Hitler in the United States. Besides carrying on his pro-Nazi
propaganda in the classroom, he does a great deal of lecturing,
sometimes appearing before the Foreign Policy Association. On one
occasion, in an address before the Men's Club of the Baptist Church at
Rockville, Long Island, he stated that Seth Low Junior College was
opened "in order to keep Hebrew faces off the campus at Columbia
University."
Auhagen never tried to hide his sympathies with Nazism. Preceding a
debate on February 1, 1936, before the City Club of Cleveland, he gave
press interviews as a Nazi, and in the debate upheld Hitler as the
savior of Germany and world civilization. With a fervor far removed
from professorial calm, he explained that American newspaper
dispatches about the treatment of Jews and Catholics in Germany were
exaggerated.
"As to criticism of Germany's treatment of Catholics," he said again
in Denver, Colorado on July 26, 1935, "that is not true!"
Professor Frederick K. Krueger, of Wittenberg college, with whom
Auhagen is rather closely identified in arranging and giving talks
about Nazis and totalitarian government, at every opportunity issues
press interviews along the same line. In them he explains that the
anti-Nazi sentiment in the United States press does not represent the
editors, but is dictated by Jews who "control the press, the motion
pictures and other organs of public opinion."
Because of the high scientific standing of Professor Vladimir
Karapetoff of the Cornell engineering faculty, he is listened to with
more attention and respect than are the more blatant propagandists for
the adoption of fascist tactics and principles. Shortly after Hitler
took power, the Professor started to do his share on the campus. At
first he did it subtly, but when this made little headway he began to
talk of the "growing domination of Jews in American life, politically
as well as economically" and emphasized that the large number of Jews
in the Law School and on the campus generally was becoming a problem.
"It's the smooth-faced Jew whom we must fear," he kept repeating, "and
not the long-bearded Jewish rabbi."
Not content with expressing personal opinions, he took to organizing
groups, addressing them on the subject of the Jew; and on one occasion
he called a special meeting of the Officer's Club with the proviso
that Jews be excluded.
Paul F. Douglas,[18] teacher of German, Economics and Political
Science at Green Mountain College, wrote a book, _God Among the
Germans_, which purports to be an introduction to the mind and method
of Nazism.
I have information coming from a reputable source that Dr. Douglas was
paid by the Nazi Government to write the book. This source is
unwilling to let his name be used, but is ready to testify and lay his
information before any governmental body which will investigate the
devious methods of Nazi agents in this country.
There are at various universities throughout the country other
professors and instructors quite active in spreading pro-Hitler
propaganda. Some of them meet with Nazi agents closely allied to the
espionage machine. I offer only these few as illustrations of Nazi
efforts to get footholds in the American universities.
Along with efforts to carry on their work in the universities, Nazi
agents tried to get a foothold in the political life of the country by
finding a few Republicans who were willing to use anti-democratic
propaganda in their efforts to defeat Roosevelt during the
Presidential campaign. At no time in American history did secret
agents of a foreign power so brazenly attempt to interfere in the
internal affairs of the American people. Nor at any time in American
history did agents of a foreign government find such willing
cooperation from unscrupulous American politicians.
Among those who worked with Hitler agents was Newton Jenkins, director
of the Coughlin-Lemke Third Party.[19] The Detroit Priest and the
Congressman were fully aware, preceding and during the campaign, that
Jenkins supported Hitler and was a Jew-baiter of the first order. They
were aware of this while they were appealing for Jewish votes. The
Radio Priest and the Congressman kept in constant touch with their
campaign manager and knew what sort of government Jenkins wanted.
Jenkins' association with Nazis dates to the days preceding the
launching of the Presidential campaign. At that time he participated
in a secret conference held in Chicago with the object of uniting the
scattered fascist forces in the United States to form a powerful
fascist united front. Among those who attended were Walter Kappe,
Fritz Gissibl and Zahn--three active Hitler agents assigned to the
Mid-West area; William Dudley Pelley, leader of the Silver Shirts;
Harry A. Jung, the ultra-"patriot"; George W. Christians of
Chattanooga, Tenn., head of the American fascists; and several others.
The conference ended with an agreement to support a Third-Party
movement directed by Jenkins.
