Hitler v. Everybody

On New York's lower East Side 93 years ago, twelve public-spirited Jews, headed by one named Henry Jones, met in Sinsheimer's Essex Street barroom. Before the matzoth crumbs were swept away they had established a philanthropic society known as B'nai B'rith (Sons of the Covenant) to establish orphanages, run schools and convalescent homes. Originally a secret society, B'nai B'rith came into the open in 1920 with publication of its ritual. Today over 600 lodges of B'nai B'rith exist in 30 countries.

Last week armed German police smashed their way into Berlin's-B'nai B'rith lodge, arrested the members, cleared out the premises and seized the property. All over Germany other B'nai B'rith lodges were raided, seized and evacuated, as were children's homes, sanatoriums and homes for the aged supported by the society. Though most of those arrested were later released, the entire organization was ordered dissolved and its funds seized, on the pretext that one of the 14,000 German members of the B'nai B'rith had "engaged in Communistic propaganda." For years B'nai B'rith expenditures in Germany have averaged a million marks a year. Three weeks ago an order was issued forbidding Jewish organizations of any sort to hold any meetings whatever for 60 days. So stringent was this rule that if so many as five Jews should meet over a herring in a public cafe they might be liable to arrest.

It was not only his old punching dummy, the Jews, that Adolf Hitler was attacking last week. The doughty Fuehrer and his trained press squared off at the U. S. also. Though Nazi propagandists have been remiss in neglecting the satiric possibilities of Father Divine (see p. 61), they found a ripe windfall in Mississippi's savage blowtorch lynchings of last fortnight (TIME, April 26). This was amplified by newsreel shots of Sit-Down strikes. And Schwarze Korps, organ of Hitler's special guards, was able to do its bit. It filled a front page with pictures of U. S. female wrestlers, headlined it: AMERICAN LADIES.

Not forgotten was the private grudge fight between the Reich and New York's peppery little Mayor LaGuardia. With great disregard of time & space, the Berlin press picked Borough President George U. Harvey of Queens to be its candidate this autumn for Mayor of New York. All but annihilating Mr. Harvey's chances before the race began, Berlin newspapers solemnly declared: "If he is elected Mayor, Mr. Harvey has promised to eradicate Communists from New York in two weeks, with rubber hoses." In many ways Adolf Hitler's toughest opponent remained the Catholic Church.

Pope Pius' pastoral letter of last March, which took Germany sharply to task for persistent breaches of the Vatican-Nazi Concordat of 1933, had been answered by a rude peremptory note. Read the official resume: "The Vatican applies to the new Germany, democratic and parliamentary standards which are not applicable . . .

Germany's population is only one-third Catholic. . . . The Reich will not tolerate any interference with its internal life." Back on the calendar of German courts went the trials of Catholic nuns and priests for violations of the exchange laws diplomatically dropped last summer just before the Olympic Games. None of these came to trial last week, but as a feeler the People's Prosecutor took up the case of Chaplain Joseph Roussaint of Duesseldorf. Effort was made to prove the chaplain the organizer and ringleader of a united Catholic-Communist front. So little evidence of this could be produced that the prosecutor finally demanded 15 years' imprisonment for the less spectacular crime of "consorting with known Communists."

In a death-cell last week in Ploetzensee Penitentiary in Berlin sat pale-faced, intellectual Helmuth Hirsch, the 21-year-old Jew who was arrested last December for plotting to kill with a bomb "a high German official" who newshawks quickly assumed was Dictator Hitler. Hirsch declared: "I expect no clemency and I am calm and await death with perfect composure." Less calm was Berlin's U. S. Consul Raymond H. Geist who had gone to great pains to intercede for Prisoner Hirsch on the grounds that, though his family lives in Czechoslovakia, he is a U. S. citizen because his grandfather was. This week U. S. consular officials in Berlin pleaded fervently that Hirsch was under age when he committed the crime, was influenced by others. Because Hirsch has made a full confession they admitted that only "the intervention of Adolf Hitler or some other high official" could save him.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.