Friends of New Germany Here Accept Challenge Attributed to Gustav Weibolt.
Clash Over Activities
J.S. Schusler Says Old Group Makes
No Efforts in Behalf of German Culture.
New York Times November 28, 1934 • The Friends of the New Germany, the Nazi organization in this country, announced at a mass meeting in Schwabenhalle, Ridgewood, Queens, last night that the Steuben Society has “declared war” on them Sunday. They would take up the gage of battle, they declared, and assume “the moral leadership of German America.”
Joseph Schuster, leader of the Eastern Department of the Friends of New Germany, announced the breach between the two groups before a crowd of about 500 Nazi sympathizers. Hubert Schnush, national leader of the movement, was present and said at the close of the meeting that he was “completely in accord” with Schuster.
“We are the revolutionary movement of German America, another speaker, William Meier, New Jersey leader of the Friends of New Germany declared. “We are not weaklings content to drink beer and bowl. We have other things to do.”
The declaration of war attributed to the Steuben Society was in the form of a speech made by Gustav Weiboldt at a German Day festival of the United German Societies, which is an annual event, held at the Ridgewood Grove. Mr. Schuster said that his group was present as guests when to their amazement they heard their organization being denounced, although without being specifically named, by Mr. Weiboldt.
He quoted Mr. Weiboldt as having said that “a certain society which originated within the past year would do better to cease its un-American activities and model itself after the older societies.”
Mr. Schuster asserted that since the war the Steuben Society has made no efforts on behalf of Germany and German culture and that it has not attempted to explain the Hitler revolution to America. He charged that the Steuben Society supported a school in Pittsburgh that had two Jewish teachers. “If some day it becomes necessary to free America from the menace of communism, America can expect more from the Friends of New Germany than from the Steuben Society,” he said.
