Indications that Friedrich Heiss, publisher of Amerikas Deutsche Post and The American Observer, English supplement to the Hitlerite Post, and William Dudley Pelley, ### fanatical anti-Semitic leader of the Silver Shirts, have joined forces is made apparent in the December ### issue of Heiss’s publication.
Two long articles in Amerikas Deutsche Post are signed by the leader of the Silver Shirts, one of them launching a severe attack upon Congressman Samuel Dickstein fo# championing the cause of the government against Nazi propogand# invasion, and the other to warn th# United States against “the frightful effects of one of the deadliest contagions in the world today”, Communism, which he asserts is promoted by Jews throughout the world.
Virtually the entire content of Amerikas Deutsche Post is devoted to attacking the Jews and to extolling the policies of Hitler, although, in an interview, the editor and publisher, Friedrich Heiss, declared that he personally is not anti-Jewish.
“I am a spiritualist and have been for thirty-five years,” Heiss explained. “Hence I am not mixed up in any religious or political affairs. I am not anti-Jewish. I am only anti-dirty-tricks, and anti-money-and anti-bad-politics. These are particularly Jewish.”
Heiss, a native-born German who has lived in the United States for more than a half century, speaks with a particularly heavy German-Jewish accent, and his features could easily be mistaken as being Hebraic. According to his assertion, however, Heiss is a “full Aryan.” As proof of his not being anti-Semitic he states that a large majority of his employees at the Maspa Printing Company at 9 Barrow Street are Jewish.
Heiss quotes the ancient Jewish prophets as saying that the Jews either must change their ways or face extermination. He believes that the showdown is at hand; and he anticipates taking a part in “the construction of the new world.”
While the editor of Amerikas Deutsche Post is a firm believer in and friend of Hitler, he is not Nazi. “Neither Hitler nor myself are anti-Semitic,” he said. He states that reports current in the newspapers that Hitler treats the Jews as inferiors and affords them fewer advantages than “Aryans” are inaccurate. “The Jew is my brother,” said Heiss. “The Jew is Hitler’s brother, too.”
With true brotherly love Heiss has devoted a majority of the content of his last two editions of Amerikas Deutsche Post to justification of historical and present day persecutions of the Jews, and his paper advocates further action against the Jew in this, his adopted, country. He endorses the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as expounded in his paper by William Dudley Pelley, and he advertises such discredited anti-Jewish works as “The Secret World Government,” which he admits is a “suppressed book.” It is sold by Heiss.
Heiss for many years has been a printer in this city. In December, 1926, he operated a printshop at 314 East 23rd St. with his son Frederick, then 32 years of age. During the same month police visited a shop at that address, purchased copies of “My Life and Loves—Some Study, More Love,” and drew up charges of obscenity against a Frederick Heiss, then aged 32. Court records describe the printed matter as “obscene, lewd, filthy, indecent, and disgusting,” in fact, “so obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, and indecent that a minute description of same would be offensive to the court and improper to be placed upon the records thereof, wherefore a fuller description of the same is not se# forth in the complaint.” Frederick Heiss served thirty days in ### workhouse for printing the stor#The elder Heiss disclaims kn# edge of the incident, and states ### the fact that the address, name ### age of the defendant are ide# with those of his print shop and ### son is a “coincidence.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.