Le FBI a voulu empêcher des gangsters juifs de tuer Hitler en 1933

Les forces de l’ordre américaines ont craint que l’assassinat du leader allemand par un citoyen américain ne crée un incident international.

Alors qu’il faisait des recherches pour un livre sur les gangsters juifs, l’historien américainRobert Rockaway a rencontré un ancien mafieux surnommé Dutch, qui lui a raconté l’histoire d’un homme qui voulait embaucher un gangster juif pour assassiner Hitler au début des années 1930.
Sceptique, l’historien a tout de même fait des recherches dans les archives du FBI, où il a trouvé un dossier relatant ce projet de meurtre. À l’intérieur, on trouve notamment une lettre de menace, signée Daniel Stern, envoyée à l’ambassadeur d’Allemagne à Washington, ainsi qu’un mémo du FBI sur les efforts de plusieurs agents pour localiser l’auteur de la lettre, relate Rockaway dans le magazine Tablet:
«Le dossier, numéro 65-53615, détaille un projet impliquant un homme. Ce projet était au stade d’organisation mais a probablement été déjoué par le ministère de la Justice américain. Dans l’effort d’empêcher un incident international –un citoyen américain assassinant un leader allemand–, les forces de l’ordre américaines ont peut être aidé à sauver Hitler.»
Menace de mort
L’historien a publié des copies des documents originaux sur le site de Tablet et il a également retrouvé deux autres lettres, envoyées au FBI et au ministère de la Justice, indiquant que ce projet d’assassinat était discuté avec enthousiasme dans le milieu mafieux juif américain.
La menace de mort a été prise au sérieux par les autorités américaines car, au début des années 1930 aux États-Unis, des centaines de juifs avaient organisé des rassemblements et manifesté contre les politiques antisémites de Hitler devant les consulats et boutiques allemandes.
Le procureur général des États-Unis avait demandé à J. Edgar Hoover, alors directeur d’une division du ministère de la Justice qui deviendra le FBI, de mener l’enquête pour repérer l’auteur de ces menaces. Les agents ont tenté de trouver des informations chez leurs contacts au sein de la pègre juive américaine, notamment chez les associés de Meyer Lansky et Bugsy Siegel. Les recherches ont été intensives du printemps à l’automne 1933 dans plusieurs villes américaines, dont New York, Chicago, Phoenix et Philadelphie, mais l’auteur des menaces n’a jamais été retrouvé.

Source :
http://www.slate.fr/story/117095/fbi-empeche-gangsters-juifs-tuer-hitler-1933

German diplomats demanded an immediate and full investigation of the threat. It should be mentioned that the German ambassador, Friedrich Wilhelm von Prittwitz, resigned from the German government in April 1933 in protest over Hitler’s appointment as chancellor.
Franklin Roosevelt had been in office only a few weeks and had a nationwide Depression to contend with. Events in Germany, including Hitler’s accession to power, hardly concerned the government or most of the American public. Nonetheless, the threat expressed in the letter could not be ignored or simply attributed to a crank. More militant members of the American Jewish community had reacted to Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies by taking to the streets. Hundreds picketed German consulates, businesses, and stores selling German products. Thousands attended protest rallies and parades in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and other cities. In this atmosphere, Stern’s personal declaration of war against Hitler was taken seriously.
Attorney General Cummings turned to J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Justice Department’s Division of Investigation, and asked him to locate Daniel Stern and stop him. Hoover headed the division since his appointment by President Calvin Coolidge in 1924. The division became the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935. Hoover’s “G-Men” (agents of the FBI) searched for Stern through the spring, summer, and into the fall of 1933. Among their primary contacts were figures in the Jewish American underworld, where Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Dutch Schultz, and Lepke Buchalter—all associated with New York’s Murder, Inc. syndicate—had well-earned reputations for using violence to protect their business interests or to defend their communities.

Hoover assigned one of his top agents, Dwight Brantley, to coordinate the national investigation. An early lead from Detroit sent that city’s G-Men scrambling but went nowhere. Another lead came from a special agent in charge of the division’s Chicago office. He’d heard about a Daniel Stern who was rumored to have mob associations and who had moved to Philadelphia, where the letter to the German embassy had been postmarked. Agents in Philadelphia searched local telephone directories, but they failed to turn up the name Daniel Stern. They did find a reference to a Daniel Stern in the city directory. When they went to the address, the janitor told them that Daniel Stern had “left the apartment over a year ago and that his present address is unknown.”
The agents then turned to Jewish gang contacts for information. Max “Boo Boo” Hoff, who dominated Philadelphia’s criminal enterprises at the time, offered to cooperate. He talked to Agent G.R. Hardy for several hours but could not recall meeting Stern or knowing anyone else who had met the man. Harvey interviewed several of Hoff’s associates, but all claimed they’d never heard of Stern or of a plan to kill Hitler. However, almost all of them, Harvey reported, were impressed by the scheme and thought it was “a great idea.”

