More than 16,000 persons paid tribute last night to the memory of the late Paul von Hindenburg, president of Germany, at Madison Square Garden Bowl in Queens in services sponsored by the pro-Nazi Friends of New Germany.
Eight hundred storm troopers, under the command of Joseph Schuster, popularly known as “the singing waiter,” patrolled the arena. Five hundred regular police were also on hand, led by Captain Charles Dorshell, together with 100 svecial patrolmen employed by the Bowl management, in anticipation of disorders, but everything was quite peaceful.
The swastika of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich was in evidence. It was part of the flag which was draped over the edges of a mammoth picture of the former Field Marshal, painted in ink on a huge black curtain behind the dais. A silver-colored hakenkreuz was placed before a huge bier in the center of the platform.
Standing guard before a coffin were two storm troops and two Stahlhelm men at stiff attention.
FLARES LIGHT DAIS
The dais was lit up by gasoline flares, the smoke fom which, swirling in the wind, cast wierd shadows on the picture of von Hindenburg. An airplane with a swastika on its fuselage wheeled overhead.
The gathering was considerable of a disappointment to the Friends, who had anticipated that as many as 40,000 would assemble. Vendors of pins, flags and the Deutsche Zeitung, Yorkville Nazi newspaper, reported very poor
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.
