BY ALAN ARICHAVALA

news@queensledger.com

The United States in the 1930s was defined by the devastating effects of the Great Depression: widespread unemployment, job scarcity, homelessness, economic inequality, and growing political polarization. Although there were already Marxist-inspired political movements present in the U.S. since the 19th century, which played a significant role in the rise of organized labor, the 1930s was marked with far-right movements, modeled on European fascism.

The Klu Klux Klan — which had experienced a dramatic resurgence during the 1910s and 1920s — saw rapid decline outside of the South thanks to a series of violent scandals. That, combined with corruption infighting and mounting public backlash caused membership to plummet from approximately 4-5 million members to just barely 30,000.

On Memorial Day 1927, approximately 1,000 Klansmen marched in Jamaica to protest of what they claimed was the growing influence of Roman Catholics, particularly the

Irish, within the New York Police Department who “targeted hardworking Protestant families”. The demonstration was met with fierce opposition from local residents, eventually erupting into a riot. Police arrested seven men, including real estate developer

Fred Trump, the father of Donald J. Trump, who was detained for refusing to disperse, although he was later released with no charges filed.

But with the Great Depression in full swing, new extremist organizations began to fill the void. Groups such as the Silver Legion of America, otherwise known as the Silver Shirts, modeled their political philosophy after German National Socialism and eventually  gained a modest following. None, however, would become as prominent or influential as the German-American Bund, the most visible pro-Nazi organization in the U.S. before the Second World War.

Established in 1936 the Bund was a successor to the Friends of New Germany and the Free Society of Teutonia, both of which were early attempts by the Nazis to establish an American counterpart of the National Socialist German Workers Party as early as 1924. Among other goals, the Bund aimed to infiltrate established German-American organizations, including the Turnvereine, or Turner movement, a network of German-American gymnastic and social clubs across the U.S. In one notable incident, members of the Friends of New Germany stormed the offices of the German-language newspaper New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, demanding that it publish pro-Nazi articles. They also sought to counter the Jewish-led boycott of German goods that began after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 in protest of Nazi antisemitism.

Following years of initial disputes, the German-American Bund was organized under the leadership of Fritz Julius Kuhn, a German-born naturalized American citizen and First World War veteran of the Royal Bavarian Army.

The Bund established its national headquarters at 178 East 85th Street, the heart of the German community of Yorkville, Manhattan, but its influence extended throughout the Northeast and Midwest, with chapters in Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and other states. It also operated youth summer camps intended to indoctrinate children and teenagers with Nazi ideology, the most prominent of which was Camp Seigfried in Yaphank, Long Island.

By 1938, the Bund had an established presence in Astoria, where a local chapter was organized under the leadership of Herman Schwarzman. The chapter frequently held meetings in neighborhood beer gardens and meeting halls. These activities drew the ire of Rabbi Joshua L. Goldberg of the Astoria Center of Israel and one of the Bund’s most outspoken opponents in Astoria. According to ACI’s historian and lifelong member of the congregation, Mitch Blas, one of the alleged venues used by the Bund was the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden on 24th Avenue. Goldberg was said to have admonished the owners of the beer garden for even thinking of allowing the Bund to use their space.

Goldberg would later achieve national distinction as the first rabbi commissioned as a U.S. Navy chaplain during World War II, the first Jewish chaplain to attain the rank of Captain, and the first to retire after a full career on active duty.

On the evening of November 18th, 1938, the Bund held a meeting at the Astoria Turnverein Hall, located at 44th Street and Broadway. The gathering was met by approximately 250 demonstrators, who formed double-file picket lines outside the hall in protest. The New York City Police Department deployed ten sergeants and one hundred patrolmen to keep the entrance clear for the approximately 450 Bund members attending the meeting. As attendees passed through the police lines, they were met with jeers and boos from the demonstrators. Fritz Kuhn attended but avoided confrontation by arriving at the hall an hour and a half before the picketers assembled. In addition to Kuhn, Astoria attorney Herman Roth made an appearance, as did Bund publicist William Kunze, who delivered speeches attacking Jews and attempted to justify the Nazi regime’s racial persecution in Germany in the aftermath of Kristalnacht, and condemning American sympathy for the victims of Nazi policies.

Outside, the demonstrators held their own street meeting, identifying themselves as members of the Anti-Nazi Council of Astoria, the German-American Club of Astoria, and the American League for Peace and Democracy.

The beginning of the end for the Bund came on the evening of February 20th, 1939, when the organization held its largest and most infamous rally at Madison Square Garden.

Although Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia strongly opposed the gathering, he allowed the event to proceed, believing that the spectacle would further discredit the Bund in the eyes of the public. Approximately 20,000 people attended the rally, including Bund members, sympathizers and curious spectators. Outside Madison Square Garden, thousands of protestors–many of them First World War veterans, Jewish New Yorkers, and members of the Socialist Workers Party–demonstrated against the event. They were prevented from entering the venue by a heavy police presence of approximately 1,700 NYPD officers.

Following the rally, the Bund experienced a sharp decline in membership and public support. By 1942, the organization’s last leader, George Froboese, was subpoenaed before a federal grand jury but committed suicide. By that point, the Bund had ceased to exist. Some of its most committed members, however, left for Germany and enlisted in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War, participating in the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. It is unknown if any ever returned to the United States, but the far right ideology of the Bund would continue to fester in the U.S. in the coming decades.