A former Republican Congressman from Milwaukee, John C. Schaefer, publicly boasted that he was a member of the anti-Semitic Silver Shirts, the Dies Committee on un-American Activities was told yesterday. The charge was contained in an affidavit signed by a Milwaukee restaurant employee named Irving Rasmussen.
The committee also heard testimony that the German-American Bund had threatened and tried to intimidate German Americans in Wisconsin. Bernhard Hoffman, president of the Wisconsin Federation of German-American Societies charged that the Bund had warned members of his organization of reprisals against relatives in Germany of persons who criticized the Nazi regime. Mr. Hoffman, who was brought before the committee by John C. Metcalfe, the committee’s chief investigator, said that 99 per cent of Wisconsin German Americans were opposed to Nazi principles.
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