ton, on the witness stand. The proceedings were broadcast.
Luedecke said, “While I admit that I was the accredited press representative and foreign political agent of the Nazi party in the United States, Canada and Mexico, with my office in Washington, D. C., I want to stress the fact that I am no longer connected with the party in any way.
“I was one of Hitler’s faithful first followers and comrades, working loyally and faithfully, often under the most trying circumstances.”
Luedecke related the saga of his experiences in Germany since Hitler came to power, including the story of his two arrests and imprisonment in a concentration camp.
“I want you to know that I stand before you a disillusioned, embittered ex-Nazi, with no desire whatever to shield those who have betrayed so shamefully the very fundamental principles of Nazism, endangering the very life of the German people,” he told the committee.
He said that Ernst Hanfstaengl, chief of the Nazi foreign press bureau in Berlin, is known as “the court jester.”
Luedecke testified that Heinz Spanknoebel came to the United States in 1933 as the representative of the German government and the Nazi party. He said that Spanknoebel persisted in organizing Nazi groups here in spite of Luedecke’s counsel against this move.
In reply to McCormack’s questions, the former Nazi press chief, said that there are Nazi cells on every German ship.
“They are considered German territory,” he said.
Later on, Luedecke said that before his arrest in Germany last March, he had advised Chancellor Hitler strongly against the spreading of Nazi propaganda in the United States.
In his presence, the witness asserted a cablegram to the United States was drafted ordering cessation of Nazi propaganda. He admitted that the message may never have been sent.
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.
