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The story of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi group active across the US in the 1930's.
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00:00The following program includes derogatory images and language in historical context for educational purposes.
00:07Viewer discretion is advised.
00:09In ever-increasing numbers, the nation's youth has been going away to camp.
00:34This year has seen more boys and girls at camp than ever before.
00:39All of them have enjoyed common experiences, common adventures, building muscles, learning fellowship, acquiring camp spirit.
00:53It looked like any summer camp in America.
00:56It looked normal, but it wasn't normal.
01:02It was Nazi camp.
01:03In the 1930s, there were these camps all across the country.
01:12They were indoctrinating centers.
01:16That's what they were for, as well as for protecting the purity and the health of your superior breed.
01:23The camps were the creation of something called the German-American Boon.
01:29The Boon's vision was an America ruled by white Christians.
01:33And they thought the Nazism was entirely consistent with American ideals.
01:37My fellow Americans, what would George Washington think and do were he alive today?
01:48Would he not plead with his thinking, the loyal and law-abiding people, the true Christian Americans?
01:56The German-American boom is after power, they're after influence within the very fabric of the United States.
02:05They were against democracy and thought that America would be a kind of star in a constellation of pro-Nazi governments around the world.
02:24We assume that democracy is something that all Americans embrace, but in the 1930s, there were people in the United States who were ready to try something different.
02:54In the 1930s, lots of Americans thought the whole social order was about to collapse.
03:08Capitalism, democracy, they were done for, and something else was going to have to come along to take its place.
03:16And a lot of people thought that was going to be fascism.
03:19In the 1930s, one of the largest fascist groups in the United States was the German-American boom.
03:50Bund simply means organization.
03:53But fundamentally, this is an American organization.
03:57They believe in a pure nation.
03:59They believe in a strong nation.
04:00They believe that government is best when it is organized in a hierarchical way with a powerful dictator at the top,
04:07and that this would improve America.
04:08We have no time nor excuse to be idle so much along with the Bund.
04:15The popularity of the Bund showed that there were certain elements of the fascist vision that had real appeal in the United States.
04:26We have to fight for our rights.
04:29When you look at American fascism in the 1920s and 30s, the outcome of German fascism had not yet happened and was not known.
04:40We have the benefit of hindsight.
04:42But Americans at the time didn't know where it was going to go.
04:46As foreign as this might seem, fascist ideology tapped into some deep historical realities, dark realities in America.
04:58So the United States was fertile ground for groups like the German-American boom to emerge.
05:04The United States in the 1920s is a place of powerful divisions.
05:14It is a place of deep anti-Semitism, and it is a place that has very formal racial segregation.
05:23The separation of races was something that Americans had been doing for centuries,
05:27but they'd been doing it legally since the end of the Civil War through Jim Crow.
05:31The body of laws as well as habits and customs that kept white and black people apart in public spaces.
05:38In fact, the whole structure of racism in America had brought popular support.
05:44In the 1920s, one of the biggest organizations in the United States was the Ku Klux Klan,
05:52which was not only anti-black, it was anti-Jew, it was anti-immigrant, and those weren't marginal ideas.
06:03In 1924, four to five million people were in the Ku Klux Klan,
06:09including a couple dozen senators and congressmen.
06:11The Klan's basic message was a combination of white Christian nationalism combined with family values,
06:19which was a message that was appealing to millions of people.
06:23Father Coughlin, Charles Coughlin, known as the radio priest,
06:27every week went on the air to 14 million listeners,
06:31basically warning the country that Jews were destroying it.
06:34We are Christian in so far as we believe in Christ's principle of love your neighbor as yourself.
06:43And with that principle, I challenge every Jew in this nation to tell me that he does not believe in it.
06:54Anti-Semitism is rife in the United States,
06:58and at this point, it's out in the open.
07:00The most famous anti-Semite in America was probably Henry Ford.
07:08Henry Ford was an inventor, an extraordinary capitalist,
07:13but he used his wealth to promote some of the most virulent anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
07:20He published a notorious book called The International Jew,
07:25and had it distributed widely around the country.
07:27Millions of people might have heard of this book, but never actually seen it.
07:33Well, Ford took care of that.
07:36At that time, anti-Semitic and white supremacist ideas were supported by a pseudoscientific movement
07:43that was wildly popular in Europe and in the United States called eugenics.
07:50What is the bearing of the laws of heredity upon human affairs?
07:55Eugenics provides the answer, so far as this is known.
07:58Eugenics seeks to apply the known laws of heredity so as to prevent the degeneration of the race
08:04and improve its inborn qualities.
08:07Eugenics said that white supremacy was biologically determined and could be proven,
08:13as to the identities of the inferior, you know, so-called inferior races.
08:20It rationalized white supremacism by apparently giving it a scientific basis.
08:28Laws were based on these ideas.
