Flag of the German-American Bund (Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, or AV).
History of American National Socialism
Part 2: The Bund Years, 1936-1941
By Martin Kerr
The German-American Bund
At its height, the Friends of the New Germany had approximately 5,000 members. This is five times the number of members that Gau-USA had, and 10 times the number of its predecessor, Teutonia. However, 60 percent of FND members were German citizens, and were not eligible for membership in the newly reorganized Bund. In a sense, Kuhn had to rebuild the Bund from the ground up.
Kuhn was born in Munich in 1896. He served as an infantry lieutenant during the First World War and had earned the Iron Cross Second Class. Kuhn and his wife Elsa emigrated to Mexico in 1923. They moved to the US in 1927, and Kuhn became a naturalized citizen in 1933. He settled in Detroit and was employed as a chemist by the Ford Motor Corporation. He took an active interest in ethnic politics and became the leader of the Detroit chapter of the FND.
A minor point, but one that is worth addressing: Kuhn’s title was Bundesleiter. Historians and biographers, however, in error frequently refer to him as Bundesführer. But Kuhn himself was quick to point out that there was only one Führer, and that was Adolf Hitler.
Under his determined and energetic leadership, the Bund grew steadily. By the time it ceased operations in December 1941, the Bund had an organized presence in 47 of the 48 states (the exception being Louisiana), with a combined 163 local chapters. The Bund was divided into three departments – Eastern, Midwestern and Western – which in turn were divided into regions. The regions were subdivided into state organizations, which were further organized by city, neighborhood, and even block-by-block where the membership warranted it. Total membership is unknown, but probably exceeded 25,000. At its height, the uniformed Order Division had between 3,000 and 5,000 members nationwide.
The Bund published a weekly newspaper, with both German-language and English content. It was initially called the Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter (“German Wake-Up Call and Observer”). By 1937, it had a total circulation of 20,000. Three regional editions were published that carried local news and advertisements. In 1939, as part of an ongoing effort to Americanize the Bund, its full name was lengthened to Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter and Free American. From that point on, for convenience’s sake, it was normally referred to simply as the Free American. Building on its success, the Bund published several other publications, including a youth magazine.
A notable Bund feature were its summer camps, which were located on Bund-owned property. There were 18 of these camps in all. Some were modest in size, but others, like Camp Nordland in New Jersey, Camp Siegfried on New York’s Long Island and Camp Hindenburg in Wisconsin, were large and elaborate, with facilities for year-round living. Camp activities included hiking, camping, swimming and other athletics. There were also communal cultural activities. Special programs were developed for young people, designed to build comradeship and to strengthen bodies, minds and character.
The Bund was not a political organization in the normal sense of the word and did not run candidates for office. In 1936, the Bund supported Republican candidate Alf Landon for president in opposition to Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom the Bund correctly perceived to be hostile to Hitler’s Germany. But although Bund members may have voted for Landon, the organization did not openly campaign for him.
It did, however, hold public meetings and parades, and these gatherings became a target for protests by Communists and Jews. Sometimes the protestors would physically attack the Bund members, resulting in bloody brawls. Clashes between uniformed National Socialists and their enemies received generous publicity in the mainstream media, which was eager to portray the “Bundists” (as they termed the Bund members) as violent troublemakers. Back in Germany, the NSDAP viewed such publicity as detrimental to the foreign policy interests of the Reich. The same concerns that Hitler and Hess had over Gau-USA and the Friends of the New Germany had not gone away: instead, they were taking place on a larger scale and with increased media scrutiny.
Sometimes, not content to confront public Bund operations, its enemies targeted private Bund activities and Bund members in their homes. An example of this was the attack on the home of Opal Soltau in Indianapolis on March 14, 1938. Soltau was meeting privately with Bund officers and members in her living room when an anti-Bund mob descended on her house. The police were called and temporarily restored order, but then, with the thugs still present, they left. The mob resumed their attack, hurling rocks at the building. One rock broke through a window, injuring Soltau’s 17-year-old daughter. This was not an isolated incident; such attacks took place many times throughout the country.
The Bund’s 1936 Trip to Germany
Nearly all Bund activity took place on a local level, but on least two occasions, the Bund pooled its resources for a major national event. The first of these was an excursion to Hitler’s Germany in the summer of 1936. The second was a mass rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden in February 1939.
