Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany one week ago today. Last Wednesday, he broadcast his first radio address to the German nation.
Today's issue of The Jewish Daily Bulletin reports on a complaint made to NBC by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
NBC facilities had been used for commentary on Hitler’s radio address by Hitler’s U.S. representative, Kurt Luedecke.
In response to the complaint, Monique Iversen, director of the NBC international department, “disclaimed responsibility,” the Jewish Daily Bulletin reported.
Miss Iversen explained that the address of Mr. Luedecke was part of a regular fortnightly broadcast arranged from Washington, D. C., by Kurt Sell, United States representative of the German Radio Corporation owned by the German government, on the subject, “Back of the News in Washington.”
The National Broadcasting Corporation simply makes available its network to the German Radio Corporation, she stated, and neither censors nor accepts responsibility for the programs which are not broadcast in this country, but go to Germany and other parts of Central Europe.
Mr. Sell, it was explained, is the representative in the United States of the German Wolfsgang Telegraphic Bureau as well as of the Reichsrundfunk Gesellschaft, the government owned radio station.
The episode serves as one early illustration of the many issues that arose due to intertwined U.S. and German business activities in the events leading up to WWII.
Kurt Luedecke, born 1890, was a “playboy and international traveler" who became a Nazi in the 1920s. Among other money-raising activities, he approached Henry Ford in Michigan as a possible contributor to the Party. Later he [became diasaffected] CORRECTION was arrested in the “Night of the Long Knives” and barely escaped with his life [thanks, subtropolis]; he authored an exposé, I Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood-Purge, appearing in 1937. He survived until 1960. (Wikipedia)
Additional headlines in the Jewish Daily Bulletin of this date [PDF].
Nazis Given Posts of Minister of Education and Superintendent of State Theatres
Martial Law Authorized in Roumania; Fear Jews of Bessarabia Will Suffer
Nazis Get 2 Weeks At Hard Labor for Threats to Jews
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Elsewhere at this time, rent strikes organized by Unemployed Councils in greater in New York have spread from Crotona Park East into Brownsville, Williamsburg, Boro Park, the Lower East Side, and the East Bronx.
Real Estate News reports "there are more than 200 buildings in the Borough of the Bronx in which rent strikes are in progress and a considerably greater number in which such disturbances are brewing or in contemplation.”
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This is part of a series of “On this day in 1933” diaries started on Jan. 30, 2016. I claim no expertise.
Additions and corrections are welcome.
Yesterday’s diary: Hitler "The Man Sent By God".