The German American Bund, or the German American Federation (german: Amerikadeutscher Bund; Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, AV), was a

German-American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

organization which was established in 1936 as a successor to the

Friends of New Germany Friends of New Germany (Die Freunde des Neuen Deutschland), 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. History Nazis outside of Germa ...

(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.Wolter, Erik V. Wolter (2004) ''Loyalty On Trial: One American's Battle With The FBI''. iUniverse. . p. 65 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 Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

History

Friends of New Germany

In May 1933, Nazi

Deputy Führer Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...

Rudolf Hess Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...

gave German immigrant and German

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

member Heinz Spanknöbel authority to form an American Nazi organization. Shortly thereafter, with help from the German consul in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, Spanknöbel created the Friends of New Germany by merging two older organizations in the United States, Gau-USA and the

Free Society of Teutonia 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. History It was fo ...

, 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 (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. 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.Fritz Kuhn: Biography

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

The organization which was led by Spanknöbel was openly pro-Nazi, and it engaged in activities such as storming the

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a ...

New Yorker Staats-Zeitung The ''New Yorker Staats-Zeitung'', nicknamed ''"The Staats"'', claims to be the leading German-language weekly newspaper in the United States and is one of the oldest, having been published since the mid-1830s. In the late 19th century, it was on ...

'' 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 Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

to counter the

Jewish boycott of German goods The anti-Nazi boycott was an international boycott of German products in response to violence and harassment by members of Hitler's Nazi Party against Jews following his appointment as Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. Examples of Nazi v ...

, which was started in March 1933 as a protest against Nazi

anti-Semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

. 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. 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

along with vast amounts of anti-Semitic literature which were being distributed in the country. This led him to independently investigate the activities of

and

fascist Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the ...

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. Dickstein's investigation concluded that the Friends represented a branch of German dictator

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...

's Nazi Party in the United States. 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. In December 1935, Rudolf Hess ordered all German citizens to leave the FoNG and all of its leaders were recalled to Germany.

Bund's activities

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 Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. The Bund elected a German-born American citizen

Fritz Julius Kuhn Fritz Julius Kuhn (May 15, 1896 – December 14, 1951) 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 can ...

as its leader ('' Bundesführer''). Kuhn was a veteran of the Bavarian infantry during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and an ''

Alter Kämpfer ''Alter Kämpfer'' (German for "Old Fighter"; plural: ''Alte Kämpfer'') is a term referring to the earliest members of the Nazi Party, i.e. those who joined it before the ''Reichstag'' 1930 German federal election, with many belonging to the par ...

'' (''old fighter'') of the Nazi Party who, in 1934, was granted

American citizenship Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constituti ...

. Kuhn was initially effective as a leader and was able to unite the organization and expand its membership but came to be seen simply as an incompetent swindler and liar. The administrative structure of the Bund mimicked the regional administrative subdivision of the Nazi Party. The German American Bund divided the United States into three '' Gaue'': Gau Ost (East), Gau West and Gau Midwest. 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. Each Gau had its own ''

Gauleiter 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 ...

'' and staff to direct the Bund operations in the region in accordance with the '' Führerprinzip''. The Bund's national headquarters was located at 178 East 85th Street in the

borough of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

The Bund established a number of training camps, including Camp Nordland in

Sussex County, New Jersey Sussex County is the northernmost county in the State of New Jersey. Its county seat is Newton.Camp Siegfried in

Yaphank, New York Yaphank () is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 5,945 at the time of the 2010 census. Yaphank is located in the south part of the Town of Brookhaven. It is served by the ...

, Camp Hindenburg in Grafton, Wisconsin, Deutschhorst Country Club in

Sellersville, Pennsylvania Sellersville is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The population was 4,249 at the 2010 census. It is in the Pennridge School District. History Sellersville was founded in the early 18th century. It was centered on a major road known as ...

, Camp Bergwald in Bloomingdale, New Jersey,Jackson, Kenneth T. ''The Encyclopedia of New York City''. The New York Historical Society, Yale University Press, 1995, 462. and Camp Highland in

Windham, New York Windham is a town in Greene County, New York, United States. The population was 1,703 at the 2010 census. The town was probably named for the town or county of Windham, Connecticut, as many of its earliest settlers came from that state as well a ...

. The Bund held rallies with Nazi insignia and procedures such as the

Hitler salute The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute (german: link=no, Hitlergruß, , Hitler greeting, ; also called by the Nazi Party , 'German greeting', ), or the ''Sieg Heil'' salute, is a gesture that was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany. Th ...

and attacked the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt,

Jewish-American American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora Je ...

groups,

Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

, " Moscow-directed"

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

s and American

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict so ...

s of German goods. The organization claimed to show its loyalty to America by displaying the

flag of the United States The national flag of the United States of America, often referred to as the ''American flag'' or the ''U.S. flag'', consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the c ...

alongside the

flag of Nazi Germany The flag of Nazi Germany, officially the flag of the German Reich, featured a red background with a black swastika on a white disc. This flag came into use initially as the banner of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) after its foundation. Following the ...

at Bund meetings, and declared that

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

was "the first Fascist" who did not believe democracy would work. Kuhn and a few other ''Bundmen'' traveled to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

to attend the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-s ...

. During the trip, he visited the

Reich Chancellery The Reich Chancellery (german: Reichskanzlei) was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called ''Reichskanzler'') in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared ...