The year 1936
was a watershed for Hitler’s Germany. When the National Socialists
assumed power in early 1933, the country was in dreadful condition as a
result of the lost world war and 15 years of democratic incompetence and
corruption. It had been ravaged by the Great Depression and the
depredations of the Treaty of Versailles. The economy was a wreck,
unemployment was at a record high; many thousands of the most energetic
and skillful Germans emigrated each year to seek a better life
elsewhere. The media was in the hands of the Jews, as were other
important segments of society. But after only three years of National
Socialism, the Reich had been reborn: hunger had been banished, the
economy was booming, and the armed forces had been reorganized and
strengthened. A new sense of optimism and national pride filled the
population.
The 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin, brought countless guests and tourists to the new Germany. Among those visitors were Fritz Kuhn and some 50 members of the newly formed Bund. The American National Socialists toured the country and were widely feted as heroes. Uniformed members of the OD were accorded the same privilege as the German SA and allowed to ride public transportation for free. In Munich, uniformed Bund members marched with the SA, the SS and the Hitler Youth in a parade.
Shortly before the beginning of a second parade in Berlin, Bundesleiter Kuhn and his officers were granted a short, formal audience with Hitler. This meeting is what today might be termed a “photo op” – the Führer shook hands with them and chatted amiably for a few minutes. One photograph from the occasion shows Hitler and Kuhn talking together. As the brief audience wrapped up, Hitler told Kuhn, “Go back and continue the struggle over there.” Nothing deep or significant was meant by these words: they were just a courtesy by the Führer to his American followers.
Upon his return to the United States, Kuhn lost no time in misrepresenting his brief photo op with Hitler. Kuhn told reporters that, “I have a special arrangement with the Führer” to build the NS movement in America. Rumors spread that there had been a second, private meeting between the Chancellor Hitler and the Bundesleiter, during which Hitler had given Kuhn detailed instructions on strengthening Germany’s position in the New World. Kuhn did nothing to stop the spread of such tall tales, and instead maintained that he had received a direct mandate from Hitler to lead the American movement.
Kuhn’s dishonesty and false claims undoubtedly strengthened his position as the undisputed leader of the Bund. They came at a steep cost, however, because now they lent credibility to the charges made by the Jews and other anti-German forces that Hitler harbored aggressive aims towards America. The foreign-born Kuhn, with his thick German accent and mannerisms that some felt were off-putting, became the public face of domestic National Socialism to ordinary citizens. It was a face that many found hostile and threatening. Instead of building support and sympathy for the New Germany, Kuhn had alienated a huge swath of the American population.
What Hitler and the NSDAP Wanted from German-Americans
Hitler had low respect for groups or parties in other countries that wanted to imitate the NSDAP. He realized that such copycat groups were inorganic and essentially foreign to the own folk. This included not just the Bund, but also NS parties such as those in Denmark and Sweden. He commented that if Sir Oswald Mosely were really a great man as he presented himself, that he would have come up with an original movement of his own, instead of merely aping the NSDAP and Mussolini’s Fascists.
But this does not mean that he felt that there was no way for Germans in foreign countries to help build National Socialism.
Regarding the US, he felt that there were two primary ways that indigenous American National Socialists could help the New Germany:
The DAI and the DAWA/DKV had the full and enthusiastic support of Hitler and the NSDAP. Unformed marches, provocative speeches and confrontational meetings, however, were the mainstays of public Bund activity and did not meet with approval of Reich authorities, who did whatever they could to discourage such activities and to distance themselves from them – to no avail.
In 1938, Kuhn made a second trip to Germany, this time alone and without media fanfare. He sought an audience with Hitler or Hess, to try to smooth things over between the NSDAP and his leadership of the Bund. But neither man would meet with him. Instead, Hitler sent an aide, Fritz Wiedemann, to speak with Kuhn. Wiedemann was unreceptive to Kuhn’s entreaties and encouraged him to tone down the Bund’s public image. (In 1939, Hitler appointed Wiedemann as Consul General to the United States, perhaps hoping that he could undo some of the damage that Kuhn had caused to Germany’s image.)
The Madison Square Garden Rally
On February
20, 1939, the Bund held a mammoth rally in New York’s Madison Square
Garden. The event was billed as a “Mass Demonstration for True
Americanism.” It took place in proximity to George Washington’s
birthday, and indeed, a gigantic image of the first president formed a
backdrop for the speaker’s platform. Over 22,000 Bund members and allies
gathered for the occasion, easily making it the largest National
Socialist meeting ever held in North America, before or since. Some
1,200 OD men under the command of August Klapprott provided security.
