President Roosevelt stressed the necessity of seeking moderation of Nazi persecution of Jews when he sent the late William E. Dodd as Ambassador to Germany, it was revealed today with publication of the first portion of Dodd’s diary in Liberty magazine. Prof. Dodd was Ambassador from 1933 to 1938.
The diary entry for June 16, 1933, quoted the President as telling Dodd: “The German authorities are treating the Jews shamefully and the Jews in this country are greatly excited. But this is also not a governmental affair. We can do nothing except for American citizens. We must protect them, and whatever we can do to moderate the general persecution by unofficial and personal influence ought to be done.”
Several other entries contain Dodd’s observations on the development of the anti-Jewish drive in the Reich, and on Sept. 12, 1933, the Ambassador wrote that “Hitler means to put all Jews out of responsible positions, even to expel them from the country.”
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