, where his picture was taken with

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

. This act did not constitute an official Nazi approval for Kuhn's organization: German Ambassador to the United States

Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff (23 December 1884 – 21 March 1952) was a German diplomat best known for his service to the Nazi regime. Dieckhoff was born in Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine. From 1937 to November 1938 he served as German ambassador to ...

expressed his disapproval and concern over the group to Berlin, causing distrust between the Bund and the Nazi regime. 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 The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)2 U.S.C. § 611 ''et seq.'' is a United States law that imposes public disclosure obligations on persons representing foreign interests.

requiring foreign agents to register with the

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other na ...

. On March 1, 1938, the Nazi government decreed that no ''

Reichsdeutsche ', literally translated "Germans of the ", is an archaic term for those ethnic Germans who resided within the German state that was founded in 1871. In contemporary usage, it referred to German citizens, the word signifying people from the Germ ...

'' erman nationalscould be a member of the Bund, and that no Nazi emblems were to be used by the organization. This was done both to appease the U.S. and to distance Germany from the Bund, which was increasingly a cause of embarrassment with its rhetoric and actions. GAB Rally Poster

Arguably, the zenith of the Bund's activities was the

rally Rally or rallye may refer to: Gatherings * Demonstration (political), a political rally, a political demonstration of support or protest, march, or parade * Pep rally, an event held at a United States school or college sporting event Sports ...

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylv ...

in New York City on February 20, 1939. Some 20,000 people attended and heard Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze, the Bund's National Public Relations Officer, criticize

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Roosevelt by repeatedly referring to him as "Frank D. Rosenfeld", calling his

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...

the "Jew Deal", and denouncing what he believed to be Bolshevik-Jewish American leadership. 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.

Decline

In 1939, a

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

tax investigation Tax investigation is an in-depth investigation processed by a tax authority in order to recover tax undercharged in previous years of assessment. This is the general term in commonwealth countries. It is carried out when a taxpayer is suspected of ...

determined that Kuhn had embezzled $14,000 from the Bund (). 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 In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a ...

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. New Bund leaders replaced Kuhn, most notably Gerhard Kunze, but only for brief periods. A year after the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, 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 Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

in November 1941. 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

. In the last week of December 1942, led by journalist

Dorothy Thompson Dorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and was one of the few women news commentators on radio ...

, fifty leading German-Americans (including baseball icon

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...

) signed a " Christmas Declaration by men and women of German ancestry" condemning

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

, 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 43 months in

state prison This is a list of U.S. state prisons (2010) (not including federal prisons or county jails in the United States or prisons in U.S. territories): * Alabama * Alaska * Arizona * Arkansas * California * Colorado * Connecticut * Delaware ...

, Kuhn was re-arrested on June 21, 1943, as an

enemy alien In customary international law, an enemy alien is any native, citizen, denizen or subject of any foreign nation or government with which a domestic nation or government is in conflict and who is liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and ...

and interned by the federal government at a camp in

Crystal City, Texas Crystal City is a city in and the county seat of Zavala County, Texas, United States. The population was 6,354 at the 2020 census. It was settled as a farming and ranching community and was a major railroad stop being from San Antonio. Spinach ...

. After the war, Kuhn was interned at

Ellis Island Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mil ...

and deported to Germany on September 15, 1945. He died on December 14, 1951, in

Munich, Germany Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

. According to historian Leland V. Bell, George Froboese, the Midwestern leader of the group (who had traveled to the 1936 Berlin Olympics with Kuhn to meet Hitler) and “a few lesser known Bundists committed suicide,” “some Bundists had their naturalizations revoked and spent a few months in detention camps,” and 24 officers of the organization were convicted of conspiracy to violate the 1940 Selective Service Act.

References

Notes Further reading * Allen, Joe (2012-2013) "'It Can't Happen Here?': Confronting the Fascist Threat in the US in the Late 1930s". ''International Socialist Review'' Part One: n.85 (September-October 2012), pp. 26–35; Part Two: n.87 (January-February 2013) pp. 19–28. * Bell, Leland V. (1973) ''In Hitler's Shadow; The Anatomy of American Nazism''. Associated Faculty Press. * Canedy, Susan (1990) ''Americas Nazis: A Democratic Dilemma a History of the German American Bund'' Markgraf Publications Group * Diamond, Sander (1974) ''The Nazi Movement in the United States: 1924–1941''. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press * Grams, Grant W. (2021) ''Coming Home to the Third Reich: Return Migration of German Nationals from the United States and Canada, 1933–1941''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland Publishers * Jenkins, Philip (1997) ''Hoods and Shirts: The Extreme Right in Pennsylvania, 1925–1950'' University of North Carolina Press. * * * MacDonnell, Francis (1995) ''Insidious Foes: The Axis Fifth Column and the American Home Front'' Oxford University Press. * * Miller, Marvin D. (1983) ''Wunderlich's Salute: The Interrelationship of the German-American Bund, Camp Siegfried, Yaphank, Long Island, and the Young Siegfrieds and Their Relationship with American and Nazi Institutions'' Malamud-Rose Publishers. * Norwood, Stephen H (2003) "Marauding Youth and the Christian Front: Antisemitic Violence in Boston and New York during World War II" ''American Jewish History'', v.91 * Schneider, James C. (1989) ''Should America Go to War? The Debate over Foreign Policy in Chicago, 1939–1941'' University of North Carolina Press * St. George, Maximiliam and Dennis, Lawrence (1946)''A Trial on Trial: The Great Sedition Trial of 1944'' National Civil Rights Committee. * Strong, Donald S. (1941) ''Organized Anti-Semitism in America: The Rise of Group Prejudice during the Decade 1930–40'' *

External links