Outside the Garden, 80,000 unruly anti-Bund protestors scuffled with the
police in an unsuccessful effort to disrupt the meeting.
Among the speakers were National Secretary James Wheeler Hill, National Public Relations Director Wilhelm Kunze and Bundesleiter Kuhn. As Kuhn began his address, a Jew named Isadore Greenbaum pushed his way past the police, slipped between two OD guards, and rushed the stage. He was armed with a knife. The would-be assassin was quickly tackled by the OD and beaten into submission. Klapprott pulled his men off the Jew before he was badly hurt, and he was turned over to the police for arrest. Kuhn continued speaking without interruption. Later, some members and followers leaving the meeting were assaulted by the mob outside.
The Bund portrayed the event as a huge victory. And indeed, it was an impressive tactical and logistical triumph. The Bund had shown that it could organize a successful mass meeting in the face of massive opposition.
But the reaction in Berlin was not so favorable. From the standpoint of the German government, this was exactly the type of publicity that they did not want.
Bund Ideology
The Bund formally adhered to the National Socialist worldview as expressed in NS Germany. But there was a problem: the US was not Germany, and the social, economic, political and racial situation in America did not correspond to that in the Reich. The program and exact policies of the NSDAP did not fit the American scene. Kuhn’s solution to the quandary was two-fold: the Bund adhered strictly to German National Socialism internally, but in terms of public outreach it advocated an ideology that was an awkward fusion of National Socialism and the Christian Nationalism of the times. (“Christian Nationalism” was roughly equivalent to modern White Nationalism. It was not a religious movement, per se; rather, by “Christian” it was understood that Jews were excluded.) An example of this was a statement by Kuhn quoted in the New York Times: “I am a White Man and I give the White Man’s salute: Heil Hitler!”
Publicly, the Bund claimed to be for “100 percent Americanism” and opposed to communism. It never attempted to forge a specific American National Socialism, unique to the experiences and situation of the Aryan race in North America.
When it felt the need to give some intellectual heft to its outreach, the Bund would refer to the writings of Lawrence Dennis, who was the foremost American Fascist intellectual of the period, or to other non-Bund, non-NS theoreticians and commentators.
The German National Socialist Colin Ross attempted to provide some intellectual ballast for the Movement in America with his 1937 book, Unser Amerika (Our America). He gave lectures throughout the US which were supported and attended by Bund members. But in the end, he was an outsider, and it is unclear to what extent his work had any effect on the Movement in the US.
Decline and End of the Bund
The Madison Square Garden rally aggravated the increasing dissatisfaction of the German government with the Bund. The German ambassador, Hans Diekhoff, had a contentious relationship with the group. Public opinion, largely manufactured and manipulated by the Jews, was already strongly tilted against the Reich. The media wanted to portray the Bund as a violent, un-American subversive organization directly under Hitler’s command; every headline that played into that false image made Diekhoff’s already-challenging job that much more difficult. He sent repeated dispatches to the Berlin urging the German government to sever all ties with the Bund and publicly disown it. But the truth was that there was little or nothing Berlin could do: Contrary to popular belief, the Bund was not under the command of Hitler, the German government, or the NSDAP. It was an independent organization that could conduct its operations in any way that it wished.
The average American had a negative appreciation of the Bund. It was widely assumed that the Bund was a “fifth column,” designed to aid the “Nazis” in the event that the Germans invaded the United States – which the media assured the public was Hitler’s ultimate aim.
Consequently, there was a widespread feeling that the government should “do something” about the Bund. The Roosevelt regime was more than willing to comply, but there was a hitch: the Bund operated strictly within the limits of US law.
Eventually, the authorities found a solution: In May, 1939, Kuhn was charged with the embezzlement of approximately $14,000 of Bund funds. Kuhn had foolishly taken as a mistress Virginia Cogswell, a former beauty queen. He had purportedly used Bunds funds to pay for her medical bills and to ship some used furniture to her from California. The Bund hierarchy responded to the charges that Kuhn, as leader of the Bund, was free to use the money in question in any manner that he wanted to. But the government was out for blood, and in November Kuhn was convicted of misusing Bund funds. Eventually he was sent to New York’s Sing Sing prison.
The scandal rocked the Bund, and resulted in many resignations. However, a new leader, Wilhelm Kunze stepped forward to lead the group until Kuhn was free again.