Throughout the campaign Jenkins stressed an exaggerated nationalism,
advocated "party patrols" similar to Hitler's storm troops and adopted
the Nazi Jew-baiting tactics. His first public appearance with the
Nazis was on October 30, 1935, at a meeting held in Lincoln Turner
Hall, 1005 Diversey Building, Chicago. Uniformed storm troopers with
the swastika on their arm bands patrolled the room. In the course of
his talk he said:
The trouble with this country now is due to the money powers and
Jewish politicians who control our Government. The Federal
Treasury is being controlled by a Jew, Morgenthau, and a Jew,
Eugene Meyer. The State, County and our own Municipal Government
is being controlled by Jewish politicians. Our own Mayor signs
what the Jews want him to sign. Nearly in every department of
our country and local government you will find a Jew at the head
of it. Not only under a Democratic administration but also under
a Republican administration we will find the same conditions....
The American people must free itself from the money plunderers
who have thrown this country into the World War and also a
possibility of dragging them into the present war for private
gain and shake off their shoulders the Jewish politicians. The
Third Party promises to do both.
This is precisely the sort of stuff paid Nazi agents in the propaganda
division are ordered to disseminate, and this is the man Father
Coughlin and Congressman Lemke picked to direct their campaign.
It was a Nazi agent, Ernst Goerner of Milwaukee, who spread the story,
aided by anti-Roosevelt forces, that Frances Perkins, Secretary of
Labor, was a Jewess. The story received such wide publicity that she
had to issue a public statement giving her birth and marriage records.
Goerner is one of the important Nazi agents in the Mid-West. He's a
bit eccentric and the Nazis sometimes have difficulty keeping him in
line, but when Schwinn made a trip East shortly before the election
campaign, he stopped off specially to see Goerner who thereupon sent a
flood of propaganda throughout the country about Secretary Perkins'
ancestry as well as charges that Roosevelt and almost all Government
officials were Jews.
It was after Schwinn's trip to the East that other disseminators of
anti-democratic propaganda, like Robert Edward Edmondson and James
True, came to life in a big way. One of the penniless men who suddenly
blossomed into the money after Schwinn's trip East was Olov E.
Tietzow, who used Post Office Box No. 491 in Chicago lest the fact
that he lived at 715 Aldine Ave. be discovered.
Up until a few months before the campaign Tietzow was an unemployed
electrical engineer who had difficulty paying the three-dollar weekly
rent for his hall bed-room at the Aldine Ave. address. After Schwinn's
visit and meeting with him, Tietzow began to commute by air between
Chicago and Buffalo where he opened a branch office.
Tietzow was tested out a little at first. He was put to work in the
offices of the Friends of the New Germany on Western Ave. and Roscoe
St., Chicago. In his spare time he worked out of 1454 Foster Ave.,
Chicago. A quotation or two from some of his letters will give an
indication of his activities. On February 21, 1936, he wrote to
William Stern, Fargo, N.D., a member of the Republican National
Committee. He said in part:
Information about the so-called fascist movement here in the
U.S.A. will be furnished by me if you so desire, together with
other data you might be interested in. An opportunity to discuss
our national problems and to lay before patriotic persons of
means and influence and before national organizations my plans
for a nationwide movement would be welcome....
This letter to a high Republican Party official was written after
Tietzow had outlined the contents to Toni Mueller, Nazi agent in
Chicago reporting directly to Fritz Kuhn.
Since most of the patrioteers were opposed to the New Deal and since
some of them were already working with Nazi agents in this country, it
was not long before they were going full blast in their "Save America"
racket. The people of the United States, though they don't talk much
about it, are thoroughly patriotic in the fullest sense of the word.
To accuse anyone of not being a patriot is almost worse than telling a
man that he is a son of not quite a lady. The racketeers in patriotism
long ago discovered that people would contribute to a "patriotic
cause" if only to escape the reputation of being unpatriotic; and the
racketeers have made a nice living out of it. For some of the
patrioteers it has become a thriving business, with everybody
involved--except the suckers--getting his cut. Some of the big
"patriotic" organizations are really influential, and the small ones
are hopefully struggling along in the expectation of bigger and better
and more patriotic days when the pickings will be more than
attractive.
