Biography
Hans Diebel operated the Aryan Bookstore at the German American Bund’s Los Angeles headquarters beginning in 1936. The store distributed Nazi and antisemitic propaganda. He worked closely with West Coast Bund leader Hermann Schwinn and spoke at Hindenburg Park. He was imprisoned after the United States entered World War II and was later deported to Germany. He was named in the January 3, 1944 Washington indictment alleging conspiracy to undermine military loyalty under the Smith Act. The mass trial ended in a mistrial on December 7, 1944. The indictment was dismissed in December 1946; no conviction resulted in this case.
Life-date documentation
The Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service roster of civilian alien enemies in custody at Gloucester City, New Jersey, dated February 29, 1944, lists Hans Carl Diebel as an optician aged 37 (PDF page 7, roster page 1). This supports an approximate birth year of 1907, not an exact birthday; the possible birth interval spans 1906–1907. The birth date is therefore recorded with circa precision. His death date has not been verified. Archival custody roster.
The original Camp McCoy roster as of 6:00 a.m. May 1, 1942 individually lists Hans Diebel as permanently interned there under serial ISN-WG-14-(Ci), transferred from the prisoner-of-war enclosure at Fort McDowell, California. This is direct evidence of administrative wartime confinement before the separate 1944 Washington sedition prosecution. The roster date is an observation of custody, not his arrest or admission date; no final discharge or measured total is established.
