German American Bund

Last updated

German American Bund
Amerikadeutscher Volksbund
Also known asGerman American Federation
Leader Fritz Julius Kuhn
FoundationMarch 19, 1936;88 years ago (1936-03-19)
DissolvedDecember 1941;82 years ago (1941-12) [1]
Country United States
Active regions New York, [2] Pennsylvania, New Jersey, California and the Midwest
Ideology
Political position Far-right
Major actions
StatusDefunct
Size~25,000 [4]

The German American Bund, or the German American Federation (German : Amerikadeutscher Bund, Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, AV), was a German-American Nazi organization which was established in 1936 as a successor to the Friends of New Germany (FONG, FDND in German). 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. [6] Its main goal was to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany.

Contents

History

Friends of New Germany

In May 1933, Nazi Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess gave German immigrant and German Nazi Party member Heinz Spanknöbel authority to form an American Nazi organization. [7] Shortly thereafter, with help from the German consul in New York City, Spanknöbel created the Friends of New Germany [7] by merging two older organizations in the United States, Gau-USA [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] and the Free Society of Teutonia, which were both small groups with only a few hundred members each. The FONG was based in New York City but had a strong presence in Chicago. [7] Male members wore a uniform: a white shirt, black trousers and a black hat adorned with a red symbol. Female members wore a white blouse and a black skirt. [13]

The organization was openly pro-Nazi and engaged in political activities such as storming the German language New Yorker Staats-Zeitung and demanding that it publish pro-Nazi articles, and infiltrating other non-political German-American organizations. One of the Friends' early initiatives was to use propaganda to counter the Jewish boycott of German goods, which was started in March 1933 as a protest against Nazi antisemitism. [14]

In an internal battle for control of the Friends, Spanknöbel was ousted as its leader and subsequently, he was deported in October 1933 because he had failed to register as a foreign agent. [7]

At the same time, Congressman Samuel Dickstein, chairman of the Committee on Naturalization and Immigration, became aware of the substantial number of foreigners who were legally and illegally entering the country and residing in it, and the growing antisemitism along with vast amounts of antisemitic literature which were being distributed in the country. This led him to independently investigate the activities of Nazi and fascist groups, leading to the formation of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, which was authorized to investigate Nazi propaganda activities and certain other propaganda activities. Throughout the rest of 1934, the Committee conducted hearings, bringing most of the major figures in the American fascist movement before it. [15] Dickstein's investigation concluded that the Friends represented a branch of German dictator Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party in the United States. [16] [17]

The organization existed into the mid-1930s, although it always remained small, with a membership of between 5,000 and 10,000, mostly consisting of German citizens who were living in the United States and German emigrants who had only recently become citizens. [7] In December 1935, Rudolf Hess ordered all German citizens to leave the FONG and all of its leaders were recalled to Germany. [7]

Bund's activities

German American Bund parade on East 86th St., New York City, October 30, 1937 German American Bund NYWTS.jpg
German American Bund parade on East 86th St., New York City, October 30, 1937

On March 19, 1936, the German American Bund was established as a follow-up organization for the Friends of New Germany in Buffalo, New York. [7] [18] The Bund elected a German-born American citizen Fritz Julius Kuhn as its leader ( Bundesführer ). [19] Kuhn was a veteran because he served in the Bavarian infantry during World War I and he was also an Alter Kämpfer (old fighter) for the Nazi Party who was granted American citizenship in 1934. Kuhn was initially effective as a leader because he was able to unite the organization and expand its membership but later, he simply came to be seen as an incompetent swindler and a liar. [7]

The administrative structure of the Bund mimicked the regional administrative subdivisions of the Nazi Party. The German American Bund divided the United States into three Gaue : Gau Ost (East), Gau West and Gau Midwest. [20] Together the three Gaue comprised 69 Ortsgruppen (local groups): 40 in Gau Ost (17 in New York), 10 in Gau West and 19 in Gau Midwest. [20] Each Gau had its own Gauleiter and staff to direct the Bund operations in the region in accordance with the Führerprinzip . [20] The Bund's national headquarters was located at 178 East 85th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. [2]

A sig rune on the flag of the Bund's youth organization German American Youth House Banner.svg
A sig rune on the flag of the Bund's youth organization

