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GERMANY'S
JEWISH
TRAITORS
The Failure of the Jewish Intellectuals
In This Crisis
By Pierre Van Paassen
I I ><) not blame those Jewish financiers who
pulled Hitler out of the ditch by financing the
’Nazi Organization. It was their interest to
> mi. Class interest by far outweighs racial or
trligious associations. These men simply were
unspent capitalists. They looked after and saved
hr interest of big business and finance in a critical
hour.
I here is nothing to be gained in denouncing
these men as traitors to the Jewish people. They
ntver had anything in common with the Jewish
masses except that they have always tried “as great
Jewish leaders” in Germany to exert their in-
■iurnce on the Jewish masses in one issue or an-
hrr. Herr Oscar Wassermann is loyal to his
ss in society. Inflexibly loyal. Nothing in the
vorld is capable of coming between him and that
loyalty.
I hr men who did betray the Jewish masses
ii Germany and who go on betraying them are
"" middle-class Jewish intellectuals who refused
i d;i\s gone bv to stand solidly with the Jewish
trasses, who minimized the danger of a coming
Hitlerite terror, who, although they criticized
^ «/iism applied a criticism which stopped short
t condemning anti-Semitism on humanitarian
•.' Minds. I mean they did not join in the attack
n r '* roots of anti-Semitism which reside in the
' V! *tern that produces it. To all appearances these
rrn were quite ardent in their protests. But there
rtas no audacity in their ardor. They have dash.
I he\ have astounding ability, but their ability re-
mair immobile and sterile, timid and trembling.
I hr were and still are afraid to face the world
n,: xpound the real issues at stake. They did not
themselves at the head of the Jewish masses
tn > more than the corresponding non-Jewish
; nt " ectuals in a general way have taken the lead
n 'C fight against the all-engulfing wave of
m which is coming over the world,
hat do we hear today from the Jakob Wasser-
■ti is, the Feuchtwangers, the Reinhardts, the
:s. the Blumenfelds and all the other German-
h liberals and pacifists? The answer is we
nothing. Not a word has come from them,
are silent—even silent in exile. Reinhardt
/ 'C* to be drawn into political discussions.
*y irque has outright refused to support the anti-
■ v t congress which is to be held in Copen-
']• Franz Mehring admits that it is impossible
in the German intellectuals now in Paris in
nmon protest against Fascism. The one after
’ther hesitates to take position. Can it be
Fa
Jn
hr
Th
that they hope for a relenting in Hitler’s attitude
to themselves, “Zivilisationsliteraten,” as the Nazi
press disdainfully calls them? Is this silence a
prelude to compromise?
And what do we hear from our intellectuals?
What do we hear from Ludwig Lewisohn, for
instance? In a recent issue of the Sat ion, in an
article entitled “Germany’s Lowest Depths,” he
goes out of his way to befuddle the issues by as
cribing the white terror to mass psychology. As
if it were not a definite economic motif which im
pelled Hitler to ruin the Jewish competitors of his
middle-class supporters. But of economic* motifs,
I)r. Lewisohn, who announced in the most reac
tionary journal of Paris recently that he was tak
ing his stand as a bourgeois, of economic issues he
nor the bourgeoisie in general wants to hear in this
hour when the struggle concerns their own “heil-
igsten Gueter.’’ Race, pride of race, nationalism
based on mass psychology, those are Hitler’s stock
arguments. Racism is the gigantic illusion which
Hitler has worked up in Germany-—for economic
reasons. The economic issue and the social prob
lem, the Jewish nationalists will not face. For if
they did they would have to take their stand openly
and frankly and the Jewish masses would then
know what to expect of them and what side of the
fence they are. They prefer hedging to facing the
music.
In the Nation article Dr. Lewdsohn speaks
in fearful whispers about the orthodox community
and about the Zionists in Germany—of whom he
has not heard—and one receives the impression of
one-knows-not-what terrible fate having overtaken
these people. We may well ask where Dr. Lewis
ohn looks for news about the German Zionists?
“Die Juedische Rundschau’ ’ the official organ of
the Zionist Federation of Germany has never
ceased publication. During all the recent travail it
never missed a single issue. “Die Juedische Rund
schau” is the only Jewish publication in fact al
lowed to appear by Goebbels.
And why is this so? This is so because the edi
tors of “Die Juedische Rundschau," the official or
gan of Zionism in the Reich, in its qualitv as a
nationalist publication, compliments, the Zionists
compliment Hitler on the triumph of the nation
alist ideology in the Reich! That men are silent
under the Nazi terror can he understood. That
men’s spirits are crushed under the wave of besti
ality and barbarism can be imagined. That men
try to understand the phenomena of our time and
in doing so reach an erroneous conclusion, that also
PIERRE VAN PAASSEN
*
*
-K
*
IPe are printing thr following article by Pierre
I an Paassen, on the situation of the Jews tn
Germany since Hitler’s advent to power, be
cause of Mr. Pan Paassen's consistent cham
pionship of the Jewish people, and not because
we are in agreement with everything he says,
Mr. Pan Paassen’s heroic work in Palestine
.luring the 1939 troubles is well-known. He
endeared himself to the hearts of Jews the
world over by his courage in standing by the
Jews of Errtz Israel in that dark hour of their
history. Since that time Pierre Pan Paassen
has never wavered in his attachment to our
people. The Polish Government banned him
in January this year for writing "Such Is Po
land” in ''Opinion.” The Schutn Staffeln of
Hitler threw him in jail in Munich on April 4,
after hunting him all over Germany as the
author of a series of articles in the general
press. Mr. Pan Paassen was severely beaten
and forced to drink a gallon of castor-oil. His
writings are now banned in Germany as being
those of a Dutch Jew who is guilty of misin
forming thr American public on the Nani
revolution. Mr. Pan Paassen is, of course,
neither a Dutchman nor a Jew. He is at
present in Hiro-Hidjan.—EDITOR.
is comprehensible. But that men who call them
selves Zionists and intellectuals so far forget the
nameless sufferings of the Jewish masses at the
hands of the Nazi torturers as to compliment Hit
ler upon his success, that is unpardonable. That
cannot be overlooked. Nor will it be overlooked
by the Jewish masses in days to come.
“Jewish history," says the editor of “Die Jue
dische Rundschau,” “Jewish history will show com
prehension for Hitler. He will be cited as an ex
ample to prove that what makes history, are not
the times, nor the men, nor the classes in society,
nor economic factors, but imponderables and the
irrational things of faith, the aspiration of men for
an ideal, whatever that ideal may be.” . . .
And so, you see, a nationalist ideology remains
a nationalist ideology, whether it is German or
Jewish!
The orthodox Jews in Germany, if we may
judge by the declarations of certain of their spokes
men, are even more pro-Hitler than the Zionists.
In the "Juedische-Presse,” official organ for the
defense of orthodox interests (Vienna-Bratislava),
Dr. Weinberg, professor at the rabbinical college
of Berlin, not only denounces the “Grcuer’-propa-
gandist and in general those who exaggerate the
extent of Jewish persecutions in the Reich, but
he has this to say on the subject of Hitler:
"In a general way it must be said that a good
deal of sympathy is felt and a good deal of un
derstanding is breaking through in orthodox Jew
ish milieus for Hitler, something of which the
chiefs of the (Nazi) movement are well aware.
Glabige’ Jews are thankful to Hitler for the
energy with which he combats the communists
and the atheists w’ho in Russia destroy' our re
ligion and w’ho menace all civilizations based on
religion! To be sure in the course of this great
revolution which passes (Please turn to page 18)
Ty
SOUTHERN ISRAELITE *
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