th reatened with
a most serious danger of being crushed out of
existence by the power of a State religion of
paganism, which is the most potent factor of the
Hitler movement, and which is opposed to the
spirit and the practice of Catholic Christianity.
Moreover, Catholics in Germany have been and
are now being subjected to ruthless persecution.
In regard to the first statement, however, my
personal opinion is amply supported by authoritative utterances made by those best qualified
MICHAEL WILLIAMS
21
to speak, namely, the German Catholic ecclesiastical leaders themselves. Prior to the accession to power of Hitler a year ago, the majority
of the German bishops had officially condemned
those Nazi doctrines which are in conflict with
Christian principles.
For example, the diocesan authorities of the diocese of Mainz, or
Mayence, issued a statement which ran, in part,
as follows:
"The leaders of the National Socialists want
a German God, a German Christianity and a
German Church. Gottfried Feder says: 'Certainly the German people, too, will some day
find a form for its way of confessing God, its life
in God as its share of Nordic blood demands;
certainly only then will the trinity of blood,
faith and state be perfect.' This is to demand
nothing but a German National Church. This
is more clearly expressed by Rudolf Jung, cofounder of the party and member of parliament
in P ~ague, who
writes in his book, "Der nation,
ale Sozialismus," as follows: 'We describe our
aims briefly by the name of People's Church.
When we speak of a German People's Church,
we think of an amalgamation of the two churches existing in German lands ( Catholic and Protestant).
It would have to consist in the disassociation from Roman centralization, the international spirit and the Old Testament, these
22
THE CASEOF THE CATHOLIC
essentially Jewish things; and be the work of
German priests who love their people and are
imbued with its spirit.'
"Through this conception of religion the National Socialists take a position inimical to the
Catholic Church.
For this reason National
Socialist speakers have repeatedly expressed in
popular meetings the idea: 'Our fight is against
Judaism and Rome.' Hitler, to be sure, has
written in his book, "Mein Kampf," some words
of praise about the Christian religion and Catholic institutions, but that does not deceive us
about the fact that the cultural policies of
National Socialism are opposed to Catholic
Christianity."
It is most noteworthy that consequent to this
Mainz statement the Osservatore Romano, the
daily paper published in Vatican City, declared
its own position as follows: "The symbol of
German National Socialism, the swastika, is a
pagan symbol which stands in sharpest opposition to Christianity.
Paragraph 24 of the National Socialist program is pagan in its presupposition and consequences. It leads, logically,
through the destruction of the Christian world
order and its substitution through a racial world
order to the ancient pagan cult of Wotan.
Membership in the National Socialist party is
incompatible with the Catholic conscience."
MICHAEL WILLIAMS
23
The arguments of the Catholic hierarchy in
Germany against National Socialism may be
summed up as follows: The National Socialist
movement is not merely a political party, but
also a W eltanschauung, or world view. It contains in its cultural-political program heresies,
as it rejects or misinterprets essential doctrines
of the Catholic faith, and because, according
to declaration of its leaders, it intends to substitute a new world view for the Christian faith.
Leading representatives of National Socialism
put race above religion. They reject the revelations of the Old Testament, even the Mosaic
Ten Commandments, because they are "Jewish." They deny the spiritual primacy of the
Pope on the ground that he is a non-German
authority.
According to paragraph 24 of the
party program, the eternally valid Christian
moral law is to be tested by the "moral feeling"
of the Germanic race. The ideas of the right to
revolJtion, jf successful, and of might before
right, are opposed to the Christian doctrine of
society. From the pronouncements of the party
or its leaders it follows: "What National Socialism calls Christianity, is not the Christianity
of Christ. National Socialist leaders further
play with the idea of a German National
Church without dogmas."
It is true that when the National Socialists
24
THE CASE OF THE CATHOLIC
became the government of Germany, the Catholic Church removed its ban, on the assurance
of Hitler that the purely religious rights of the
Church would be protected. These rights were
recognized in the treaty, or concordat, between
the Hitler government and the Vatican. But it
is notorious that these rights-particularly
educational rights-are
sorely menaced, and that
Cardinal von Faulhaber's recent sermons in
Munich indicate the strained relations now
ex1strng. Many of the most brilliant Catholic
leaders of Germany-clergymen
and laymen
alike-have
been imprisoned because of their
membership in the Catholic Peace Party. In
Westphalia alone a thousand Catholic burgomasters, once members of the Catholic Center
Party, were discharged from office. The Catholic Press, which prior to the Nazi revolution
possessed daily, weekly, and monthly newspapers and reviews of the highest cultural quality,
has been practically strangled. The censorship
imposed upon what is left of the Catholic Press
is so strict that their dwindling readers know
nothing about what their own Catholic leaders
think or say about the sterilization laws, antiSemitism, or the pagan control of the Catholic
Youth societies. · Catholic converts from Judaism, many of whom were university professors
and cultural leaders, artists, authors, musicians
MICHAEL WILLIAMS
25
and journalists, have been ruthlessly dismissed
from their posts.
The pressure of paganism, I believe, is increasing, instead of lessening. If this view is
correct, then I believe that the battle of German
Catholicism against state absolutism will be
more severe than the struggle which the German Catholics waged against Bismarck's Kultuurkampf.
That they may win their battle
now, as they did against the Iron Chancellor,
must be the hope of all defenders of civilization
against this new barbarism called Hitlerism.
There are millions-many
millions, I believeof Germans who will be with the Church in
this struggle - German Protestants, German
Jews, and German Catholics, who love their
country too well to let it pass beyond redemption into the lasting possession of the pagan dictatorship now in control.
THE
CASE OF THE PHYSICIANS
LEWELLYS F. BARKER, M.D.
N indefensible injury has been done to
certain medical men and to medicine
under the Nazi regime in Germany. It
involves also to some extent the progress of
medicine throughout the entire world.
I owe a great personal debt to German medicine, having studied at Leipsig, Munich and
Berlin . Throughout my medical career I have
been a diligent student of the publications of
German investigators, reading almost as many
medical articles in German as in English; and
my colleagues and I at Johns Hopkins have
been among those who have welcomed German
visitors to America and arranged for American
students to work in German clinics and laboratories. If I have been prejudiced at all it has
been in favor of Germany, the Germany of
Goethe and Heine, of Virchow and Ehrlich, of
Helmholtz and Einstein .
Painful as it is, I am forced urgently to
remonstrate against the persecution to which
many medical men, some of them great men,
in Germany' seem to have been subjected. I
shall speak first of the actual injuries done to
A
LEWELLYS F. BARKER, M.D.
27
medicine and to medical men, and afterwards,
briefly, of the German situation from the standpoint of psychopathology.
The Great War in itself was undoubtedly
catastrophic for German medicine. But, despite
the general poverty and despair of the post-war
period, medical educators and research-workers
in Germany tried bravely to function again and
were making praise-worthy efforts to restore
German medicine to its former influence and
prestige. Then came Hitlerism with its translation of the long latent anti-Semitism into violent
action and its attempt to render its non-Aryan
population impotent. Jewish physicians, with
the exception of a few who did military service
in the war or whose fathers or sons fell in the
war, were no longer permitted to participate
in the Health Insurance Service, were forbidden to consult with non-Jewish physicians or to
make recommendations to them, were excluded
from · work in privately owned non-Jewish clinics, and were expelled from medical associations
and clubs. Many great Jewish professors in
the Universities-some
of them of Nobel-prize
calibre-were
deprived of their positions and
the few who were retained are said to have been
so boycotted by the students that some of them
felt forced to resign and to seek opportunities
in foreign lands. The number of Jewish stu-
28
THE CASE OF THE PHYSICIANS
dents in the higher schools and universities was
reduced to a minimum, students of Jewish ancestry were not eligible for free scholarships in
Prussia, the teachers, curricula, and books used
in the schools were "Hitlerized", and everything
possible was done to humiliate and to devastate
all who had a trace of non-Aryan blood in their
veins. The campaign went even further, for
the persecution was applied ruthlessly not only
to Jews but to all who were suspected of being
in any respect "politically unreliable".
If the Germans had wished to reduce the
number of Jews in medicine to a proportion,
this could have been done gradually by limiting
the number entering upon a medical career; but
arbitrarily and suddenly to prevent the medical
activities of a large group of men already
launched in medicine, many of them of middle
age or older and occupying important posts,
seems to me to have been wholly unjustifiable.
To understand Hitler and Hitlerism one is
compelled, I think, to enter the domain of psychopathology, that is to say of the mentally abnormal. Many have written upon the psychopathological
foundations of revolutions and
upon the abnormal mental states of revolutionary leaders. Some revolutionary leaders are not
intellectually inferior, though many of them
have been morally defective. Some of them have
LEWELLYS F. BARKER, M.D.
