U.S. Takes Germany to Task for Nazi Press Attacks

Nazi press attacks against the United States and American citizens were emphatically called to the attention of the German Government today by United States Ambassador William E. Dodd acting on instructions from the State Department in Washington.

Mr. Dodd, armed with copies of German newspapers, called on Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath and pointed out that the language used in assailing Americans in the controversy arising from Mayor LaGuardia’s recent attack on Hitler, was of unparalleled indecency and shocking to all decent minds.

The representations were prompted by a telegram from Mrs. Stephen S. Wise, president of the Women’s Division of American Jewish Congress, to the State Department protesting that a Nazi paper had termed “women of the streets” the Jewish women who heard LaGuardia attack Hitler.

Ambassador Dodd vigorously reminded Von Neurath the United States could not overlook the venomous and unfounded insults heaped upon America and its people by the Government-controlled press, said the Havas News Agency.

While always respecting the domestic sovereignty of foreign powers, Washington, also feels it owes even stronger recognition to the principle of free speech and liberty of opinion guaranteed under the constitution, the envoy pointed out.

The violence of the Reich press campaign, unprecedented and shocking to public opinion in itself, was the more abhorrent in that Government press control gave it tacit official approval, Dodd asserted.

The fact that Washington never before had protested the many derogatory excesses published in the Reich press could not possibly condone the vituperative attack of the last week, the American envoy was quoted as declaring.

Whether he advanced the fact that Secretary of State Cordell Hull already had expressed official regrets over Mayor LaGuardia’s characterization of Hitler was not disclosed.