08:31In 1924, the United States passes the Johnson-Reed Act,
08:38which puts a quota system on people immigrating into the United States from Europe.
08:44Under this new law, roughly 90% of them are going to come from northern European countries,
08:52a.k.a. white.
08:53All this led right-wing groups like the German-American Bund
08:59to believe that they would actually have a receptive audience in America.
09:04Because, look, Americans had cast themselves as a white nation.
09:08We are decidedly not preaching un-Americanism or anything basically new.
09:13We have an Asiatic Exclusion Act, Jim Crow laws,
09:17and a complicated system of immigration quotas,
09:20differentiating even between the various white peoples.
09:24It has then always been very much American.
09:31The leader of the Bund was a naturalized American citizen named Fritz Julius Kuhn.
09:37Kuhn had some bold ambitions.
09:40He presented himself as an American fuhrer,
09:42and his vision was to become the absolute leader,
09:45the absolute dictator of this organization that claims
09:48it's going to take control of the United States.
09:50Let me welcome you, the name of our local union,
09:53the German-American Bund of Brooklyn.
09:57And I'd like to tell you a few words about our purpose and aims.
10:01He imagined that he was going to build
10:03a distinctively American version of Nazism.
10:06Because America's problem is that it has too many differences.
10:11It has too many races, all mingled together, too many languages.
10:14This country can't possibly survive for a long time in such a crazy state.
10:18It should be organized, it should be disciplined,
10:21and it should be unified by one charismatic leader.
10:25Kuhn's path to the United States was somewhat typical for men of his generation
10:31who had lived through World War I,
10:34only to experience the economic ruin that Germany went through in the early 1920s.
10:42European society was devastated after World War I,
10:46and Germans, as the losing side of the war, were especially affected.
10:52You had hyperinflation,
10:55you had unemployed soldiers, unemployed workers, all desperate.
11:00Everyone was looking for a solution.
11:02A lot of people thought that communism was the answer.
11:18But others were very, very worried that revolutionaries were coming,
11:23that property would be abolished,
11:25and this infection would spread.
11:27In Europe, one main ideological counter to communism was fascism.
11:36Our association of fascism with the Second World War,
11:40and particularly with the Holocaust,
11:42isn't a set of associations that anyone had in the 1920s.
11:47People looked at the fascist Italian dictator Mussolini,
11:51and said, Mussolini has solved Italy's economic crisis
11:54by suppressing the communists,
11:57by getting rid of parliament,
11:59getting rid of divisive political parties.
12:01And he's basically asked Italians to trust him
12:04and his vision of a united country.
12:08Fascism was a word that was coined by Mussolini
12:11to identify his political movement.
12:14It says that in order to reclaim the strength and the purity
12:18and the nobility of your country,
12:20you need to purify your nation of the wrong people
12:24to get back to what the nation is supposed to be.
12:30It's essentially a white nationalist movement.
12:34So a lot of Americans were intrigued by fascism,
12:37at least in its Italian form.
12:38I am very glad to be able to express my free and feelings
12:43towards the American nation
12:46by fellow citizens
12:48who are working to make America greater.
12:54In Germany, Adolf Hitler's Nazi party
12:57is first seen as a very marginal group of thugs.
13:01Hitler rises to power on one promise,
13:04to save Germany.
13:06And to save Germany,
13:08he's going to get rid of the communists and the Jews.
13:13Fritz Kuhn was involved
13:15in the early days of the Nazi party.
13:18He claimed that he had been part of Hitler's failed coup attempt in 1923.
13:24Kuhn is emblematic of this generation of young German men
13:28who feel that they are the victims
13:30of the outcome of the First World War.
13:33They want unity.
13:34They want comradeship.
13:36But most of all,
13:37they want employment.
13:39So in 1924,
13:42he decides to do what many other Germans do,
13:45leave the country and come to America.
13:48German Americans and their descendants
13:50had been in the United States
13:51for a long period of time at this point.
13:53There were actually multiple waves
13:55of German immigration to the U.S.
13:56So Kuhn went to Detroit and got a job at the Henry Ford Hospital
14:01as an x-ray technician.
14:03It was a hospital that had a policy of no Jewish doctors.
14:07It's an era of deep anti-Semitism,
14:12of legalized racism,
14:16of growing inequality across the United States.
14:22And then the Great Depression begins.
14:30In October 1929, the stock market crashed
14:34with the subsequent onset of a massive depression.
14:39The stock market lost about 90% of its value
14:45in places where you had a largely foreign-born,
14:49industrial, working-class population.
14:52As many as 80% of those workers were out of work.
14:56In the depths of the depression,
14:59a great many Americans started to ask themselves
15:01whether the American experiment was failing.
15:04In one poll of conservative professionals,
15:07something like a third of them
15:09said it was time for a revolution,
15:11some kind of change.
15:13Whether it was going to be democracy,
15:16whether it was going to be communism,
15:18whether it was going to be fascism,
15:21all these ideas were finding supporters.
