logo
Letter From Westphalia, Germany; 6 June 1933

Letter From Westphalia, Germany; 6 June 1933

Scoop18-07-2025
Friday, 18 July 2025
On Saturday I came into possession of this letter, transcript below.
I will note that the recipient of the letter is someone I know a bit about; I would like to know more about his time in London, circa 1930-1932. I understand that he attended the London School of Economics. I never met him; but, me being a student of the Great Depression, I wish I had known him while writing my MA thesis.
Eric Salmon lived from 1903 to 1990. Certainly a patrician, he was an Auckland City Councillor and associate of Auckland's 'Mayor Robbie'. He would never have had any sympathy with the Nazi cause. Nevertheless, I would like to think that, like me, he would have had some empathy for the German people in 1933; and the many other people then caught up in events – indeed zeitgeists – moving too fast, and on too great a scale.
Sadly, I will never be able to see Mr Salmon's letter to his German contact (probably written late in 1932). I do not know if he replied to the letter below:
________________________________________________________________________________
Home Address:
Schwelm (in Westfalen)
Kirkplatz 7
Schwelm, 6th VI. [June] 1933
Dear Mr. Salmon,
Your letter with the interesting account of your native [town?] and the economic position of New Zealand was a great joy to me, and I thank you very much for it. I hope, you won't take it amiss that my answer comes so late. During the last months I spent all my time in finishing the dissertation for my doctor examination. Some days ago I finally handed it to my professor, and I am now preparing for the oral examination which will take place in the end of July. – How are you getting on with your work?
In the course of rather a short time the political situation in this country has thoroughly changed, and the questions you put to me in your letter have found a sudden solution. I may add : also a good one. You are perhaps astonished to read that, for – as far as I know – most of the great newspapers of the world tell you just the contrary. The reason for it is that the European nations, above all France and Polonia [Poland], but England too, fear a new war, and this fear is in an inexcusable way nourished by all those German people who don't agree with the new spirit and the new methods. The Jewish question is also of great importance. The measures we took against the Jews were not at all cruel or unjustified, as you read in English papers. All we try is only to reduce the enormous influence and power of the Jews in Germany to an extent which compounds to their small number. More and more their influence has become a destructive force in our national life. What you see nowadays in Germany is not a warlike or an extremely militaristic spirit or a mass barbarism (as many foreigners suppose), but the will to build a new nation, in which no longer the unchecked liberalism of the postwar years reigns. We were standing just before a complete breakdown and the chaos of Communism, which would have been fatal for the whole world. In this dangerous moment came the revolution of our nationalist party under the great leader Hitler. It marks the beginning of something quite new in Germany. We know that a great many tasks are waiting for us, but seeing them we are no longer desperate as it was the case in the last years. The new Germany has a new hope, a new will, and a new energy, and with them we shall overcome all problems and difficulties.
What do you think about the change in Germany, and what do you read in the papers? I should be very glad to hear something about it from you. Hoping you are quite well I am with kindest regards, yours Theodor Hort.
________________________________________________________________________________
My Comments:
Herr Hort – presumably Dr Hort, soon after – is writing from Schwelm, eleven kilometres east of the Westphalian city of Wuppertal. To the west of Wuppertal is Düsseldorf, on the Rhine; Cologne is to the south, near where the river Wupper flows into the Rhine. To the north of Wuppertal is the Ruhr Valley, Germany's western industrial heartland. Between Düsseldorf and Wuppertal is Neandertal/Neanderthal. Most of the journey between Wuppertal and Schwelm can be taken on the 'world-famous in Westphalia' Wuppertal Schwebebahn, the suspension railway, built between 1897 and 1903, which runs above the Wupper River. I am privileged to have ridden on that railway in 1984.
I had hoped that, because the railway is still there, that Wuppertal had not been bombed by the RAF during WW2. No such luck. I found this article in the Burnie Advocate (Tasmania), 1 June 1943: Wuppertal raid one of heaviest of war. This was eight weeks before Operation Gomorrah decimated Hamburg. (On Wuppertal, refer also: Planning a Bombing Operation: Wuppertal 1943, My grandfather, the bomber pilot, When the singing stops on Christmas Eve, German tragedy of destiny, Wikipedia.)
I have no idea what Theodor Hort's fate was. Maybe he was recruited for the notorious Einsatzgruppen, which was top-heavy with academic doctors? More likely he turned away, at least in his mind, from the excesses of the New Germany; nevertheless serving his country in some capacity, albeit out of the kind of obligation that would have been hard to refuse. There is a high chance he died during the war. I'm guessing he would have been about 35 years old in 1943.
