History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust

Headline: GERMANY GOES TO THE POLLS

Publication Date: Sunday, March 5, 1933
Historical Event: Nazis Boycott Jewish Businesses
This database includes 4,061 articles about this event
Tags: Gannett full page downloadable; Early Acts of Persecution
Article Type: Editorial or Opinion Piece
Newspaper: The Courier-Journal
Location: Louisville, Kentucky
Page Section and Number: 2
Author/Byline: --
Article Text: Under the aegis, or rather the iron fist, of the present Hitler dictatorship, Germany goes to the polls today to elect a new Reichstag and a new Prussian Diet. If the announced purposes of the Hitlerites now in control are carried out the vote will be a travesty on representative government. The Opposition will be outlawed or suppressed. The republic will cease to be. The National Socialist-Nationalist regime will continue its autocratic rule, whatever the outcome of the voting. As one of the Hitlerites has declared, Hitlerism will save the German people whether they want it or not.

The campaign hats been marked by Fascist strong arm methods, suppression and terrorism. Freedom of speech and of the press except to the Government parties has been virtually abolished. The right of assembly has been set aside or prevented by the gangster tactics of the Hitlerites. Party headquarters and even homes have been raided by the Hitler Brown shirts acting as police officers, for Hermann Wilhelm Goering, Minister without portfolio and Hitler's chief lieutenant, has filled the police forces with Hitlerites. The radio has been monopolized by the Government factions, and no opposition voice can be lifted against the regime in power. The usual violence of the Nazi hoodlums has been visited on the Communists, but it has been extended to the moderate and law-abiding Socialists, the substantial Catholic Centrists and the sturdy Jewish element of the population.

The excuse for the iron fist methods is the incendiary fire that swept the $5,000,000 Reichstag building last Monday. This act of arson, committed no doubt by a lone fanatic, has been laid at the door of the Communist party, recognized by law and second In strength to the Nazis. Its 100 members in the Reichstag have been put in prison on trumped-up charges of complicity, will be outlawed when the next session convenes.

The burning of the famous building was the pretext for the declaration of a virtual state of martial law and what may eventuate in a coups d'etat by the Hitler Government. According to the Paris press it is a crude excuse on Hitler's part to crush the Opposition just before the election, and there are intimations that the Hitlerites themselves may have been the firebugs. The London Times expresses wonder why with the police power in the hands of the Nazis the extensive preparations alleged by the Government to have pre- ceded the conflagration escaped the notice of the guards.

The situation is fraught with grave danger not only to Germany but the rest of Europe. Civil strife threatens the one, the sudden collapse of the post-war structure the other. The emotional and irresponsible Hitlerites are in the saddle. Can they stay or are they riding to a fall?
History Unfolded Contributor: Carlos G.
Location of Research: Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)