The Bund established a number of training camps, including Camp Nordland in Sussex County, New Jersey, Camp Siegfried in Yaphank, New York, Camp Hindenburg in Grafton, Wisconsin, the Deutschhorst Country Club in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, [21] Camp Bergwald in Bloomingdale, New Jersey, [7] [22] [23] [24] [21] and Camp Highland in Windham, New York. [25] The Bund held rallies with Nazi insignia and procedures such as the Hitler salute and attacked the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jewish-American groups, Communism, "Moscow-directed" trade unions and American boycotts of German goods. [7] [26] The organization claimed to show its loyalty to America by displaying the flag of the United States alongside the flag of Nazi Germany at Bund meetings, and it declared that George Washington was "the first Fascist" because he did not believe that democracy would work. [27]

Kuhn and a few other Bundmen traveled to Berlin to attend the 1936 Summer Olympics. During the trip, he visited the Reich Chancellery, where his picture was taken with Hitler. [7] This act did not constitute an official Nazi approval for Kuhn's organization: German Ambassador to the United States Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff expressed his disapproval and concern over the group to Berlin, causing distrust between the Bund and the Nazi regime. [7] The organization received no financial or verbal support from Germany. In response to the outrage of Jewish war veterans, Congress in 1938 passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act requiring foreign agents to register with the State Department. On March 1, 1938, the Nazi government decreed that no Reichsdeutsche [German nationals] could be a member of the Bund, and that no Nazi emblems were to be used by the organization. [7] This was done both to appease the U.S. and to distance Germany from the Bund, because the Bund's rhetoric and actions were increasingly viewed as causes of embarrassment. [7] The Bund held its sixth annual convention in early September 1938 in New York. [28]

German American Bund rally poster at Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939 GAB Rally Poster.jpg
German American Bund rally poster at Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939

Arguably, the zenith of the Bund's activities was the rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on February 20, 1939. [29] Some 20,000 people attended and heard Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze, the Bund's National Public Relations Officer, [30] criticize President Roosevelt by repeatedly referring to him as "Frank D. Rosenfeld", calling his New Deal the "Jew Deal", and denouncing what he believed to be Bolshevik-Jewish American leadership. [31] Most shocking to American sensibilities was the outbreak of violence between protesters and Bund storm troopers. The rally was the subject of the 2017 short documentary A Night at the Garden by Marshall Curry. [32]

Decline

In 1939, a New York tax investigation alleged that Kuhn had embezzled over $14,000 from the Bund (equivalent to $307,000in 2023). The Bund did not seek to have Kuhn prosecuted, operating on the principle (Führerprinzip) that the leader had absolute power. However, New York City's district attorney prosecuted him in an attempt to cripple the Bund. On December 5, 1939, Kuhn was sentenced to two and a half to five years in prison for tax evasion and embezzlement. [33] [34]

New Bund leaders replaced Kuhn, most notably Gerhard Kunze, but only for brief periods. The Bund's influence significantly decreased without Kuhn. A year after the outbreak of World War II, Congress enacted a peacetime military draft in September 1940. The Bund counseled members of draft age to evade conscription, a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in jail and a $10,000 fine. Gerhard Kunze fled to Mexico in November 1941. However, Mexican authorities forced him to return to the United States, where he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for espionage. [13] [35]

U.S. Congressman Martin Dies (D-Texas) and his House Committee on Un-American Activities were active in denying any Nazi-sympathetic organization the ability to operate freely during World War II. In the last week of December 1942, led by journalist Dorothy Thompson, fifty leading German-Americans (including baseball icon Babe Ruth) signed a "Christmas Declaration by men and women of German ancestry" condemning Nazism, which appeared in ten major American daily newspapers.

While Kuhn was in prison, his citizenship was canceled on June 1, 1943. Upon his release after he served 43 months in state prison, Kuhn was re-arrested on June 21, 1943, as an enemy alien and interned by the federal government at a camp in Crystal City, Texas. After the war, Kuhn was interned at Ellis Island and deported to Germany on September 15, 1945. [36] He died on December 14, 1951, in Munich, West Germany. [37]

According to historian Leland V. Bell, George Froboese, [38] the Midwestern leader of the group (who had traveled to the 1936 Berlin Olympics with Kuhn to meet Hitler) [39] and "a few lesser known Bundists committed suicide," and "some Bundists had their naturalizations revoked and spent a few months in detention camps". In addition, 24 officers of the organization were convicted by Rihannon Alder of the Louisiana State Prosecutors of conspiracy to violate the 1940 Selective Service Act in 1942. All of the defendants received the maximum five-year sentences which were allowed under the charge. However, they were released after their convictions were overturned in a 5–4 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in June 1945. [40] [41] [42]

