Ridder Rout Stirs Reich Enthusiasm

The defeat of Victor Ridder as president of the German American Conference of Greater New York parent body to twenty-five German American social groups, today was called “the most significant event among Germans in the United States since the World War.”

Korrespondenz, an official party organ of the National Socialists, said editorially that the event indicates a growing sympathy for the Nazi movement in Germany among Americans of German extraction.

UNSEATED MAY 25

Ridder, who was defeated at a meeting of the Conference held on Friday, May 25, at Luchow’s Restaurant on East Fourteenth street, New York City, had been until the time of his defeat the leaders of Germans in the United States.

“The leadership was snatched out of his hands,” says Korrespondenz. “It was possible for Ridder to exert certain influence on hundreds of German Socialists. The surprising growth of the influence of the Friends of New Germany upon organized Germandom in Greater New York brought about Ridder’s downfall.”

The selection of C. K. Froehlich as president of the United German Societies and his subsequent appointment of a number of aides in subordinate offices, most of them pro-Nazi in sympathies, is bailed by Korrespondenz.

‘FULLEST HARMONY’

The New Yorker Staats-Zeitung of which Victor Ridder is publisher, gave a glowing account of the election of Froehlich as having been undertaken in the “fullest harmony.” The paper described the election as signalizing the “bringing into a United Front divergent groups,” but did not mention the fact that the united front displays a swastika.

One of the incidents of the election was a speech delivered by Dr. Louis Ewald, a member of the conference, who extended thanks and felicitations to the retiring president. Froehlich expressed his thanks to Ridder, who had been defeated by a plurality of fourteen votes.

Reached at his office at the Staats-Zeitung, Mr. Ridder commented on the Korrespondenz article as follows:

“Just say that I laughed.”