To mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Library, we’re introducing a new series of articles, selected from the writings of Dr Alfred Wiener and his contemporaries, from the earliest days of his organisation.
This serialised edited set of articles selected from the monthly edition of the Centralverein Zeitung serves as an exceptionally rich contemporary primary source. The articles, meticulously edited and translated by our Senior Archivist Howard Falksohn, are presented in chronological order so the reader is encouraged to suspend the benefit of hindsight and to engage with their content as if they were experiencing the era as it unfolded.
13th July 1922 / Is The Danger Over?
“All over, the distribution of leaflets and the plastering of effigies starts again. Despite the holiday season and the summer heat, one rally follows another. What is the point of all this? What does this gathering storm mean?”
1 February 1923 / From Munich’s Dark Days
“Hitler’s flag-raising ceremony is over. He was unable to carry out his threats against the Parliament, the government and the Jews…”
26 April 1923 / The Anti-Semitic Movement in Central Germany
“The focal point of fascism in Central Germany is to be found in Strassfurt, where under the direction
of Hans Hottenrot the ‘Mitteldeutsche Presse’ appears, a paper of the very worst tone”
13 December 1923 / The Flat Land
“On the day of Hitler’s Putsch, the Jews of another village are prevented from leaving their homes by armed men. Elsewhere, death threats are issued, which are followed through at night by pounding of the window shutters and shots, so that the frightened villagers do not dare to go to bed for nights on end.”
13 November 1925 / Cabarets, joke books, cheerful weekly papers and the “Jewish widow”
“No one will be allowed to claim that the Jew is exempt from the jokes of the day, from the ridicule of the poet in his peculiarities and foibles…”
1 April 1927 / Should it go on like this?
“The past two years have shown that the National Socialist German Workers’ Party is on the right road, that it is marching, that the unbroken and unbreakable social revolutionary energy is inherent within it.”
