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Nazis Seeking to Develop Minority Bloc in U.s., Hearing Told

September 30, 1938
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The Nazis are seeking to develop a definite minority bloc of Germans in the United States, the special House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities was told today by John C. Metcalfe, committee investigator, who last year collaborated in an expose of Nazi activities for a Chicago newspaper.

“With ‘favorable’ German consuls, the assistance of steamship officials, German railway tourist agencies, motion picture companies of Germany, imported speakers and propaganda agents, the German-American Bund hopes to accomplish its aim of uniting all Americans of German descent or birth under its swastika banners in the United States,” Mr. Metcalfe testified.

Tracing a tie-up of German consulates with the Bund, the investigator said that German Ambassador Hans Dieckhoff, Bundesfuehrer Fritz Kuhn and Chancellor Adolf Hitler formed a three-way clearing house for Nazi propaganda in America. German steamship lines and tourist agencies cooperate in seeking to Nazify German-Americans, he added.

Many organizations cooperating with the Bund are financial rackets, Mr. Metcalfe charged. He said that efforts to Nazify German-Americans in the South had been a failure, but that the bunds in big cities were meeting with some success. The hearings were adjourned until tomorrow.

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