29
been hysterical persons, and others have been
outspoken psychopaths.
Many believe Hitler himself to be egocentric
and fanatical, but he is certainly no imbecile.
He has been energetic, positive and dogmatic
and is evidently possessed of great oratorical
powers. He often appeals to the emotions of
the masses, however, rather than to their reason;
in that respect he seems to be a genuine demagogue who knows how to play upon simple
primitive impulses for the purpose of spurring
great throngs to unified action. What is expedient would seem to him to be right. It is said
that ten years ago he intimated that Germany
had not the slightest notion of how a people
must be misled if the adherence of the masses
is to be gained.
Fiercely nationalistic and
rabidly anti-Semitic, he deliberately set about
the winning of the youth of Germany by Nazi
propaganda.
He laid emphasis upon the idea
of ptlrity of Aryan blood as essential for the
salvation of Germany. The Jew was made the
scape-goat and hatred of the Jew was systematically cultivated. Some Jews were Communists; accordingly all Jews must be made to
suffer. The depressed middle classes of Germany, undernourished and preternaturally susceptible to suggestion, welcomed any message
that promised to release them from the pinch
..
30
THE CASE OF THE PHYSICIANS
of want, that would save them from intolerable
hardships and limitations. The youth of Germany was captured by the magic of Hitler's
oratory. The gospel of race purity became their
religion. Democratic ideas they were told must
be abolished. Individualism must be repudiated; no person is of importance except in as far
as he is of value to the State. Thus a great
psychic epidemic that we know as "Hitlerism"
was induced in Germany. The world was confronted with an abnormal emotional mass-movement that reminds one of the Dark Ages.
The early atrocities that were perpetrated
made the life of the Jews in Germany a veritable
nightmare. Reports of these spread to the outside world and immediately evoked a huge wave
of protest, but the Nazi government responded
by saying that they were greatly exaggerated,
and at the same time, by asserting that nothing
would be done unless the governments of other
countries suppressed anti-German propaganda I
The outside world did not, however, suppress
its protests and the Hitler regime changed its
tactics to those of the so-called "cold pogrom"
in which physical violence was to be replaced
by economic pressure upon, and moral degradation of, the non-Aryan population - measures
that today t till seem to be in full swing with in-
LEWELLYS F. BARKER, M.D.
31
creasing unemployment, destitution, and cruel
living conditions for the Jew.
What can be done for the Jew and others afflicted in this appalling situation? There must,
of course, be large numbers of sensible Germans
who are utterly opposed to the injustices done
but, apparently, they dare not speak for fear
of Nazi reprisals. Moreover, they feel, as do
many in this country, that some strong hand had
to be felt in Germany and that the country had
to be unified in some way or another. Hitler
supplied the strong hand, Hitlerism the unification, and Germany was thus saved, at least temporarily, through the cult of hatred of the Jew
and through enthusiasm for pure Aryan blood.
Some of you may see remedial measures that
are invisible to me. As a physician, I know of
no effective anti-toxin for a psychic epidemic.
Perhaps it must run its course until the emotional s~ate of , the German masses becomes more
normal. We can only hope that, in time, we
may see in Germany a return to the ideals and
practices of the best Germans, to the aims and
activities that formerly inspired our deep respect and our desire to emulate them. Having
gained power, Hitler and the Hitlerists may regain reason, may quell passion and may acquire
tolerance. But will they do so? I wonder.
THE
CASE OF THE
SOCIALISTS
by
ABRAHAM
T
CAHAN
HE German Republic was called into being by the German Socialists, better
known as Social Democrats. It was born
under extremely adverse circumstances, yet,
thanks to the idealism of its founders, and idealism tempered with a due appreciation of the
grim realities of the post-war period, it was a
highly progressive and humanitarian commonwealth.
There was not a vestige of political inequality
or racial prejudice in Republican Germany.
One breathed freely and pleasantly under the
new flag. German science and German art
flourished as they had never done before. The
term German culture had never been so fully
justified as it was after the overthrow of
autocracy.
It was a great stride forward in the history of
German civilization.
The German Socialists call themselves Social
Democrats because Democracy is an organic
part of their platform. The Democratic regime
they established in 1918 was one of the wisest
ABRAHAM CAHAN
33
and noblest conceivable under existing conditions.
Unfortunately, however, their Republic was
reared at a time when the country was economically exhausted by the war and paralyzed
by the effects of the Versailles treaty. While
the Republic gave liberty to her citizens she
was a slave herself, tied and fettered and staggering under the ruthless exactions and repressions of a senseless conqueror.
The creators of the German republic were
anything but free agents.
When President Wilson spoke of making the
world safe for democracy it was with a thrill
of unfeigned idealism that he uttered these
words. Yet the "peace" that the new German
Democracy was forced to sign at Versailles was
just the reverse of safety for her.
The Allies were eager to have her shake herself free from her throne, yet when she did so
the} spareq no effort to cripple her new liberty.
It was right there and then, in Versailles in
the summer of 1919, that the foundation of Hitlerism was laid.
To be sure, there were other causes, too, that
made that plague possible, but the treaty of Versailles was one of the major factors that paved
the way to the Nazi dictatorship.
However that may have been, there he is,
34
THE CASE OF THE SOCIALISTS
Adolf Hitler, an uneducated demagogue of poor
mentality, ruling one of the greatest of modern
nations with an absoluteness unknown to any of
her former Kaisers or kings. The beautiful Republic has been wiped out as with a wet sponge,
the sponge in this case being soaked in blood.
Democracy and culture have been replaced by a
reign of despotism and degeneracy in compari son with which the goose-step rule of Wilhelm
II was one of liberty and light.
The German Socialists had built up a truly
gigantic and magnificent organization with millions of workingmen, thousands of buildings
housing centres of education, of political and
intellectual life, athletic sports and the like, with
145 dailies, innumerable weeklies and other
publications. 'L'he Social Democratic Party was
the largest Party of Germany. It was the bulwark of German Liberty and political and
moral progress.
I shall not dwell on the way Hitler and his
gangster-bands crushed the great Social Democracy, how they plundered and played havoc with
her institutions, closed her numerous newspapers, maimed, butchered and murdered thousands of her members.
I shall only underscore the fact that the fall
of the German Social Democracy is the fall of
German Democracy and of German progress.
ABRAHAM CAHAN
35
The calamity that has befallen the Socialists
and organi~ed workingmen of that unhappy
country is the calamity of the whole German
people and, to a large extent, of all humanity.
It would be absurd to accept the present
tragedy as a final state of things. The Social
Democracy in Germany is not dead. Her millions of adherents have not been converted to
Hitlerism.
Not at all. There is a great underground Socialist movement going on in Germany now.
Those who think that Hitlerism has come to
stay are very much mistaken.
It is not Hitler but Hitlerism.
The manikin
who bears that unsavory name is merely a his-torical accident, a human form assumed by a
sad combination of circumstances.
And the
economic disaster that brought this man to his
crownless throne will sooner or later bring about
his destruction.
THE
CASE OF THE
by
EDUCATORS
HARRY WOODBURN CHASE
T
he offenses of the Hitler regime against
education
during
these last twelve
months involve not only racial persecution, they involve also a wholesale attack upon
that freedom of the human intellect which is an
essential condition of the progress of civilization.
The schools and universities of Germany have
not escaped the fury of racial persecution.
Scholars and teachers reliably estimated . at approximately fifteen hundred in number have
been dismissed from educational institutions,
under the Nazi regime. The list of names of
men so affected includes some of the most distinguished lights of German scholarship. Five
Nobel prize winners have either been dismissed
or are in exile. While the majority are Jews,
there are many who are not. Men are persecuted, in other words, not only for their race, but
for their ideas. The list includes every subject,
every art, science and profession taught in institutions of learning.
Even mathematics has
not escaped. It is not safe, apparently, that its
truths shoulci be proclaimed by others than those
HARRY WOODBURN CHASE
37
of proper racial origin and political sympathies.
Jews have been barred from professional societies. Non-Aryan students in the universities
have been limited to a number not exceeding
the proportion of non-Aryans in Germany to
the total population of the country, fixed by the
law of April 25th at one and one half per cent.
Jewish students have been expelled from institutions, from clinics, or, in a spirit reminiscent of
the Middle Ages, have been obliged to carry
specially stamped and colored cards of identification. Educational and professional opportunities are evidently to be systematically denied to
a whole race-to a race which has produced
scholars, scientists, technicians and professional
men whose careers, whose discoveries, whose
services for the enlightenment of mankind, have
been among the most splendid adornments of
German scholarship.
But, bad as these things are, the danger to
civi 1ization and to the progress of mankind is
greater tha'n is indicated even by these dramatic
incidents of racial persecution. The universities
of Germany have been great, free institutions.