Throughout the twentieth century, many young Australians and New Zealanders studied at the London School of Economics. (William Pember Reeves was its Director from 1908 to 1919.) So did many upper-middle-class Germans; Herr Hort clearly fell into that class-category. Other Germans to study economics at the LSE included Heinrich Brüning and Ursula von der Leyen.
Brüning was Chancellor of Germany from mid-1930 to mid-1932. Brüning was the centrist politician most associated with the economic collapse of Weimar Germany during the Great Depression, thanks to his 'liberal' policies of stubborn fiscal conservatism. He sought to balance the Budget at any cost. Germany and the world paid a very high cost indeed. I understand that the "unchecked liberalism" Hort refers to is the economic liberalism of Brüning and others (think today's neoliberalism), and not so much the social liberalism of Berlin that was an icon of 1920s' Germany. (As a part of that social liberalism, Germany in 1918 – Germany's first annus horribilis last century – became a proper democracy, with proportional representation, and votes for women.)
I would imagine that Hort's parents would have voted for Bruning's Zentrum (Centre) party. While it started as a Catholic party, it was actually the foundation party of German 'Christian Democracy', having already broadened its base by 1930. Westphalia, Düsseldorf and Cologne represented the West German heartland of centrist Christian Democratic politics. And consistently these places cast the fewest votes for Adolf Hitler's party. (The city of Cologne, the least-Nazi-supporting city in Germany, was the first large German urban centre to be carpet-bombed by the British, in 1942.)
Nevertheless, at least in March 1933, young Theodor probably voted for the National Socialists. (Although his "great leader" epithet was probably a direct translation of 'führer' rather than an expression of devotion.) The Enabling Act of 1933, which ended democracy in Germany, had been in force for three months before Herr Hort wrote this letter. He, like many others in a desperate country, was willing to forego democracy if other goals might better be achieved without it. Further, by 1938, Hitlernomics – borrowing 'as much as it takes' to re-arm and reorganise along Spartan lines – was looking like a great success. (Something suspiciously similar took place in the Bundestag in 2025, exactly 92 years after the Enabling Act, using the outvoted 'lame-duck' parliament to get the necessary two-thirds majority. This time it was the 'fascists' – AFD – who were against borrowing to re-arm; and the outvoted fastidiously-anti-borrowing neoliberal FDP, who should not have been there.)
Finally, here, we should note that Germany as a whole – and certainly western Germany – while Judeophobic, was probably not much more Judeophobic than other European countries (including the USA); and that most German Jews, to 1918 at least, had seen themselves as more Germans than Semites, and played a significant role in the German armed forces in World War One. The circumstances of 1918, however, made it a relatively easy task for would-be-politicians with nationalist agendas to scapegoat Jews. There were vastly more Jews living in the countries east of Germany, and they from 1940 to 1944 ended up being very much in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Germany in 1933, 'Jewish' identity was used very much as proxies for the twin-devils who many Germans believed had 'stabbed Germany in the back' in 1918 (at a time when Germany appeared to be winning on the western front) and again in (and around) 1931; 'Bolshevik' Communists and big-finance capitalists. The 1918 claim of a 'stolen war' was an evidentially-false conspiracy theory which had the appearance of credibility to many desperate people looking for simple answers, and scapegoats.
On the Bolshevik matter, while Theodor Hort and others will not have known about it until much later – the winter of 1932/33 was the peak of the Holodomor where four million mainly-Ukrainians were deliberately starved to death by Josef Stalin's Moscow-based regime. Too many elements of the western press were looking the other way. Soviet Communism was being romanticised in certain middle-class and working-class circles in 'the West' (though demonised in others: refer Three Women who Launched a Movement); the mega-atrocities were downplayed by mainstream journalists such as Walter Duranty.
It was the full discovery in 1939 of the Holodomor and the later Great Purge (s) that enabled the Nazis to contemplate an even worse genocide, a substantial part of which became the Shoah. The Shoah, while the worst genocide in the last 100 years (at least outside of Mao's China), was neither the first nor the last real-world example of 'hunger games'.
-------------
Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Keith Rankin
Political Economist, Scoop Columnist
Keith Rankin taught economics at Unitec in Mt Albert since 1999. An economic historian by training, his research has included an analysis of labour supply in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and has included estimates of New Zealand's GNP going back to the 1850s.
Keith believes that many of the economic issues that beguile us cannot be understood by relying on the orthodox interpretations of our social science disciplines. Keith favours a critical approach that emphasises new perspectives rather than simply opposing those practices and policies that we don't like.
Keith retired in 2020 and lives with his family in Glen Eden, Auckland.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Iran and Europeans begin nuclear talks with questions over future UN sanctions
Iran and Europeans begin nuclear talks with questions over future UN sanctions

