GERMAN KLAN LEADERS ARRESTED IN SILESIA
Berlin, Germany (JFK+50) On September 10, 1925, Associated Press reports that "two Americans, father and son, alleged to be behind the...Knights of the Fiery Cross*" which is patterned after the Ku Klux Klan, "have been arrested by the German police in Silesia**."
The two men, 54 and 30 years old, are Otto and Gotthard Strohschein, American citizens from Chicago, Illinois.
The Knights of the Fiery Cross, founded in 1923, have branches in Hamburg, Jena, Dortmund and Cassel. A list of the members of the organization has been discovered according to AP.
It is also believed that the organization may have received financial support from American "Klan circles." It has adopted the insignia of the KKK, "a bloody cross" as well as the anti-Semitic swastika.
AP says the "avowed purpose" of the German Klan is to "wage war on Jews, to free the country of undesirables."
*Knights of the Fiery Cross was founded in the United States in February 1925 by "a German-born pastor and his son. It was a white supremacist, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic organization.
**Silesia is located in modern-day Poland & extends into the Czech Republic. It has a population of 8 million.
SOURCE
"Berlin Klan Probe Nets 2 Americans," The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., September 10, 1925, Chronicling America, Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/
