Chapter V: Swindlers and Racketeers
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(page 77)"Let yourself step out of the lead, let yourself be thrown out of your rooms, let yourself be sued in court, let yourself sit in a doghouse, let yourself be whipped, let yourself be tortured half to death -- but you must become rich!(1) -- those are the words of an Eastern Jew, whose son is off for the wide world. To suffer any torment, to take any pain upon oneself, to shy away from no effort, in order to get rich, for "my honor is my money.'"
As tightly packed as ants in their hill are the Eastern European Jews in their ghettos. There are only a few craftsmen among them, nearly all are dealers. The most improbable professions are seen there -- such as the Jew who roves around the marketplace with a corkscrew, to uncork the vodka bottles for the peasants with it.
So numerous are the Eastern Jews, that they get in one another's way. To do business among themselves means little profit, for each one knows every wrinkle in the tricks of the other and is just as crafty. But if a non-Jew appears from whom money can be made, those striving after profit fall upon him like a swarm of blowflies. With elbows
pushing into one another and bickering fiercely over every penny, they vegetate in the ghetto but in their hearts burns a violent greed for
money, which makes them capable of every act and any outrage.
Now, when one of these Eastern Jews, adorned in the filthy kaftan and with forelocks, once leaves his ghetto, when he arrives in a country where fidelity and faith are not empty words, when one man does not sniff at another like a swindler, where the people are free and enjoy equal rights -- then the Eastern Jew becomes a dangerous predator. For
him, who is without the sense of right and wrong, who shrinks from no trespassing of the law, for whom the entire world appears to be only a means for the unfolding of his own ego, every path now stands open. [78] But when he does find a locked door, he gets it open -- if possible, with cunning, but with force if need be. Our law is not his law, our morality is not his morality, deception and crime do not seem to him dishonorable. With time, the immigrant Jew also learns that one doesn't have to absolutely violate the law. It is enough to circumvent it or to slip through its meshes. The criminality of the foreigners -- for a
significant segment of the "foreigners" continually residing in Germany in reality consists of immigrating Jews -- is very revealing. Let us
examine the statistics of the crimes and offenses committed by
foreigners(1). From this we discover that of 100 convicted foreigners, 70% -- therefore more than two-thirds -- are "Poles" and "Czechs," or, in other words, Polish or Czech and Galician Jews. If one takes the number of foreigners in general residing in Germany, one sees that, of 1000 residing foreigners, the number of convicted are:
Lithuanians...29.8 Rumanians...25.4 Poles...21.8 Czechs...17.7
Those are the nations which send us their Jews. On the other hand, however:
Sweden...7.3 Denmark...5.0 Switzerland...4.6 Netherlands...3.3
Those are the nations from which we do not get any Jews. . .These numbers speak for themselves.
As an example of the "career" of an Eastern Jew, let us here relate the history of the racketeer U., whom the author personally knew. It isn't the story of one of the major Jewish racketeers, who claim the attention of the newspapers, the courts and the public, but rather the tale of a completely average and typical Eastern Jew, one of the parasites who immigrated after 1918 and were naturalized by the "German Republic" during that period.
In the Spring of 1923, U., a middling tall, typically Jewish-looking man with reddish-blonde hair and colorless blue eyes, arrived in Germany. How he slipped over the border is his secret, but in any event he arrived without a visa. What he brought along with him [79] was not only his spotted and dirty suit, his torn shoes with their uneven heels --
but also his untamed desire for material success, his lack of scruples, and his "knowledge of languages." He could yammer away in a Yiddish accent in Polish and German -- almost like the red-bearded Social Democrat Charles Rappaport, who was famous not just for his aversion to any sort of bathing, but also for the fact that he could speak ten languages with a strikingly Jewish accent. What occupation a Jew takes up is purely incidental, for it is never matter of what he should do, but rather a matter of how much money he can make. One will become a politician, another a dentist or inn-keeper, but most remain dealers. U., also, was faithful to the tradition of his forebears, and he conducted his numerous obscure and, at first, his still not very
profitable businesses in the Scheunen Quarter of Berlin, that first station for all newly-arriving Eastern Jews. Yet he had higher aspirations, "society" attracted him, the society of the currency exchange vultures, who at that time were gathering in inflationary Germany in thick swarms.
The world city lay open before U., here he wanted to create his good fortune. His good fortune -- what did that mean to him?
To visit fine clubs, where waiters in black tie toadied to a clientele of racketeers, where the noise of a nigger band, cigar smoke, a din of voices, perfume and the smell of sweat provided the proper background for the throng of cramped dancing couples. To sit at the gaming table, to attend the races, to wear elegant clothes and to have an expensive barber give his Eastern Jewish head as European look as possible. No longer to be known as "the crook," but rather to be called "the rich merchant Alexander U." [To indulge his small] illnesses by frequently treating himself to the best physicians. To drive to winter sports or the lake and to marvel at the goyim who actually panted up the mountains or entered the cold water. To have much money, and still more money, to do profitable business and to watch how his rivals burst with envy. In later years, to go to Marienbad for the cure, to be chosen for the board of directors of the synagogue, to possess a villa in Dahlem. But each and every time -- women! Obliging, rayon-and-peroxided
beauties, who tolerate everything with a smile and who are ready for anything, with whom one can show off, who do not show their disgust, whom one can use at will, and to whom one owes no responsibility -- women whom one can own and pay for.