Foreign relations

Relationship with Germany

Key members of the Bund often claimed to have a relationship with the German Nazi party in Berlin in order to legitimise the organisation in the eyes of the American public. For example, Helen Vooros, the former Bund youth leader, claimed that ‘“she was taught” that the Nazis planned an Austrian-like anschluss with the United States and ‘recognised Bund leader Fritz Kuhn as the “United States’ Fuehrer”’. [43] Although there was never any evidence to suggest this was true, it reveals how the Bund favoured their alliance to Germany over their declaration of allegiance to “the Constitution, the flag and the institutions of the United States of America”. [44] Despite these grand claims however, members of the Third Reich continued to discredit the Bund with the German Ambassador to the United States, Hans Heinrich Dieckhoff, voicing his disapproval of the Bund when he expressed his belief that the organisation was only serving to stir up anti-German sentiment among the American public. Due to this conflicting relationship, Germany distanced themselves from the Bund as they saw them as being untrustworthy and detrimental to German-American relations. [45] [44] On the 1st of March 1938 the Nazi government declared that no German citizen could be a member of the German-American Bund and, no Nazi emblems or symbols were to be used in association with this organisation. [45]

Relationship with America

Meanwhile, in America, there was a growing fear that the Bund was working with Germany to spark a fascist revolution in the States. American newspapers rallied fear surrounding the organisation by creating no distinction between the Nazi party and the German-American Bund. In the aftermath of the 1939 rally in Madison Square Garden, The New York Times stated that the Bund was “determined to destroy our democracy and to establish in its place a fascist dictatorship”. [46] Statements such as this promoted a genuine fear of the reach of German Fascism in America and incentivised a widespread anti-German sentiment across the country, especially when followed by accounts of everyday Americans joining the Bund as seen in both The Chicago Daily Tribune and The Washington Post . Despite its original goal of garnering sympathy for the Nazi party in America, the Bund was a leading contributor to the hatred of National Socialists in the States. Due to the antisemitic teachings and pro-Hitler stance, the Bund became marginalised from American society and became an aid to the Roosevelt administration in promoting the detrimental effect of National Socialism on American society. [47]

Impact on German-American Relations

In the 1930s, the Bund amplified the anti-German feeling which lingered in the American public's consciousness and as a result, Americans believed that the Bund posed a threat to their way of life. Political leaders such as Roosevelt recognised the threat which the Nazi ideology posed to the West and they used the American people's fear of the Bund as a helpful tool in support of their efforts to steer the American people towards the possibility of war. [48] Fear of Nazi ideology triggered tensions between Germany and America because the American public had strong feelings against the Nazi regime due to its experiences with the Bund, feelings which were amplified by the Attack on Pearl Harbour. Therefore, the American public supported the war effort in an attempt to protect its freedom, ultimately leading to a break in German-American relations when Nazi Germany declared war against the United States on December 11, 1941, four days after the attack on Pearl Harbour.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazi Party</span> Far-right political party active in Germany (1920–1945)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">League of German Girls</span> Girls wing of the Nazi Party youth movement

The League of German Girls or the Band of German Maidens was the girls' wing of the Nazi Party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only legal female youth organization in Nazi Germany.

<span title="German-language text"><i lang="de">Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten</i></span> Paramilitary organisation

Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, commonly known as Der Stahlhelm, was a German First World War veteran's organisation existing from 1918 to 1935. In the late days of the Weimar Republic, it was closely affiliated to the monarchist German National People's Party (DNVP), placed at party gatherings in the position of armed security guards.

<i>Gauleiter</i> Third highest political rank of the Nazi Party

A Gauleiter was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a Gau or Reichsgau. Gauleiter was the third-highest rank in the Nazi political leadership, subordinate only to Reichsleiter and to the Führer himself. The position was effectively abolished with the fall of the Nazi regime on 8 May 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Julius Kuhn</span> American leader of the German American Bund (1896–1951)

Fritz Julius Kuhn was a German Nazi activist who served as the elected leader of the German American Bund before World War II. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1934, though his citizenship was revoked 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.

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.