Within them, the right to learn and the right
to teach have hitherto been unquestioned. They
have believed, as universities worthy of the
name must everywhere believe, that the upward
march of humanity depends in the long run on
38
THE CASE OF THE EDUCATORS
the freedom of men to think and to proclaim
the truth.
And now, suddenly, all that is changed. Universities that were free have become instruments
of propaganda.
An educational system that arrived at developing the open mind and the free
spirit, deliberately and officially is told that intellectual learning is the least important of its
objectives. The tragedy of German education
is not alone the tragedy of those who have been
forced out of institutions of learning. It is also
that those who remain must surrender freedom
of opinion, independent judgment and deep intellectual conviction. When men of learning
must pay the price of teaching fantastic .racial
pseudo-science, distortions of history, surrender
the right to differ on social and economic questions, watch their every utterance lest it give
offense, then universities in spirit ceases to exist,
and become instead high-pressure instruments
of propaganda.
And, with such a change, there ceases to operate one of the great fundamental agencies for
the maintenance and the development of civilization itself. Shackled minds belong to barbarism as definitely as do fettered bodies. Consider a generation shaped and moulded by such
influences; a generation reared, not in the open
sunshine of f uth, but in the jungle of prejudice
HARRY WOODBURN CHASE
39
and passion and hatred. Will such a generation,
do you think, be fitted to bear its part in those
great common objectives for which civilized
mankind must seek if civilization is to maintain
itself? Is not, after all, this tragedy one which
strikes to the very heart of all that man has
painfully and slowly learned about those things
which condition his own progress?
It is with such an attitude, frankly revealed
and already amazingly destructive, that Hitlerism strikes, through education, a major blow at
the buttresses of civilization, not alone in this
present, but for the long future.
THE
CASE OF CIVIL
LIBERTIES
by
ROGER N. BALDWIN
W
HEN the German day celebration
was held in this auditorium last December, with the Nazi ambassador as
the chief speaker, this platform was flanked on
one side by the Swastika, on the other by a great
banner reading "German-Americans,
fight for
free speech, free press and free assembly I"
With such a demand for liberty to spread their
doctrines in the United States did the Nazis
celebrate the death of liberty in Germany!
Their hypocritical appeal to American traditions of liberty is an affront. If we concede to
them the same right as to others for their unAmerican agitation, it is only the better to expose and destroy them.
Here we of diverse political views unite in
common loyalty to that freedom to organize and ·
agitate, which is basic to all progress. That
freedom has been outlawed in Nazi Germany,
as in other fascist lands, in the struggle to maintain by dictatorship and violence a tottering
economic system, against the threat of either
revolution or chaos.
ROGER N. BALDWIN
41
All the forces of dissent to that programfrom mild liberals to "wild" Communistsshare the common fate of a barbaric suppression.
Disunited as they were before, they are tragically united now-in concentration camps, exile,
prison, silence and death. The united front
against Hitler which they failed to achieve, he
has made for them.
"I regard it as my task before posterity," says
Hitler "to destroy Marxism."
But he does not
stop with Socialists and Communists. He goes on
to say: "Bismarck told us that liberalism was
the pacemaker of Social-democracy.
Social-democracy is the pace-maker of Communism.
And Communism is the forerunner of death,
of national destruction and extinction. We will
fight it to the death."
On this ground, the Nazis justify a wholesale
terrorism unmatched by any dictatorship in the
world. The extent of their terror is the measure
of tb~ir fear of losing power-a power won by
a scant majority of votes gained by hysteria and
intimidation, and now held by violence.
Behind them stand their beneficiaries, the
great industrialists and land-owners. It is they
who sustain a dictatorship which has outlawed
all political opposition-including
the largest
Socialist and Communist parties in the world,
"coordinated" the trade unions and coopera-
42
THE CASE OF CIVIL LIBERTIES
tives, subjected religion to state control , and
made outcasts of a whole minority race.
Not a thought is expressed, not a word written, which they do not assume the power to direct, control or punish. "Everything within the
state; nothing outside the state," that is their
philosophy of enslavement. And that State is
what? A handful of adventurers backed by big
industry, ruling by decrees enforced by the violence of an irresponsible army of Storm Troops.
What other dictatorship boasts so perfect a
tyranny?
On that admitted background, shall we marshal all the proofs that liberty is dead in Germany? Do the Nazis not arrogantly publish
it to the world.
By their own decrees they
stand condemned before all save those who fear
progress.
Have they not destroyed parliament and democracy, substituting for them the will of a
Ii ttle group of Party leaders?
Have they not abolished all local self-government and made supreme the dictatorship of
the Reich?
Have they not subordinated law to the lawless
power of a secret political police and to the terrorism of the Storm Troops?
Have th y not taken from German woman all
ROGER N. BALDWIN
43
participation in public life and relegated them
to ancient functions in subjection to men?
Have they not struck at freedom of worship
by attacking both Protestantism and Catholicism, setting up over them a state-controlled religion, contested, we may rejoice to say, by a magnificent resistance, for resistance to tyranny is
good even from conservatives?
Have they not corrupted the education of
youth with doctrines of a mythical Aryan superiority of party politics and of militarism?
Have they not visited on their fellow-Ger
mans of Jewish blood a persecution by law un·
matched in the history of that longest-suffering
of races?
And do they not descend to that most barbarous of practices-the
punishment of hostages
-the families of their enemies in exile?
All this the record shows. They will not
deny it. Through such suppression they, like
simil: t dict~torships, strive to maintain powerfor themselves and their capitalist supporters .
Unlike the dictatorship of Soviet Russia they
offer no economic freedom for the masses, no
abolition of exploiting classes; no freedom for
racial minorities; no larger education for youth;
no progress to greater liberties.
Despite their
pretensions to Socialism, National Socialism is
a program of stagnation by force.
44
THE CASE OF CIVIL LIBERTIES
Just one good word may be said for it. It is
the last possible stage of reaction, the last stronghold under the State of the privileged.
It is a
confession of weakness, in spite of its show of
strength. Its violent attempt to harness a desperate working class and to buttress a decaying
economic system through middle class support
against the masses, makes only more certain its
ultimate destruction.
Whatever our political outlook, we shall share
the common task of battling the fact and the
contagion of this new tyranny of reaction.
t
THE
CASE OF THE
TRADE
UNIONS
by
MATTHEW
T
WOLL
EN years ago Oswald Spengler's "Decline
of the West" appeared in this country.
As a prophet of doom Spengler predicted the disintegration of our Western civilization. By an interesting coincidence in that same
year there came to this country for the first
time in the history of the American Labor
Movement a fraternal delegate from the German Federation of Trades and Labor, Peter
Grassman by name. He was Vice-President of
the Executive Committee of the German Federation of Labor. The occasion of his visit to
El Paso, Texas, was the Annual Convention of
the American Federation of Labor, the last ever
pres·ded over by its great President, the late
Samuel Go'mpers. The whole occasion of his
visit was a dramatic one when he arose to address the Convention, the whole gathering stood
and cheered him. In a moving address to that
Convention, Peter Grassman first thanked the
American Labor Movement for their financial
help to the German trade unions during the
worst part of their inflation, which had saved
46
THE CASE OF THE TRADE UNIONS
the unions from extinction.
He then went on
to discuss labor conditions in Germany.
That was ten years ago. Today the aged Peter
Grassman languishes in a prison detention camp
and Oswald Spengler has just written a great
defense of the Hitler regime. As for myself,
the kind of civilization in which I should like
to live is the one where the Peter Grassmans
of the world have their day rather than a world
in which the Spenglers are to be triumphant.
Tonight, however, I have been asked by
President Green to appear as his representative
to speak in behalf of the American labor
movement in this Case of Civilization against
Hitlerism.
The American labor movement was startled
when it learned that German labor publications
were suppressed during the election when Adolf
Hitler sought power. It was amazed when a
program of racial persecution began to drive
German citizens from their occupations and
professions, forcing them to flee the land or
herding them in concentration camps.
When the hand of the government seized
union funds, took over their offices and other
property and designated labor executives and
forms of organization, the American wage earners realized the quality of despotism that was
fastening its control on Germany.
It was real-
MATTHEW
WOLL
47
ization of this fundamental fact that led the
Executive Council of the American Federation
of Labor to recommend that the American Federation of Labor join with other public spirited
organizations in our own country in officially
·adopting a boycott against German-made goods
and German service, this boycott to continue until the German government recognizes the right
of the working people of Germany to organize
into bona fide, independent trade unions of their
own choosing, and until Germany ceases its repressive policy of persecution of Jewish people.
That American workers were right in feeling
that German autocracy was of vital concern to
us has been verified by more recent events which
threaten to involve Central Europe again in conflict. Chancellor Hitler has taken steps to have
the German citizenry take an oath of loyalty
and obedience to him so that at any time he may
extend his power. The Nazi movement is taking 2,;lvantaie of the unrest and maladjustments
existing in Central Europe and extending into
neighboring states and threatens to extend the
Hitler influence and dictatorship.
