The time is ripe for organizing German-Americans disgusted with Hitlerism into a fighting organization against Nazism, Martin Plettl, president of the recently organized League of Free Germans, declared in an interview with the Jewish Daily Bulletin. Mr. Plettl, former head of the German Clothing Workers Federation, escaped from a Nazi concentration camp and is now making his home in New York.
“How necessary such an organization as ours is, Mr. Plettl said, was amply demonstrated by the events of last week and the political activities of the Nazi dominated German-American organizations. They are once more building a new camouflaged Nazi organization to carry on Hitlerite work in the United States.
“The league was founded about two months ago, and the ground for the organization was prepared here by the exceedingly aggressive and unscrupulous Nazi tactics in the United States which disgusted German Americans,” the anti-Nazi leader stated.
PURGE POTENT FACTOR
“Hitler’s ‘purge’ of June 30 also had a profound effect on German-Americans, showing them for the first time what Nazism meant in practice and disillusioning many who had been swept off their feet by the vast amount of German propaganda, for which, by the way the Nazi government is still spending immense sums.
“While we naturally do not claim to be speaking for all German-Americans we can point out that we have been successful in organizing local units of our organization in groups such as the German workers sick benefit associations, singing societies, sport clubs, cultural organization and German and German – American democratic organizations.
“We have also been surprisingly successful in organizing groups in Canada and in Latin America. In Canada we found that thanks to Nazi attempts at coercion, the Germans there were only too anxious to join our ranks.
GROUPS NON-PARTISAN
“So far we have confined ourselves entirely to building up strong local units all over the country in the hope of centralizing anti-Nazi work among German-Americans. Our organization is in no way partisan and is ready to include all German-American groups willing to fight Nazism as a menace to freedom and humanity. Hitlerism is a menace to the entire civilized world.
“The groups within the league enjoy the fullest local autonomy and the work will be confined entirely to fighting the Nazi movement here and in Germany.
“Within the next few months we will convoke a national congress of the local units of the league to discuss our problems and to lay plans for future work,” Mr. Plettl said.
The anti-Nazi leader also declared that he and other leaders of the movement would shortly undertake a nation-wide tour to further the work of the organization.
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.
