Imperial Valley Press

Hitler Propagandist Irked By American Reporters
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 20. (UP)—Dr. Gerhardt A. Westrick, trade counselor to the German embassy and asserted Nazi propagandist, was en route to San Francisco today aboard the Japanese liner Nitta Maru, and presumably will proceed to Germany via the Orient.

The suave German attorney, who gained considerable notoriety in New York recently as a big-scale propagandist, refused to discuss his presence on the Nitta Maru or his destination. All he would say was that he was "going to San Francisco."

From other sources, however, it was learned that Westrick had booked passage to Yokohama, Japan, and probably will not disembark at San Francisco, the liner's next port of call. He was outwardly annoyed when speaking to reporters.

Westrick arrived here secretly from New York, accompanied by his wife, sons Fred and Nicholas and Baroness Irmgard Von Wagenheim, who was in charge of Westrick's New York office at the time a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune wrote an expose of the German attorney.

At his Scarsdale, N. Y., mansion, Westrick entertained some of America's biggest industrialists, and one, Captain Torkild Rieber, chairman of the board of the Texas corporation, resigned because of publicity "detrimental" to the company.

Dr. Westrick locked himself and his party in his cabin shortly before the Nitta Maru sailed yesterday, and refused to open the door. It was understood from reliable information that he came here secretly by rail.

It was believed that Westrick would go to Japan and cross over to Russia and thence to Berlin.

Until his appointment by the German government as counselor to the embassy, Westrick was legal representative for many American firms in Germany. Although he declined to comment, it was presumed he would remain in some official capacity with the German government.