The sensational letter purporting to have been written by Walter Haag, adjutant to Heinz Spanknoebel, fugitive leader of the Nazis in this country, and which reported to Berlin headquarters on activities of the organization here, was originally obtained through the agency of a “Mr. Z”, the Dickstein inquiry committee learned today.
Clarence Hathaway, editor of the Daily Worker, Communist newspaper, which first published the letter, brought “Mr. Z” into the picture, adding to the mystery surrounding several details of the Nazi investigation to date. “Mr. Z” was described as the man who gained possession of the letter. Yesterday, a mysterious “Mr. X” testified as to the authenticity of the document.
Some disturbance was caused at the session today when Representative Focht, of Pennsylvania, a member of the inquiry committee, accused Hathaway of being an anarchist.
Hathaway, on the witness stand, attempted to link Representative Hamilton Fish of New York, archfoe of communism, and a number of organizations opposing the spread of communism, to the Nazi cause.
Representative Fish, who has spoken at many Jewish protests against persecution of the Jews and who, last May, introduced a resolution in Congress calling on President Roosevelt to make “friendly representations” to Adolf Hitler in behalf of the Jews in Germany, is sympathetic to Nazi ideals of racial purity, the communist editor told the committee.
Victor Ridder, one of the publishers of the New Yorker Staats Zeitung, who was to have been the principal witness today, was unable to appear but notified Congressman Dickstein that he would be present tomorrow if wanted.
The Ridder Brothers will be the first witnesses to appear when the hearings of the committee are resumed on December 4, said Congressman Dickstein. He announced at the conclusion of today’s session that the hearings will be resumed in Washington on that date and in New York the following week. The adjournment, he said, was for the purpose of giving the committee needed time in which to “digest the facts which so far have been presented by the various witnesses.”
Referring to the results of the inquihy thus far after the conclusion of Hathaway’s testimony, Congressman Dickstein remarked, “this thing is getting hot.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