Obviously,
the whole structure of delicate international adjustments are in danger and there is more than
a possibility that war will again raise its hideous
head. Previous experience has taught us the
difficulties of maintaining neutrality when inter-
48
THE CASE OF THE TRADE UNIONS
national wars rage. Labor is, therefore, very
much concerned that ways be found to protect
German wage earners in the exercise of their
rights and that democratic governments be safeguarded against the ravages and inroads of
developing autocracy and that the rights of minorities be protected and safeguarded. We are
indeed at an hour of fateful decision.
The German trade union movement had been
the backbone of the Weimar Constitution and
the German Republic.
It was the organized
labor movement that assumed political responsibility for an effort to establish democratic in stitutions and to put into effect standards of
human welfare. It was the German labor movement and wage earners that bore the brunt of
the various efforts to keep the German economic
organization functioning. Because the German
Federation of Labor was one of the main bulwarks of the German Republic, the Nazi movement seized control of its representatives, its
funds, and its agencies of communication in its
plan to turn the government into a dictatorship.
The dictatorship of Hitler in its effort to gain
and hold support has been inculcating a loyalty
to Nordic traditions and myths, and stimulating
passions against Jewish people who had long
lived in Germany and made an incalculable contribution fo German civilization.
Some of the
MATTHEW WOLL
49
greatest names in German music, art, law, public administration, science, and the learned arts,
were men and women of the Jewish race or with
some Jewish ancestry. While the Jews were a
race without a national home, they contributed
always to the business and intellectual life of
the country in which they sought refuge and
thus earned public respect and protection. We
had thought that the world was a long way from
mediaeval persecution for racial reasons.
American labor believes that human progress
is inseparable from human liberty and we are,
therefore, immeasurably concerned at the sequence of edicts fashioning autocratic procedure
more and more firmly upon the German people.
American labor has a very real affection for
German wage earners and the German people.
The American labor movement owes a debt to
the old German trade union. German wage
earners schooled in the practices and the discipline of an organized labor movement who
came to this country in earlier decades, have
been the founders of some of our most successful
trade unions. The fellow wage earners coming
to us from Germany brought a loyalty to Labor,
an understanding of the methods of securing
human betterment, and an indefatigable zeal and
endurance that was of invaluable assistance especially in the pioneer days of the A. F. of L.
THE CASE OF THE TRADE UNIONS
50
We have learned much from their experience,
from their thoroughness in planning their organization work and directing its activities,
from the beautiful sentiment and idealism that
characterized
their movement.
The German
trade union movement was perhaps the most
advanced of any country. All of this achievement of human life and daring, the Hitler dictatorship has ruthlessly swept into the discard.
This is the greatest injury he has done the German nation-for
he has destroyed the instrumentality through which the masses of the German people controlled their living and sought
to deal with their social, economic and political
problems. When deprived of normal, constructive agencies their only recourse is force and
revolution.
The American labor movement has declared
its unwillingness to have dealings with Germany under present conditions and we stand
ready to help German trade unionists regain
their rights with every resource at our command.
.
'
THE
CASE OF ACADEMIC
FREEDOM
by
SETH
N
WAKEMAN
EVER before in the history of the modern world has there been a time like the
present when nations in pursuit of nar row, selfish and reactionary ideals have seized
upon the schools, colleges and universities and
have undertaken to use them in order to indoctrinate and to mold the young so that they may
be made the tools and instruments of the state.
This has happened in several European countries, notably in Russia, in Italy and most recently in Germany. The long established emphasis
on freedom of teaching and freedom of learning
in Germany (Lehrfreiheit
and Lernfreiheit)
has ..pow been sacrificed and subordinated to
political and other considerations at the expense
of true scientific research and scholarship.
This German tradition of freedom in education is best expressed in the Constitution of r 9 r 9,
where it is stated that "Art, science, and instruc tion in them, are free. The state guarantees
their protection and participates in their promotion." This constitution also provides that education shall be carried on "in the spirit of Ger-
52
THE CASE OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM
man national character and of international conciliation."
The Hitler government, in overthrowing the German Republic, has repudiated
this doctrine, and has placed matters of race,
narrow nationalism and political beliefs above
the former educational ideals of the German
people. Thus the whole educational system in
Germany has become a means of furthering and
stamping into the young, the political creed of
the National Socialist Party.
Previous to the Hitler regime, the German
universities, although state institutions, were
self-governing bodies. The rector ( the official
head of the university) and the deans of the
various faculties were elected by the professors
from their midst for one year. In the selection
of the professors, the faculties nominated candidates to the minister of education, who generally
made the appointments to professorships from
these nominations. In the reorganization of the
universities under Hitler,
the government,
through the Minister of Education, has taken
direct control of the universities by appointing
the rectors for an indeterminate period.
In
every case the new rectors are the agents of
the state and if not members of the National
Socialist Party, sympathetic with it. This rigid
control of the universities by the Nazi government is completely destroying the freedom and
SETH WAKEMAN
53
the right of self-determination which the uni versities formerly enjoyed. Professors who are
not in sympathy with the Nazi government have
been forced to relinquish their positions or to
make their teaching conform to the official Hitler doctrine.
Every professor must give the
Hitler salute. Intolerance, racial and political
bigotry have thus supplanted the traditional
university freedom.
This reorganization in the German universities has been thorough, and in order to maintain
it a system of espionage has been instituted.
Student organizations composed of German speaking, non-Jewish students, have been cre ated in each university, and a national leader
of the studenthoods appointed by the Government. From the leaders of the studenthoods 1
information and reports are obtained concerning
all professors who are Jewish, who have belonged to communist or republican organiza ti~ s1 or whose "scientific methods show a liberal
or particularly a pacifist outlook and therefore
put them out of question for the instruction of
German students in the national state", or who
are politically suspected in any way. The individual leaders of studenthoods in the university
are instructed to give certificates of confidence
to those above suspicion and to order "an execu tive boycott of the lectures of those · professors
THE CASE OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM
54
whose removal by the state is not immediate!)
possible."
In addition to the restrictions upon the universities, the Hitler government has established
by means of new laws a rigid consorship controlling the publications of books and periodicals, whereby authors and publishers are forced
to belong to the national association which is
entirely under Nazi control. Purely scientific
publications are supposedly exempted from this,
but it falls within the province of the Nazi
government to decide what is purely scientific.
The International
League for Academic
Freedom maintains that science and scholarship
have become international and that the Hitler
government in denying freedom to the universities and to science, stands condemned before the
intellectual world.
It is the duty of teachers,
scientists and men of letters to resist with all
their power this assault of the Hitler government on the traditional liberties of study, science and research and to assist in every way possible the thousands of scientists, teachers and
men of letters, some of them among the most distinguished in the world, who have suffered from
this persecution.
.
~
THE
CASE OF AMERICAN
OPINION
by
MILLARD
E. TYDINGS
NE hundred and fifty-eight years ago, a
great American leader gave to the world
a new conception of humanity.
On an
immortal parchment, which symbolized the impulses of Americans of that era, he proclaimed
that certain truths are self-evident, and that men
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these rights are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Now, in the back-wash of the great international holocaust which began in 1914, in this
period of world-wide economic, financial and
political disaster, these enduring principles in
some parts of the world are threatened with
· extin r,,tio.Jt; for we have learned with pain and
displeasure that in a great nation there have
been singled out 600,000
of its citizens who
have been commanded not to bear the common
burden of their fellows, but, to suffer, as· a group,
the loss of their property , their religious, and
personal liberties for no other reason, forsooth,
than that they are the sons of their fathers.
We are met here tonight not to attempt a cure
O
56
THE CASE OF AMERICAN OPINION
for these intolerant edicts and actions by the
applications of more intolerance.
On the contrary, and within our proper and rightful
sphere, we are endeavoring to arouse world-wide
opinion to the harmful consequence which must
be the inevitable result of group persecution by
governments. We are here to petition, to urge
strongly, to entreat, if you please, that these
infractions of the law of common brotherhood
be speedily remedied.
Some, of short vision, will think this meeting
vain and ill-conceived.
They will hold to the
tenets that what happens without our country,
no matter how grievous the occurrence, how
great the disaster, how inimical it may be. to the
peace of nations, or how such policies may eventually affect our. own citizenship, that, nevertheless, we should remain quiescent until the disaster actually overtakes us. By way of refutation it
can be said that aloofness would not be practiced
were these people themselves the victims of similar circumstances.
If their property or their
personal, religious or political liberty were in
jeopardy, instead of that of their fellows, they
would think humanity utterly devoid of godliness, and society but a fabric of shoddy selfishness, if sympathy and proper help could not be
enlisted.
