Meeting with representatives of leading German-American federations, the Steuben Society Monday outlined plans for the celebration of German Day on December 6 in the Madison Square Garden.
The projected celebration, already branded pro-Nazi by leading Jews, is expected to lead to renewed attempts to secure legal injunction against its execution.
Julius Hochfelder, counsel for the Jewish War Veterans, has demanded that John R. Killpatrick, president of the Madison Square Garden Corporation, request the mayor to appoint a committee composed of a Jew, a Catholic and a Protestant to consider the desirability of suspending the celebration again.
In a letter delivered to the Madison Square Garden Corporation yesterday, Mr. Hochfelder threatened to seek injunction relief from the New York State Supreme Court, if the Garden management did not take action on his request.
Mr. Killpatrick was in Washington and was to take up the matter on his return here yesterday, his office announced.
In the meantime anxiety is being felt by Jews and liberal Germans regarding the effects of the renewed attempts to celebrate German Day under the swastika. Leaders of Jewish vereins have resolved to take no part in any celebration which displays the emblem of the Hitler government.
According to the plans formed thus far, Ambassador Hans Luther will be invited to address the gathering at the German Day celebration. This will necessitate the display of the German national flag and the National Socialist emblem, the swastika.
A committee appointed by the German-American Conference met Monday afternoon at the Franziskaner, 1591 Second Avenue, to draw up plans for the fight against the boycott of German goods and for a campaign against the dissemination of anti-German propaganda in the United States.
The action of the German-American Conference, the largest German American body in the United States, composed of 23 federations and more than 200 vereins, is being taken without consent or aid of Jewish member organizations.
Victor Ridder, president of the German-American Conference and publisher of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, at the last meeting of the conference declared that the right of organization must be preserved for all recent German immigrants. He called upon the Steuben Society to stand by the recent arrivals from Germany and attributed the publicity given German-Americans to the work of “a small irresponsible group of fanatics” recently admitted to the United States.
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.