These were the ideals which U. wanted to realize. More and more often he let himself be seen in the cafés and nightclubs of Western Berlin, whose sham glamour, whose atmosphere of greasy dealings [80] and of
lechery irresistibly attracted him. In such a club, one of the better
Kaschemmen, his fate was decided -- he got to know Grete S. She was
a secretary and bookkeeper at some firm or other. She performed her work after a fashion, she gave no particular cause for complaint -- a thoroughly average Jewish office girl. She lived with her mother in Charlottenburg, in a small three-room flat, in the morning she packed up her sandwich, like thousands of other women in Berlin, but on Sunday evening she went into the café.
There the two found each other. From the acquaintanceship there soon developed an intimate friendship, for they complemented one another in the best way: Grete had money at her disposal, but U. knew how one can most profitably use money.
This was the time when the Mark sank into the abyss, when more and more zeros appeared on the bank notes and all those who were cautious racked their brains over what would come after the millions and
billions. The exchange rate of the Dollar, the single valid standard of all material and spiritual value, varied from hour to hour, the Mark could lose from five to ten, even twenty per cent of its value in the period from one afternoon to the next morning. Whoever knew how to cleverly make use of this, could double his money within a week, and during a month could multiply it twenty times over. One needed only to know what, when and where to buy or to sell. In this art of the
business of illusion, of the swindle, of speculation and deceit, U. was a master. He was able to prove this when S. placed money at his
disposal: she enjoyed the full trust of her boss, she always kept the key to the cashbox and she was the last to leave the office. U. was already waiting for her at the door, he took the cash -- all of it, to the last
million-Mark bill. By eight in the morning the money had to be back in the cashbox, else S. would be unmasked as a thief. But there were fifteen hours until eight o'clock, U. knew how to exploit them for the greatest profit for himself and for his financial backer, accomplice and lover.
This game lasted for weeks and then months. During the day, S. was the dutiful employee, but evenings and nights the couple spent in the clubs and dives which grew like toadstools on the manure of inflation. There was not only drinking and dancing there, no, the essential thing was the "business" -- cars loaded down with all sorts of goods, import and export licenses, commission [money] for procuring an apartment, hush-money for accessories. An apartment building for a hundred Dollars, girls, stocks, enterprises, false passports [81] and genuine
residency permits, any articles of real value, cocaine -- and above all currency -- was bought, sold, and resold. This was the murky water in which U. sported and fished. And did so with great success. Larger and larger became the pile of Dollar notes put aside as future capital. The couple did not have the remotest intention of speculating further with the money "earned" in this fashion -- for already foreign money from the foreign cashbox had to be paid for.
The Dollar notes put aside increased in a downright delightful fashion. And yet S. cried many a night: since her companion had gotten money in his hands, he had become the perfect gentleman, whom only his Jewish accent distinguished from his racial comrades who populated the Kurfürstendamm.
He had learned the art of bathing himself, strictly followed every "law of fashion" -- and too often for Grete's taste, let himself be persuaded to gamble. Meanwhile, his luck at cards stayed good -- or perhaps he knew how to help it along? But one thing more than anything else: U. was seeing women on the side. Grete's fat hips and her greasy hair were not very tempting, and there were so many appetizing women, who could be bought for good Dollar bills. . .
Thus U. was making progress along the route he had set for himself. The experts of the law may look for legal definitions for what this fine couple were doing -- at its most basic level, it was embezzlement and fraud.
It is characteristic of Jewish methods -- and that is what this narrative is about -- that in the event S. would have been caught, she would have had to expect only a slight punishment, for her boss had suffered no material harm. As concerns U., under the circumstances he was able to get off with no punishment at all, for by his craftiness and cunning he would have found means to prove that he had suspected nothing at all of the unlawful dealings of his "bride." The Jew is a master at finding sufficiently wide loopholes in the law, and with his money he can furnish himself with the best lawyers. . .
The further history of the pair is quickly told. When the inflation suddenly came to an end, that was also the end of the currency luck, and most of the newly rich and profiteers disappeared together with the many zeros on the bank notes. But not in the case of U. He had been clever enough to collect only Dollars, and he proved to be the
sufficient" for becoming a solid "merchant," [82] to marry his bride, to procure an apartment on the Kaiserdamm and to become a member of "society."
Years went by, during which there was nothing in particular heard of U. When National Socialism triumphed in Germany, U. left this now inhospitable country and moved to the strongly democratic country of Switzerland. In December 1935, he was arrested under charges of offering for sale counterfeit bills to the Paris Soviet Trade delegation. Why shouldn't that which was fair for the brother of His Excellency Litvinov, also be proper for U.?
