NAZI INTRIGUE IN U.S.A.

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 11

NAZI INTRIGUE IN U.S.A.

Diplomatic Immunity

Violated

GERMAN CONSULS AS PROPAGANDISTS

Alien And Un-American

Influences

By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright

“There is indisputable evidence to show that certain German Consuls in the United States, with all the appurtenances of diplomatic immunity, violated the pledge and properties of diplomatic status and engaged in vicious and un-American propagandist activities, paying for it in cash, in the hope that it could not be traced.” This is the conclusion, stated m its own words, reached by a committee of the United States Congress—officially known as the Special Committee on Un-American Activities (or, colloquially, the Dickstein Committee) -which in 1934 reported on Nazi activities, writes, a correspondent to the “Sydney Morning Herald.” The hearings of the committee produced many contradictory and unsupported allegations. But they also revealed much specific evidence regarding the Nazi movement.

Nazi activity appears to date from 1924 when Kurt Georg Wilhelm Ludecke, who claimed to be a member of the German Nazi Party, went to the United States of America and utilised his position as a travelling salesman to cover his activities in spreading Nazi propaganda. Lu'decke, who since then lias 'become known to a wider public as the author of a currentlypopular book on Herr Hitler and the Nazi movement, enlisted members in, and obtained financial support for, the Nazi Party in Germany.

Movement Divided.

In the ensuing years the Nazi movement in America was divided, but after Hitler’s advent to power they came together in an organisation called the “Friends of New Germany.” Heinz Spanknobel, a German citizen and a member of the Nazi Party, who had entered the United States under the guise of .a clergyman, became leader of the “Friends.” He also gained temporary control of the United German Societies of New York.

However, in 1933, he was indicted by a Federal grand jury in New York for failing to register as an agent of a foreign nation, anti has since, it is said, been a fugitive from justice. It was rumours of the Nazi activities of the “Friends” and others that led to the setting up of the Dickstein Committee. "One of his (i.e., Spanknobel’s) first activities,” declares the Dickstein report, “was to take over, by Intimidation and without compensation, a small newspaper in New York published by the German Legion, which paper he largely financed by subsidies under the guise of advertisements granted him by the German steamship lines as well as the German railways.” Tho committee also mentioned several American firms anti American citizens who sold their services for express propagandist purposes, making their contracts with, and accepting compensation from, foreign business firms.

“Boring from Within.”

The Friends of New Germany were not openly associated w’ith all of the Transactions detailed by the Dlckstein Committee, but in general they seem to have been the most active centre of Nazi activities in the United States of America. The Dlckstein Committee found "that it was for all practical purposes, if not in fact, the American section of the Nazi movement of Germany, designed to influence, if necessary and possible, our governmental policies.” At the “Friends’ ’’ mass meetings anti-Semitic speeches were made, the Nazi salute given, the swastika flag displayed, homage to Hitler proclaimed, and Nazi propaganda distributed. Orders from Germany were received by the “Friends,” and were obeyed. The conditions of membership of the “Friends” were the same as for the Nazi Party in Germany.

By means of “boring from within,” they had obtained control of the important United German Societies of New York. And to quote the Congressional report, “the evidence conclusively shows that this movement in the United States is inconsistent with our principles of government” The Bund Leader. Finally, for a variety of reasons, the Foreign Division of the Nazi Party in .Germany gave orders, in April, 1936, for the dissolution of the "Friends.” But on the same day an organisation called the German-American Bund appeared, and took the place vacated by the "Friends" as the principal Nazi organisation. The Bund Fuhrer is Fritz Kuhn, a native of Bavaria, who went to the U.S.A, after service with the Germany army during the war, and was employed as a chemist by the Ford Motor Company. He was naturalised in 1933.

Mr. Kuhn asserts that his Bund has a membership of 200,000. Other estimates are that it numbers about 20,000 members. It has a party organ, the “Deutsche Weckruf and Beobachter.” The majority of the German-language newspapers in the U.S.A, approve of the Nazi regime for Germany, though many point out that it would not he suitable for the U.S.A.

There are, however, said to be at least 10 newspapers which do not draw this distinction, even though they stop short of openly advocating National Socialism for the United States. These 10 newspapers are enthusiastic supporters of Nazism in general, very antiSemitic, very anti-Coinniunist, and give much space to speeches by Hitler and to Nazi propaganda statements. Orders From Abroad. A well-informed writer who recently contributed an article on foreign political movements in the United States to the American quarterly, “Foreign Affairs,” reaches the conclusion that the Nazi organisations in that country give the impression of forming a definitely alien influence which owes allegiance to a foreign Power, and supports a system of government at variance with American democracy.

Like the Communists, lie points out, they lake their orders from abroad. Their International may be said to be the “Organisation for Germans

Abroad,” the head of which, Herr Ernst Wilhelm Bohle, has said: “We look on Germans abroad not as Germans by accident, but as Germans through the will of God. Like our comrades in the Reich, they are chosen, and obliged to co-operate in the work Hint Adolf Hitler began witli his new movement.” The Nazi leaders apparently have holies of making pan-Germanism a political weapon to be employed in internal American politics. “GermanAmerican influence, economically strengthened and politically reactivated,” declares a leading article in the “Kurier,” of Stuttgart—which city is tlie headquarters of the Institute for Germanism Abroad —“shall be thrown in tire balance under our leadership for the coming struggle with Communism and Jews and for the Americans’ regeneration.” The chief result of the Nazi campaign in the United States, according to the writer in "Foreign Affairs,” has been to stimulate anti-Semitism. Nor must it escape notice, he adds, that Nazi agitation lias strengthened German nationalistic feeling among German-born American citizens, and possibly among those of German exl raetion—-a fact which might have political consequences in tire event that Germany became engaged in a major war.