15:26The 1930s is a period that can be characterized by fear.
15:48Fear of the other.
15:50Fear of want.
15:53Fear of losing everything.
15:56The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
16:02Franklin Roosevelt comes into the White House
16:04in March of 1933
16:06in the midst of the biggest economic and social crisis
16:09since the Civil War.
16:11My most immediate concern
16:13is in carrying out the purposes
16:15of the great work program
16:17just enacted by the Congress.
16:19His solution is to introduce a series of programs
16:23that come to be known as the New Deal.
16:26There has not been another president
16:29that has introduced more legislation
16:32than Roosevelt did in his first 100 days.
16:41American right-wing groups
16:43were rabidly opposed to Roosevelt's New Deal,
16:47which they saw as a communist plot,
16:49as a redistribution of property,
16:52and began calling it the Jew Deal
16:54because they said that Roosevelt was being manipulated
16:58by Jewish financiers who were pulling the strings.
17:011933 was also the year that Adolf Hitler
17:09came to power in Germany.
17:11So there was a sense not only
17:13that there was a crisis at home,
17:15but that fascism was really beginning
17:18to take root around the world.
17:20Hitler puts Germany on what appears
17:24to be a very successful course.
17:26Inflation is under control,
17:29and according to the Nazis' official figures,
17:32unemployment has all but disappeared.
17:34Americans who see their own system in crisis
17:37are looking at fascism and Nazism
17:39as perhaps models that could be emulated
17:41in the United States.
17:43So extremist groups pop up all over the country
17:45inspired by what's going on in Europe.
17:50There was the Order of 76,
17:53there was the Black Legion,
17:54there was the Liberty League.
17:56There were the white shirts,
17:57the black shirts and brown shirts,
17:59there were the silver shirts.
18:01Please be stopped by Jew, Ryan.
18:03They just proliferated.
18:15In its earliest expressions,
18:17fascism was thought by many Americans
18:21to be a suitable answer to America's problems.
18:25But there were others who opposed fascism
18:28from the beginning.
18:31Dorothy Thompson was one of the first
18:33female foreign correspondents
18:35for American newspapers
18:36and was working in Europe
18:39during the rise of fascism.
18:42She could see the danger that it posed,
18:46and she was very outspoken about it
18:48from very early on.
18:51She had the honor, I think,
18:53of being the first American foreign correspondent
18:56to be ejected from Germany
18:58after Hitler came to power.
19:00There seems to me to be
19:02a certain misunderstanding
19:03about the anti-Semitic end
19:06of the Hitler movement.
19:08A great many people
19:09didn't believe that if they came to power,
19:11they would carry this program out.
19:14But as a matter of fact,
19:15they're doing what they have said
19:16for 13 years that they would do
19:18if they came to power.
19:20Another one of the great public figures
19:22of that era,
19:24Rabbi Stephen Wise,
19:26steps forward and says,
19:27we are going to act.
19:29We're going to mobilize
19:30against Nazism.
19:33Wise called for a boycott
19:35of all German products
19:37until Hitler stopped persecuting
19:40all minorities,
19:41not just Jews,
19:42but all minorities.
19:44It led to a big decline
19:46in German imports.
19:49This presents a challenge to Berlin,
19:52which is how do we improve
19:53our reputation in the United States
19:56while also pursuing our policies
19:58against the Jews here in Germany?
20:02Rudolf Hess,
20:03the number two Nazi leader,
20:05was looking at the American situation
20:07and saying,
20:08how are we going to offset this?
20:09And so he helped create
20:11the Friends of New Germany.
20:13The membership card
20:14and the Friends of the New Germany.
20:15Note the American emblem
20:16and over it the Nazi swastika.
20:19People join the Friends of New Germany
20:20in the same way you would join
20:22the Masons or the Oddfellows
20:24or the Elks.
20:25So Kuhn joins the Friends of New Germany
20:28and becomes head of the Midwest district.
20:32It was one thing for Americans
20:34to say,
20:36well, Hitler's doing great things
20:37for Germany
20:38from a distance.
20:41But Americans didn't actually
20:43like seeing swastikas
20:45in their neighborhoods.
20:46This began to turn American public opinion
20:51against the Friends of New Germany
20:54and against the Nazis.
20:58In the 1930s,
21:00there was a very strong Jewish presence
21:03in the Mafia.
21:04And they had an army
21:06of Jewish prize fighters,
21:08guys who knew how to work their fists.
21:10At this time,
21:13about a third of professional boxers
21:15were Jewish.
21:17And many of those Jewish boxers
21:19were very proud of their heritage
21:21and they had Stars of David
21:22on their trunks.
21:24They saw it as their duty
21:27to take on the Friends of New Germany.
21:31In New Jersey,
21:32this army of boxers
21:33was called the Minutemen
21:34because they could be there in a minute.
