The German Embassy denied today that the German-American Bund had any connection with Chancellor Adolf Hitler. The explanation was apparently prompted by the publication earlier this week of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s report on the Bund in which it was shown that Fritz Kuhn, leader of the Bund, participated with Hitler in the Munich “beer-hall putsch” of 1923.
The policy of the German Government, the Embassy, said, is that German nationals do not take part in political affairs in this country, that German citizens are “guests” who must respect this status or be subject to deportation. Accordingly, Germany has warned its nationals not to join the Bund, it was stated.
The Embassy looks on the Bund as “just another” German organization in the United States and points out that there are 750 German-American societies in New York alone. It insists that if a German takes out citizenship papers in the United States, the German Government is not interested in him from the political standpoint, as there can be no double allegiance. As to the cultural standpoint, the Embassy holds that Germans cannot be expected to give up their cultural ties any more than Poles, Britons, etc.
The F.B.I., however, is trying to discover whether the Bund has penetrated the Army and Navy to get military secrets, and also whether tie-ups exist between the Bund and anti-Semitic organizations such as the Silver Shirts. As the F.B.I. understands it, the Bund is working with anti-Semitic groups in the United States.
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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.
