Nazi Probers Back at Capital; to Resume Hearings Shortly

Congressmen John W. McCormack and Samuel Dickstein, respectively chairman and vice-chairman of the Congressional Committee to investigate Nazi activities in this country, returned yesterday to Washington after a three-day hearing in which more than a score of officers and members of the League of Friends of New Germany were brought to testify.

The committee members adjourned secret hearings with promises that they would be resumed in Washington about June 1, more than likely without restriction as to public attendance.

Those called to the hearing Saturday were recognized as being close political associates of Fritz Gissibl, who has been chief of the entire American Nazi branch until recently, when he resigned to give the organization a more American favor, Gissibl has been connected with Hitler’s party both here and in Germany. He recently announced he would shortly return to Germany to “help build up the Third Reich.”

While little information was given as to the findings of the committee delegation, it was admitted that accounts examined during the session indicated that the Nazi movement in this country has been financed to some extent by funds from Germany. Documentary evidence of such alleged transactions were said to have been submitted by bankers and brokers after the subcommittee had gained information from the witnesses indicating the channels through which subsidies had come from Berlin to New York.

McCormack, Dickstein and the committee counsel, Thomas W. Hardwick, former governor of Georgia, exhausted documentary evidence crammed into two large suitcases during the hearings.

It was learned that Secret Service men have been investigating Nazi activities in New York for many months, and largely as a result of their findings evidence of important messages from Berlin to New York Nazis came to light.

Before the committee members left for the capital, they announced that with resumption of hearings in Washington about ten days hence a number of Nazis from New York would be called to testify.

McCormack said evidence gathered during the last few days would be brought before the full committee in Washington, and he stated that the subcommittee had not only gone into every phase of the question in which it had been interested but had also opened up new channels of evidence during the New York hearings. He said that thus far the subcommittee in New York had concerned itself exclusively with Nazi propaganda, but he indicated that in other cities there remains a possibility they will investigate other foreign propaganda.

CLERIC UNDERGOES QUIZ

Among those subjected to investigation by the committee on Saturday were: Henry O. Spier, organizer of the DAWA, an anti-Jewish boycott organization which he has promoted both in New York and elsewhere; Willi Warnecke, secretary of the local DAWA organization and a member of the United German Societies, which together with the League of Friends of New Germany, sponsors the movement; Rev. Francis Gross, a former Catholic priest of Perth Amboy, N. J., who has circulated signed pamphlets attacking the Jews and upholding Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies; Dr. Ignatz T. Griebl, one of the early leaders of the Friends of New Germany, who resigned his position with city hospitals under pressure of many protests against his alleged anti-Semitism and Hitlerism; and Erich T. Lenz, a leader of the New Jersey branch of the Friends of New Germany.

Major Frank Pease also testified before the sub-committee. He later told reporters his testimony had concerned itself primarily with an expert opinion on the possible consequences of the growth of Hitlerism in the United States. He said that if the pro-Hitlerite forces in the United States could be brought up to 5,000,000 they would be able to control the country politically, and at the same time he voiced the opinion that an anti-Hitler reaction here would swell the Communist ranks.