Foreign News: Bleibtreu

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As they read the Süddeutsche Zeitung one morning last week, Munich's 3,400 Jews felt fresh vitriol in their old wounds. A letter to the editor, signed with the pseudonym "Adolf Bleibtreu" (Stay True to Adolf), screamed at the Jews: "Go ahead and go to America, even though the people there have no use for you either. They have had enough of you bloodsuckers. Several of the Amis [slang for Americans] have already told me they forgive us for everything except one thing: that we did not gas all the Jews, for many are now enjoying life in America."

A thousand Jews, mostly D.P.s from nearby camps, set out for the Süddeutsche's offices. Munich police nervously phoned U.S. Military Government, were told that since the demonstration had no permit, the police could go ahead and) break it up. Cops formed a line in the path of the crowd, but the Jews marched right through it. Two mounted police squads bore down on the demonstrators, who fought back with stones, bricks and clubs. Shots cracked; three Jews fell, wounded by bullets. Enraged, the D.P.s overturned and burned a police truck, injured 26 policemen with bricks. Two companies of U.S. military police arrived. With a Jewish Army chaplain, they persuaded the demonstrators to disperse.

Next morning, the Süddeutsche apologized for its stupidity in printing the letter, explained it had done it only to prove that the danger of anti-Semitism still was rife in Germany. Unappeased by the hapless apology, Bavaria's Jewish community proclaimed: "None of us wants to stay in this country . . . We have our own country now."