<i>Confessions of a Nazi Spy</i> 1939 film

Confessions of a Nazi Spy is a 1939 American spy political thriller film directed by Anatole Litvak for Warner Bros. It was the first explicitly anti-Nazi film to be produced by a major Hollywood studio, being released in May 1939, four months before the beginning of World War II, and two and a half years before the United States' official entry into the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Bracht</span> German politician (1899–1945)

Fritz Bracht was the Nazi Gauleiter of Gau Upper Silesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Administrative divisions of Nazi Germany</span>

The Gaue were the main administrative divisions of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945.

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 the Nazi movement in Germany and Nazi ideology in general.

Friends of New Germany, 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fascism in North America</span> Presence of fascist movements in North America

Fascism has a long history in North America, with the earliest movements appearing shortly after the rise of fascism in Europe. Charles Derber, PhD, from Arizona State University says North American fascism may have inspired Hitler and started as early as 1918, with Hitler and Mussolini possibly able to simultaneously speak in 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-American caricatures in Nazi Germany</span>

The Nazi Party and its ideological allies used cartoons and caricatures as a main pillar in their propaganda campaigns. Such techniques were an effective way to spread their ideology throughout Nazi Germany and beyond. The use of caricatures was a popular method within the party when pursuing their campaign against the United States, in particular its then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camp Siegfried</span> Nazi summer camp in New York

Camp Siegfried, a summer camp which taught Nazi ideology, was located in Yaphank, New York, on Long Island. It was owned by the German American Bund, an American Nazi organization devoted to promoting a favorable view of Nazi Germany, and was operated by the German American Settlement League (GASL). Camp Siegfried was one of many such camps in the US in the 1930s, including Camp Hindenberg in Grafton, Wisconsin, Camp Nordland in Andover, New Jersey, Deutschhorst Country Club in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, and a camp in Windham, New York.

<i>A Night at the Garden</i> 2017 American film

A Night at the Garden is a 2017 short documentary film about the 1939 Nazi rally that filled Madison Square Garden in New York City. The film was directed by Marshall Curry from footage found by archival producer Rich Remsberg, and was produced by Laura Poitras and Charlotte Cook with Field of Vision. The seven-minute film is composed entirely of archival footage and features a speech from Fritz Julius Kuhn, the leader of the German American Bund, in which anti-Semitic and pro white-Christian sentiments are espoused.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden</span> Fascist rally held in New York City

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. Approximately 100,000 anti-Nazi counter-protesters gathered outside, attempting to break through lines of police officers guarding the rally on three occasions. The Bund rapidly declined in the aftermath of the rally, with Kuhn being imprisoned for embezzlement by the end of the year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oscar C. Pfaus</span> German-American Nazi propagandist

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazism in the Americas</span> A history of Nazism in North and South America

