Representative Samuel Dickstein, chairman of the House committee investigating Nazi activities, today announced that a request to deny Ernest E. F. Hanfstaengl of Germany admission here if he accepts the invitation to address this year’s Harvard commencement exercises, is under investigation.
Dickstein, who also heads the House Immigration Committee, had asked the Department of Labor to determine whether Hanfstaengl is coming “to spread Nazi propaganda.”
“If his purpose is honest,” the New York Congressman declared, “I have no quarrel with him. But if his purpose is to spread some more Hitler propaganda, that is different. We have enough of that now.”
A letter was received by Dickstein from Frank Pease, who describes himself as an American army officer, which charged that his wife was severely beaten by Nazis during a recent visit to Germany. The letter states that Hanfstaengl, supposed head of the Hitler Secret Service, laughed at the incident.
Dickstein said Pease wrote that Hanfstaengl was on the “inside gang” of Nazi propagandists and adviser to “Herr Doktor Diehl, chief of the General Foreign Office Secret Service,” of Germany. Pease wrote in his letter, according to Dickstein, that after Mrs. Pease had been beaten by the storm troppers she was ompelled to spend several months in bed.
Pease is the author of a book on Germany under Hitler.
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