National Affairs: Going-back People

Out of Milwaukee last week came news that jolted many a U. S. patriot. German-Americans in goodly numbers are going back where they came from, and glad to do it. Reason: Nazi Germany needs workers; in the U. S., 10,000,000 workers need jobs.*

Nazi calls for German workers to return home from Great Britain, The Netherlands, Switzerland went out recently from Berlin. Not orders but offers of a sure job, a furnished home, a certain future went to German nationals, naturalized immigrants and even native-born U. S. citizens. Just what the response has been, neither German consular officials nor Nazi organizations now recruiting in the U. S. would say last week. Inquirers had some luck in Milwaukee, only because a local Nazi was so indiscreet as to recruit too many at one time and get himself into the newspapers.

Milwaukee’s employment agency is a dark draftsman named Eugene J. Buerk. Nazi Buerk’s wife is sick at home, so he interviews applicants at the Highland Cafe (see cut, p. 15). He talks to as many as 100 per day, prefers skilled mechanics and machinists, particularly in the automotive trades. Those who accept his proposition must pay their own way to Manhattan, plus $35 toward third-class fare on a German-American liner. Remainder of the fare (about $110) reportedly is paid by a German industrial cartel (Siemens & Halske; Volkswagen; Augsburg Machine Co.; Bosch; Daimler; Opel&Wanderwerke). Recruiter Buerk said he was acting for an unnamed superior in Chicago, reported similar activities there and in Cleveland, Detroit, Flint, where men skilled at machine trades (easily transformable into munitions workers) are abundantly available.

Last week about two dozen workers for Germany sailed from Manhattan aboard the liner St. Louis. A steward surveyed the group, explained to newsmen: “Rückwanderer, or going-back people.” One was reticent, middle-aged Kurt Stache of Milwaukee, who declined to discuss Eugene Buerk. “He is not coming back—he cannot talk,” explained a companion. An ornamental iron worker from Chicago paid all his own fare so that he would be free to return if Nazi Germany is not so rosy as letter-writing relatives paint it.

“What do you expect out of life?” cried he. “A job and enough money to live on. In Germany, there is work for everybody. The only thing you got better here is eats, and if you have no work you can’t eat.”

*According to a report issued in Berlin last week, 19,500,000 were employed, 302,000 were unemployed in the ”old Reich” at the end of January.