Bund operations continued until December 8, 1941 – the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and three days before Hitler’s declaration of war against the United States. On that day the Bund national council voted to dissolve the organization, and it burnt sensitive documents before they could be seized by the FBI.
Other National Socialist and Pro-NS Groups
Although we have concentrated our attention of the German-American Bund, the Bund was not the only NS formation in the US during the pre-War period. We have already mentioned the short-lived American National-Socialist Party of Anton Haegele of 1935. In 1939, the Brooklyn chapter of the Bund – which was the largest in the nation – broke away and reformed the ANSP, under the leadership of Peter Stahrenberg. But, despite excellence of its newspaper, the National American, the party was small and never amounted to anything.
Of the hundreds of other small groups that flourished during this period, the following are also worth mentioning:
Americans who were National Socialist or pro-NS also supported organizations such as Charles Lindbergh’s America First Committee, William Dudley Pelley’s Silver Shirt Legion and Father Charles Coughlin’s National Union for Social Justice, and the Christian Front.
In an effort to broaden its appeal, the Bund also held a unity rally with the Ku Klux Klan at August Klapprott’s Camp Nordland in 1940.
To Be Continued
Next: Critical Assessment of Pre-War American National Socialism
References
Anonymous, Freunde des Neuen Deutschland: Ortsgruppe Brooklyn, n.d. [1934] Booklet published by the Friends of the New Germany.
Bell, Leland V., In Hitler’s Shadow: Anatomy of American Nazism, Kennikat Press, 1973.
Good short introduction to the Bund; links the Bund to the American Nazi Party/National Socialist White People’s Party of George Lincoln Rockwell and Matt Koehl.
Canedy, Susan, America’s Nazis A Democratic Dilemma: A History of the German American Bund, Markgraf Publications Group (Menlo Park, CA), 1990, ISBN 0-944109-06-3.
Doctoral thesis of the author published as a book.
Carlson, John Roy [Avedis Boghos Derounian], Undercover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld of America – The Amazing Revelation of How Axis Agents and Our Enemies Within Are Now Plotting to Destroy the United States, E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1943.
Semi-factual account of the Bund and its allies by a communist undercover informer. Interesting but often unreliable.
Diamond, Sander, The Nazi Movement in the United States 1924-1941, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1974.
In-depth history of the Bund and related organization by a Jewish academician.
Federal Bureau of Investigation, The German American Federation/Bund, 1939-1941, The FBI Vault, online at https://vault.fbi.gov/german-american-bund,
retrieved August 22, 2021.
FBI files on the Bund released under the Freedom of Information Act, in 11 parts, containing 1,642 pages. Many “redactions.”
Freeland, Scott, They Were Americans Too: The German-American Bund in Words, Photos and Artifacts, R. James Bender Publishing (San Jose, CA), 2011, ISBN 1-932970-19-3.
Best account of the Bund and preceding organizations available from mainstream sources. Sympathetic to the subject and superbly illustrated. Appendices, bibliography.
Hart, Bradley W., Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States, St. Martin’s Press (New York), 2018, ISBN 978-1-250-14895-7.
An overview of various forces and personalities in the US that supported National Socialist Germany, including the Bund and allied organizations.
Klapprott, August, Address to the Eighth Conference of the Institute of Historical Review, Irvine, CA, October 1987.
Kuhn, Fritz, et al., Speeches of the German-American Bund, Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939, The Truth At Last, Marietta, GA, n.d. [1990s].
The text of the speeches given at the Madison Square Garden Bund rally by Fritz Kuhn, J. Wheeler-Hill, Rudolf Markmann, Georg Froboese, Hermann Schwinn and G. Wilhelm Kunze. Booklet format, 24 pages, illustrated. Includes brief commentary on the Bund by Dr. Edward R. Fields.
Marshall Curry Productions, A Night at the Garden, 2017. Online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC1MNGFHR58 , retrieved August 18, 2021.
Short documentary film, consisting of archival footage of the February 1939 German-American Bund rally held at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
Peel, Peter H., The Great Brown Scare: The Amerika Deutscher Bund in the Thirties and the Hounding of Fritz Julius Kuhn, The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1986-87 (Vol. 7, No. 4), pages 419-442, Online at
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v07/v07p419_Peel.html, retrieved August 18, 2021.
Sympathetic treatment of the subject by a National Socialist historian.
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