21:36They would burst into open meetings
21:41of the Friends of New Germany
21:44and they would beat the stuffing
21:45out of them.
21:48In Newark, New Jersey,
21:50they were so angry.
21:52There was a massive brawl
21:53that lasted for hours
21:54until the police were able
21:55to get it under control.
21:59The government in Berlin
22:00starts to feel
22:01that it's more of a problem
22:03than it is an asset.
22:04And in late 1935,
22:06they disband the organization.
22:09The Friends of New Germany
22:11was no more
22:11and Fritz Kuhn saw his opportunity
22:13and seized it.
22:15He said, you know,
22:16we have to reform this group.
22:18We have an infrastructure
22:19already in place
22:21with chapters all over the country.
22:24So in early 1936,
22:27Fritz Kuhn founds
22:28the German-American Bund
22:29and Kuhn was trying to sell it
22:32as an American organization.
22:34What you begin to see
22:36in 1936
22:37with the creation of the Bund
22:39is what I would call
22:41the beginning
22:42of star-spangled fascism.
22:43The German-American Bund
22:45is a patriotic,
22:47law-abiting,
22:48and honor-bound
22:49fighting organization
22:50of loyal Americans
22:52of German extraction,
22:54fighting to exterminate
22:56Jewish, Indonesian,
22:57ideistic,
22:58and Jewishism.
22:59The German-American Bund
23:00starts very deliberately
23:03cloaking itself
23:05in the explicit symbols
23:08of Americanness.
23:10George Washington,
23:12the American flag.
23:15You have these bizarre mixtures
23:17of American symbols
23:19with the symbols of Nazism.
23:21People dressed as Minutemen
23:23from the American Revolution,
23:24standing on stage
23:25next to these Bund members
23:26in their own uniforms.
23:28Or a man dressed
23:30as a Native American chief.
23:34Kuhn is trying to change
23:35the conversation a little bit
23:36by saying,
23:37you can be a patriotic American,
23:39and you can be proud
23:41of the Nazi government as well.
23:43So he is going to try
23:44to square the circle,
23:45which is to make Americans
23:46and American citizens
23:48a part of an organization
23:49that is basically designed
23:51to propagate Nazism.
23:55The National Bund
23:57establishes its headquarters
23:59on the Upper East Side
24:01of Manhattan
24:01in the Yorkville neighborhood.
24:04German was spoken
24:05in the streets.
24:07The shops had signs in German.
24:10If you walked through Yorkville
24:11in 1936,
24:13you could think
24:14you were in a German city.
24:16The Bund also had
24:18a fairly extensive
24:19business arm.
24:21New York City
24:22had beer halls
24:22where its members
24:23would gather,
24:24and these were often
24:25owned and operated
24:26by the Bund.
24:39Nationally,
24:39most German Americans
24:41were not supporters
24:42of the Bund.
24:44But the German American Bund
24:45had a great presence
24:46in New York.
24:47So it was deliberately
24:49provocative
24:49for the Jewish community
24:51because they were
24:53literally holding parades
24:54in front of
24:54Jewish people's homes.
24:57We are American citizens
25:00and we demand
25:02our rights
25:02to be American citizens.
25:04Like Hitler,
25:05Kuhn wanted to establish
25:07a Reich
25:07that would last
25:08for a thousand years.
25:11So he gets to work
25:12expanding the group.
25:14In 1936 and 37,
25:17the Bund has a period
25:18of real growth.
25:20There were three big districts
25:21of the Bund in America,
25:23but there were about
25:2445 regional districts
25:25and then 80 smaller
25:26little branches.
25:28They're all over the place,
25:29in the West Coast,
25:30Midwest, and East.
25:32At its peak,
25:33the Bund attracts
25:34as many as 100,000 members,
25:36and there were thousands
25:37of people who were also
25:38sympathetic to the Bund
25:39who were attending
25:40its events.
25:40One of the best ways
25:44to get people on board
25:45is to target their children.
25:48People can say,
25:49well, this is a good organization.
25:51It teaches them
25:52about the beauty of nature.
25:53It teaches them
25:54vital skills in life,
25:56and it's family-friendly
25:57and family-oriented.
25:58By the way,
25:59we hate Jews,
26:00we hate blacks,
26:01we hate Catholics.
26:02You get kids out of unhealthy
26:29city environments
26:30and put them into
26:32these summer camps.
26:34It's all about making sure
26:35that your superior breed
26:36is kept separate
26:37from pollutants,
26:39people of inferior races
26:41and ethnicities.
26:43Children are essential
26:45to the future of the movement.
26:47They have to be physically primed
26:49to become the leaders
26:50of this Nazi Reich.
26:52So there was a camp
26:54in upstate New York,
26:55Milwaukee, Chicago,
26:57Los Angeles,
26:57San Francisco,
26:58the Pacific Northwest.
26:59There were camps
27:01located all over the country.