[Illustration: Letter by Olov E. Tietzow, showing typical methods
of American fascists.]
Every time I start looking into organizations with high-sounding and
impressive names, I am profoundly impressed with the accuracy of
Barnum's noted observation. Raise the cry of "patriotism" and
perfectly good Americans forget to try to find out just what the
"patriotic" activities are, and shell out without a murmur.
Industrialists particularly like the "Americanism" of the patriotic
groups because almost all of them incorporate an anti-labor policy.
The propaganda, of course, is rarely conducted as an open fight
against labor, but is put across as a fight to save America from the
Communists.
Some of the racketeering patriotic organizations with a more or less
devout following include the National Republican Publishing Company,
Washington, D.C., the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation,
Chicago, Ill., the Paul Reveres, Chicago, Ill., the Industrial Defense
Association, Boston, Mass., the American Nationalists, Inc., New York,
N.Y. and the American Nationalist Party, Los Angeles, Calif. There are
a number of others, but these are some of the most blatant.
The National Republican Company, 511 11th Street, N.W., Washington,
D.C., is one of the most influential. It publishes the _National
Republic_, a journal accepted by men high in public office and by
leading industrialists as earnestly trying to inculcate "Americanism"
into Americans.
The _National Republic_ has an amazing list of endorsers--governors,
mayors, senators, congressmen and nationally-known industrialists. The
magazine is virtually the entire organization and is dedicated "to
defending American ideals and institutions." It is headed by Walter S.
Steele, who was tied up with Harry A. Jung of the American Vigilant
Intelligence Federation before he went into business for himself.
While Steele was working with the ace of racketeers in patriotism,
the president-editor of the _National Republic_ also eked out a few
pennies by distributing the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Today,
however, he confines himself chiefly to fighting Communism, spreading
race hatred only when it is paid for in advertisements. Books
distributed by Nazi propagandists in furthering their anti-democratic
campaign--such books as _T.N.T._ by Colonel Edwin Hadley and _The
Conflict of the Ages_ find space in the _National Republic's_ pages.
Colonel Hadley headed the Paul Reveres which tried to organize fascist
groups on American university campuses, and _The Conflict of the Ages_
devotes a full chapter to the Nazi "proofs" of the authenticity of the
"Protocols."
I mention these to show the type of stuff Steele is willing to
disseminate--if he is paid for it. And by permitting the use of their
names, the sponsors, consciously or unconsciously, aid him in his
anti-American activities.
The detailed aims of the _National Republic_ are to provide a "weekly
service to twenty-three hundred editors, to defend American
institutions against subversive radicalism; a national information
service on subversive organizations and activities; an Americanization
bureau serving schools, colleges and patriotic groups; conducted for
the public good from Washington, D.C., by nationally known leaders."
The procedure of conducting the organization "for the public good"
includes high-pressuring the shekels from the suckers. Steele, a
former newspaperman, learned from his association with that other
arch-patriot, Jung. So when Steele established his own racket, he
found one of his early aids in former Senator Robinson of Indiana.
Robinson was closely tied up with the Ku Klux Klan. Through Robinson
and through other politicians reached with the cry "Save America," he
got a long list of prominent sponsors and gradually increased it until
now it reads like a _Who's Who_ of reactionary industrialists and
innocent politicians. With letters of introduction from Senator
Robinson, Steele's high pressure gang set out to collect in the name
of patriotism.
The procedure was simple. Salesmen presented their letters of
introduction to the mayor of a city. The mayor was impressed with the
high "patriotic" motives and especially with the imposing list of
names sponsoring the efforts. The mayor introduced the high-pressure
fellows to other people--and the milking began.
Let me illustrate a little more specifically:
On March 4, 1936, Steele sent two of his ablest dollar-pullers,
Messrs. Fahr and Hamilton, into the Oklahoma oil fields where the
industrialists would like to see a minimum of 200 per cent Americanism
instilled in the public mind. Messrs. Fahr and Hamilton had letters of
introduction to Mayor T.A. Penny of Tulsa, Okla. When the salesmen
approached the Mayor, they had not only the long and imposing list of
names on the letterhead but additional letters of introduction from
ex-Governor Curley of Mass., ex-Senator Robinson of Indiana and
Congressman Martin Dies of Texas. The drummers wanted the Mayor to
introduce them to the Chairman of the Tulsa Board of Education who
could help them get funds in Tulsa and elsewhere. The funds were to be
used to place the "patriotic" magazine in the public school system in
order "to preserve this country against subversive activities,
particularly Communism."