RNZ News

time9 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Iran and Europeans begin nuclear talks with questions over future UN sanctions

By Ali Kucukgocmen and John Irish Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told state news agency IRNA that Iran considered talk of extending UN Security Council Resolution 2231 to be "meaningless and baseless". File picture. Photo: AFP / Atta Kenare Iran has pushed back on suggestions of extending a UN resolution that ratifies a 2015 nuclear deal as it began the first face-to-face talks with Western powers since Israel and the US bombed it last month. Delegations from Iran, the European Union and the so-called E3 group of France, Britain and Germany, arrived for talks at the Iranian consulate in Istanbul. The European countries, along with China and Russia, are the remaining parties to a 2015 deal - from which the US withdrew in 2018 - that lifted sanctions on Iran in return for restrictions on its nuclear programme. A deadline of 18 October is fast approaching when the resolution governing that deal expires. At that point, all UN sanctions on Iran will be lifted unless a "snapback" mechanism is triggered at least 30 days before. This would automatically reimpose those sanctions, which target sectors from hydrocarbons to banking and defence. To give time for this to happen, the E3 have set a deadline of the end of August to revive diplomacy. Diplomats say they want Iran to take concrete steps to convince them to extend the deadline by up to six months. Iran would need to make commitments on key issues including eventual talks with Washington, full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and accounting for 400kg of near-weapons grade highly enriched uranium, whose whereabouts are unknown since last month's strikes. Minutes before the talks began, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told the state news agency IRNA that Iran considered talk of extending UN Security Council Resolution 2231 to be "meaningless and baseless". The United States held five rounds of talks with Iran prior to its airstrikes in June, which US President Donald Trump, said had "obliterated" a programme that Washington and its ally Israel say is aimed at acquiring a nuclear bomb. However, NBC News has cited current and former US officials as saying a subsequent US assessment found the strikes destroyed most of one of three targeted Iranian nuclear sites, but that the other two were not as badly damaged. Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon. European and Iranian diplomats say there is no prospect of Iran re-engaging with the US at the negotiating table for now. - Reuters

New Zealand's Harmony Accord: A Global Example For Interfaith Unity
New Zealand's Harmony Accord: A Global Example For Interfaith Unity