27:08The grand opening
27:09for Camp Norland
27:10was July 18, 1937,
27:12and it was an event
27:15to be seen.
27:19There were more than
27:2010,000 people there,
27:21and this was in New Jersey,
27:2460 miles outside of Manhattan.
27:26I call upon all of you
27:33to join us
27:35in the battle
27:36for a socially just,
27:39financially independent,
27:42and Jew-free America.
27:45The biggest camp
27:52that the Bund built
27:53was Camp Siegfried
27:55in Jaapank, Long Island.
27:57It was a destination
27:59for lots of people
28:00from the New York area,
28:02not just during the summer camp,
28:03but for rallies and picnics
28:05and gatherings
28:06throughout the year.
28:07There was a train
28:10every Friday
28:10direct from Penn Station
28:12to Long Island
28:13called the Siegfried Special,
28:15and it would be packed
28:17with people
28:18getting away
28:18for the weekend.
28:21Camp Siegfried
28:22was so popular,
28:24the Bund created
28:25a front organization
28:26called the
28:26German-American
28:27Settlement League,
28:28which bought property
28:29so that they could establish
28:31not only camps,
28:33but actual planned communities.
28:34And at Jaapank,
28:37they did build
28:37a German-American settlement
28:39called German Gardens.
28:42The town that they set up
28:44named streets
28:46on Long Island
28:46after prominent Nazis.
28:49So there was
28:49Adolf Hitler Street
28:50and there was
28:51Goring Street.
28:53They had laws
28:54on the books
28:55restricting ownership.
28:58So, unsurprisingly,
29:00this community
29:00was not willing
29:01to admit Jewish homeowners.
29:04It was designed
29:07around the idea
29:08of creating
29:08an idealized
29:09sort of Nazi town.
29:12In the late summer
29:13of 1936,
29:16President Roosevelt
29:17calls J. Edgar Hoover,
29:19who's the head
29:19of the FBI,
29:21asking him
29:22to look into
29:23the activities
29:24of Nazis
29:24in the United States.
29:27One of the first things
29:29that the FBI
29:30sets out
29:31to investigate
29:32is the German-American Bund.
29:35Sieg!
29:36Fire!
29:36Peace!
29:37Fire!
29:37Peace!
29:38Fire!
29:38Ultimately,
29:40the FBI produces
29:42a thousand-page report
29:44which really lays out
29:46some of the more
29:47outrageous aspects
29:49of this organization.
29:51The pro-Nazi imagery,
29:54the pro-Hitler sentiments,
29:56the anti-Semitism,
29:57all of it's there.
29:59But Hoover
30:00was not terribly
30:01interested
30:02in taking this on.
30:06Why is Hoover
30:07sitting on his hands
30:08doing nothing
30:09with the Nazi fascist threat?
30:12The answer
30:13is actually pretty simple.
30:15It's because
30:16he was a rabid
30:17anti-communist.
30:19The Communist Party
30:20of the United States
30:21is not a political party.
30:23It is a way of life,
30:25an evil and malignant
30:26way of life.
30:28Like many Americans,
30:29Hoover thought,
30:30well, I don't really
30:31like fascism,
30:32but I do like
30:32its anti-communist credentials.
30:35So people tolerated
30:36organizations
30:37like the German-American Bund
30:38that were explicitly
30:39anti-communist.
30:40We stand beside you
30:41as Christian soldiers
30:42in your valiant fight
30:43against Jewish communism.
30:47There is a movement
30:48to stop hate speech.
30:51And in fact,
30:52the New Jersey legislature
30:53passes the race libel law.
30:55You can't libel somebody
30:58because of their race,
30:59their religion,
31:00their color.
31:04This is, in some ways,
31:05a novel concept in law.
31:08The problem with this
31:09is that groups
31:09like the ACLU
31:10immediately become involved
31:11and raise the obvious
31:12constitutional objection
31:13of how can you possibly
31:15outlaw speech
31:16that is offensive
31:17to a particular group.
31:18For all of the kind of horror
31:23of the idea
31:24of pro-Nazi forces
31:26acting in the United States,
31:28it's really not clear
31:29that they were breaking
31:31any particular federal law
31:33that existed at that point
31:35by engaging in the activities
31:37they were engaged in.
31:40Ultimately,
31:41the big test
31:41for the race libel law
31:42comes because of Camp Nordland,
31:44the German-American boon camp
31:45in the state of New Jersey
31:47because of speeches
31:48that were defamatory
31:50towards the Jewish community.
31:51We know
31:52that the Jew
31:53is most concerned
31:54with maintaining
31:55his franglerhood
31:57and the financial systems
31:58of the world.
32:01Ultimately,
32:02there is a prediction
32:03of nine boon members
32:04for violating
32:05the race libel law,
32:06but that's struck down
32:07by the New Jersey
32:08state Supreme Court.