It was a neat circulation-getting stunt, performed without Fahr and
Hamilton telling what percentage of the take they got.
The Mayor gave the letters of introduction. With these letters and the
excellent contacts thus established, they started down the sucker list
from W.G. Skelly, head of the Skelly Oil Co., Tulsa to Waite Phillips
of the Phillips Petroleum Co.
Like his former colleague Harry A. Jung, Steele works on the big
industrialists by whispering confidentially that he has sources of
information about which he can't talk much but which make it possible
for him to keep the industrialists informed about "subversive
radicals." For a reasonable price and perhaps a contribution to a
worthy cause, Steele would supply the industrialist with "confidential
information for members only" which would keep him up to date about
the radicals threatening America. The "confidential information" must
not be shown to anybody else. Extreme caution is necessary lest the
radicals find out about the "information service." With all this
hocum, secrecy and whispering, the industrialist becomes a member at
so much per not realizing that the information thus peddled can be got
for three cents a day--five cents on Sundays--by buying the _Daily
Worker_. It's just one of the little patriotic rackets the boys have
cooked up.
Working closely with Steele is James A. True of the James True
Associates, another precious racketeer who stepped from patrioteering
into efforts to organize in conjunction with Nazi agents a secret
armed force in the United States. With True in this effort to
establish a Cagoulard organization in this country, were some of the
most active Nazi agents and patrioteers.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Not to be confused with Prof. Paul H. Douglas of the University of
Chicago, a highly reputable scholar and a stanch defender of democracy.
[19] Father Coughlin was finally reprimanded by the Vatican for his
unpriestly attacks upon the President.
X
_Underground Armies in America_
Early in 1938 native Americans, working with Nazi agents, completed
plans to organize a secret army along the general lines of the
Cagoulards in France. The decision was made after the liaison man
between Nazi agents here and plotters for the secret army met with
Fritz Kuhn and Signor Giuseppe Cosmelli, Counselor to the Italian
Embassy in Washington.
The liaison man is Henry D. Allen, who moved from San Diego to 2860
Nina St., Pasadena, Calif. Allen, the reader may recollect, helped
Schwinn organize the Mexican Gold Shirts which unsuccessfully
attempted to seize the Mexican Government. Allen is still active in a
plot to overthrow the Cardenas Government, working at the moment with
Gen. Ramon F. Iturbe, a member of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies,
with Gen. Yocupicio who is smuggling arms as part of a plan to rebel,
and with Pablo L. Delgado who took over the fascist Gold Shirt work
under a different name after Rodriguez was exiled when his attempt to
march on the Government failed.
To understand the feverish activities of foreign agents and native
Americans working with foreign agents, one must remember that when the
World War broke out in 1914, Germany was caught with only small
espionage and sabotage organizations in the United States. It cost the
German War Office large sums of money to build them under difficult
and dangerous conditions. The Nazis do not intend to be caught the
same way in the event a war finds the United States on the enemy side
or, if neutral, supplying arms and materials to the enemy.
The first step to prevent such a development is to build an enormous
propaganda machine and to draw into it as many native Americans as
possible. Because of the future potentialities of natives as spies and
_saboteurs_, the Nazi leaders take extraordinary precautions to
safeguard their identities. Should the United States become involved
in a war with fascist powers, especially Germany, the German members
of the Bund can be watched and, if necessary, interned; but native
Americans not known as Bund members can move about freely, hence the
care to prevent their identities from becoming known. Schwinn, for
instance, keeps a regular list of the German-American Bund members at
the _Deutsches Haus_ in Los Angeles. The native American members,
however, are not listed. The names are kept in code and only Schwinn
knows the code numbers.
