| Successor | German American Bund |
|---|---|
| Formation | July 1933 |
| Founder | Heinz Spanknöbel |
| Dissolved | December 1935 |
| Headquarters | New York City, United States |
Membership | 5,000–10,000 |
| Part of a series on |
| Nazism |
|---|
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Friends of New Germany (FONG; German : Die Freunde des Neuen Deutschland, [1] FDND), sometimes called Friends of the New Germany, was an organization founded in the United States by German immigrants to support Nazism and the Third Reich.
Nazis outside of Germany made considerable efforts to establish an American counterpart organization. Recruiting commenced as early as 1924 with the formation of the Free Society of Teutonia.
In May 1933, the Deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess, gave German immigrant and German National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) member Heinz Spanknöbel authority to form an American Nazi organization. [2] The result was the creation of the Friends of New Germany in July 1933, although at least one newspaper article from April 1933 discusses their existence and also states that they held a lease which expired in May of that year, indicating that the group existed before the official date. An article from the time states that they were mostly German war veterans who supported the current republican government of Germany at the time of writing. [3] Colonel Edwin Emerson acted as a spokesman for the group in April of that year, but later denied this in December. Colonel Emerson claimed that he had no connection to the German government, despite also being a correspondent for no less than 36 German government-controlled papers. [4]
Assistance was given to its formation by the German consul in the City of New York. [2] The organization took over the membership of two older pro-Hitler organizations in the United States, the Free Society of Teutonia and Gau-USA. [5] [6] [7] [1] [8] The new entity was based in New York City, but had a strong presence in Chicago, Illinois. [2]
The Friends of New Germany was led by Spanknöbel and was openly pro-Hitler, and engaged in activities such as storming the German language newspaper New Yorker Staats-Zeitung with the demand that Nazi-sympathetic articles be published, the infiltration of other German-American organizations, and the use of propaganda to counter the boycott of businesses in the heavily German neighborhood of Yorkville, Manhattan. [9] Members wore a uniform, a white shirt and black trousers for men with a black hat festooned with a red symbol. Women members wore a white blouse and a black skirt. [10]
In an internal battle for control of the Friends, Spanknöbel was soon ousted as leader, and in October 1933 he was deported because he had failed to register as a foreign agent. [2]
At the same time, Congressman Samuel Dickstein (D-NY) was Chairman of the Committee on Naturalization and Immigration, where he became aware of the substantial number of foreigners legally and illegally entering and residing in the country, and the growing anti-Semitism along with vast amounts of anti-Semitic literature being distributed in the country. This led him to investigate independently the activities of Nazis and other fascist groups. This led to the formation of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate National Socialist Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities. Throughout the rest of 1934, the Committee conducted hearings, bringing before it most of the major figures in the US fascist movement. [11] Dickstein's investigation concluded that the Friends represented a branch of German dictator Adolf Hitler's NSDAP in America. [12] [13]
The organization existed into the mid-1930s with a membership of between 5,000-10,000, consisting mostly of German citizens living in America and German emigrants who only recently had become citizens. [2] In December 1935, Rudolf Hess recalled the group's leaders to Germany and ordered all German citizens to leave the Friends of New Germany. [2] By March 1936, Friends of New Germany was dissolved and its membership transferred to the newly-formed German American Bund, the new name being chosen to emphasise the group's American credentials after press criticism that the organisation was unpatriotic. [14] The Bund was to consist only of American citizens of German descent. [15]
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party, was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party, existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremist German nationalist, racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against communist uprisings in post–World War I Germany. The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti–big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes. The party had little popular support until the Great Depression, when worsening living standards and widespread unemployment drove Germans into political extremism.
Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, commonly known as Der Stahlhelm, was a German First World War veteran's organisation existing from 1918 to 1935. It was part of the "Black Reichswehr" and in the late days of the Weimar Republic closely affiliated to the monarchist German National People's Party (DNVP), placed at party gatherings in the position of armed security guards.
The German American Bund, or the German American Federation, was a German-American Nazi organization which was established in 1936 as a successor to the Friends of New Germany. The organization chose its new name in order to emphasize its American credentials after the press accused it of being unpatriotic. The Bund was allowed to consist only of American citizens of German descent. Its main goal was to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany.
Gregor Strasser was a German politician and early leader of the Nazi Party. Along with his younger brother Otto, he was a leading member of the party's left-wing faction, which brought them into conflict with the dominant faction led by Adolf Hitler, resulting in his murder in 1934. The brothers' strand of the Nazi ideology is known as Strasserism.
Fritz Julius Kuhn was a German Nazi activist who served as elected leader of the German American Bund before World War II. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1934, but his citizenship was canceled in 1943 owing to his status as a foreign agent of Nazi Germany. Kuhn served prison time for larceny and forgery from 1939 to 1943 and upon release was immediately interned by the federal government as an enemy agent. He was deported in 1945 and later served further prison time in post-war Germany before dying in 1951.
Hermann Esser was an early member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). A journalist, Esser was the editor of the Nazi paper, Völkischer Beobachter, a Propaganda Leader, and a Vice President of the Reichstag. In the early days of the party, he was a de facto deputy of Adolf Hitler. As one of Hitler's earliest followers and friends, he held influential positions in the party during the Weimar Republic, but increasingly lost influence during the Nazi era.