32:09In the end,
32:12the ACLU publishes
32:13a pamphlet
32:13defending their decision
32:15to defend
32:15the free speech
32:16of Nazis.
32:18This is the double-edged sword
32:20of the First Amendment.
32:21It is a fundamental
32:23American right
32:23to be allowed
32:25to say horrible things.
32:28But the protection
32:29of the right
32:30to be hateful
32:31is what allows
32:32these ideas
32:33to proliferate.
32:34In early 1937,
32:47a Chicago newspaper,
32:48the Chicago Daily Times,
32:50decides it's going
32:51to send reporters
32:52incognito
32:53into the world
32:54of the German-American Bund.
32:56John and James Metcalf
32:58were brothers
32:59born in Germany,
33:01were both reporters
33:01for the Chicago Daily Times.
33:03They were assigned
33:04to go undercover
33:06and infiltrate the Bund.
33:08They had German
33:09birth certificates
33:10and they could speak German.
33:12So they had
33:12the perfect credentials.
33:15John had a little
33:16toothbrush mustache,
33:17if that might be
33:18a little familiar,
33:19and looked the part.
33:22He approaches
33:23the Bund headquarters
33:24in New York
33:25and works his way
33:26into the organization.
33:29Metcalf goes by an alias,
33:31Helmut Oberwinder,
33:32and very quickly
33:33ingratiates him
33:34himself with
33:35Fritz Kuhn.
33:39Because he's willing
33:40to dedicate himself
33:41to the cause,
33:42within just a few months,
33:43John Metcalf
33:44becomes Kuhn's
33:45right-hand man.
33:47And Kuhn dispatches
33:48Metcalf as a personal
33:49emissary
33:50to local and regional
33:51Bund chapters.
33:52So Metcalf travels
33:54all over the country,
33:55visiting with various
33:56Bund leaders.
33:58And all along the way,
34:00he's filing reports
34:01back to his paper.
34:02Everything from
34:04how a local Bund chapter
34:06might be completely inept,
34:08or more interested
34:08in having drinking parties
34:10than politics,
34:11to Bund leaders
34:12scoffing at Kuhn's authority,
34:14all the way to
34:15individual rank-and-file members
34:16talking about
34:17their ambitions
34:18to actually overthrow
34:19the U.S. government
34:20and establish
34:20a Nazi dictatorship.
34:22In September of 1937,
34:34the Chicago Daily Times
34:36drops the bomb.
34:38They publish
34:39a series of articles
34:41on the German-American Bund,
34:43and they don't hold back.
34:44These stories came out
34:57one after the other,
34:59these exposés
35:00of how the Nazis
35:01in America
35:02are trying to undermine
35:04the American people,
35:06the American government,
35:07and the American way of life.
35:08The Metcalfe's
35:11heard whispers
35:11inside the Bund's
35:12inner circle
35:13of something called
35:14der Tag,
35:15which translates
35:16to the day,
35:18the day when
35:19the Bund believes
35:20there will be
35:20a fascist revolution
35:21in the United States.
35:23This would be the day
35:25that there would be
35:25an insurrection.
35:27They would take over
35:28the United States government,
35:29and the swastika
35:30would fly above the capital.
35:31The Metcalfe scoop
35:36really galvanizes
35:37public opinion
35:37against the Bund,
35:39and Congress
35:40begins to enter
35:41the discourse
35:41about what should be done
35:42about subversive groups
35:43in the United States.
35:45Congressman Martin Dyes, Jr.
35:47becomes the chairman
35:47of what will come to be called
35:49the House Un-American
35:49Activities Committee,
35:50or WHOAC.
35:52Tactics of communist,
35:54Nazis, and fascists
35:55are now endangering
35:57this country.
35:59America must wake up
36:01to its danger.
36:02To whom were you
36:03sending these letters?
36:04I sent that to a list
36:06of approximately
36:07150 people.
36:09HUAC was very much
36:10in the mindset
36:11that there were an array
36:13of subversive organizations
36:15that needed to be investigated,
36:18and that a lot of them
36:19actually were on the right.
36:22John Metcalfe
36:23was the first witness
36:24called before the committee,
36:25and there's incredible images
36:26of him giving Martin Dyes
36:28and the committee
36:28the Nazi salute
36:29from the witness table.
36:31And then he showed them
36:32photos of how the Bund
36:33was preparing some sort
36:34of military coup.
36:38What were we going to be
36:40as a nation?
36:41Because what the Bund
36:43wanted America to be
36:44was a nation that was proud
36:46of its white Aryan past.
36:48But there were people
36:49who stood up
36:50for the right cause,
36:53who stood up for what we think
36:54of as American ideals.
36:56Dorothy Thompson had interviewed
36:59Hitler in 1931
37:00and was very clear
37:03about the risks
37:04that he posed,
37:06and not just to Europe.
37:09The classical end
37:11of all pure democracy
37:13is the popular tyrant.
