One hundred delegates of the United German Societies and half as many representatives of dissenting German-Jewish and German organizations yesterday afternoon stormed the offices of Mayor John P. O’Brien and argued respectively against and for the earlier decision of the mayor to suspend German Day celebrations at the 69th Division Armory next Sunday.
The mayor elected to meet representatives of both factions at 2:30 this afternoon when he will definitely decide whether or not the plans of the United German Societies, under the leadership and spokes-manship of Heinz Spanknoebel, propagandist of the Hitler Government, will be carried out.
The Rev. William Popcke, acting president of the United German Societies, yesterday told the mayor that “the honor of the United States depends upon his decision.”
Alderman Walter Hart, commander of the Brooklyn Jewish War Veterans, demanded the right to attend today’s meeting. This permission was granted to him and representatives of other Jewish organizations, after Mayor O’Brien had reiterated his statement that he had banned German Day celebrations because the question, as he saw it, was not “related to the patriotism of German-American citizens but rather became whether or not the occasion would be utilized by aliens to sow seeds of Hitler’s intolerant and intolerable religious prejudices in New York, where we have no room for the bigotry of anti-Semites, Ku Kluxers, or other principles of spite and hatred.”
The meeting yesterday came in the wake of one of the most dramatic crises in the history of New York’s Germany colony. On Monday night the United German Societies, with 450 delegates of organizations remaining in the society and a number of those of resigned vereins present, decided to challenge the mayor’s authority to suspend German Day celebrations. A letter was drafted in which his ban was set forth as “an insult to all Germans”, and which rebuked the mayor for attempting to dictate against proposed speakers. A committee of seventeen was appointed to interview the mayor. Coincidently, Charles A. Oberwager, appointee to the committee, refused to join “in the interests of peace and order.”
Before the mayor decided to reconsider his decision on the celebration yesterday, Edgar H. Burman, commander of the Jewish War Veterans, had announced cancellation of plans for a counter demonstration in the form of an anti-Nazi rally scheduled for Sunday.
MEETING VERGED ON RIOT
The meeting of the United German Societies, an organization of 67 German vereins under the leadership of Heinz Spanknoebel, Hitlerite representative in the United States, repeatedly moved to the threshold of riot conditions on Monday night, when Victor and Bernard Ridder, publishers of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, America’s largest German daily newspaper, retaliated against their expulsion from the United German Societies.
In a crowded hall jammed by 450 delegates, who occupied all chairs and overflowed into the standing room in the rear of the hall, tension first cracked when Heinz Spanknocbel opened the meeting with a demand for the ousting of all unauthorized attendants including representatives of four Jewish and eight non-Jewish societies who had resigned from the United German Societies some weeks ago.
His demands inspired a forceful protest led by Dr. Fritz Schlesinger, leader of the Jews present, who declared that neither Spanknoebel nor any of the others present had the authority to put him out. Although he was booed and hissed at the beginning of his speech, Schlesinger succeeded in silencing his hecklers, who heard him through, and permitted him and his companions to remain without further protest. R. G. Varborg, of the German Bicycle Club, also expressed his determination to remain through the meeting. He did.
Rev. Popcke, whose invitation to the mayor to speak at the German Day celebration resulted in the banning of the festival, opened the meeting with an attack on Mayor O’Brien, asserting that the mayor had assaulted a peace-loving German people and that “in spite of everything, German Day would be celebrated.”
SUSPEND RIDDER BROTHERS
Howling their approval, delegates voted to suspend Victor and Bernard Ridder and their society editor, Ludwig Oberndorf, from the U. G. S. for “treachery and treason to the German people.” The passage of the resolution inspired the first great clamor of a night of turmoil in the Turnhalle.
Amid boos and catcalls, Victor Ridder stood at his chair and in an emotional voice demanded to know under whose auspices they were suspended. As he sat down, his brother, Bernard, marched to the rostrum. Members of the audience derisively cautioned him to speak in German.
“I shall speak in any language I like,” Mr. Ridder flung back. And in a scathing denunciation of Spanknoebel ad his “mob of racketeers” he asserted he would not “barter my Americanism for the Nazi or any other government.”
Ridder charged Spanknoebel with having attempted to intimidate him into publishing propaganda from the N.S.D.A.P. Pressestelle in Berlin, which assertedly Spanknoebel represents in the United States. Ridder declared that the U.G.S. is now under orders given by Spanknoebel, that their meetings had been changed to meet the specifications of Spanknoebel, that their meetings had become riots and turmoil, that they now aimed to drive American citizens of Jewish ancestry from American society, and that Germany, now more in need of American sympathy than ever since her withdrawal from the Disarmament Conference was losing American good will.
SPANKNOEBEL WITHOUT AUTHORITY
He charged Spanknoebel with having been deprived of his authority by the Hitler Government four weeks ago and accused the U.G.S. of accepting him as a leader when even the Berlin Government “would have nothing to do with him.” As he returned to his seat, the audience called, “Jude!”
Spanknoebel in rebuttal quoted Ridder as having declared himself “90 percent for Hitler.”
“I told that to Hitler too,” Ridder replied. “The ten percent I couldn’t go with him was on the Jewish question.”
The Ridder brothers were escorted from the hall by Spanknoebel’s bodyguards, after throngs from the audience had repeatedly broken up the meeting by marching to the speakers, menacing them with fists, and demanded that they retract the terms applied to them—”gangsters and racketeers.” Bernard Ridder said he was not so much concerned with his immediate audience, but rather “a much greater audience, the bar of opinion of the United States.” He approached the press table, which was jammed with representatives of metropolitan dailies and press associations, as he said this.
Spanknoebel said that he had no
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