American Nazis
German American Bund Parade, October 30, 1937
In response to a request from a blog reader,* who mentioned that she would like to know more about Americans who supported the Nazis, I’m going to give it a go.
In the early years of Nazi Germany, American students and tourists came back with glowing reports on Germany, and raised questions about the accuracy of serious reports of problems in the Nazi state written by journalists like Sigrid Schultz. (Because a casual observer always knows more than an expert.) Antisemitism was widespread in American culture. Isolationism was a serious political position, espoused by groups like the America First Committee. (Charles Lindbergh was the most prominent figure in all of this.**) It’s an ugly picture, and all too easy to forget in the context of the powerful national narrative of World War II, but as best I can tell, most of these people were not active Nazi supporters. (Though Lindbergh seemed to tiptoe in that direction.
However, there were several organizations in the United States in the years before the war that actively supported Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe. The most prominent of these was the German-American Bund, which was based in Manhattan and had seventy chapters with thousands of members across the United States. The Bund was founded in 1936 by a German immigrant named Fritz Kuhn, who was a veteran of World War I (on the German side) and became an American citizen in 1934. The Bund was explicitly for German-Americans and their Austrian cousins. It combined Nazi ideology, with its toxic mix of “Aryan” cultural and racial superiority, “scientific” racism, and antisemitism, and what its members framed as American patriotism.
At its height, the Bund sponsored parades, concerts, bookstore and youth camps, which introduced German-American children to camping skills and Nazi ideology. Like their German counterparts, the Bund also had uniformed storm troopers. Not a typical element in American social clubs.
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), best known for their Cold War investigations of suspected communist sympathizers, was formed in 1938 to investigate the German-American Bund and other pro-Nazi organizations and sympathizers. HUAC reached the conclusion that while the German-American Bund was overtly racist, its activities were protected by the First Amendment. The FBI, which also investigated the Bund, concluded that it was not a threat to American security. (In all fairness, Nazi rhetoric at that point was horrifying but was not directed at the United States. That came later.)
The high point (or maybe the low point) of Bund activities was a rally at Madison Square Gardens on February 20, 1939. Kuhn called it a “mass demonstration for true Americanization.” Twenty-two thousand members attended. They carried banners with antisemitic messages taken straight from the Nazi handbook:** “Wake up America! Smash Jewish Communism!” “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans.” They gave the Nazi salute to three-story tall banners depicting George Washington, flanked by swastikas.
One hundred thousand anti-Nazi protestors, also carrying banners, surrounded Madison Square Gardens. A few protestors managed to get into the rally. A Jewish plumber named Isadore Greenbaum made his way onto the stage and interrupted Fritz Kuhn’s address, screaming “Down with Hitler.” Bund storm troopers beat him right on the stage until the police intervened and got him to safety. The storm troopers were more gentle with celebrity journalist Dorothy Thompson,*** who shouted “bunk” from the audience. They surrounded her and escorted her from the building.
Within a year, the organization had crumbled. Kuhn was convicted of forgery and embezzlement and other leaders of the Bund was interned as a dangerous alien. By the end of December 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany’s declaration of war against the United States, the government outlawed the Bund.
* I LOVE it when you guys suggest blog topics. Sometimes I actually know stuff about the question. Sometimes I have to rabbit-hole it. Either way, I’m a happy history nerd. Today’s post is a combination.
**The more I read about him, the less respect I have for the man.
***Not a literal Nazi handbook. Though Germany did create a horrifying handbook for its athletes at the time of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
***You didn’t think I was going to get through this without mentioning a woman journalist did you?
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If you want to know more about American Nazis in the years before World War II, I strongly recommend Arnie Bernstein’s Swastika Nation.
A War by Any Other Name
British howitzer camouflaged in France during the “phoney war”
World War II ended, literally, with a bang. In some ways it began with a whimper. First Germany and then the Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939* After Warsaw officially surrendered to Germany on September 28, active hostilities slowed on the Western front. Germany consolidated its hold on Poland. Britain and France built up their forces, took defensive positions along the Franco-Belgian border,—and waited. Hostilities resumed again in April, 1940, when Germany invaded Norway.
