Much exercised over the action of Magistrate Louis B. Brodsky in freeing five anti-Nazis for their part in the July 26 riot on the Bremen in which the swastika was torn down, local Nazis today called a protest mass-meeting at the Madison Square Garden for Oct. 6.
Officers of the Friends of New Germany expressed themselves as indignant after reading newspaper reports that Judge Brodsky, who previously gave local Hitlerites a set-back by sentencing Raymond Healey, “the American Hitler,” to a workhouse term, had likened the swastika emblem to a pirate flag.
Willy Warnecke, secretary of the United German Societies, characterized as an “outrage” Judge Brodsky’s freeing of the five defendants and his denunciation of Hitlerism.
Walter Kappe, press chief of the Friends of New Germany, said the organization would protest to the State Department.
Judge Brodsky, in an opinion handed down while freeing five defendants and holding one for violation of the Sullivan Act, declared that the anti-Nazis had seen in the Nazi emblem the same sinister application carried by the black flag of piracy.
In a large sense, he said, the disturbances had been provoked by the “flaunting of an emblem to those who regarded it as a definite challenge to society.”
The case arose from disturbances abroad the Bremen July 26 when anti-Nazis tore down the Nazi flag flying from the ship’s helm. The incident also resulted in an exchange of notes between the United States and German governments.
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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.
