Adolf Hitler has just done a peculiar thing. He has deprived an American citizen of his German “citizenship.”
It took Fritz Bremer, the German-born American citizen, just seventeen days to discover that he no longer wished to be a citizen of Germany.
Bremer works in a packing plant in Chicago and lives at 2135 Cleveland avenue. He likes his job and he likes to live in America. He said today:
“I went back to Germany and was there only seventeen days when I decided that I didn’t want to be a German citizen any more. So I came back here and borrowed enough money to become an American citizen.
“The funniest thing about the fact that Hitler has deprived me of my German ‘citizenship’ is that he isn’t a German himself, yet he tries to take citizenship from one who is German born, and although he is Chancellor of Germany, yet he is trying to take German ‘citizenship’ from one who is not a citizen in Germany.”
About his activities in the organizations of which he is the head in Chicago, the “Friends of German Democracy,” Bremer said:
BELIEVES IN AMERICAN PRINCIPLES
“When I first came to America seven years ago I found the Nazis here were highly organized. They’ve been here since 1923. Right now they are meeting at 3859 N. Ashland avenue and are drilling in Nazi uniform. I do not believe in Nazi principles. I believe in freedom, liberty and democracy. I believe in more education. I believe in teaching foreign people who come to America how to become American citizens. That is the purpose of our organization.”
Bremer said that he had received several warnings about his activities here, that his letters to and from Germany had been closely censored and that Nazis here had spied upon him and reported what he did and said to German headquarters. His German “citizenship,” he said, is something he won’t miss and Hitler’s act in depriving him of something he does not possess is all “nonsense.”
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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.
