News Brief

This city, home of the first Nazi propagandist in this country, Heinz Spanknobel, was without a sign of much pro-Nazi propaganda until about two months ago. As a matter of fact, sentiment among Germans was for many months known to be against the Nazi regime. While bitter strife marked meetings of German societies, the anti-Hitlerites were usually in the vast majority.

But the tide has since turned. I have it on good authority that since the advent of the Friends of Nazi Germany the ranks of local Germans are about evenly divided–which is in effect a great gain for the Nazis. There are about 32,000 enrolled members in the combined German societies in Detroit, and in view of the fact that about half are already definitely letting themselves be heard in favor of the home government even the most optimistic now admit that the anti-Hitlerist cause is lost here.

This has happened in spite of the fact that the local German daily newspaper–Detroiter Abend Post–has been consistently neutral, and was even known to have discharged its pro-Nazi editor for attempting to play too much on the Hitler fiddle.

VICE-CONSUL CHANGES ATTITUDE

Fritz Hailer’s loyalty gets the prize for his being so adept in learning from his home government on how to be able to suppress free speech and free expression for public consumption. When he spoke before the Intersynodical Lutheran Pastors Association, at the Hotel Statler, he refused to start his address until the newspaper reporters had left the hall It had been announced that he was to speak on the conditions of the Protestant Church in Germany.

Several days after this meeting, Herr Hailer appeared before a women’s club. There were no newspaper reporters present, but a young lady was delegated by one of the local Jewish leaders to take notes on Hailer’s address. The vice-consul objected to the presence of reporters in the hall, and when the young lady informed him that she was merely taking notes and was not reporting, Hailer curtailed his address to about five minutes, and refused to speak on the topic he had announced. The result was that the ladies were outraged, insulted, resentful and indignant–at the Jews! Because, they charged, the Jews were responsible for the vice-consul’s curtailing his announced address! What a sad commentary on tolerance!

ALLEGE PROPAGANDA IN SCHOOLS

The local scene was marred last week by reports of the spread of pro-German propaganda by school teachers who told their pupils that the reason Hitler hates the Jews is because they are disloyal, unpatriotic and had refused to join the army during the World War. To the credit of Frank Cody, superintendent of schools, be it said that he is prepared at all times to put a stop to the spread of such lies, provided the names of the guilty teachers are reported to him. But the Jewish pupils invariably hesitate to name their teachers–they may lose their jobs, they argue, or they may hurt them when handing out the marks.

Another matter of interest in the local happenings of the past week is the charge of mismanagement of funds by the Ku Klux Klan here. A branch of the KKK, recently revived, had been conducting anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic propaganda. Now comes the charge that many thousands of unaccounted for dollars were collected by the local KKK, and Clayton C. Gilliland has started action to collect a $9,000 judgment against the Klan.

Detroit Jews this week were outraged by the appearance of a lengthy article in the Detroit Times referring to Alexander Stavisky as the son of a Russian. Jewish peasant and as “a little Jew” who caused the recent troubles in France by his speculations before his death. The most prominent Jews in the community registered their complaints with the Times, whose editor’s excuse was that it was a national Hearst newspaper story and that it appeared in exactly the same form in the New York Journal without arousing protests in New York.