Lest We Forget

My father was in the Army in World War Two. My uncle was in the RCAF and served overseas.

This story is from 1935.

FREE MASONRY IS TARGET OF NAZIS
End of All Masonic Lodges and Abolition of Veterans’ Groups Announced
BERLIN, Aug. 8—(AP)—The end of all Free Masonic lodges in Germany and the abolition of more World war veterans’ organizations were announced today.
Reichsfuerer Hitler’s newspaper, Voelkischer Beobachter, stated that on Saturday the last Masonic lodges in the Reich, the state lodge of Saxony, the Dresden Great lodge, and the “German Brethren Chain” of Leipzig will be dissolved.
Use Law of 1933
Secret police today dissolved the veterans’ “Steel Helmet” formations in Berlin, Brandenburg, Pommerania, and Eastern Mark, the territory along the western ridge of Pomorze, Poland.
The dissolution of the veteran units was accomplished on the basis of the law of Feb. 28, 1933, for the protection of the people and the state. The property of the Steel Helmet units was seized.
After dissolution of the old Prussian Free Mason lodge July 21 and the gradual disappearance of smaller lodges in a year-long campaign, the Free Masons in Germany—first so-called “state enemies”—thus would be wiped out completely.
See Jewish Republic
Hitler’s organ, asserting the secret aim of Free Masonry was a Jewish world republic, said the forthcoming dissolution would “finish a special chapter in world history, and the guardian of the Nazi ideal will be alert.”
Jews accused of trying to hid their race to escape the anti-Semitism appeared to stand in the center of Nazi determination to purify German blood.
Der Angriff, newspaper of Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda, directed an attack against Jews covering up by becoming Christians, and asked how much longer the Protestant church would continue to baptise Jews.