Pale and noticeably nervous, Hans Weidemann, the right hand man of the Nazi Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment, Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, arrived yesterday in New York on the S.S. Columbus, the first Nazi member of the Hitlerite government to set foot in this country. He was accompanied by his assistant, Gotthold Schneider. The young 29-year-old Nazi chieftain who purportedly came to this country to represent Germany at the World Fair in Chicago, was non-plussed when confronted by a group of New York press representatives who hurled at him a number of embarrassing questions. At first refusing to talk, he finally submitted to a fifteen minute interrogation by the reporters, during which he asserted his complete sympathy with the anti-Jewish measures in Germany.
As soon as the boat docked at the pier, he was met by the German vice-consul of New York, Otto Schlitter, and several police officials who informed the Nazi envoy that a hostile demonstration of over five hundred people awaited him at the pier. After a short and nervous conference in the Captain’s quarters, Mr. Weidemann was spirited away under a heavy police guard and taken off on a tug which took him to an unknown destination.
DISPLAYS SWASTIKA
The tall young Nazi representative wore the swastika emblem prominently displayed on his coat lapel. He tried to minimize the importance of his mission in this country, declaring that he is going to the Chicago fair only as a technical art adviser to the German department of religious art which is represented at the Chicago exhibition. He emphatically denied the suggestion made by the representative of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that, ac-
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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.