Generally speaking we cannot secure toler-
MILLARD E. TYDINGS
57
ance for ourselves without safeguarding tolerance for others; we cannot secure property
rights for ourselves without safeguarding property rights for others; we cannot secure religious rights for ourselves without safeguarding
religious rights for others; we cannot secure
personal liberty for ourselves without safeguarding personal liberty for others; we cannot
secure justice for ourselves without striving for
justice for others; we cannot secure peace and
happiness for ourselves without safeguarding,
insofar as we may properly do so, peace and
happiness for the 600,000
persecuted Jews of
Germany.
But who are these 600,000
German citizens
whose rights have been abrogated?
Let us see.
Official statistics tell us that 17% of the entire
Jewish population of Germany served that
country in the great war; that one out of every
five men, women and children of Jewish blood
wa,s ~ soldi~r in the German army. These figures further stafe that of this group, 30,000 were
decorated for bravery; 20,000 were cited for
distinguished service, and 2,000 of them rose to
the rank of officer while serving under the German colors. These and their families are now
the outcasts. They were asked to give life itself for their country in its great hour of need.
This they gave. Having given, they are now
58
THE CASE OF AMERICAN OPINION
denied the equal privileges of peace.
This is the case which is being tried before
the bar of public opinion throughout the world;
this is a case which cannot be sustained in the
court of any human heart where conscience sits
as the judge; this is the case which, if laid
before the immortal God who is the father of
all religions, all creeds, all races, and all people, would not even be granted the dignity of a
hearing. This is the case which arouses not the
hatred of the bystander for the present German
policy but rather the pity for those who make
that policy. This is the case which no man can
shut out from his soul if he, in truth, has any
of the attributes of civilization.
This is the
case where, were civilization to close its eyes,
and stop its ears, and stay its tongue, would forever damn civilization when the history of this
day is written.
This is the case where every
government, claiming for itself the slightest
vestige of tolerance, the smallest semblance of
justice, and the barest outline of democracy
should by every honorable, peaceful and proper
means, exert its influence to the end that religious and racial persecution shall be no more
among us.
These words of mine uttered here and the resolution introduced in the Senate did not spring
from any antipathetic or hateful attitude to-
MILLARD E. TYDINGS
59
ward either the country of Germany or its people. They are a great people. Germany has
been and is a great nation. By its very contributions to science, to industry, to art, to letters,
yes, to government, it has been honored, revered
and respected by all nations.
Its people are
law-abiding, its history rich in the finest traditions of humanity; and such traditions and history make it difficult for one to realize that it
could single out a defenseless race of 600,000
of its people, deprive them of their property
and take from them equal rights with their fellows.
Cannot these fine German people, in Germany, .realize that all countries were turning
more and more to them in helpfulness, realizing that the world cannot and must not persecute the German peoples more, as the vanquished in the World War? The world has
come to know that the Peace Treaty which intended to punish the ~ erman leaders who made
the war, has really been a punishment to the
masses of the Germans themselves who were
the victims of that leadership. Do not they realize that what is wrong with the Peace Treaty
is, that its very provisions were, in many cases,
written with the pen of hatred and retribution
and, cannot these German people realize, hav ing themselves been for so long the victims of
60
THE CASE OF AMERICAN OPINION
an oppressive policy, that now when a kinder
world is turning more and more to them, in sympathy, that they should be the last to impose
upon others the very conditions from which they
themselves have hoped to escape?
I am happy to have made this gesture to the
oppressed and persecuted Jews of Germany.
The first place in the world to offer a haven
for religious liberty was my own State of Maryland. I have been reared upon the wholesomeness of that doctrine, having gloried in its contribution to the welfare of men in all parts of
the globe and I believe it to have been an inspiration that is entwined with the finest impulses and attributes of the human heart
And so we meet here to keep that ideal before the world, to maintain that the spirit of
the laws of God may find breath and action in
the laws and actions of man; to save, insofar
as we can, the people of Germany from committing excesses calculated to alienate millions of
their friends in other lands at a time when these
very people were turning in ·a spirit of goodwill and helpfulness toward their stricken land.
Finally we dare to assert in friendliness, but
nevertheless in strength, that over half of a million men, women and children, living law-abiding lives, whose men have contributed to their
nation in peace and died upon its hundreds of
MILLARD E. TYDINGS
61
battlefields in war, shall not because the scheme
of things created by Almighty God has found
temporary displeasure in the philosophy of a
man or a small group of men, be persecuted, deprived of their property, deprived of their lives,
deprived of the right to an equal pursuit of
happiness.
We still maintain that God's plan is superior
to man's plan and we propose that when the
two come in conflict to support that of the Creator for we know by the overwhelming verdict
of history that upon no other plan can we rely
for a safe, a healthy and a peaceful intercourse
of one nation with another and one people with
another.
Those who attend this gathering symbolize
the thoughts and impulses of millions of our
countrymen who are absent in body but present
in spirit. They, no less thap we, see the inordinat~ cruelty, the injustice, the intolerance of
this persecution of the Jews. They, like ourselves, seek to raise before the eyes of the world
the torch of tolerance to guide a world already
sick from the excesses, the greed, and the blindness of mankind.
Finally, we affirm our intention to continue
to keep this crime pilloried before all the world,
in the fervent hope that, in the councils of the
present German government, a calmer view and
62
THE CASE OF AMERICAN OPINION
a more civilized action may evolve and that the
600,000
persecuted Jews beyond the sea may
regain for themselves and their posterity the inalienable rights to life, to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
THE
CASE OF SPORTS
by
GUSTAVUS
T
T. KIRBY
HE Jews and their cause need no advocacy from me. What they have been, what
they are, and their leadership in the world
of religion, of law, of philosophy, of science, of education, and of business, is such that
they need none but their own to look after their
interests and to maintain and enhance that predominant place in the sun that no one, no matter what their position of permanent or temporary leadership may be, can take from them, or
even dim the brilliance thereof.
My position here is as an advocate of the only
true democracy in the world-that
of sportwhich knows neither race nor creed nor color;
wher ....it m::}.ttersnot whether you are rich as
Croesus or poor as Job's turkey; where all start
from scratch and the race is won without fear
or favor.
Any country receiving the award of the
Olympic Games must not only subscribe, but
live up to these principles and ideals of the democracy of sport . Germany did so when it
made application to the International Olympic
64
THE CASE OF SPORTS
Committee for the award of the Games of 1936
to Berlin. Germany continues to claim that it
still subscribes to these fundamental doctrines
of international sport and of the Olympic
Games, and Dr. Theodore Lewald-and,
I am
confident, in all honesty and sincerity-assures
the International Olympic Committee, of which
he is a member, that there is no present edict,
nor will there be any future disabilities on the
part of the Jews taking part in what we in this
country call athletics, in Germany.
Mark you this: that Germany never has, and
of course will not say, that teams going to the
Olympic Games from the United States or any
other country, must not have thereon Jews. But
this is not enough. Nor is it in my judgment,
and, I am sure, in your judgment, sufficient for
Germany to say that it will have no official decree to the effect that the teams of Germany
must not have thereon Jews . We all know that
the proof of every pudding is not what it looks
like, or appears to be, but the eating thereof.
Germany says today if there are not Jews out
training for our teams, it is because the sports
clubs do not desire Jews to be members. How
can we stop that? You, in your country, have
clubs which close their doors to Jews. Why
should you complain of us? We might just as
well complam of you.
GUSTAVUS T. KIRBY
65
This, of course, begs the question. A man or
a boy or a girl in this country or in any other
country in the world, for that matter, does not
have to be a member of any club; does not, for
that matter, have to be persona grata to anyone, to go out and try for an athletic team. Anyone is privileged to do that. That is why it is
the great democracy to which I have made reference.
Now, if any Jew today feels that he can fence
as well as another, or box, or wrestle, or run>
or jump, or row, or bicycle, or play football>
or what not, can he go out in Germany and
be a candidate for a team? We know that he
cannot, and until he can, and until we have assurance that they are not only being officially
permitted to do so, but also that no harm will
come to them, or their families, or their associates, if they do so, will we, the sportsmen of
Amer 'ica, be in a position to look with favor
upou the invitation of Germany for us to play
with them in Berlin in 1936.
Of course, we want to play. Of course, many
of us have old and sincere friends in Germany.
The sportsmen there are as fine as any in the
world. We want to rub elbows and be friendly
competitors with them. It isn't their fault. It
isn't the fault of many of their leaders, but it is
the fault of that against which we here protest
66
TIIE CASE OF SPORTS
tonight. May our protest be heard, and being
heard, be heeded!