37:16And incidentally,
37:17all successful tyrants
37:18throughout history
37:19have been popular idols.
37:21in 1938 alone,
37:24she gave more than 50 speeches
37:25about the importance
37:26of democracy
37:27and fighting fascism.
37:29And her radio broadcasts
37:31reached more than
37:31five million people.
37:33The tyrant,
37:35said Machiavelli,
37:36must pose
37:37as the friend
37:37of the people,
37:39as their champion
37:40against the rich
37:41and aristocratic,
37:43as the incorporation
37:44of the people's will.
37:45They must be made
37:47to feel that through him,
37:48in his person,
37:51they are actually ruling.
37:53This was the formula
37:54of Caesar,
37:56and it's the formula
37:57of Stalin,
37:58Mussolini,
37:58and Hitler.
38:01Her point
38:02was never be complacent.
38:04Her point was
38:05this can happen
38:06anywhere,
38:07and you have to be
38:09on your guard.
38:12On November 9,
38:141938,
38:14in hundreds of cities
38:16across Germany,
38:18we have Kristallnacht,
38:20Night of the Broken Glass.
38:33For two nights,
38:35Jewish businesses
38:36are destroyed.
38:41Their homes,
38:42ransacked.
38:44Synagogues are burned.
38:5430,000 Jewish men
38:56are rounded up
38:57and sent
38:58to concentration camps.
39:02Americans now knew
39:04that Nazi Germany
39:05wasn't just
39:06a normal country
39:07with a fascist dictator.
39:10It was a malevolent force.
39:12In the aftermath
39:15of Kristallnacht,
39:16the Boone's tactics
39:17are very provocative
39:18in the eyes
39:18of most Americans.
39:20But rather than
39:21disappear
39:22from the public eye,
39:24the German-American
39:24Boone decides
39:25on mass provocation.
39:34By the end
39:34of 1938,
39:36Boone made it clear
39:37that what they wanted
39:38to do was to show
39:39that we are popular,
39:42that we are relevant,
39:43that we're fulfilling
39:45our ambition
39:46of making German-Americans
39:48into good Nazis
39:49and Americans
39:50at the same time.
39:50How can we do that?
39:51Let's have a rally.
39:52People appealed
40:00to Mayor LaGuardia
40:01and said,
40:02how can you allow
40:02this to happen?
40:04LaGuardia said
40:04they have every right
40:05to do it
40:06and he wasn't going
40:07to stand in the way.
40:09It was the First Amendment.
40:11In those days,
40:13just like today,
40:14New York had
40:14the largest Jewish population
40:16in America.
40:18Of course,
40:19there have been
40:19fascist demonstrations
40:21before all around
40:22the country,
40:23but the Boone was going
40:24to Madison Square Garden
40:26in the center
40:27of the Jewish-American world.
40:32Over 20,000 Bundists
40:34were admitted
40:35inside the garden
40:36that night.
40:38Outside were
40:39tens of thousands
40:40of anti-Bundists
40:41wanting to get inside.
40:51a gesою
40:52of the youth.
40:58Lord,
40:59attention.
41:02I pledge
41:02I pledge undivided allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
41:25and the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
41:38Because of the visibility of this event, there had been a sort of general assumption
41:43that the Boone speakers would refrain from their most hateful speech, especially against Jews.
41:50But that proves not to be the case.
41:51The Jew is a thousand times more dangerous to us than all the others by reason of his parasitic nature.
42:00Also present that night was the indomitable Dorothy Thompson,
42:05who was furious that this rally was taking place.
42:10And amidst 22,000 fascists, she started shouting, bunk.
42:17Dorothy Thompson didn't hold anything back.
42:19She went there to heckle. She went there to cause a fuss.
42:28There is footage of Dorothy being hustled out, bodily thrown out of Madison Square Garden.
42:37Inside the garden, the final speaker is Fritz Kuhn himself.
42:50We love him for the enemies he has made.
42:54Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Fritz Kuhn.
42:57Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Americans, American patriots.
43:15If you ask what we are actively fighting for under our charter,
43:24first, a social, just, white, gentile, who ruled the United States.
43:29Second, gentile-controlled labor union, free from Jewish Moscow-directed domination.
43:37A 26-year-old Jewish plumber named Isidore Greenbaum can't stand what he's hearing,
43:54and he runs onto the stage.
43:57Stormtroopers grab him and are beating the hell out of him.
44:00They could have killed him, except the police came in and stopped the fight.
44:06Stormtroopers grab him and were beating the hell out of him.
44:09Please be seated, please.
44:12One fanatic is not making a difference, ladies and gentlemen.
44:26So the rally really comes to this violent conclusion.
44:30Outside, there's an almost riotous situation as protesters clash with the police and with Boone members.
44:50After the rally, New York Mayor LaGuardia was furious that this thing had happened in his city.
44:56So he called his district attorney, Thomas Dewey, and said, we can't get Fritz Kuhn for what he says, but there's got to be another way to get him.
