Germans in the United States have written about 200 anti-Semitic letters, some filled with profanities, to Bavarian Prime Minister Hans Ehard, American officials disclosed here today. The letters, most of which came from Yonkers, N.Y., where there is a large German colony, attacked Ehard for bringing about the trial by denazificatiin court this year of Mathilde Ludendorff, widow of the former Field Marshal Erich Ludendorff.
American authorities told Reuters they were investigating a complaint that neo-Nazi movements in Germany, particularly that said to be headed by Frau Ludendorff, were backed in the United States. Premier Ehard was said to have walked into American High Commission offices here and dropped the letters, in three large bundles, on the desk of a high official with the remark “here’s something that should interest you.” One letter accused him of “taking part in a foul plot of international Jewry” against Frau Ludendorff.
A Commission official said: “Premier Ehard indicated that he thought the job of teaching the Bavarians democracy might begin in the United States.” U.S. High Commissioner John J. McCloy’s political intelligence officers, it was disclosed, have long been disturbed over the appearance of anti-Semitic articles in the German-language press in the United States, which are passed on to nationalistic groups in Germany.
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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.