That is the tale of a small Jewish racketeer and swindler, not that of a
Barmat, Kutisker, Michael or Goldschmidt, rather that of an average
Jew, who led the life of a parasite and swindler using dubious means, but always unclean and dishonorable.
The device of the Jew reads: Exploit the economic situation! Be it business or politics, or best of all both at once. The Jewish racketeer
Rosenfeld furnishes a brief but excellent example of this, which we
take verbatim from the large French newspaper Le Matin(1):
"The Linder-Rosenfeld affair is gradually becoming clearer. Both of he main figures are emerging more and more plainly.
Michael Rosenfeld, born on 9 May 1903 in Smolensk, Russia, was the son of a physician in Moscow, who was forced by the Revolution to emigrate. The young Rosenfeld was smart, venturesome, educated and very ambitious and seemed to have but one goal before him: to make a profit! This desire misled him into not always employing the necessary care in the choice of his means. Some difficulties and an incident
involving post-dated checks on 21 January 1936 earned him expulsion from the country. He went to Zürich for a time without, however, breaking off his profitable enterprises. Everything was going quite well enough for him, and we find him at numerous transactions in which he personally regularly secured for himself a good share. Although his family had to suffer under the Bolshevists, he had no reservations at all about stepping in for the Soviets in more than one supply transaction. Apparently the weapons trade was a preferred area of work, without, however, his having to absolutely transgress the law in his dealings. [83] Without a doubt, Rosenfeld again returned to France using illegal means, and found opportunity through the events in Spain for a very
profitable involvement. As middleman between the Iberian customers and those supplying weapons, he devised numerous combinations to get around the difficulties in exporting [them]. One of the simplest is to arrange for fictitious orders into other states. In this manner, the crates of weapons sail toward Mexico, in order to go no farther than Spain. Rosenfeld was involved in international dealings and thought of further extending them and eliminating his competitors. Thus he was very interested in documents which passed through individual
administrative offices of the Quai d'Orsay. His secretary, Mlle. Linder, was the tool at hand for obtaining information.
Incidentally, the dossier which existed on him at the Quai d'Orsay was somewhat unpleasant for him, first of all because from [reading] it he was afraid of disruption of his business, and second of all because he had the intention, it was asserted, of requesting naturalization.
If the desire of making money explains the entire life history of Michael Rosenfeld, so this appears to also be true of the leitmotif for the dealings of Suzanne Linder.
Accustomed to luxury for years and unable to forswear it, as merely a modest employee she could not refuse her boss anything. She procured information, she falsified the dossier but seems not to have dealt in real espionage. In any case, one cannot designate the pilferage and the damage, though serious, done to the secret service in the interests of financial transactions of an individual, as espionage.
For more than a year, those in the office of the Quai d'Orsay had taken note of the behavior of Linder, whose poorly concealed curiosity justified every suspicion.
A few weeks before, the Security Police had been consulted. By means of a piece of carbon paper, they got on the trail of a forgery; it was a matter of laudatory information about Rosenfeld which was created out of thin air and signed with the forged signature of a high official who had since died.
At the same time, probably a few documents disadvantageous to Rosenfeld vanished from the dossier.
The interrogation which M. Fougerit, the director of Department II of the Security Police, conducted on Sunday evening with Fräulein Linder, stretched [84] throughout the entire day. At first she denied
having committed a forgery. Strangely, she was brought to confess more easily that she had betrayed to her friend Rosenfeld confidential communications, which she had picked up here and there in the
administrative offices.
Finally, at the pressing questioning by the police, she confessed everything.
M. de Moissac, the examining magistrate, brought two bills of
indictment: 1. Examination of Mlle. Linder and comrades for forgery; 2. Charges due to offenses against an order of expulsion and the use of a false passport by Rosenfeld (only that! -- The author.).
Both accused were brought before the examining magistrate in charge, and after that, on the past Wednesday, arrested.
M. de Moissac begins the first hearing this afternoon. In the presence of the accused, the sealed documents which had been confiscated at the house searches are opened.
Yesterday afternoon, in the office of Herr Emile Joly, 4 Avenue Carnot, we were able to meet one of Rosenfeld's colleagues, Herr Cabarocas, who had participated in the Spanish enterprise:
'I am a Spaniard,' declared the latter right at the start,'but I am neither directly nor indirectly an agent of the Frente Popular in France. At any rate, since five or six years ago already, I've had connections with several political journalists of my country. . . I was even on the managing board of a paper there -- then I still had money to lose! But since my resettlement in France, two-and-a-half years ago, I've given up any political activity. I am married to a Frenchwoman and have been a colleague of Rosenfeld's for seven or eight months: that proves that our relationship began before the Franco revolt.'"
Swindling is the typical Jewish crime. As cautious a scholar and a man