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Show U. S. Writes; Finis To Spy Chapter in N. Y. Bookshop u . " j Hidden Source of Data for Germans Is Bared by Treasury Probe. WASHINGTON. D. C. For 93 years New Yorkers filed past the musty little bookshop of B. Wester-mann Wester-mann In midtown Manhattan, stopping stop-ping perhaps to browse over its sidewalk side-walk bookstalls or to buy a first edition. Now it is closed! and the treasury has told why, says the Associated As-sociated Press. For 15 years since 1928 it was one of Germany's most valuable sources of United States military in- ' formation, telling the Germans what kind of guns this country was mak- j ing, how fast American planes would fly, how big a hole an American Ameri-can bomb could make In the Wil-helmstrasse. Wil-helmstrasse. Uncover Nazi Connections. These activities came to light in June, 1941, when the treasury stopped out-of-the-country mailing mail-ing of books and other literature. Westermann'i asked special permission per-mission to continue mailings. The treasury did some Investigating Investigat-ing and this was the story It unraveled: un-raveled: Ernest Elsele, president of the company, was a native German and a naturalized American citizen 1 as were three of the directors. The treasury found, too, that since 1926 the firm had lost $25,000 annually but that Eisele had received re-ceived from German stockholders bonuses totaling $30,000. It was in 1926 also, he told the treasury, that he had joined the firm. He had been approached by a man he did not Identify and asked if he would undertake the reorganization of Westermann's, which was being taken over by the Scherl Publishing company of Germany. Ger-many. Sends Aviation Magazine. The treasury uncovered the fact that the Scherl company was controlled con-trolled by Alfred Hugenberg, who had been general manager of the Krupp plants during World War I and was Hitler's first minister of economics and agriculture. Later Joseph Goebbels' propaganda agen- cy acquired the Scherl interests. S Westermann's task, the treasury said, was to send such periodicals as the Aero Digest, other aviation -magazines, the Coast Artillery Jour, i nal, radio craft magazines, and, in ; general, anything pertaining to me chanlcs or the military. Disposition of the Germans involved in-volved was not disclosed by the treasury, which said their cases had been turned over to federal enforcement en-forcement authorities for action. A department of Justice spokesman spokes-man said Elsele and the company had been indicted In the District of Columbia last January for failure to register as alien agents. |