Photograph: All Jewish children in Nazi Germany were expelled from public schools by the Reich Ministry of Education on 15 November 1938.
The Spanish rebel command at Irún announced tonight that Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s troops had driven government forces back across the Ebro River in northeast Spain with the capture of the important towns of Asco and Flix and domination of the Ribarroja heights to the west, after an advance of seven miles. The rebels reported they had broken through the last government lines on the west bank of the Ebro to capture Asco, which is 12 miles northeast of Gandesa. Then they moved to take Flix, three miles to the north. Meanwhile, additional forces under General Juan Yagüe entered the outskirts of Ribarroja, three miles west of Flix. Military reports said the rebel victory resulted in the death of more than 500 Barcelona militiamen who attempted to cross the river in boats and rafts. Rebel pilots were said to have machine-gunned them. More than 600 prisoners were reported captured by the rebels.
The Netherlands sets up two camps for Jewish refugees from Germany and asks other European nations to do the same. Belgium refuses; other countries do not respond.
France and Germany reach a preliminary agreement guaranteeing France’s eastern border and giving Germany free reign in eastern Europe.
All Jewish children were banned from German public schools. The Nazi state Ministry for Science and Education issued an order stating that “[a]fter the nefarious murder of Paris … it is unacceptable to expect that any German teacher provide instruction to Jewish schoolchildren. It should also be self-evident that it is intolerable for German schoolchildren to sit in a classroom shared with Jews.” To be sure, the order continued, “the segregation of the races in the school system has already been affected to a large extent over the past several years … nevertheless, there remains an oddment of Jewish children in German schools, who henceforth can no longer be permitted to attend school together with German boys and girls.”
All sermons and pastoral letters of the Roman Catholic church henceforth must be approved by a Nazi board of censors before they are read from pulpits, reliable sources in Vienna said today. The report was denied by the Nazi press bureau in Vienna, but it persisted in Catholic church circles.
The expropriation of part of the vast properties of the Roman Catholic church in Germany was demanded today by the Black Corps, official organ of the Hitler guards. In an article called “The Church State Within the State,” the periodical attacked the “morally degenerate and criminal clergy who, in their hostility to the people and state, are neither willing nor capable of administrating the property of the German people. If one deprives them of their property, one does not take away anything to which they have a justifiable claim since they were entrusted with it by the former rulers to administrate it for the benefit of the country and the people, and not to the detriment of the people or to lead an un-Christian and debauched life.”
Urged on by Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy of the United States, the British government tonight considered a new scheme for leading a mass exodus of Jews from Germany. The plan was believed to have been drafted by the ambassador himself. Britain’s dominions, colonies, and mandate territories, together with the United States, South American nations, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, it was understood, would try to move the majority of the 800,000 Jews still in the Reich, not just part of them.
Kennedy conferred with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at No. 10 Downing Street. It was believed both Chamberlain and Foreign Minister Viscount Halifax liked the plan and agreed to try it. To hasten a solution of the problem, intensified by last week’s wave of violence against Jewish property in Germany and by ensuing restrictive decrees, the United States and British colonies may be asked to take some refugees immediately. It was possible a conference might be called soon to allocate the refugees. Ambassador Kennedy, however, refused to make public the details of the plan.
Italy ordered the removal of all books by Jewish authors from schools.
Farewell Parade of International Brigades in Barcelona.
Fakhri Nashashibi submits a memo to the British Commissioner denouncing terrorism as coming solely from the Mufti of Jerusalem. The Mufti, Nashashibi says, does not speak for all Arabs.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt read a statement to the media strongly condemning the persecution of Jews in Germany and announcing that he had recalled the American ambassador to Germany. President Roosevelt today called the current persecution of Jews in Germany unbelievable “in a twentieth century civilization.” He dictated this pronouncement at his press conference this afternoon as he made known that he personally had summoned American Ambassador Hugh R. Wilson back from Berlin. Wilson was called, he said, not only for the purpose of consultation on the affair but for the purpose of manifesting the intense displeasure of the American government with the Hitler régime for perpetration of the outrages.
The President said that technically in diplomatic parlance Ambassador Wilson had not been recalled from his post in the sense that a recall is a move short of rupture of diplomatic relations. He intimated, however, that it may be some time before the ambassador is returned to Berlin, if he ever returns. As the chorus of protests from American Jews and American Roman Catholics against the treatment of their co-religionists in Germany became more and more deafening it was revealed that conversations are in progress between Washington and London on the question of a joint Anglo-American protest to Germany in which efforts are being made to induce France to join. The President said, however, that no formal protest has been made to Germany either individually or jointly up to date and pleaded ignorance of the discussions proceeding between the British foreign office and American Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy.
President Franklin Roosevelt, in a press conference, says making the American continent impregnable from air attack is a goal. President Roosevelt today declared that the defense of America’s borders has ceased to become a national problem and now is a continental problem embracing the western hemisphere from Canada to Cape Horn. The responsibility for this new defense front, which is the result of unrest on other continents and the development of new and more terrible instruments of war, does not rest on the shoulders of the United States, he said, but on the collective shoulders of the twenty-one republics of the western world and Canada. In revealing that the expanded defense program was being approached from the standpoint of continental solidarity, Mr. Roosevelt said the entire subject will be explored with military, naval, and other experts.
