Head of U.S. Nazis, Whom Hitler Sent, Discusses Plans

Meet Heinz Spanknoebel, the president of the “Friends of the Hitler Movement in America.”

A lean man of about 38, above medium height, with a mustache trimmed in Hitler fashion, Herr Spanknoebel is unusually polite. He is polite even when he frankly explains the anti-Semitic plans in the Hitler platform to his Jewish interviewer.

Detroit is his home, and he has therefore made this city the headquarters for the national Hitler movement in America. He admits a national membership of only 1,500, with a Detroit membership of about 40. But his attitude is that of a conqueror. Isn’t he, after all, personal representative in this country of Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany?

But Herr Spankoebel is unusually careful. As a non-citizen he is shrewd enough to emphasize that his party intends to stay out of American politics; that the aim of his group is to educate the Germans in this country regarding the Hitlerite platform and to befriend them for the Nazi program and party.

AIM TO DRIVE JEWS FROM OFFICE

A resident of this country for {SPAN}#hree{/SPAN} and a half years, Spanknoebel visited Germany a year ago and {SPAN}#hile{/SPAN} there was active in organizing {SPAN}###-Nazi{/SPAN} sentiment. He returned to {SPAN}###{/SPAN} country to sponsor the “Friends of the Hitler Movement in America,” which now has branches in the large cities of this country and which publishes an organ, “Deutscher Beobachter,” in New York.

On the Jewish question, this personal spokesman for Hitler is quite frank. Hitler and the Nazis, he told this interviewer, want a Germany for the Germans and are determined to drive all Jews from public office and from positions of responsibility.

“Aren’t Jews, whose residence in Germany dates back 800 years, Germans?” Spanknoebel was asked, and he shrugged his shoulders: “Well, they say, they believe, they are Germans. But they are Jews just the same.”

Then came an interesting revelation: Spanknoebel told this interviewer that he was the one who informed Germany about Lion Feuchtwanger’s lecture tour in this country. He it was who told the Hitler government that Feuchtwanger called Hitler “lousy” in an address in California!

### is how truth was misrepre### about Feuchtwanger, whose ### home was ransacked. And ###twanger was doubly careful in ###iscussion of political events in ###any. In an article syndicated ###e North American Newspaper ###ce, released on March 21, ### Feuchtwanger wrote:

My house in Berlin is a beautiful ### I admit, and I was looking for### to being in it again and en###ing its peace after my hectic jour### through America. However, I ### been careless. It is true that ###e in America I had refused ab###tely to talk about Chancellor ###er and had refused unusually ### fees to lecture about him, but ###ad, in reply to urgent questions, ###ered a couple of brief sentences ###ut Hitler’s literary style.”

But the Hitlerites are not faring ### well in Herr Spanknoebel’s home ###. The American Nazis meet ###larly, and are growing in num### and there is reason to believe ### the local German press is siding ### them. But their last meeting, ###ich they had planned to insti### boycott of Jews in this coun### a fiasco. Of the 500 present, at least 150 were prepared to do anything to prevent the Hitlerites from carrying out their program: and they did. The mere mention of the name of the Kaiser, who, one speaker said, was driven into exile by the Jews, brought shouts of “Zum Teufel mit dem Kaiser!” Booes and hisses greeted every effort to exonerate Hitler.

Nevertheless it is well to take note of this Nazi movement in this country. Out of a small seed of hate planted in Hitler’s heart grew his dangerous movement. There is a bare possibility that the seed of this hate may be transplanted—but a possibility.