Page 196 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The American Diplomats 183

man foreign minister, the German ambassador to the United states, or the
counselor to the German embassy in Washington (dr. leitner) appealed
to senior american officials to stop the trial. dodd reminded the foreign
minister that americans were indeed shocked by “many things” in Ger-
many and that the american government did not have the authority, even
if it was so inclined, to stop the trial. When John Hickerson, the assistant
chief of the division of Western european affairs, made a similar point to
dr. leitner, the latter said that if “circumstances were reversed, the German
Government would certainly find a way of stopping such a proceeding.”
in polite diplomatic language, Hickerson replied, “it is my understanding
that the German Government is not so limited in the action it can take
in such matters as is the american Government.” secretary of state Hull
told the German ambassador that his assistants had “ransacked” all the law
books and had found no legal ground for stopping the trial. the proceed-
96
ing took place as planned in front of twenty thousand people, including
Governor alfred smith and Mayor Fiorello la Guardia. Officially called
the “Case of Civilization against Hitler,” it found the Nazis guilty of “high
crimes against civilization.” the press gave the trial extensive publicity; the
New York Times, for example, carried a front-page article on March 8, 1934,
that described the event in considerable detail. 97
Nazi leaders leveled a barrage of protests against criticisms from abroad,
and when that failed they resorted to ridicule. in august 1935, Goebbels
derided the foreign press by declaring, “when one looks askance at a Jew
on Kurfürstendamm, then there arises a cry to be heard from london to
Peking.” He advised the press to turn its attention to other, more important
events, such as the war in abyssinia and the plans for world revolution be-
ing hatched in Moscow. 98
Germany’s complaints did not deter american diplomats from continu-
ing to monitor the Nazi persecution of Jews, and they often reported on
developments not widely known at the time outside of Germany. For ex-
ample, on april 23, 1937, ambassador dodd informed the state depart-
ment that the secret police had suppressed all eighty lodges of the B’nai
B’rith, an organization devoted to humanitarian and charitable work. in
addition, the police had confiscated 1.5 million marks in cash and real estate
worth two million marks from the Jews, losses that, according to dodd,
would “hurt the poorer members of the Jewish community.” leaders of
that community were informed that these measures had been taken in re-
taliation against “foreign anti-Nazi agitation.” 99
in august 1938, the Nazis announced several measures that, according