862.00 P.R./228
Extract From Political Report of the Chargé in Germany (Gilbert)12
3. The Anti-Jewish Campaign. Though unattended by spectacular developments, the anti–Semitic campaign is being perpetuated by the infliction of petty annoyances upon the Jews and by measures designed to make their lives as difficult as possible.
The Völkischer Beobachter of August 19 gleefully reported the decision of a local court at Remscheid which held that a husband cannot be held legally responsible for the debts of his wife to Jewish stores. The hope is expressed that this judgment will discourage Jews from granting credit and will put a stop to wives buying in Jewish stores, a matter, it is pointed out, which often leads to marital strife. The Völkischer Beobachter stresses that the court decision applied to the case of the household of an ordinary citizen and not to the family of a Party member or government official which ipso facto are forbidden to patronize Jews.
The Berliner Börsenzeitung of September 1 reported that the National Socialist Lawyers League had completed its “world catalog” of Aryan lawyers in foreign countries. German business men were exhorted to consult this list in order to bring to an end the representation of German interests abroad by Jewish advocates. The Berliner Tageblatt of September 3 reported that on the basis of a decision given by the Führer’s Deputy and the Minister of the Interior, the National Socialist Lawyers League will proceed to exclude from its membership all lawyers who have a quarter or more Jewish blood. It is explained that the special permission of the Führer’s Deputy and the Minister of the Interior was necessary for this ruling in view of the provision in the executory ordinances to the Nuremberg Citizenship Law of 1935 prohibiting various associations and organizations to set up stricter requirements for racial purity than those provided in the Citizenship Law itself which disqualified as Jews persons having three or more Jewish grandparents. It does not appear that expulsion from the Nazi Lawyers League will exclude the cross-breed Jewish lawyers from practicing at the bar but it will unquestionably deprive them of the privileges attaching to membership in the legal professional organization. The drive against the Jewish lawyers was carried a step further in the announcement in the press of the same date that German legal apprentices who worked in Jewish law offices would be disqualified from taking the regular bar examinations.
[Page 325]Attention may finally be called to the passage in Göring’s Stuttgart speech of September 2 (reported in the Embassy’s telegrams No. 216 of September 3, 4 p.m.,13 and No. 220 of September 4, 1 p.m.) in which he exhorted German firms to cease having themselves represented by Jews abroad and in which he warned that should the boycott be renewed, “the damage which arises for Germany will be solely paid for by the Jews in Germany.”