Manfred Zapp
Manfred Zapp was a German journalist and representativ of German Trans-Ocean-News-Service in the US from 1938 to 1944. Trans-Ocean News Service was an international service for a German newspaper.[1] Zapp's father was a son of a Ruhr steel tycoon.
Career
[edit]Zapp came in 1938 to New York as an unoffical editor for the Transocean News Service.[2] He used various aliases such as Hermann Nille and Otto W. Hermann. He was the head of the German Transocean News Service,[3] and accoring to Time, the "No. 1 Nazi propagandist for the U. S. and Latin America."[4]
After a five-month study of his activities by the FBI, a federal grand jury in Washington, D. C. indicted him and his chief aide, Günther Tonn. Zapp was accused of registering as a foreign correspondent in the United States three months later, then failed to admit his true connection with "officers and agents of the German Government" in spreading Nazi propaganda and circulating false documents about the war in Europe.
Zapp and his chief assistant were released on $10,000 bail. Transocean did business as usual afterwards.[4] As revenge, four days later in Berlin the Gestapo arrested Manhattan-born United Press correspondent Richard C. Hottelet and charged him with spying for an "enemy power." The Nazis refused to let either the U.S. Embassy or United Press communicate with him. Nazi officials made a special point of denying that Hottelet's arrest was a reprisal for the indictment of Zapp. Washington thought differently. President Theodore Roosevelt promptly instructed the U.S. Embassy in Berlin to investigate to the hilt.
References
[edit]- ^ Heidi Evans: "The Path to Freedom"? Transocean and German Wireless Telegraphy, 1914-1922 January 2010[clarification needed] Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung 35(1):209-233
- ^ TIMES, Special to THE NEW YORK (1941-03-12). "U.S. INDICTS ZAPP AND TRANSOCEAN; Guenther Tonn, His Assistant on News Service, Accused of Violating Foreign Agent Act NAMED IN DIES INQUIRY Propaganda Activities Were Uncovered -- Two Men Held Here in $5,000 Bail". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-07-15.
- ^ "Historical Documents - Office of the Historian". history.state.gov. Retrieved 2025-07-15.
- ^ a b "The Press: Zapp Trapped". Time. 1941-03-24. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2025-07-15.