,
'I
THE
CASE OF AN EYE-WITNESS-I.
by
SAMUEL
MARGOSHES
HAVE visited Germany in the month of
November, 1933, and my eyes have seen the
plight of our brethren and of the German
people as a whole. I have spoken to the outstanding Jewish leaders of the Reich, spoken
secretly and confidentially, and what I heard
from their own lips I know to be the truth and
the . real truth of the present situation in Germany.
I wish it were possible for me to present their
names before this Court, but everyone knows
that the mere mention of their names before
this tribunal would bring untold suffering to
thos.e in Germany who have confided in me.
N;ne months after the imposition of the Nazi
yoke, I fou'nd Jews as well as the rest of the
population still living in fear of their lives. The
constant complaint that assailed my ears was
that people are disappearing from the streets
and are never found again. Others are dragged
away to concentration camps, to reappear God
knows when. This case that I heard from the
lips of a very responsible newspaper man and
I
68
THE CASE OF AN EYE-WITNESS, I
which has never appeared either in the German
or the foreign press is typical of the present
state of terror in Hitler Germany: On the day
on which Chancellor Hitler delivered his
speech from a factory to the workers of the
Reich, asking them to go on record as approving his withdrawal from the League of Nations
as well as his general policy, two working men
stood listening to the address but, having tired
of the oratory, left the factory before the Chancellor's speech was quite over. A half-hour later
they were under arrest and on the way to the
concentration camp. It is through methods of
this nature that 98% of the German electorate
were forced to say "yes" to the Hitler program
in the plebescite, which was to make the impression abroad of the whole German people being
united behind Hitler.
There is no security in Germany ~ither for
citizens or foreigners. Not one minute of the
time that I spent in Germany was I considered
safe. At the American Consulate I was advised
to leave Germany forthwith as no guarantee
could be given for my safety, although I had
a perfectly good American passport issued to
me by Washington. The Jewish leaders I spoke
to, all of them men of prominence in the community and veterans of the last war, had no
plans for their own future. They did not know
SAMUEL MARGOSHES
69
what the morrow would bring-death
or the
concentration camp.
A noted Jewish spokesman summed up the
situation for me thus: "We are not only declassed, deprived of our liberties and of all
means of livelihood, but we are utterly without
protection under the law. We are at the mercy
of every Nazi official and every Storm Trooper.
The laws that have been made against us, degrading though they be, are bad enough, but
we might somehow live under them if they were
carried out, but they are not carried out. We
are under the arbitrary rule of the Nazi party
which constitutes the invisible but effective
Government, depending entirely for our life
and liberty on the whims of irresponsible individuals."
When I spoke to taxi-men driving
me through Berlin, as~ing what seemed to me
the most innocent questions, the usually voluble
chauffeurs invariably gave me one reply by
rai ·ng their fingers to their lips. Freedom of
speech is dead in Germany. The individual is
afraid to speak his mind, lest he meet with terrible punishment.
I left Germany with the feeling that the entire country had been converted into a huge
prison. One of my friends who took me to the
train gave the finishing touches to this picture
of a great people imprisoned in their own land,
70
THE CASE OF AN EYE-WI1NESS, I
when he said to me: "I will write to you soonfrom my home or from the concentration
camp."
I wish to express my profound conviction that
if the millions of German citizens now held in
subjection by a tyrannical government, were to
be asked whether they approved of the world
engaging in normal commerce with Nazi Germany, thus economically strengthening
the
hands of their oppressors, the overwhelming reply would be "No I". For a Germany isolated
may yet turn out to be a Germany brought to
her senses. And it is my fervent hope that the
position taken by the American Federation of
Labor and other liberal groups in this country
in isolating Germany economically may yet become the position of the entire citizenry of
America, and that our Government, sensing
this popular sentiment, may do nothing ·n opposition to it. The least one may hope, I submit,
is that our Great President, when he obtains the
power which he now seeks from Congress to reduce the tariff on imports from foreign countries, will not use it-as we are sure the American people does not wish him to use it-to allow
the dumping of cheap, government-subsidized
German goods to the exclusion of American
merchandise produced by American workmen
under American standards of living. For this
SAMUEL MARGOSHES
71
I ask in the name of all those who today suffer
in the German Hell, and in the name of Civilization .
•
THE
CASE
OF AN EYE-WITNESS-II.
by
ARTHUR
T
GARFIELD HAYS
HE Hitler regime has many defenders
but no defense. Anyone who has been in
Germany recently can present the German answer to the indictment of civilization
against Hitler which is here presented.
The
Nazis tell us that the Treaty of Versailles was
vicious. We know it. They tell us that Germans refuse to pay tribute. We understand it.
They tell us that the Germans demand equal
rights. We app .rove. But while they demand
equal rights for the German government, we
also demand equal rights for the German people. None of these so-called answers is responsive to the indictment of civilization and none
of them has anything whatever to do with either
Hitlerism or Nazism.
The answer to the indictment would further report that the Fascists
were the saviours of the world from Communism! They seemed aggrieved that outside of
Germany no one takes this seriously. They
would conclude by stating that Germany is unified and spiritually uplifted.
But unified for
what? Spiritually uplifted in what way? Dur-
ARTHUR GARFIELD HAYS
73
ing the war nations were in a sense unified and
spiritually uplifted, but it is this kind of unification and uplifting that civilization
condemns I
I would tell the Germans that outside of Germany people were discussing the Aryan question, the Jewish question, the question of militarism, power and force, the question of education which would teach children that the only
worthy life would end on a battlefield; the question of pomp, ceremony, uniforms, salutes,
bands, meetings and martial exhilaration which
would intoxicate people to believe in their own
invincibility so that they would become dangerous to themselves and to others; the question
of pathological exaggeration and tyranny of the
state which leaves no one safe and under which
the government is in no way restrained from
seizing individuals, placing them in concentration camps, taking away their property and exerci~ ing the most ruthless power. I would tell
them that outside of Germany the regime is regarded as cruel, despotic, irresponsible and supreme; that the Nazis had stolen the elemental
rights for which individuals have fought and
died for hundreds of years.
People in Germany may be comfortable but
they are always apprehensive.
One never says
a word or writes a line without doubt and hesi-
74
THE CASE OF AN EYE-WITNESS, II
tation, and while he is in no physical danger
when in the hands of the police, yet the S. A.
Brown Shirt troopers swarm the streets, many
of them irresponsible ruffians who have rarely
been obliged by the German courts to pay the
penalty for their misdeeds, and over whom the
police exercise little, if any control. My safety
in Germany-in
spite of constant newspaper attack-was due partly to the thought that I represented the American Bar. This was a mistake
but I took no great pains to persuade the Nazis
that they were wrong.
The ruthlessness in the regime is not surprising to those who realize the methods by which
Hitler acquired power.
The appeal of. the
Nazis was to the basest and lowest emotions of
humanity, all developed in an aura of patriotism. Never has there been better exemplified
the statement that patriotism is the last refuge
of a scoundrel. They lied about their opponents, they sowed hate and prejudice; they made
promises incapable of fulfillment.
They rode
into power through the crime of arson.
In the November elections of 1932 the Nazis
lost about fifteen percent of their votes. Hitler
became Chancellor on January 30th. On February 24th a newly appointed police commissioner, a Nazi, von Levitzow, claimed to have
found incriminating documents in the Karl
ARTHUR GARFIELD HAYS
75
Liebknecht House, to the effect that the Communists planned a revolution, the signal for
which was to be the burning of the Reichstag.
On February 27th the Reichstag burst into
flames. Thousands of people were arrested, not
merely Communists but Social Democrats
whom the Nazis had first charged with conspiracy and "forming a united front with the
Communists," pacifists, liberals, writers and
practically all opponents of the Nazi regime.
Many of these people were seized by the Brown
Shirts and placed in concentration camps. For
the next week and prior to the elections on
March 6th the censored German press contained announcements that only Nazi activity
in suppressing a Communist revolution had
saved Germany from Communism. On March
6th the Nazis greatly increased their vote but
only obtained absolute power through outlawing sixty-two Communist deputies.
This was the birth of the new regime. Whether or not the Nazis set fire to the Reichstag,
they cannot deny that with all the power of the
terror they failed to show the complicity of
anyone else; that they immediately took advantage of the arson and were the sole beneficiaries
of it. Worse still, however, in order to justify
their earlier lying claims in the official press,
they charged Ernst Torgler, George Dimitroff
76
THE CASE OF AN EYE-WITNESS, II
and two other Bulgarians with having conspired with van der Lubbe to set the fire. The
brilliant defense of Dimitroff, who refused to
accept representation by Nazi counsel, will
stand out as a landmark in legal history. Dimitroff was magnificent!
By pure moral force,
alone among his enemies, he put the Court, the
Nazi prosecutors and audience completely on
the defensive. On one occasion when he denied
connection with the bombing of the Sofia Cathedral in 1925, turning squarely away from the
judges and to the Nazi audience, Dimitroff declaimed, "That was a provocative act arranged
to throw blame on the Communists.
