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Renegade American Urges Germans to Kill One Jew for Every Nazi Lost on Russian Front

February 5, 1943
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The prediction that more mass-executions of Jews by the Nazis are to be expected was made last night over the German radio in a broadcast to the United States by Robert H. Best, a former American newspaperman who decided to remain in Germany when American newspapermen were repatriated.

Speaking from Berlin, the renegade reporter suggested that one Jew be killed for every German killed on the Russian front. “It would not be surprising if Jews were executed by the thousands,” he said.

A native of Sumter, S. C., and a graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, Best was, for many years, correspondent of an American news agency in Vienna. He was in Lisbon last May with other American correspondents and officials about to be sent home in an exchange of nationals when he decided suddenly to return to Germany in what he called “the interest of history.” Since then he had been making short-wave broadcasts for the Axis cause. The Department of Justice announced last month that he would be indicted for treason.

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