The Wilmington morning star., 1943-11-08

age and complexion. I studied the
manners of speech and gestures
and modelled mine after them. And
even though could not read Ital-
ian, I carried copy of II Pro-
gresso Italo-Americano in my poe
ket. I was determined to become
the finest synthetic Italian-Am-
erican in New York.
My second step was to offer
myself As volunteer worker to
Pete Stahrenberg. He was suspi-
cious at first and we talked in
generalities. Then Joe breeZed in
and I decided to test my acquir.
ed abilities under fire. Apparent
ly l passed every test except that
of fluent diction. explained this
failure by saying that I was born
in America and had not picked
( it up because my parents had rails.
ed me in a non-Italian neighbor.
hood.
Hey, Pete" JoJe called out,
this guy is a good paisana. He's
Of my kind and he's willing to
work. Why don't you let him help
around here?"
eff you say he's okay, Joe, it's
all right with me. We can sure use
a couple more volunteers, the way
the orders are rusing in.
After Joe had left Pete intro.
duced me to his two associates,
Carl Halder, a tall, taciturn man
with brushy hair; and Gus Het.
tler-a round-faced German. Gus
operated the printing press when
Pete was away while Carl look.
ed after the shop.
While he talked, Stahrenberg
sat down with Carl and me and
started to fold leaflets. At about
midnight the printing press stop.
ped. Gus and Carl left, and I re-
manned alone with Stahrenberg.
I looked at his powerful biceps
and huge bony hands. Fearing that
l might say the wrong thing, OF
make a wrong move, I listened,
speaking as little as possible.
I worked at assembling leaflets
into bundles of two hundred. These
propaganda packages, Pete told
me sold for one dollar apiece.
Sitting at the next desk Pete took
the bundles from me, placed a
few copies of the National Ameri-
can on top of each. wrapped them
in heavy brown paper, put BUY
Christian stickers all over the
packages and filled out an Amerl-
can Railway Express receipt for
each bundle about to be sent away.
He called my attention to the
stickers. THE post office won't
| let us use 'em," he said.
Those dingy rooms behind the
barber shop were the clearing
house for multifold quantity OF
Nazi propaganda. Gradually l be.
gan to learn the catch-words and
became familiar with subversive
publications. Stahrenberg received
material from a hundred different
sources then redistributed it to
his own mailing list. Off the Ma
tionalist Press Association print
ing press rolled hundreds of thou
sands of pamphlets, newspapers
and ti1row-away leaflets. In adj
dition to his own printing, Stab
renberg was cong work for many
important anti-American propagan-
dists in the New York area, and
he was associated with all these
incipient Nazi movements in one
way or another.
A large part of the material
came to him from U. Bodung-Ver.
lag at Erfurt, Germany, Goeb-
bells main propaganda mill grind.
ing out Nazi literature in thirteen
different languages. From Erfurt
also came news bulletin call
ed World Service-published by
Lieutenant-Colonel Ulrich FleiS
chhauer. Enormous quantities OF
leaflets defaming Jews and Demo-
cracy with fantastic lies and dis
tortions of truth bore the imprint
Deutscher Fichte-Bund, Hamburg.
It called itself "a union for world
veracity.'' Frequent shipments
came from the Terramare office.
the Reichsdruckerei, the America
Institute which specialized in pro-
pagandizing America, and count
less other Nazi agencies striving
to tear down Democracy wher-
ever it existed in the world.
stahrenberg showed me copies
of the Bund organ, Deutscher