Nazi Leader, Behind Saloon, Holds Forth Like Ward Heeler

“Mr. Einstein ! What’s he ever done for me? And where is he now? — over in Switzerland hiding ! Anyhow, what’s a theory? Will it buy me a liverwurst?”

This was the answer recently given by a district commander of the Nazi Storm Troops in Berlin to a question put by Ralph R. Busick, associate editor of the Philippines Free Press, Manila, who has just arrived in New York from Germany, where he lived for two months during the height of the trouble.

Busick stated that in Berlin he met a waiter in the Haus Vaterland, one of the city’s biggest cafes. The waiter boasted he was an assistant district commander of the Storm Troops and said he would be glad to introduce Busick to the chief.

Here is Busick’s description of what happened:

“We had an interesting time that morning. First the waiter took me to the government building where the dole is doled out. There were four or five floors to the building, each about half full of wretched men, women and children.

” Here’s where communism breeds’, the waiter told me. ‘I was on the dole myself for three months, and I know. But now I’m working for the Nazis.’

“From there he took me to a bar. We had some beer. The place belonged to a Nazi, and the salute was given. Then we took a train and rode to a poorer section of Berlin. The first thing I knew we had stopped in front of another pub and he was suggesting more beer. We went in and had two drinks. By that time I thought the waiter was ‘stringing me along’ and I despaired of ever seeing the district commander.

” But he went through a door in the rear of the room and soon reappeared, beckoning me to come in I did. He led me through a dark passageway into a little room where four men and two women were working away for their dear life. The furniture was poor, the office equipment makeshift.

“I suddenly realized that the headquarters of the Nazi Storm Troops in that district was in back of a saloon ! But we went into a room even smaller, and there sat the chief, an earnest little man. He was dressed in the mustard uniform of his party.

“I asked him many questions. The first was about Dr. Einstein. Why did they expel him and other Jewish intellectuals from Germany? Deigning even to call Dr. Einstein a Doctor, he replied that Mr. Einstein’s theory would not buy him a liverwurst sandwich.

“I asked him about Anschluss with Austria, and he replied that there was no doubt in his mind it would be effected shortly.

“He stated, in answer to another question, that the common people in Germany look with favor to the restoration of the Hohenzollerns.

“From what he said later I learned that within an hour the Storm Troop leaders could assemble at least 75,000 men at any time of the day or night in Berlin.

“I thanked him and departed. But I could not help but think later of the parallel between this political boss in his Berlin bar room hide away and the Old Tweed Gang which used to make its headquarters in Bowery saloons in New York.”

Busick, who is traveling around the world, will leave New York tomorrow for Ohio, his home. He will return to the Far East in September to resume his post as associate editor of the Philippines Free Press,most influential American magazine in the Orient.