Letter of the Head of the Nazi Workers Union at Ullstein Publishers to Hitler
Source: H. Friedlander & S. Milton Archives of the Holocaust, Vol 20, (New York 1993), p. 26-27. [Ullstein, a Berlin Jewish family, were among the largest publishers in Germany, issuing many newspapers, magazines and books]
21 June 1933 National Socialist Workers Union of Ullstein To: Chancellor's Office Wilhelmstrasse Berlin
As the head of the National Socialist Workers Union of the Ullstein publishing house, which is one of the largest unions in the Berlin Gau , I have the difficult duty of writing to you with a request to examine the following problem and solving it as soon as possible. On the official boycott day, Ullstein Publishers were exempted from the boycotted businesses because of its being essential. Now the firm is suffering very much from the boycott. Because of the quantity of weekly and monthly workers being laid off, there is growing unrest among the employees of whom a large part are Party members and even a larger part are members of the union. The employees implore me to seek help from the authorities so that the livelihood of thousands of our compatriots will not be endangered. The number of volumes printed by the publishing house is about half what it used to be. I am informed daily of hair-raising stories about the boycott. A director of one of our agencies is being refused entry to the Party on grounds of his being an employee of our publishing house and as such an enemy of the movement. The head of the Party chapter apparently is not aware of the implications of such an explanation. If so, we should all feel we are the enemies of the party in our being employed by the publisher and making our living. However the situation at the publishing house has changed remarkably. All the Jewish editors were fired and Christians hired in their place.... The party presented the management with a list of 25 editors who according to them were of the highest professional standard, with a recommendation to employ them. The publishers acted on that list, but a substantial part of them turned out to be unqualified.... I also have to note that there are many things in our struggle against Jewry that are unclear to me. After a long struggle, we have obtained the discharge of another 35 Jews, among them Dr. Erloeser. In this case the management informed us that a certain Ministry applied to them with the request to leave Dr. Erloeser in his post. I myself... have been a member of the Party since 1925. I have always fought for the purity of German press.... But today, when such a heavy responsibility as the head of the largest union in Berlin lies on my shoulders, I cannot do my job while the young comrades are conducting a fight against Ullstein without thinking first. I cannot believe that the Party wants 19,000 good Germans (not including their families) to be destroyed only to harm the three Ullsteins...