45:07So his office started investigating.
45:12Thomas Dewey discovered that Kuhn had been using money from the Bund coffers to pay for his romances.
45:20Throughout his leadership of the Boone, Kuhn has maintained a network of mistresses across the country.
45:26And he's used some of these funds to not only pay for his personal expenses, but also those of his lady friends.
45:32The law books a would-be American Fuhrer on charges of grand larceny and forgery.
45:37He's Fritz Kuhn, Bund leader and friend of Hitler.
45:40But right now, his chief task is to explain about some $14,000 he's accused of stealing from his followers.
45:47Fritz Kuhn is found guilty of embezzlement and tax evasion, and he's sentenced to two and a half to five years in prison.
45:57As Kuhn is sitting in Sing Sing prison, he learns that Hitler has invaded Poland, and war has now broken out in Europe for the second time in a generation.
46:06Debate is raging all over the country about whether the U.S. should even take sides in the war in Europe.
46:11There was a coalition of unlikely bedfellows of people who wanted to keep the United States out of the war for different reasons.
46:19There were big business interests, there were pacifists, and then there were Nazi sympathizers.
46:26So all of these people formed this coalition called America First.
46:30And Charles Lindbergh became their spokesperson.
46:35I have been forced to the conclusion that we cannot win this war for England regardless of how much assistance we send.
46:45That is why the America First Committee has been formed.
46:50Lindbergh had first come into prominence in 1927 when he was the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic.
46:55He's a true national hero, and one of the most famous men in the world in this period.
47:01At its peak in mid-1941, America First has 800,000 members nationwide,
47:07dwarfing any other nonpartisan political organization of the era.
47:11The imminent danger of war lies in the action taken by President Roosevelt and his supporters.
47:19I appeal to all Americans, no matter what their viewpoint on the war may be,
47:25to unite behind the demand for a leadership in Washington that stands squarely upon American tradition.
47:34Lindbergh not only criticizes the Roosevelt administration,
47:39but also begins to really flirt in pretty overt ways with pro-Hitler sentiments,
47:47with anti-Semitism here at home and becomes kind of the hero of the, to some degree, anti-war and, to some degree, pro-Hitler right.
47:59Another belief of the Boone was that after the fascist revolution, after Der Tog,
48:04some leader will be swept into power on the Boone's political platform.
48:08Now, who is this leader?
48:10Fritz Kuhn might be one option, but the name that is whispered more commonly is Charles Lindbergh.
48:15There was talk of him running for president.
48:20And, in fact, the America First Committee was organizing itself into a political party when Pearl Harbor happened.
48:25And everything, you know, unfurled differently.
48:34Japan attacks Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, and the U.S. declares war against Japan.
48:39A few days later, Hitler and Germany declared war on the United States.
48:44With the United States entering the war, you begin to get new laws that require non-citizens in the United States to register with the federal government.
48:57You get laws like the Smith Act, which says that any group that advocates for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government can be subject to a whole host of criminal penalties.
49:10So, after he's released from prison, Kuhn was then convicted a second time and given a second jail sentence for never having registered as a foreign agent of the German government.
49:24And then, in 1945, he stripped of his citizenship and sent back to Germany.
49:31The Bund as an organization collapsed, but, of course, the people who were in the Bund didn't then disappear.
49:41The end of the Bund just meant that they blended back into American life.
49:46They go on to run businesses, they go on to be doctors, and dentists, and police chiefs.
49:56So, when we say a group has disappeared, in a lot of ways, that means nothing.
50:01Because until the ideas are actually gone, it's still there.
50:08It's the ideas that matter.
50:10Fritz Kuhn tapped into something that was, unfortunately, I wouldn't say just part of the American makeup, but part of human makeup.
50:21The part that we don't like to look at.
50:27America triumphantly wins the Second World War, which justifies a sense of pride and recognition of sacrifices made by Americans to defeat Nazism.
50:37But there's not so much a reckoning with the ideology that had motivated organizations like the Bund.
50:46Those questions go unasked and unanswered after World War II.
50:51There's this huge wish to simply forget about the fractious politics of the 1930s.
50:58To think that groups like the Bund were something that couldn't possibly present a serious threat to American democracy.
51:03It was unlikely that an avowedly pro-German organization was going to become the vehicle through which fascism came to America.
51:19But it doesn't mean that that can't or won't happen.
51:23The history of the German-American Bund reminds us that fascism is ultra-nationalist.
51:34In other words, there's no such thing as foreign fascism.
51:40Fascism is always homegrown.
51:43Fascism is always homegrown.
52:13I've been keeping track Hightwear's-all prejudice.
52:14To be continued in other words, everything of the 60s was across.
52:16In other words, when it was ждemed above it, the Red
52:36Diamond's written by the Dan Campbell Nelman.
52:38When it was 2000, it was like 13.
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