Those
things sometimes happen in Germany." These
men, for months kept in chains and subjected
to the mental torture of the constant threat of
death, were treated as criminals even after acquittal. Ernst Torgler still remains in a concentration camp, the victim of Nazi fury and
lies.
Democracy and liberty never seem a more
valuable heritage than when one contemplates
the tyranny and oppression which has terrorized the German people. Concentration camps
may contain only 18,000 to 20,000 people at one
time, but the annual turnover is sufficient to
teach all Germans that the Hitler approval and
salute is th only path to security.
ARTHUR GARFIELD HAYS
77
The Jews are only one of the minorities which
are suppressed. Their treatment is peculiarly
shocking because they suffer the cruellest of
punishments for the least of crimes - that of Judaism - a crime shared by some of the greatest
figures in world history and of which no one is
penitent.
The German revolution has been characterized as the meanest and most mendacious the
world has ever known. It is mean because it
persecutes people who do not resist; it is mendacious because it is built on lies.
The Germans call this system an awakening;
it is a retrogression. They call it new; it is as
old as history. They call it Fascism; we call it
tyranny. To thinking men it has only one value,
and that is to teach that the liberty for which
men have fought and died, is worth preserving.
THE
CASE OF WRITERS
by
DR. STANLEY HIGH
HE badge of the writing profession in today's Germany is a ring in the nose. Either you wear the ring-and jump when the
Nazis jerk it-or you don't write. It you try
to write anyway, you wake up in a Concentration Camp or the hereafter-it
won't much matter which. There's no other alternative. That's
why there are no writers in Hitler's Germany.
There are only propagandists-and
propagandists for the most poisonous compound of myth,
paganism and tyranny that the modern world
has ever had prepared for its consumption. It's
a compound that the German people, right now,
seem to be swallowing in large doses. That's
the tragedy and the danger of it. For the morning after is likely to bring more than a headache. It is likely to bring a convulsion. In
our kind of a world you can isolate a headache.
It is not so easy to isolate a convulsion.
The story of what has happened to the writing profession under Hitler is indicated by that
key word of national socialism: "Gleichschaltung." That word-means
different things to
T
DR. STANLEY HIGH
79
different people. If you happen to be wearing
a brown shirt and a Sam Brown belt and praying each morning and each evening before the
picture of Adolf Hitler it means something
very simple: "Bringing into line" or "Standardization."
Well, that's unobjectionable.
In
fact, it has an American, mass-production ring
to it-like
the advertisements announcing the
finest car in the low-priced field.
But, if you are one of the unfortunates who
have not gone in for Sam Brown belts and chest
expansion, it means something quite different.
And if you are one of those doubly unfortunate
individuals who was born with a creative instinct and a free spirit stirring within you, it
does not mean "brought into line," it means "tied
into a knot"; not "standardization, but annihilation." I don't mean bodily annihilation.
Oh,
no. You can keep quiet in Germany and survive, provided you started keeping quiet early
eno"Jgh. I mean annihilation, not of your physical, but of your spiritual self, which for the
kind of person I am talking about, is destruction of a far worse kind.
People still turn out books in Germany and
produce magazines.
Men, calling themselves
journalists, still turn out what passes for copy;
headlines are still written; linotypes in the composing room still function; and something
80
THE CASE OF WRITERS
which sells for the same price as a newspaper
eventually gets to the street. But, it is no more
like a newspaper than a pre-depression bank
statement-and
not even as reliable. It would
have just as much of the creative instinct and
the free spirit, which is the life of journalism
at its best, if it were turned out on an adding
machine. And the same thing goes for the
whole field of writing. Literature, in the past,
has always been a brain production. The Nazis
declare that, in the future, it must be a blood
production.
Great writing, before Hitler, has
always come from the spirits of men. Henceforth, it must come from their spleens.
But the German spirit has not only been
chained it has been burned-burned
by one of
the most devastating fires ever kindled by a
pyromaniac.
On the night of May 10th, 1933
-A.D., mind you, not B.C.-a great company
of German students publicly burned 25,000
books in the Opernplatz in Berlin. Among the
books that were burned that night were those
of Sigmund
Freud,
Maximilian
Harden,
Heinrich
Heine, Ferdinand
Lasalle, Karl
Marx, Ludwig Stein, Albert Einstein, Jacob
Wassermann; and, to add heat to the flames
they added a few copies of the Bible. More
than ink and paper went up in smoke that night.
That was a -funeral pyre-not for the great lit-
DR. STANLEY HIGH
81
erature of the Germany of the past. Einstein
and Heine, and Marx, and Wassermann-they
are well beyond the reach of any fire. It was,
rather, a funeral pyre for the literature of the
Germany of the future.
It was not literary
achievements, however, but her literary hopes
that were consumed.
And those hopes will
never be reborn until freedom-the
first of all
the prerequisites of literary achievementis
once again reborn.
It would be a serious mistake to assume that
this literary blight has fastened itself, solely,
upon Germany's Jewish writers. Today, perhaps, a quarter of a million Germans have fled
from the Fatherland.
They are fleeing nowat the rate of 10,000 every month. They are
taking with them not much of Germany's
wealth, but, I should say, most of its intelligence
-and, in particular, that peculiar type of intelligence that produces great literature.
Only a
rela.,.ively small percentage of those fleeing
thousands are Jews. Granted. But she has done
something worse than that-she
has outlawed
genius. And, especially, she has outlawed literary genius. Men whose genius runs to the
inventing of shock-absorbers of poison gas,they doubtless, still find a haven in Nazi Germany. But men whose genius runs to the inventing of ideas- . well, they have got a mill-
82
THE CASE OF WRITERS
stone around their necks and a bayonet at their
backs. There is no place among the Nazis for
the invention of ideas. The reason is plain.
The final idea has already been invented. Mr.
Hitler has it copyrighted. To allow for others
would throw doubt upon the omniscience of the
leader and, besides, it might start "dangerous
thoughts" in somebody's not-yet-quite-N azified
mind. The net result of it all is that a 100 per
cent. Aryan-whatever
that is-a 100 percent.
Aryan genius who set out to give literary expression to his muse would go the same route,
by as short and as final a path as the most Semitic Semite.
The German Jews have probably been the
worst sufferers in the writing profession. An
Aryan might resent or keep quiet. Neither repentance nor silence is sufficient to save the Jew.
He is damned by his blood. I have a list of
some of the recent measures enacted in Germany against the writing profession. It 1s a
long and a tragic list. In spots it is funny. For
instance, here is an order-issued
on the 23rd
of last September-which
decrees that only Aryan photographers can henceforth take press
photographs.
It is a great satisfaction to know
that the photographic profession is being made
safe for the Aryans. Likewise, in September
the All-Ge man Writers Association excluded
DR. STANLEY HIGH
83
Jews from membership. In October, a national
campaign was under way to oust all books of
Jewish authorship from German libraries. In
November the national organization of German
publishers blandly announced that all contracts
with Jewish writers were, from that date, invalid. By a decree issued by the Ministry of
Popular Enlightenment - this Ministry declared that, from January 1, 1934, journalism
would be barred to the Jews.
This drive on Germany's writing profession
should not be taken to mean that the Nazis
have no literary ambition. Far from it. I doubt
if modern history can show a movement more
consumed with literary zeal. I have referred
to the fact that the Nazis, in Berlin, burned
the Bible. So far as I know, they have not
burned any since. They have got a better idea.
They are going to rewrite it. I have heard of
a good many large literary orders.
I never
hei rd of one to match that. I would like to
meet the · man assigned to rewrite the 23rd
Psalm. I would like to be in on the Hitlerizing of the 54th Chapter of Isaiah; and hear the
story of how Nazi mass-marriages will be offered as a strictly Aryan substitute for the Book
of Ruth. I do not know what the Bible will
look like when the National Socialists get
through with it. I am sure, however, that it
84
THE CASE OF WRITERS
won't look like literature and it won't sound
like religion. The Bible is literature because
it is the unexpurgated record of the aspirations
and the striving of great and uncensored spirits.
There won't be any literature from Germany
until the load of censorship is taken from the
German spirit.
All this, I think, has a significance that is far
more than German. One thing these post-war
years have taught us, namely, that there is no
banking upon the permanence of the institutions
that we profess to prize. Freedom of speech,
freedom of worship, freedom of the press-we
can't be too sure of their security. Let Hitler
get away with it in Germany and every prophet
of tyranny, around the world, will take heart
and redouble his efforts. Already, Hitler's
Brown Shirts h.;.ve spawned and - here in
America-we
have got Silver Shirts and Black
Shirts and, presumably, Night Shirts.
