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181Erzberger, martyred leader of the Catholic Centre Party, becausehe had dared to speak for peace. Walter Rathenau,assassinated by a racist, had the additional crime of being aJew. The greatest criminal of all, in Nazi eyes, was GustaveStresemann, co-author with Aristide Briand, of the LocarnoAgreements. They could never forgive him because he wasneither a Catholic nor a Jew and yet dared to be workingfor peace. Stresemann was flawlessly German, which madehim a renegade before Hitlerite public opinion. Among themany projects of law directed against Germany‟s great ForeignMinister, who died in the harness, the following deservesattention as a specimen of the unfair propaganda with whichhis political foes worried Stresemann to death.“The Reichstag shall decide,” the Nazis demanded uponreceipt of information that Stresemann had been awarded theNobel Peace Prize, “to call upon Reichsminister Dr. Stresemanneither to reject the offer of the Nobel Prize of 63,000marks on the ground of Article 15 of the Reich‟s Public OfficialLaw, or to make him use it for the assistance of the warvictims.”The question of the German minorities living abroad wassettled to the entire satisfaction of the Nazis in a resolutionproviding that all Germans resident abroad – in Austria,Czechoslovakia, Poland and elsewhere – shall obtain the rightto vote at the Reich‟s elections. Had the Reichstag notshelved this proposal immediately after it had been submitted,Hitler‟s men would have solved the thorny problemof the “Anschluss.” The Austrian Germans would havethus acquired full civic rights in the Reich and the French

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