Scoop

time19 hours ago

  • Scoop

New Zealand's Harmony Accord: A Global Example For Interfaith Unity

New Zealand has once again demonstrated authentic global leadership by hosting the signing of a groundbreaking Muslim-Jewish Harmony Accord — a first-of-its-kind initiative held at Government House in Wellington, backed by the Governor-General and the Race Relations Commissioner. As a Muslim who has lived in Aotearoa for more than 24 years, I wholeheartedly endorse this accord. I have raised four children in this country — free from fear, discrimination, or restrictions on our religious practice. This is a testament to New Zealand's values, respect, diversity, tolerance, and an unwavering commitment to peaceful coexistence. The recently signed accord, as reported by the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, is not just symbolic — it is practical, actionable, and urgently needed. It establishes a mutual commitment between Muslim and Jewish communities to foster understanding, speak against hate, and build stronger interfaith ties. This accord carries even more profound significance when viewed through history. For generations, Muslims and Jews have been caught in cycles of hatred, mistrust, and political tension. The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in particular, has fueled decades of pain, injustice, and mass suffering — especially for Palestinians living under occupation, siege, and displacement. While this harmony accord cannot directly resolve international disputes, it represents a powerful symbol of what is possible when communities choose peace over blame, dialogue over silence. It sends a clear message to the world: Muslims and Jews can unite in mutual respect, even while acknowledging deep and painful histories. Steps like these have the potential to inspire broader healing and reconciliation, both locally and globally. But I believe this initiative can and should go further. We must expand the accord into a comprehensive national interfaith framework, welcoming all faiths — including Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Baháís and others. Every belief system that calls Aotearoa home deserves to be seen, heard, and protected in the spirit of inclusion and shared humanity. At the same time, we must be vigilant about protecting New Zealand's unique social harmony. All international political, religious, or ethnic conflicts must remain outside the fabric of New Zealand's domestic society. While we stay globally informed and compassionate, we cannot allow imported hatred, historical grievances, or ideological extremism to disrupt the peace we have so carefully cultivated. New Zealand's geopolitical, cultural, and moral position is different. We have a rare opportunity to serve as a global model, not through rhetoric but action. This accord is not just a document. It is a declaration of hope, unity, and courage. Let us build on it. Let us lead.

France will recognise State of Palestine, Macron says
France will recognise State of Palestine, Macron says

RNZ News

time20 hours ago

  • RNZ News

France will recognise State of Palestine, Macron says

By Valérie Leroux , AFP Emmanuel Macron. Photo: Ludovic Marin / AFP French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday his country would formally recognise a Palestinian state during a UN meeting in September, the most powerful European nation to announce such a move. At least 142 countries now recognise or plan to recognise Palestinian statehood, according to an AFP tally - though Israel and the United States strongly oppose the moves. Several countries have announced plans to recognise statehood for the Palestinians since Israel launched a bombardment of Gaza in 2023 in response to the 7 October attacks. Macron's announcement drew immediate anger from Israel, with Deputy Prime Minister Yariv Levin labelling it a "shameless decision" that would be a "direct aid to terrorism". Senior Palestinian Authority official Hussein al-Sheikh welcomed the move, saying it "reflects France's commitment to international law and its support for the Palestinian people's rights to self-determination and the establishment of our independent state". International concern is growing about the plight of the more than 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where the fighting has triggered a dire humanitarian crisis and warnings of mass starvation . Israel has rejected accusations it is responsible for Gaza's deepening hunger crisis, which the World Health Organization has called "man-made" and France blamed on an Israeli "blockade". Palestinian children queue for a portion of hot food distributed by a charity kitchen in Gaza City, on 20 July. The World Food Programme says nearly one in three people in Gaza do not eat for days at a stretch. Photo: Majdi Fathi Macron said the "urgent priority today is to end the war in Gaza and rescue the civilian population". "We must finally build the State of Palestine, ensure its viability and enable it, by accepting its demilitarisation and fully recognising Israel, to contribute to the security of all in the Middle East," he wrote on social media. He said he intended to make the announcement at the UN General Assembly in September. While France would be the most significant European power to recognise a Palestinian state, others have hinted they could do the same. Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced he would hold a call with counterparts in Germany and France on efforts to stop the fighting on Friday, adding that a ceasefire would "put us on a path to the recognition of a Palestinian state". Norway, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia all announced recognition following the outbreak of the Gaza conflict, along with several other non-European countries. Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed 59,587 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. - AFP

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store