Nazism in the Americas has existed since the 1930s and continues to exist today. The membership of the earliest groups reflected the sympathies some German-Americans and German Latin-Americans had for Nazi Germany. They embraced the spirit of Nazism in Europe and they sought to establish 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.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Bell, L. V. (1970). "The Failure of Nazism in America: The German American Bund, 1936-1941". Political Science Quarterly. 85 (4): 598. doi:10.2307/2147597. JSTOR   2147597.
  2. 1 2 Federal Bureau of Investigation. "German American Federation/Bund Part 11 of 11". Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  3. ↑ "American Nazi organization rally at Madison Square Garden, 1939". Rare Historical Photos. February 19, 2014.
  4. ↑ "German American Bund". Holocaust Encyclopedia. July 2, 2016.
  5. ↑ William, Chris (November 12, 2019). "The German American Bund: The Enemy Within". Military Trader/Vehicles. Retrieved October 3, 2021. 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.
  6. ↑ Van Ells, Mark D. (August 2007). "Americans for Hitler – The Bund". America in WWII. Vol. 3, no. 2. pp. 44–49. Retrieved May 13, 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "American Bund". Archived from the original on January 24, 2018. Retrieved March 2, 2011.
  8. ↑ Diamond, Sander A. (1970). "The Years of Waiting: National Socialism in the United States, 1922–1933". American Jewish Historical Quarterly. 59 (3). Johns Hopkins University Press, American Jewish Historical Society: 265. JSTOR   23877858. 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 to have over 1,500 members and it even had a Women's Division in Chicago. Nieland's decision threw the Teutonia Group into a state of complete dismay. But Not only had he dismissed Teutonia as the potential base on which Gau-USA could have been built, he also engendered a situation that caused Party members to withdraw from the organization because they wanted to belong to 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.)
  9. ↑ Nazi Party/Foreign Organization
  10. ↑ de:NSDAP/AO
  11. ↑ William, Chris (November 12, 2019). "The German American Bund: The Enemy Within". Military Trader/Vehicles. Retrieved October 3, 2021. Gau USA was a domestic offshoot of the German Nazi party and it took orders from its superiors in the old Fatherland. Because of internal issues and a lack of adequate organization, Gau USA was ordered to dissolve itself in 1933 when Hitler came to power. In April 1933, the Gau USA's Detroit leader, Heinz Spanknobel, traveled to Germany and while he was there, he was granted permission to form 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 leaders of the old Teutonia Club and Gau USA were brought in to help run the new organization under the strict guidance of Spanknobel. However, due to his poor management skills, his overbearing direction, and political wrangling, Spanknobel left the US and he was later replaced by Teutonia's founder, Fritz Gissibl.
  12. ↑ Smith, Arthur L. (October 2003). "Kurt Ludecke: The Man Who Knew Hitler". German Studies Review. 26 (3): 597–606. doi:10.2307/1432749. JSTOR   1432749 . Retrieved October 3, 2021. Reichsschatzmeister to the Auslands - Abteilung der NSDAP[ permanent dead link ]
  13. 1 2 Fritz Kuhn: Biography IMDb [ user-generated source ]
  14. ↑ Hawkins, Richard A. (2010), "The internal politics of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights, 1933–1939", Management & Organizational History, 5 (2): 251–78, doi:10.1177/1744935910361642, S2CID   145170586 Hawkins, Richard A. (2010). "The internal politics of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights, 1933–1939". Management & Organizational History. 5 (2): 251–278. doi:10.1177/1744935910361642. S2CID   145170586.
  15. ↑ Berlet, Chip; Lyons, Matthew Nemiroff (2000). Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort . Guilford Press. ISBN   978-1-57230-562-5.
  16. ↑ Shaffer, Ryan (Spring 2010). "Long Island Nazis: A Local Synthesis of Transnational Politics". Vol. 21, no. 2. Journal of Long Island History. Archived from the original on June 21, 2010. Retrieved November 19, 2010.
  17. ↑ Investigation of un-American propaganda activities in the United States. Hearings before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Seventy-fifth Congress, third session-Seventy-eighth Congress, second session, on H. Res. 282, to investigate (l) the extent, character, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States, (2) the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American propaganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and attacks the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution, and (3) all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress in any necessary remedial legislation
  18. ↑ "Fritz Kuhn Death in 1951 Revealed. Lawyer Says Former Leader of German-American Bund Succumbed in Munich". The New York Times . AP. February 2, 1953. Retrieved July 20, 2008. Fritz Kuhn, once the arrogant, noisy leader of the pro-Hitler German-American Bund, died here more than a year ago – a poor and obscure chemist, unheralded and unsung.
  19. ↑ Blamires, Cyprian; Jackson, Paul (2006). World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 270. ISBN   0-8223-0772-3.
  20. 1 2 3 Wilhelm, Cornelia [in German] (1998). Bewegung oder Verein?: nationalsozialistische Volkspolitik in dem USA [Movement or Association: National Socialism in the USA] (in German). Franz Steiner Verlag. p. 167. ISBN   3-515-06805-8.
