Probably for the first time in history, an ambassador of a foreign country slipped into the United States through a back-door, trying to avoid a hostile demonstration as well as representatives of the press.
This happened yesterday when Dr. Hans Luther, the newly-appointed Hitler ambassador to the United States, arrived on the Bremen. Flanked by the consul general of New York, Dr. Otto Kiep, and a number of other German officials, he quickly was taken from the boat while it was still at Quarantine and was rushed by special cutter to New York unnoticed by the public eye.
A group of newspaper reporters who arrived at Quarantine to interview the new envoy on conditions in Hitler-Germany, met a closed door behind which Dr. Luther was hiding, refusing to see representatives of the press. But the New York ship reporters who were able to crash the gates shielding Bernard Shaw and Prof. Einstein besieged the Ambassador’s suite and refused to leave before they saw Dr. Luther.
REPORTERS BOMBARD DR. LUTHER
Dr. Kiep came out and pleaded with the newspapermen, saying that the Ambassador had no time and must leave the boat immediately and begged them to be content with a prepared statement. But this did not help. The reporters broke into the Ambassador’s room and bombarded him with questions. Dr. Luther seemed very embarrassed and staunchly declared that he would not speak on political subjects.
In effect compelled to talk, Dr. Luther began to describe how much he likes the New York skyline, but the aggravated newspapermen interrupted him and did not let him complete his impressions of the New York panorama.
“You’d better tell us, Mr. Ambassador, whether there is any truth in the report printed in New York that two Nazis recently came into your office in Berlin and with pointed guns demanded your resignation as head of the German Reichsbank,” one newspaperman asked.
Dr. Luther seemed lost and said not a word. Dr. Kiep came to his rescue by flatly denying the story. “Do you agree with the policy of the Hitler government with regard to the Jews?” the
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
