Miss Thompson Not Resentful

Dorothy Thompson, first American newspaper correspondent to be expelled from Germany because of stories she had written for the American press, including the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, returned here on Friday aboard the United States liner Leviathan. Also on board the giant ship, which was making its farewell voyage, was Israel Albert Levitan, Berlin correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, whose expulsion from Germany followed within four days after Miss Thompson was asked to leave.

Miss Thompson, who is the wife of Sinclair Lewis, the novelist, told ship news reporters who interviewed her that she bore Germany no resentment for expelling her. The entire affair, indeed, she was inclined to pass off as an unpleasant incident which had its amusing aspects.

SURPRISED AT PETTINESS

Since the articles which resulted in her expulsion (technically she left “by request” but the request was tagged with the threat of forcible ejection if not obeyed) were written by her in 1931 and 1933, she came away, she said, with a feeling of deep astonishment that a man in Hitler’s position should have deigned to remember what she wrote so long ago.

Two separate indictments were made against Miss Thompson by the Gestapo, the Reich’s secret police, in “requesting” her to leave.

What these were she learned through acting Consul General Raymond Geist, who was permitted by Gestapo to see the dossier in which the complaint against Miss Thompson was lodged.

One was objection to an interview with Hitler in 1931, published in the American press in 1932, one of the first interviews which the Nazi leader granted to an American correspondent.

“I understand Hitler was simply furious at my story about him. What astonishes me more than anything else about the whole affair,” Miss Thompson said, “was the fact that a man in his position should so long remember what had been written about him such a long time ago.”

The second item in the Gestapo dossier was a series of six articles she wrote for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Jewish Daily Bulletin, in May of 1933.

The series was concerned with the plight of the Jews in Germany.

“I believe,” Miss Thompson said when asked whether she thought this series played a more important role in getting her expelled than the Hitler interview, “that my articles for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency probably were a more decisive factor in their action. They were particularly incensed over the fact that a non-Jew was writing articles for a Jewish organization. To them that was both incomprehensible and inexcusable. They took the attitude that a non-Jew was supplying Jews with ammunition to be used against other non-Jews.”

Although Miss Thompson said she could not make out the signature that was affixed to the note apprising her that she was persona non grata in the Reich, she expressed conviction that Hitler personally was behind it.

The request that she leave was delivered to Miss Thompson shortly after she had arrived in Berlin for her third brief stay within a period of two months. An emissary of the Gestapo delivered it to her. The note was couched in the following language:

“It is come to our attention that you are again in Germany. In view of the many hostile articles which you wrote and which appeared in the American press we feel it incompatible with our self-respect to permit you to remain longer in Germany. In order to avoid official expulsion we ask you to break short your visit and leave Germany immediately.”

“Were you tempted to defy the request?” a reported asked.

“Slightly,” she laughed. “You see I was considerably curious to discover whether the two troopers who would be assigned to escort me to the border would prove to be Nazis.”

Miss Thompson, discussing the outlook for Jews in Germany, emphatically stated that it was “completely hopeless.”