I’ve always known this period of relative inactive as the “phoney war”—a term attributed to isolationist Senator William E Borah of Idaho, who stated on September 30, 1939, that “there is something phony about this war.”** I was surprised to learn that several alternative nicknames were popular at the time: the British “Bore War”, the German “Sitzkrieg” (or sitting war), and, my personal favorite, Winston Churchill’s poetic “Twilight War.”
Who knew?
*I don’t know about you, but my World History class left out, or perhaps minimized, the fact that the Soviet Union also invaded Poland. In fact, the German-Soviet non-aggression pact that was signed in August 1939 provided for more than non-aggression. It included secret protocols that partitioned Poland between Germany and Russia. Again.
**Borah is best known for the things he led the charge against: the Versailles Treaty (which the United States did not sign), the League of Nations (which the United States did not join), and giving women the right to vote .
History on Display: Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield
I recently took a short, (relatively) spontaneous trip home to the Missouri Ozarks. While I was there, my parents and I visited the nearby Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, site of the first major Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi on August 10, 1861.*
Wilson’s Creek became part of the National Park System in 1961, on the hundredth anniversary of the battle and a month after my third birthday. You could say that the park and I grew up alongside each other. It certainly was part of my education as a little history nerd.
Every time I’ve returned to the part as an adult, the exhibits have been more sophisticated and more nuanced. (I’d like to think the same could be said about me.) This visit did not disappoint.
The main change to the exhibit was a new emphasis on slavery in southwest Missouri in the years before the Civil War (some of which was new to me**), the participation of Black and Native American soldiers in the war, and the role Missouri played in the events leading up to the war. Here are some of the things that caught my attention on this visit:
- An excellent video showing how nineteen century armies maneuvered field artillery, with a digression into the number of horses used and killed in the war. (I was reminded of our visit to a museum dedicated to the engagement known as the Falaise Pocket in Normandy in World War II where we were told that it was two years before people could plant crops agains because the ground water was so polluted with the corpses of men and horses. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: war is ugly.)
- An important component of the soldiers who fought for the Union at Wilson’s Creek were Germans from Saint Louis who had immigrated to the United States after the revolutions that swept Europe in 1848. The ’48ers had come here in search of freedom and were violently opposed to slavery. I had learned about this on my last visit to the battlefield, but it hit me harder this time, perhaps because I’ve spent the last few years deep in Nazis and American Nazi-supporters.
- With a few colorful exceptions, like the various Zouve units, we think of the armies dressed in uniforms that were, well uniform: blue for the Unions and gray for the Confederacy. In fact, many men fought at Wilson’s Creek in the same clothes they wore as civilians, making it hard to tell friend from foe on the battlefield. Even more confusing, at least one existing Union unit had gray uniforms.
- A interactive map that displayed demographic and economic data about the United States in 1861 down to the county level. I am a sucker for historical maps—after all, history occurs in both time and space. This one was absolutely fascinating. Some of the topics were expected: where cotton was grown for instance. Others were surprising: the distribution of what the map maker calls the “equine population”. (This did make me wonder how they got the information. ) I could have spent a lot more time with that map, and may on future visits.
In short, a worthwhile stop if you are in the area. I love the fact that the National Park Service is beginning to address the parts of history that most of us weren’t taught in school. Plus, maps.
*For those of you who don’t carry a timeline of the American Civil War in your heads: The war began with the fall of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. The first full-scale battle of the war, variously known as the First Battle of Bull Run or the First Battle of Manassas—depending on whether you are reporting events from the Union or Confederate perspective—occurred on July 21, 1861. In other words, the Battle of Wilson’s Creek was early in the war. If you want details about the battle itself, I recommend you check out the park website. As always, the National Park Service does an excellent job of telling the story.
**I was surprised to learn that the vast majority of slaves were in the area surrounding St. Louis and moving south. This upended many of my assumptions.