Page 201 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

188 The American Diplomats

of propaganda, who voiced regret over the poor “press relations” between
the two countries, for which he blamed american journalists. some criti-
cism by foreigners was to be expected, but what most troubled him were
“the willful misstatements of fact, and [the] slander and libel against the
person of the reich Chancellor and those immediately around him.” this
treatment infuriated many people, because the Führer was “venerated by
every German”; Goebbels then indicated that he would use a word that
he knew would “astonish” Wilson: “to the Germans there was something
‘heilig’ [sacred] about the Führer. therefore the Germans deeply resented
the personal attacks on him.” Politely but firmly, Wilson told Goebbels that
he had spoken at length with american journalists in Germany and had
concluded that most were serious professionals trying to tell the truth, al-
though he granted that they viewed developments in Germany “through
american eyes” and from an american background. But Wilson added that
the “most pressing thing that stood between any betterment of our Press
relationship was the Jewish question,” a point he reiterated toward the end
of the interview. 110
Over the next seven months, ambassador Wilson, his staff in Berlin,
and the officials in the consular offices sent no fewer than forty-eight dis-
patches to Washington on the persecution of the Jews, and their thrust was
similar to that of previous reports on this topic. these diplomatic messages
are noteworthy, not only because they reflect the continuing interest of
american diplomats in the issue but also because they demonstrate that the
Nazis were stepping up their campaign against the Jews throughout 1938.
the violence during Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Crystal (November
9–10), did not signal the adoption of a new policy; nor was it a reaction to
the murder of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish refugee from Ger-
many. it was the high point of a long series of increasingly harsh measures
taken to impoverish and humiliate the Jews.
some of the dispatches touched on such relatively minor restrictions on
Jews as the refusal to issue them passports for temporary travel abroad, but
most dealt with decrees that imposed heavy burdens on them. One dispatch
written by the ambassador himself described the decree of april 26, which
required all Jews—that is, all those defined as non-aryans by the reich Citi-
zenship law of November 14, 1935—to itemize their assets held in Germany
and abroad, a measure designed to provide information to the government
for the imposition of new, severe taxes on Jews. if rudolf Brinkmann, the
state secretary of the German Ministry of the National economy, was to
be believed, Jewish wealth in Germany and austria amounted to seven