A PROMINENT ANTI-SEMITE
SIR,—Dr. Wilhelm Stapel takes your reviewer to task for referring to him as a " Nazi writer " and an " anti-Semite." His protest will carry little weight with those who have studied Wilhelm Stapel's life and works. Perhaps I myself might just make the following points: —(1) Shortly after the Nazis- came to power they published officially a list entitled Wegbereiter und Vorkampfer fiir das neue Deutschlanc; (Pioneers and Champions of New Germany), Munich, May, 1933, containing the names of the 168 founders of National Socialism. After names such as Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, the name of Dr. Wilhelm Stapel is prominent as one of the pioneers of the "racial movement." (2) All Dr. Wilhelm Stapel's writings fully justify this inclusion. All his books are teeming with quotations such as: " The moral education of the people is incum- bent on the State: it has a right to watch over the Church, lest Ler ministers should teach an unseemly morality, which in its final effects might turn against the State and its power ; for instance, pacifism, the ethics of equality, spiritual liberty (Die Kirche Christi und der Stoat Hitlers). (3) There were so many intrigues inside the Nazi hierarchy that every high-ranking Nazi can prove that he was " persecuted "—to quote Dr. Stapel. Stapel's protest does not come as a surprise from a man who could write and believe that " Morality as such occupies no large section of human life" (quoted by Kolnai: The War Against the West, p. 227). But it is on indicative illustration of the methods employed by Nazi leaders to prove that they were always against the movement and morality which :hey founded and supported.—Yours faithfully, Stowe School, Buckingham. PETER F. WIENER. Sun,—Dr. Wilhelm Stapel protests against being labelled anti-Semitic in a Spectator article. I wonder if he has forgotten a book on the so-called " Jewish influences " in literature published under his name by the Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt of Hamburg in- a series of propaganda books sponsored by the Nazi Party, which, at the time, controlled this large publishing house. A copy of this book was in my hands when Dr. Stapes literary activities were being investigated by the appropriate military authorities in 1945. It contained anti-Semitic passages of no little vigour. —Yours faithfully, GEORGE E. KAMM.
35 Argyll_ Mansions, Beaufort Street, Chelsea, S.W. 3.
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