Military considerations thus lead the Nazi General Staff to maintain
this propaganda in the United States, despite the knowledge Nazi
leaders in Germany have that its activities and distasteful propaganda
here are seriously hampering German-American commercial relations.
The propaganda machine is already functioning as the German-American
_Volksbund_. The second step, as was demonstrated in France with the
Cagoulards and in Spain with Franco's Fifth Column, is to organize
secret armies capable of starting sporadic outbreaks tantamount to
civil war--a procedure which would naturally deflect the country's
energies in war time.
This second step was taken after careful study, and Henry D. Allen was
chosen as the liaison man between those maneuvering the plot.
The private letters exchanged between Allen and his fellow
conspirators are now in my possession. Some of the letters exchanged
were signed with the writers' real names and some with code names.
Allen's code name, for instance, is "Rosenthal."
On April 13, 1938, he wrote to a "G.D." (of whom more shortly) as
follows:
Have just sent Delgado into Sonora incognito. This move has
resulted from a four-party conference held in Yuma a few days
ago. This party was composed of Urbalejo, chief of the Yaqui
nation, Joe Mattus, his trusted lieutenant, Delgado and myself.
Yocupicio has completely come over to our side, which you can
perceive from the outcome of the little tryout in Aqua Prieta a
few weeks ago. Delgado has arrived safely at Bocatete, and will
get the boys in that part of the country pretty active....
Inasmuch as I am his legal and properly accredited
representative in the United States, you may rest assured that
there will be no doubt as to the objectives of this movement
south of the Rio Grande.
I have received three letters from General Iturbe in which he
tells me that they are taking the Spanish copies of the
Protocols which K. sent me, and making 5,000 copies of same. In
each letter he begs me to set a time and date for meeting him at
Guadalajara for the purpose of effecting the necessary plans for
active campaigning with Delgado. I will arrange all of this as
soon as you consider it expedient....
ROSENTHAL.
Two days later (April 15, 1938) he wrote from Fresno, Calif. under his
own name to F.W. Clark, 919-1/2 S. Yakima Ave., Tacoma, Wash. The letter
reads in part:
Relative to the Gold Shirts of Mexico, please be advised that we
found it necessary to reorganize this group in August, 1937. The
activist elements have proceeded and are now carrying on under
the name of the Mexican Nationalist Movement of which Pablo L.
Delgado is the nominal head. I am the legal and personal
representative of Delgado in the movement in the United States.
So much for his current activities to establish fascism to the south
of us.
Most Americans who fall for Nazi propaganda do not suspect that they
are being played for suckers by shrewd manipulators pulling the
strings in Berlin, and probably not one of the many reputable and
sincerely patriotic Americans who fell for Allen's "patriotic"
appeals suspects his activities against the country he so zealously
wants to "save."
Some shrewd observer once remarked that "patriotism is the last refuge
of a scoundrel." Whenever I come across an "ultra-patriot" with foam
dripping from his mouth while he beats his chest with loud cries about
his own honesty and the crookedness of those running the country, I
suspect a phony. As a rule, I look for the criminal record of a man
who's yelling "Chase out the crooks" and "Let's have honest
government," and all too often I find one. Henry D. Allen, _alias_
H.O. Moffet, _alias_ Howard Leighton Allen, _alias_ Rosenthal, etc.,
ex-inmate of San Quentin and Folsom prisons, is no exception; his
criminal record extends over a period of twenty-nine years.
Let me give the record before I start quoting from his letters,
chiefly for the benefit of those sincere and loyal Americans who
thought his Swastika-inspired activities represented honest
convictions.
May 17, 1910: Arrested in Los Angeles charged with uttering fictitious
checks. In simple language this means just a little bit of forgery.
Los Angeles Police Department file, No. 7613.
June 10, 1910: Sentenced to three years imprisonment; sentence
suspended upon tearful assurances of good behavior.
May 12, 1912: Picked up in Philadelphia charged with being a fugitive;
brought back to Los Angeles.
July 1, 1912: Committed to San Quentin. Guest No. 25835.
April 21, 1915: Committed to Folsom from Santa Barbara on a forgery
charge. Guest No. 9542.
Feb. 1, 1919: Arrested in Los Angeles County charged with suspicion of
a felony. Los Angeles County No. 14554.