SILVER SHIRTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 August 1938, Page 5

SILVER SHIRTS

NAZIS IN THE UNITED STATES ALLEGED INSTRUCTIONS TO ARM SECRETLY DIRECTIONS FROM GERMANY WASHINGTON, August 13. John Metcalfe, a former “Chicago Times” reporter, testifying today at the House investigation into espionage and “non-American activities,” declared that the American Nazi Silver Shirts had been instructed to arm secretly. Metcalfe said that he had investigated the German-American Bund for six months. He had, joined the group and secured inside information. He declared that half a million Americans were behind the Nazi movement. He also said that German vice-con-suls addressed the Bund’s meetings, promising the fullest co-operation. The Bund was directed by the Ausland Bureau at Stuttgart, Germany.

Walter Kappe, Fritz Gissibl, and Heinz Spanknoebel, who fled abroad after the recent Grand Jury indictment, were Bund officials, declared Metcalfe. He added that when Congress voted the investigation, Kuhn, who was the alleged Nazi leader in the United States, destroyed evidence linking the Bund with Nazi Germany. “Kuhn told me he was responsible for the removal of Doctor Hans Luther, German Ambassador in Washington, and was also instrumental in having Nazi Consular officials shifted,” said Metcalfe. Peter Gissibl, Fritz Gissibl’s brother, testified that he had resigned the leadership of the Bund’s Chicago section because of disagreements over policy. Kuhn, he said, violated an order from Hitler to disband the Bund, because Hitler feared that it might adversely affect other Germans in the United States.