13th July 1922
Is The Danger Over?
On Saturday, June 24, by the time the terrible news[1] was conveyed by telegraph from Grunewald to the towns and villages throughout the Fatherland, the editorial for the next issue of our “CV Zeitung” had already been written. Its headline reads: “In face of a gathering storm of hostility to the Jews.” “Everywhere,” it said, “the flames of Jew-hatred are once again raging ferociously.
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? We are not so naive as to immediately impute plans for a global takeover by the ‘leadership of the German nationalists’ or ‘the Elders of Hamburg[2]’, although these do actually exist in contrast to the ‘Elders of Zion’[3].”
That said there is no doubt that there are, to a certain extent, orders being carried out which have a pre-determined goal. What precisely, we do not know. Such was the manifestation of our anxious observations before[4] Rathenau’s assassination. The murder, the arrests that followed, and the revelations from confiscated papers have together cruelly confirmed these fears. Those who aided and abetted the murder, those who prepared the way for it, were German nationalists and came from German nationalist circles.
In Hamburg, a conspiracy to put twelve “Jewish personalities” to death was uncovered. In Oldenburg, German nationalists’ lists of proscribed Oldenburg Jews are removed from public view. Secret letters from the Gauwart of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund[5], Erich Bade in Schwerin[6], who promoted the murder, become known; they demand the elimination of the Jews and request the dispatch of the most dependable members in advance. “We are facing the final battle,” Bade proclaims.
In almost every issue of the press there are reports about the agricultural labour cooperatives. The bosses explain to their subordinates “that they will soon have the opportunity to vent their spleen at the Jews”. The end of the outrages is not in sight.
One of the most important questions, the answer to which will shed light on a carefully concealed underworld, is that of the financial backers of the German ‘Volkisch’ organisations. A long time ago there was talk of a secret letter from a German Nationalist addressed to many captains of heavy of industry. And this request for payment is said to have been complied with in large measure. The information, which came from a good source, was later contested. But surely there was some truth in these things. It is not news that money was collected from among the landowners to support counter propaganda to the murder.
Little attention has been paid to the news that Otto Prince Salm[7], in a letter to Count Behr[8] dated 24 May 1919, was collecting funds for “a large news organisation”, of course of a German-nationalist character. “There is a prospect that even hard-hit heavy industry will still provide considerable funds for this purpose, and I am also trying to get the former aristocratic ruling families to do the same[9]. But the other remaining elites must also provide quite different means to this end than they have hitherto.”
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, this shameful book of lies, is now praised no end. Prince Salm asks, “Perhaps you can provide a few thousand marks for the printing of the book, which will cost about 100,000 marks. I myself will donate the 1,000 marks that I would otherwise have subscribed for the parliamentary group to this enterprise, which seems more important to me at the moment.” Further information about the financial backers of the Deutschvölkisch movement was provided by letters confiscated from the chief postmaster Fasshauer, chairman of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund in Gera.
A letter addressed to the former Prince of Reuss, Heinrich XXVII[10], reads as follows: “Your Honour, with all our heartfelt thanks for the 3,000 Marks at our disposal that were entered in our books under ‘unknown’”. If one remembers that, according to the printed revelations of the former German National Secretary General Groschel (?), leading men of the German National People’s Party[11] provided Mr. Richard Kunze[12] with rooms and funds for his free lunches when he hadn’t even yet created Deutschsocial[13], the discussion has a fitting conclusion.
The German national movement was fed from a plethora of sources. They have not ceased and will continue to flow. Organisations capable of rousing the masses, powerful political accomplices and the press have been its agents. They will continue to serve it.
So, has the danger passed? Is there any certainty that this danger will be erased by banning organisations through legislation? There is not. And therefore a few words that must be said frankly to our friends. We have been experiencing a tragic sense of complacency in these troubled times. How often have we been told: “You are painting too dark a picture! It’s not half that bad.” Now the letters are coming in full of insight.
The reality is far worse than ever painted. The Deutschvölkisch […..arbeit][14] has proved itself to be a danger to German Jewry, and much more so to the German Fatherland. Our work will be more necessary than ever. Philipp Scheidemann[15] says these days in the “Vorwärts[16]”: “The antisemitic poison can only be rendered harmless by vigorous educational work.” For years we have been preaching this work. And even though much could be done – how much had to be omitted because people and means were lacking.
All of you must help! Learn to confront the enemy! Attend our public speaking classes! Educate yourselves from the numerous publications of the Philo-Verlag[17]! Pass them on to your Christian acquaintances, as has happened already a hundred thousand times! Take a look at the issues of the “C.V.-Zeitung” that you have read. On suitable occasions and in a proper manner, bring the Jewish question into the conversation and tell our Christian fellow-citizens what the Jewish German really represents.
The German peoples only achieved their successes through tireless detailed work. With us, things are still much harder. It is more than ever your urgent duty to provide the Centralverein generously and plentifully with what it needs. Don’t be stingy! Not for its sake! For your sake! We need everyone, for whom the Fatherland and Judaism are sacred.
Dr Alfred Wiener
Translated and edited by Howard Falksohn, Head Archivist.
[1] Walther Rathenau, Germany’s foreign minister and the first Jew to hold a cabinet post in Germany, was assassinated by a members of a paramilitary rightwing group on 24 June 1922.
[2] Possible reference to the Hamburg Circle, a group pf opponents to the liberal democracy of the Weimar Republic, who published their views in the Hamburg-based, antisemitic monthly, Der Volkssturm https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/item/277532/diec_the_hamburg_circle_2021.pdf?sequence=1&i sAllowed=y
[3] Ie juxtaposing the factual with the fabricated antisemitic text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion purporting to be evidence of a world Jewish conspiracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion
[4] Editor’s emphasis
[5] This was the largest and most antisemitic organisation in Germany after World War One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschv%C3%B6lkischer_Schutz-_und_Trutzbund
[6] According to Uwe Lohalm in Völkische Radikalismus: Die Geschichte des DeutschVölkische Schutz und Trutzbund, the two assassins along with two others stayed at Bade’s home on the day of the murder though Bade denies all knowledge of it. https://www.zeitgeschichtehamburg.de/contao/files/fzh/Digitalisate/Uwe%20Lohalm%20Voelkischer%20Radikalismus.pdf
[7] Otto II zu Salm-Horstmar (1867-1941) was a German nobleman and rightwing politician
[8] Georg-Henning Graf von Bassowitz-Behr (1900-1949) became an SS Gruppenführer who died in a Russian labour camp two years after being sentenced for crimes committed during his involvement with Einsatzgruppe D in the Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-Henning_Graf_von_Bassewitz-Behr
[9] Aristocratic families which ruled Germany in pre Weimar Republic
[10] Heinrich XXVII, Prince Reuss Younger Line (1858-1928)
[11] DNVP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_National_People%27s_Party
[12] Richard Kunze (1872-1945) Antisemitic rightwing politician
[13] Reference to the Deutsch Sociale Partei (DSP), which Richard Kunze founded
[14] This word is illegible
[15] Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann (1865-1939) was a politician of the German Social Democratic Party
[16] Vorwärts was the official newspaper of the German Social Democratic Party
[17] Philo-Verlag was a publishing house founded by the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo-Verlag