On the other hand, the German consul in Philadelphia stated that, “in all probability, it was written by some crank, who is a sympathizer of the Jewish element.” The consul further stated that “he is besieged by individuals who make threats upon him, but that they are all of the crank type, and he dismisses them and pays no attention to them as he does not consider their threats serious.”
In April, the Justice Department received a promising lead from a letter dated April 21 to the German embassy and postmarked Highbridge Station, New York. The translation of the letter from German stated, “Having overheard a conversation between several Jews in New York, I learned that there is a movement on foot to assassinate Chancellor Adolf Hitler and that a young American Jew has already been selected to commit this murder. The Jews present were joyfully enthused over this plan. I communicate this to you in order that if possible any such act be prevented. Very respectfully, C Portugall.”
Hoover had Agent Brantley pass along the information to the division’s New York office. From July 18 to July 23, agents scoured city directories, telephone books, and postal records. They tapped their covert sources in the underworld in search of Stern and the so-called “joyfully enthused” Jews. Every clue led to a dead end.
Meanwhile the Criminal Division received a letter dated May 27 from the German embassy that had been written by an individual staying at the San Carlos Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. The writer, whose name has been blacked out of FBI memos, reported that “he overheard two Jews say Hitler was to be assassinated between May and September 1933 by an agent of New York City Jews.” He wrote that Hitler was either to be poisoned or shot and “a young American Jew had already been chosen to perform the act.” He immediately sent a letter reporting what he had heard to the German embassy.

Brantley immediately dispatched agents from Los Angeles to Phoenix. When they interviewed the man, he was reluctant to discuss the matter and was unclear about the details. The agents later reported that the man “is a political exile from Mexico and is a citizen of that country. It seems that he is strongly pro-Hitler and anti-Jewish in his conversation.” The agents searched the hotel register from April to June 1933, without finding anyone by the name of Stern or Stearn registered. They then interrogated everyone on the hotel’s staff. No one remembered anything of the alleged meeting or recalled anything unusual. The agents examined the hotel’s registry and wrote down every “Jewish sounding” name. They transmitted the names and the results of their inquiry to division headquarters in Washington.
The trail went cold again.
On Aug. 19, 1933, Special Agent J.M. Keith sent a progress report, “Daniel Stern and the Threat to Assassinate German Chancellor Hitler” to Hoover. Keith summarized the investigations in Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Phoenix, and New York. He conceded that that the division had failed to locate Stern or to uncover any assassination plot.
On Sept. 2, Special Agent Brantley submitted a final report to Hoover. He wrote that all outstanding leads regarding the threat to assassinate Hitler “have been completed without any definite information having been obtained. Accordingly, this case is being closed at the Washington field office.” Brantley assured Hoover that the case would be reopened if the German embassy received any additional information.
Upon my return to Israel, I called Dutch and told him what I’d found in the FBI files. I asked him if he had heard of Daniel Stern. Was the name an alias? Was he a professional killer? He said he heard a rumor about a young man named Stern but didn’t know much about him and had never met him. “Supposedly this Stern fellow had a lot of enthusiasm, but not a lot of brains or seykhl [sense]. Maybe he wasmeshuge [crazy]. He was determined to kill Hitler, and someone thought he was expendable. The timing was all wrong,” he said. “And maybe somebody backed the wrong horse. Nobody knew much about Stern. That was supposed to be good at first. But you never know. You never know.”
“That summer of 1933, we learned that just about everybody and his brother thought about taking a whack at the Fuhrer. When you got to Germany, I mean, you had to take a ticket and get in line for your shot. Later someone said there were more than a dozen attempts to get Hitler in the 1930s. Public figures are well-guarded, but Hitler, he was somethin’ else. I mean someone even tried to kill Roosevelt in 1933. That was close. But Hitler? He was bulletproof. I swear to God, the devil was his bodyguard. And you gotta remember that in the end, the only guy who could whack Hitler was Hitler himself.”
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