  21. 1 2 "German-American Bund". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
  22. ↑ "German films about Camp Bergwald, the Bund Camp on Federal Hill, Riverdale, NJ". Motion Picture, Sound, and Video Branch (NWDNM), National Archives. Archived from the original on February 11, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
  23. ↑ Jackson, Kenneth T. The Encyclopedia of New York City. The New York Historical Society, Yale University Press, 1995, 462.
  24. ↑ Chalmers, David Mark (1987). Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan. Duke University Press. ISBN   1-57607-940-6. When Arthur Bell, your Grand Giant, and Mr. Smythe asked us about using Camp Nordlund for this patriotic meeting, we decided to let them have it ...
  25. ↑ "Windham was home to Nazi summer camp in 1937," by Julia Reischel, (Watershed Post; Monday, August 18, 2014 - 12:10 pm)
  26. ↑ Kollander, Patricia; O'Sullivan, John (2005). "I must be a part of this war": a German American's fight against Hitler and Nazism. Fordham Univ Press. p. 37. ISBN   0-8232-2528-3.
  27. ↑ "Nazis Hail George Washington as First Fascist". Life. March 7, 1938. p. 17. Retrieved November 25, 2011.
  28. ↑ Taylor, Alan (June 5, 2017). "American Nazis in the 1930s—The German American Bund - The Atlantic". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
  29. ↑ "Bund Activities Widespread. Evidence Taken by Dies Committee Throws Light on Meaning of the Garden Rally". The New York Times . February 26, 1939. Retrieved February 19, 2015. Disorders attendant upon Nazi rallies in New York and Los Angeles this week again focused attention upon the Nazi movement in the United States and inspired conjectures as to its strength and influence.
  30. ↑ "Vonsiatsky Espionage". FBI.gov. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved March 14, 2022. In August, 1937, [Kunze] was appointed by Fritz Kuhn, then National Leader of the Fund, as National Public Relations Officer and from October, 1937, on he was employed on a full-time basis at the national headquarters of the Bund in New York City.
  31. ↑ "When Nazis Rallied at Madison Square Garden". WNYC Archives. Event occurs at 1:05:54. Retrieved March 14, 2022. ...and in our political life, where a Henry Morgenthau takes the place of men like Alexander Hamilton, and a Frank D. Rosenfeld takes the place of a George Washington.
  32. ↑ Buder, Emily (October 10, 2017). "When 20,000 American Nazis Descended Upon New York City". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 6, 2017. In 1939, the German American Bund organized a rally of 20,000 Nazi supporters at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
  33. ↑ Adams, Thomas (2005). Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History: A MultiDisciplinary Encyclopedia. G – N, volume 2. ABC-CLIO. p. 631. ISBN   1-85109-628-0 . Retrieved January 11, 2011.
  34. ↑ Geels, James E. (August 1975). "The German-American Bund: Fifth Column or Deutschtum?". UNT Digital Library. Retrieved July 31, 2023.
  35. ↑ "Vonsiatsky Espionage". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
  36. ↑ "Fritz Kuhn, Former Bund Chief, Ordered Back to Germany". The Evening Independent. September 7, 1945.
  37. ↑ "Fritz Kuhn Death in 1951 Revealed; Lawyer Says Former Leader of German-American Bund Succumbed in Munich". The New York Times. February 2, 1953. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  38. ↑ "Bund Aide Ends Life on Way to Hearing; Milwaukee Man a Suicide Under Train, FBI Reports" . The New York Times. June 17, 1942. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 7, 2022.
  39. ↑ Giles, Diane (May 9, 2020). "Old Kenosha: The dark times of The Kenosha Volksbund". Kenosha News. Archived from the original on November 1, 2021. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
  40. ↑ Bell, Leland V. (December 1, 1970) [December 1970]. "The Failure of Nazism in America: The German American Bund, 1936-1941". Political Science Quarterly. 85 (4): 585–599. doi:10.2307/2147597. JSTOR   2147597.
  41. ↑ "Supreme Court Reverses Bund Convictions". Ellensburg Daily Record . June 11, 1945. Retrieved March 7, 2023– via news.google.com.
  42. ↑ Keegan v. United States, 325U.S.478 (1945)("The proofs would not sustain, and the indictment does not contain, any charge of conspiracy to counsel evasion of registration.").
  43. ↑ Thrall, Minna (2020). ""What For is Democracy?": The german American Bund in the American Press, 1936-1941". Voces Novae. 12: 11 – via Digital Commons.
  44. 1 2 Thrall, Minna (2020). "'"What is For Democracy?": The German American Bund in the American Press, 1936-1941,"". Voces Novae. 12: 7 – via Digital Commons.
  45. 1 2 Bredemus, Jim (January 17, 2024). "The Failure of American Nazism: The German-American Bund's Attempt to Create an American "Fifth Column". Archived from the original on January 24, 2018.
  46. ↑ "Bund Rally to Get Huge Police Guard – 1,000 Members of Force to Be Stationed In and Near Garden Tomorrow". The New York Times. February 19, 1939. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved January 17, 2024.
  47. ↑ Geels, James E. (August 1975). The German-American Bund: Fifth Colum or Deutschtum?. North Texas State University. p. 13.
  48. ↑ Wolf, Cameron (April 22, 2019). Fritz Kuhn's Nazi America: Kuhn's Growth and Destruction of the German American Bund in the 1930s. University of Kansas (published 2019). p. 26.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.