All Fools' Day

On Friday of last week news cables from Berlin to the U. S. seemed to be hinting at more than they could say: one Alfred Rosenberg--surely a strange name for a Nazi--had been appointed Chief of the Foreign Policy Division of the National Socialist Party. Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath had offered his resignation and then withdrawn it. Three days later the world learned what had happened:

Appalled by the growing tide of world resentment against the Hitlerites and a Germany that could permit them to govern, realizing what desperate harm this was doing the nation's industry, Baron von Neurath and Vice Chancellor von Papen fought for hours against the proclamation of Adolf Hitler's Jewish boycott. In the end they rushed to old President von Hindenburg. Baron von Neurath offered his resignation, was finally persuaded to withdraw it. Old Paul agreed absolutely with his two Nationalist ministers and added a private complaint of his own : he had just learned that his name had appeared without authorization on anti-Jew proclamations in Munich. Like a naughty schoolboy Handsome Adolf was summoned to the Feldmarschall's office, and Handsome Adolf meekly backed down. He was willing to call off the boycott, he realized its folly, but what could he do? Orders could not stop it, the Nazis would run wild. President von Hindenburg reminded his Chancellor of his oath to defend the rights of all law-abiding citizens. He threatened to declare martial law and abolish the Government. Then a compromise was reached: the boycott would be declared, but for nine hours on Saturday only. And it must be peaceful.

On All Fools' Day therefore the Nazis, all in their brown shirts, went out with buckets of paste and rolls of posters, the most sprightly of which were black & yellow, simply marked QUARANTINE. By specific orders no banks or newspapers were picketed or postered but almost every Jewish-owned shop in Germany received both attentions. There was little violence. The New York Evening Post's Correspondent Albion Ross was punched on the back of the neck for attempting to enter a Jewish store (other U. S. correspondents were not molested). In Hamburg a Jew shot a Nazi officer and was himself killed in jail. In Berlin photographers were ready to snap pictures of people attempting to enter Jewish stores. In Annaberg pickets were ready with stickers to place on the foreheads of shoppers: "We Traitors Bought from Jews." They were little used. Nazi bands played lustily in the public squares to keep the populace amused and at nightfall the great boycott was over. Nazi headquarters promptly announced that the nefarious foreign Jews, whose spreading of "atrocity stories" this curious performance was supposed to punish, had all seen the error of their ways and that it was extremely unlikely that the official boycott would be resumed on Wednesday, as had been originally announced. The brownshirts went out and scraped the stickers off the stores.

None less than the former Kaiser suddenly appeared among the forces of moderation last week. From Doorn came an official message: "Loyal followers of the House of Hohenzollern will refrain from Jew-baiting."

Judges & Children. End of the official boycott and lessening of physical violence did not mean that the troubles of Jews were ending last week. Minister of Justice for Prussia Kerrl ordered all Jewish Judges to hand in their resignations, an order that promptly removed even Chief Justice of the Prussian Supreme Court Kurt Soelling. In future Jewish lawyers allowed to practice in Prussia will be limited to the proportion of Jews to the

State's population 1%. Jewish children were driven from public schools. In Bavaria, Baden, Thuringia, Wuerttemberg, Hesse, the Nazis forbade kosher slaughtering of meat. The National Government forbade any Jew to leave Germany without special police permission stamped on his passport. Chief Engineer Walter Schaeffer of the Rundfunk Wireless Organization was dismissed from his post, committed suicide. Albert Einstein's bank deposits ($5,955 in securities, $1,191 in cash) were confiscated. The Professor announced that he would renounce his German citizenship.

Reaction. The most obvious reaction to all this was on the Berlin Stock Exchange. For four weeks in happy anticipation of a Nazi New Deal, the Berlin Bourse had boomed. Fortnight ago brokers announced that many issues were selling 300% above their crisis lows. Last week it crashed. Stocks dropped 20 to 30 points. There were moments of panic selling. Meanwhile the world fight against Nazi Jew-baiting continued.

Moscow. Soviet Russia is normally one of the largest importers of German goods. The Kremlin stood ready to cancel millions of dollars of German contracts, were holding them out as bait for U. S. recognition.

Paris. Two mass meetings were called. A newly organized International League against Anti-Semitism called upon Jewish shops through Paris to boycott German goods. Jewish merchants posted signs GERMAN SALESMEN WILL NOT BE RECEIVED. In Marseilles a mass meeting protested Emil Ludwig's criticism of the Treaty of Versailles. Boos against Ludwig suddenly subsided when it was announced that Author Ludwig had been exiled from Germany. The French Line seized the opportunity to advertise that kosher food would be served on its boats.

Buenos Aires. At a protest meeting in Luna Park attended by nearly 20,000 people three Nazi sympathizers were severely beaten.

London. In the House of Lords Viscount Cecil, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Marquess of Reading, Earl of Iddesleigh urged Government action.

Havana. All Jewish shops were closed for one day.

Warsaw. Throughout Poland Jewish shops were closed, protest meetings were held, Rabbis declared a general fast.

New York. The most violent boycott scheme came from the same Lawyer Aaron Sapiro who once sued Henry Ford for $1,000,000 for defaming the Jewish race. Acting as though there really existed that chief bugaboo of Jew-baiters, a secret international Jewish commercial organization, he proposed an international boycott of German goods by Jewish importers and commission merchants "from Vladivostok and Shanghai to Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg." He offered to organize a general staff to help importers all over the world find substitutes for German goods and send weekly bulletins to leaders of Jewish communities in every city.

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