The purpose of this exploration is to perfect a legislative program to be presented to the next congress. He cautioned newspaper men against speculation on any sums, saying that if he were writing the story, he could not give a single figure. The President said the advancements in the art of warfare have brought the possibility of attack from other continents closer than it was five or twenty or fifty years ago. He said he would not go into reasons except to mention the airplane. This will be the first line of attack in building up continental safety which is far too low, he said.
The five imprisoned Scottsboro defendants are denied pardon.
The Dies Committee on Un-American Activities considers investigating the LaFollette Senate Committee on Civil Liberties, to determine if it was influenced by Communists.
Television cameras capture and broadcast live pictures of a fire in New York that are “amazingly clear.”
Since the Fair Labor Standards Act went into effect, Puerto Rico has laid off 21,343 people, out of 27,457 employed before. Over 18,000 of those laid off were tobacco workers; the rest worked in needlepoint.
Canadian Prime Minister W. L. MacKenzie King said tonight that President Roosevelt’s statement that the United States program contemplated defense of the entire western hemisphere was a further indication of the common concern and interest of Canada and the United States. The President’s declaration, said the prime minister, renewed the note of cooperation the President sounded last summer in Kingston, Ontario, when he declared the United States would not stand idly by if Canada were threatened by an aggressor.
Argentina agrees to accept Jewish refugees from Germany who are farmers. Nearly 250 Polish Jews arrive by ship, with visas and farming implements.
Japanese planes attack Chinese rail stations, military posts and trains, and gunboats. Other air targets are widespread: Ichang in Hupeh, Changteh in Hunan, Kingshan, 75 miles from Hankow, southern Kwangtung, eastern Chekiang, and Lanchow, capital of Kansu.
Japanese armed forces today were pushing their Yangtze River drive into the richest iron ore producing regions of central China. Before the war began, Japanese steel mills were getting from one-fourth to one-third of their ore supplies from Chinese mines. Even before the Japanese armies pushed into the central Yangtze region, a Central China Iron mining company had been formed to exploit the mines. The Japanese already are in control of practically all of the mines of Anhwei province, the richest of those in Hupeh province and now are driving toward the deposits in Hunan province.
The present offensive is directed at Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. The Chinese, pursuing their “scorched earth, broken tile” policy, already have left Changsha a mass of ruins. Chinese civilians are fleeing in panic to the west. Only a few thousand civilians and soldiers remain in Changsha which once was a city of 600,000 population. Most foreign missionaries and businessmen have taken refuge on foreign properties two miles down the Siang River from Changsha. The Japanese cavalry advance guard has reached a station on the Canton-Hankow Railroad halfway between Changsha and Yochow, which is 80 miles to the north.
Though there are enormous iron ore deposits in China, about 60 percent of them, estimated to contain 200,000,000 tons, yield low grade ore and are costly to operate. The best mines of Anhwei, Hupeh and Hunan provinces yield ore of 50 to 60 percent purity. The deposits along the Yangtze are estimated to contain 125,000,000 tons of ore, of which 50,000,000 tons is in Hupeh province, 25,000,000 in Hunan and 20,000,000 tons in Anhwei. Estimated deposits in Kiangsu province, which the Japanese control, are 10,000,000 tons; in Chekiang, which is partially controlled, 10,000,000 tons, and in Kiangsi, in the path of the Japanese drive, 9,000,000 tons.
Chuichi Nagumo was named the commanding officer of the Japanese 3rd Cruiser Division.
Tamon Yamaguchi was promoted to the rank of rear admiral.
Hiroaki Abe was promoted to the rank of rear admiral.
The SS Dalfram arrived at Port Kembla in Australia waiting to be loaded with pig iron for the Japanese war in China. In response the dockers’ union struck. News of atrocities in China by the Japanese army and rumors that Japan would eventually attack Australia influenced the men to refuse to load or unload Japanese goods. The strike, despite not having the support of the government or Labor party, succeeded in halting the loading of war materials for Japan and defeated anti-union legislation. Though the Dalfram was loaded, the union secured a guarantee that no subsequent shipments of pig iron would be sent to Japan following the dispute. The strike would end in January 1939.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 154.66 (-0.95).
Born:
Rich Michael, AFL tackle (AFL Champions-Oilers, 1960, 1961; AFL Pro Bowl, 1962, 1963; Houston Oilers), in Hamilton, Ohio (d. 2011).
Taz Anderson, NFL tight end (St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons), in Savannah, Georgia (d. 2016).
Bob Harrison, NFL safety (Baltimore Colts), in St. Louis, Missouri.
Died:
André Blondel, 75, French engineer and physicist.
Harry Grant Dart, 69, US cartoonist.
Naval Construction:
The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) Type 1936A destroyer Z23 is laid down by AG Weser (Deschimag), Bremen (werk 957).
The Royal Navy “L”-class destroyer HMS Lightning (G 55) is laid down by Hawthorn Leslie & Co. (Hebburn-on-Tyne, U.K.).
The Nihon Kaigun (Imperial Japanese Navy) No. 4-class submarine chaser Ch-7 is commissioned.
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