These
variously shirted crusaders are no funnier to
us-in
1934-than
Hitler's Beer-hall clientele
was to the Germans in 1922. The time to be
on guard against these movements is while they
are still funny. That is why tonight's meeting
is not exclusively to provide a protest against
Germany's return to Mediaevalism, but, also,
to develop a solidified opinion against those
who would .drag us in the same direction.
DR. STANLEY HIGH
85
I am ready to raise my voice against those who
are out to stifle German literature.
The world
can ill afford to lose the literary contributions
of the German mind and spirit. And civilization can ill afford to tolerate these tactics of
suppression. But beyond that, we desire to protest, today, lest tomorrow-by
our indifference
and a silence-a like affliction is visited upon us.
THE
CASE OF WOMAN
by
MIRIAM BEARD
present the case of Woman versus Hitler.
In the name of my client, Woman, I prefer
grave charges against Adolf Hitler and the
Nazi leaders, who are to an overwhelming extent unmarried
ex-soldiers, "Men Without
Women," to borrow a title from Hemingway,
a grim collection indeed of embattled bachelors.
I accuse them of a crime against civilization;
they have crushed woman, who is the conserver
of civilization.
They have cast her down to a
level lower than she occupied in old Imperial
Germany-to
a level lower than she occupied
in primitive times, in the age of Siegfried and
Brunhilda.
Under the Nazi regime, Aryan women suffer as well as Jewish women; peasants suffer
as well as emancipated career-carvers; all girls
endure discrimination all mothers must face the
loss of their children, who at almost every waking hour are snatched from them by brown
drill-masters who prepare them for war. Fascism is the enemy not merely of the feminist,
but of the mother.
I
•
•
MIRIAM BEARD .
87
Listen to Minister Goebbels: "WE NAZIS
HAVE PUT WOMEN OUT OF PUBLIC
LIFE" he boasted -the other day in Berlin:
"Nature fits woman for life behind house-walls
and not in the open." But even in those cramped
quarters she is to be denied her children; Goebbels told her to give them cheerfully to the
Nazis who would know better than she does
how to steel them to "heroic sacrifice"-on
the
battlefields. And so Goebbels left woman, im -·
prisoned and alone-and he deprived her even
of the little comfort of a bit of back-talk with
her spouse. He said: "if she disputes with
Man, he will become a house-tyrant."
In other words, Hitler has undone in a single
year the achievements of a decade of Republican Germany. He has rendered valueless the
vote which Social Democracy gave women in
1919. He has made useless the legislatures to
which women were just admitted. He has been
squ~ zing women out of the thousands of government posts they had just won and he has
abolished the Constitution's provision for protecting women bureaucrats. He is pushing them
from the professions, law, medicine, teaching,
social service, to which they had just won entry,
and from the German universities, whose barriers they had just climbed. Their influence is
wiped from public life where it had scarcely
88
THE CASE OF WOMAN
begun to spread. And Oberpresident Wilhelm
Kube publicly rejoices that he need no longer
listen to "democratic viragoes spitting pacifistic
filth when men are debating questions of war."
But humble women suffer as well as advanced
ones. Serva .nt-girls are cut down on social insurance rights; working women endure loss of
jobs and the general decline in the wages of labor. Peasant girls are disinherited.
The new
agrarian law gives girls no share in estates,
which pass undivided to eldest sons. Thus the
Aryans suffer; the most purely Germanic of the
Germans-the
peasant-girls-are
dispossessed as
ruthlessly as Jewish intellectuals. And there is
no Palestine for them.
All girls-not
merely Jewish girls-are
discriminated against in the schools. Less learning-more gas-mask drill-is the parole of Hitler obeyed by educators.
Girls are forced to
endurance marches: "at a good stiff Storm
Troopers' pace 3 hours on the Czechoslovakian
border with only one standing pause of 3 minutes ... I 8 kilometers were marched" showing
how girls could take "tight discipline which
knew sharp reprimands and punishments."
That is Hitler's method with women: eternal
marching-but
no advance.
So German women are robbed of their opportunities, , their ambitions, their children-
MIRIAM BEARD
89
and even their little coquetteries. Guida Diehl,
author of "Die Deutsche Frau," the Nazi bible
for women, says women must love war, "It is
war which makes them strong" ; "The true Germanic woman is a fighter, and a fighter out of
mother love." Even though she cannot bear
arms, she serves her warrior-by
not distracting
him. A true Germanic woman is not chic; she
should never, says Guida, permit herself one
single frill or ornament to mar her purposeful
drabness, lest perchance she catch some warrior's eye and divert him from his grim pursuits.
To that state Woman has now sunk in Germany-to a status far lower than under Kaiser
Wilhelm. In the old Empire she could discuss
peace; today that is a crime for which titled
ladies have been arrested. In the Old Empire,
she might be relegated to Kinder, Kueche, Kirche, but she was spared the frenzy of the fourth
"K"-Krieg.
She was not told, as Von Papen
bru+ally informs her today, that her chief purpose is to rear sons for War.
She has sunk to a status lower than that of
primitive Germany.
Vainly have some Nazi
women-among
them Sophie Rogge-Boerner
-called for Teutonic ideals for women as well
as men, and demanded "leadership by the best
of both sexes as in accord with ancient traditions. Such protests were swiftly followed by
90
THE CASE OF WOMAN
the dissolution of offending clubs; Minister
Goebbels will tolerate no budding brown
Brunnhildas.
The Nazi Siegfried prefers to be solitary.
Why? If you will examine the life-histories
of forty or fifty party-organizers you will see
why. Most of them represent the same type as
their leader-Hitler.
He and they are errant
soldiers who never found their way back from
the Front to civilization.
They failed to find
jobs and make homes; they were failuresthere is no record of any first-class mind in any
field save propaganda or military science having been attracted to Nazi ranks before last
year. And those surplus men have now ousted
the surplus women. Those wandering soldiers
have seized the State, triumphant Landsknechte,
and turned the Government into a guard-house
where women have no place.
Most of these soldiers ignore the Woman
Question. Hitler did not deign to address the
female section of his party at the last N iirnberg rally. The task of advising and consoling
German womanhood is largely left to little
Goebbels. Little Goebbels was debarred from
the war by his club-foot, but no captain of the
horse-guards could entertain a more robust
scorn than he for women. In his early novel
(buried alive in the bad old days when critics
MIRIAM BEARD
91
ran around loose in Germany) he pictures a
hero who vainly tries to turn a beautiful girl
from studying at Heidelberg.
Vainly his hero
told Herta Holk: Women's task is to be beautiful and to bear children ... The female bird
preens herself for the male ... while the male
fetches food." Herta, who had studied orni thology, jilted the hero.
But the Goebbels hero then renounced argument and took up force. He convinced his other
opponents without recourse to reasoning: "Now
I seize him by the gullet. I hurl him to earth.
There he lies 1 Gasping, with bloodshot eyes.
Die, thou carcass I I crush in his skull with my
foot."
Such is the man who now lords it over German womanhood and takes revenge on the
Herta Holks.
Such is the character of the
men whom I accuse in the name of my client,
Woman.
Yet I would not misrepresent W oman
She was foolish : she accepted the vote
from Social Democracy-but
used it to betray
Democracy.
She financed the Hitler Movement in its infancy, when it must have perished
without the funds of female fanatics like Helene Bechstein and others.
Woman did not
learn in time to value freedom-and
peace.
Yet modern German women have met their
tragic end not altogether without honor. Wo-
92
1HE CASE OF WOMAN
men have dissolved their clubs rather than take
"Gleichschaltung."
And one, Toni Pfiilf,
Reichstag member for a Bavarian peasant district, met death rather than yield . Last May
Hitler summoned the Reichstag to make public
submission in the Kroll Opera House before
him. Only Toni Pfiilf, alone among her party
members, the Social Democrats , voted: NO!
She would not bend her neck. But she was not
Jewish; there was no Palestine for her, no refuge but death. She took poison rather than submit to Hitler , enslaver of woman, the Accused ,
of Tonight.
THE CASE OF THE
AMERICAN
LEGION
by
EDWARD J. NEARY
participate in this meeting as the representative designated by our distinguished National Commander, commissioned to speak
for the more than one million World War veterans who have banded together in the great
American Legion.
There are some who might question the right
of The American Legion to participate in a
meeting of this character. There are those who
might feel that our activities should be limited
and confined to those fields in which our efforts
have been most publicized and, unfortunately,
very of ten distorted.
T11e American Legion is properly interested
as an organization in the fostering of American
ideals and principles and in the spreading of
that Americanism which has been the hope and
inspiration of liberty loving peoples since the
foundation of our beloved nation. This type of
Americanism is not that which is confined to a
narrow, bigoted program which exalts the few
and exploits the many, which guarantees free-
I
94
THE CASE OF THE AMERICAN LEGION
