History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust

Headline: Reichstag Strips Jewish Subjects Of Citizenship
Sub-Headline: Stung By Brodsky's Slur, It Proclaims Swastika Sole Emblem Of Reich

Publication Date: Monday, September 16, 1935
Historical Event: Hitler Announces Nuremberg Race Laws
This database includes 982 articles about this event
Tags: Gannett full page downloadable; Early Acts of Persecution
Article Type: News Article
Newspaper: The Montgomery Advertiser
Location: Montgomery, Alabama
Page Section and Number: 1
Author/Byline: AP
Article Text: NURNBERG, GERMANY. Sept. 15.—(AP)—Adolf Hitler's Reichstag, stung by the criticism of a New York magistrate against the Nazi emblem, tonight pronounced the swastika to be the Reich's sole flag, hurled defiance to Jews throughout the world and limited German citizenship to members of the Germanic race.

The specially summoned lawmakers acted after their Fuehrer, in a fiery mood, had opened the Reichstag session with a bitter attack on Lithuanians for their alleged treatment of Germans in the Memel territory, and had called upon the solons to approve three new laws.

Der Fuehrer and his legislators permitted Jews to continue as German subjects but forbade them to fly any flag save the blue and white Zionist emblem.

Hitler and the Reichstag also forbade inter-marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans and provided for punishment for sexual relations between the two.

They also forbade Jews to engage Aryan domestic servants under the age of 45 years.

Hitler charged Lithuania with responsibility for events in Memel which, is said, contained the seeds of trouble. Then he made known his refusal to allow Germany to be drawn into any international controversy in which she is not directly involved.

Expressing his contempt for communism, he voiced his appreciation of the United States Government's regrets for the Bremen-Brodsky incident in New York. But he used it as an example of how Jewry, even in high places, allegedly fights against the Nazi state.

(Magistrate Louis Brodsky in New York dismissed five men arrested when the swastika was ripped from the prow of the German liner Bremen at a Manhattan dock last month, commenting that "in the minds" of the defendants and others the Nazi emblem was a "pirate flag.")

Stricter Laws Threatened
The Reichsfuehrer threatened in his brief but vivid speech to enact even more stringent laws if today's legislation failed to solve the Jewish problem.

Two of the three laws he decreed dealt with the Jewish question; the third honored the swastika as the national emblem.

In a speech that lasted but 12 minutes, the Reichsfuehrer told his specially summoned lawmakers in apparent reference to both the Ethiopian and Memel questions that Germany would take no position on "any question which does not directly affect us," but "we look with interest to Lithuania."

"Memel, which was stolen from Germany and legalized by the League of Nations has for years tortured Germans only because they are members of the German nation and because they wanted to remain Germans," he declared.

"They are treated worse than criminals in other countries just because they are Germans."

Tremendous applause greeted his statement.

The German dictator, opening the Reichstag shortly after 9 p.m. tonight, plunged immediately into foreign questions. He said he desired to make short statement before introducing several laws at the close of the Nazi party convention scheduled to end tomorrow with army day.

Of the Memel question he asserted:
"Protests in Kaunas of signatory powers were without results. The German Government looked upon all this with, deep regret. We hope some day these assurances will not assume forms which might be regretted by the whole world.

"Preparations for coming elections constitute a breach of the treaty. Lithuania must be admonished with all possible means to hold to the treaties."

Hitler then went into the subject of communism and the alleged effects of the recent communist international congress at Moscow.

"We are determined to meet communism in Germany with more effective measures of national socialism," he said.

"The insult to the German flag in the United States for which the United States apologized in dignified form shows how far the international Jewish agitation has progressed."

He referred to the tearing down of the swastika from the liner Bremen in New York harbor last month.

Turning to anti-Jewish occurrences in Germany, Hitler told the legislators they grew out of the impatience of the German people "because German Jewry, encouraged by international propaganda, believed it could stage similar protests in Germany.

"In order to reach an amicable relation between the German people and the Jews the government will try to bring about legal regulations. The law, which will be read by Goerlng (General Hermann Wilhelm Goering, president of the Reichstag) constitutes only an attempt at legal regulations.

"However, should this not work out we'll have to take it up once again."

With this the Reichsfuehrer turned the meeting over to Goering, saying he would read the decrees.

He said by the first the "German flag will be given due honor and the second

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History Unfolded Contributor: Randall S.
Location of Research: Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)

Nuremberg Race Laws: Background (Encyclopedia Article)
Nuremberg Race Laws: Translation (Encyclopedia Article)
The Nuremberg Race Laws (The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students)
Anti-Jewish Legislation in Pre-War Germany (Encyclopedia Article)
Racism (Encyclopedia Article)

Bibliography

Burleigh, Michael, and Wolfgang Wippermann. The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Edelheit, Abraham J., and Hershel Edelheit. "Legislation, Anti-Jewish." In History of the Holocaust: A Handbook and Dictionary, pp. 299–331. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.

Friedländer, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Mosse, George L. Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.

Schleunes, Karl A. The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933–1939. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970.

Wistrich, Robert S. Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred. London: Thames Methuen, 1991.

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