Heinrich "Heinz" Spanknöbel was a German immigrant to America who formed, and for a short time led, the pro-Nazi Friends of New Germany as its Bundesleiter.
Samuel Dickstein was a Democratic Congressional Representative from New York, a New York State Supreme Court Justice, and a Soviet spy. He played a key role in establishing the committee that would become the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which he used to attack fascists, including Nazi sympathizers, and suspected communists. In 1999, authors Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev learned that Soviet files indicate that Dickstein was a paid agent of the NKVD.
The Nazi Party/Foreign Organization was a branch of the Nazi Party and the 43rd and only non-territorial Gau ("region") of the Party. In German, the organization is referred to as NSDAP/AO, "AO" being the abbreviation of the German compound word Auslands-Organisation. Although Auslands-Organisation would be correctly written as one word, the Nazis chose an obsolete spelling with a hyphen.
Ernst Wilhelm Bohle was the Gauleiter of the Foreign Organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1934 until 1945. Bohle was the only defendant in the Subsequent Nuremberg trials of 1946-1949 to plead guilty to any charge.
Franz Reinhold Schwede was a Nazi German politician, Oberbürgermeister of Coburg and both Gauleiter and Oberpräsident of Pomerania. An early supporter of Adolf Hitler in Coburg, Schwede used intimidation and propaganda to help elect the first Nazi-majority local government in Germany. This contributed to a personality cult surrounding Schwede and he became known as "Franz Schwede-Coburg." During World War II he ordered secret executions of the infirm and mass deportations of Jews. He also played a key role in abandoning the Pomeranian civilian population to the advancing Red Army, while escaping their fate himself. In 1945 he was captured by the British Army and in 1948 he was tried and convicted of war crimes.
The Free Society of Teutonia was one of the earliest Nazi organizations in the United States. It was officially a German American organization, but also publicly expressed a strong support for Nazi Germany and Nazism in general.
The Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights was founded in 1933 by Samuel Untermyer to enact an economic boycott against Nazi Germany.
Gau Swabia, formed on 1 October 1928, was an administrative division of Nazi Germany in Swabia, Bavaria, from 1933 to 1945. From 1928 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.
The Gau Saxony was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the German state of Saxony. Before that, from 1926 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.
The Gau Düsseldorf was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the Düsseldorf region of the Prussian Rhine Province. Before that, from 1930 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.
On February 20, 1939, a Nazi rally took place at Madison Square Garden, organized by the German American Bund. More than 20,000 people attended, and Fritz Julius Kuhn was a featured speaker. The Bund billed the event, which took place two days before George Washington's Birthday, as a pro-"Americanism" rally; the stage at the event featured a huge Washington portrait with swastikas on each side.
Oscar Carl Pfaus was a German immigrant who became an American citizen through military service. He had a succession of jobs before becoming involved in pro-Nazi organizations in Chicago in the early 1930s and becoming a full-time Nazi propagandist there. He was also active in New York.
Nazism in the Americas has existed since the 1930s and continues to exist today. The membership of the earliest groups reflected the sympathies of some German-Americans and German Latin-Americans toward Nazi Germany, embracing the spirit of Nazism in Europe and establishing it within the Americas. Throughout the inter-war period and the outbreak of World War II, American Nazi parties engaged in activities such as sporting Nazi propaganda, storming newspapers, spreading Nazi-sympathetic materials, and infiltrating other non-political organizations.
Gau USA was a domestic offshoot of the German Nazi party and took orders from its superiors in the old Fatherland. Because of internal issues and a lack of adequate organization, Gau USA was ordered dissolved in 1933 when Hitler came to power. In April 1933, the Gau USA Detroit leader, Heinz Spanknobel, traveled to Germany and was granted permission to reorganize a new group in the US. The following July, he formed Die Freunde des Neuen Deutschland (FDND — The Friends of the New Germany). Many of the old Teutonia Club and Gau USA leaders were brought in to help run the new organization under the strict guidance of Spanknobel. However, due to poor management skills, overbearing direction, and political wrangling, Spanknobel left the US and was later replaced by Teutonia founder, Fritz Gissibl.
In one swift move that was to have an enormous implication for the infant Nazi movement in America, Nieland over looked Teutonia and designated the New York City cell as a Department (Gau) of the NSDAP. By June, local units of the New York Gau were opened in Seattle, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Chicago. By September the American section of the NSDAP claimed over 1,500 members and even had a Women's Division in Chicago. Nieland's decision threw the Teutonia Group into a state of complete dismay. Not only had he dismissed Teutonia as the potential base on which Gau-USA could have been built but he also engendered a situation that caused Party members in the organization to withdraw since they wanted to be part of a "real" Nazi movement. (The official name of Nieland's organization was the Auslands Abteilung der Reichs Leitung der NSDAP. On the formation of a Women's Division, Application to Kameradschaft-USA, Martha Schnieder, Leiterin der Frauenschaft der Ortsgruppen Chicago, 1932 1935. RUckwanderer Materials, 3/140/177983; on the development of Gau-XJSA, cf. Alfred Erinn to Gauleitung Hamburg, Feb. 2, 1931. 3/147/185886.)
Reichsschatzmeister to the Auslands - Abteilung der NSDAP[ permanent dead link ]
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