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an immediate halt in the middle of Kuhn's final speech because a man who was dressed in blue broke through the lines of OD men, ran onto the stage, and charged at the speaker. Quickly swarmed by the
Ordnungsdienst, the Bund's paramilitary, he was subdued in an effective routine of punches and stomps which exemplified an 'uncanny replication of Nazi thuggery' a pack of uniformed men blast away with fists and boots on a lone Jewish victim." Later identified as 26-year-old plumbing assistant Isadore Greenbaum, the lone victim was pulled away by a team of police, saving the young man from serious injury. Attempting to control the riled-up crowd, Kuhn delivered his rousing finish, advocating the establishment of an America which would be ruled by White Gentiles, free from a Jewish Hollywood and news. "The Bund is open to you, provided you are sincere, of good character, of White Gentile Stock, and an American Citizen imbued with patriotic zeal. Therefore: Join!" As Kuhn exited the stage, 20 thousand Bund members chanted "Free America! Free America! Free America!" in the biggest Nazi rally in
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went down to the Garden without any intention of interrupting, but being that they talked so much against my religion and there was so much persecution I lost my head and I felt it was my duty to talk". When he was asked about the cause of his actions, Greenbaum quickly stated, "Gee, what would you have done if you were in my place listening to that s.o.b. hollering against the government and publicly kissing Hitler's behind – while thousands cheered? Well, I did it." For his actions which triggered a disturbance during the biggest Nazi rally in the United States, Greenbaum was sentenced to serve 10 days in jail but he was released after he paid a $ 25 fine.
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and even 35 firefighters, armed with a heavy-duty fire hose in preparation of a riot. Bomb squads also combed the arena in response to a threat received a week earlier, boasting of a series of time-activated devices to explode during the event. New York was ready for the influx of Nazi rally attendees and was prepared to protect their ability to hold the rally at all costs. Chief
Inspector Louis F. Costuma illustrated this commitment to safety, telling the press, "We had enough police here to stop a revolution" in an interview in preparation for the rally.
323:-Mordecais for the class warfare felt across the country.' West Coast leader Hermann Schwinn chose to denounce the Jewish control of Hollywood and news industries, claiming "Everything inimical to those Nations which have freed themselves of alien domination is 'News' to be played up and twisted to fan the flames of hate in the hearts of Americans, whereas the Menace of Anti-National, God-Hating
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in
December 1939. Kuhn's successor as the Bund's leader was Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze, a spy for German military intelligence who fled from the United States in November 1941. However, Mexican authorities forced Kunze to return to the United States, where he was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison for
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At 11:15, members of the Bund buttoned up their overcoats, conveniently hiding their uniforms, and they were escorted through police lines along Fifty-Second amid the crowds of protesters who were waiting outside. Ralliers were greeted with a roar of catcalls, jeers, and even with a few punches, but
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Last to speak, the
Bundesfuhrer himself, Fritz Kuhn, continued to push the anti-Semitic theme, going as far as calling President Roosevelt 'Rosenfeld' and calling Fiorello La Guardia, the man whom he promised to make no anti-Semitic remarks about, Fiorello "Jew Lumpen" LaGuardia. Everything came to
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Joseph
Goldstein, a former New York magistrate, exited a taxi cab in front of the rally holding a summons for the arrest of Fritz Julius Kuhn concerning a criminal libel suit filed earlier. Goldstein, like all other opposing efforts to gain admittance to the Garden, was stopped by police, this time
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on each side. Approximately 100,000 anti-Nazi counter-protesters gathered outside, attempting to break through lines of police officers guarding the rally on three occasions. The Bund rapidly declined in the aftermath of the rally, with Kuhn being imprisoned for embezzlement by the end of the year.
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Isadore
Greenbaum never intended to run onto the stage. Greenbaum, a former deck engineer and a former chief petty officer, snuck into the rally, but his anger quickly took hold of him as he listened to Kuhn's speech. Speaking years later, in 1989, Greenbaum characterized his actions by stating "I
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was aware of the dangers which were posed by this rally and he dispatched the highest number of police to a single event in the city's history. 1,700 uniformed police officers patrolled outside the venue as well as 600 undercover detectives and non-uniformed officers scattered throughout the hall,
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While
Madison Square Garden had prepared itself for the presence of the German Bund, many around New York City considered the Nazi sect less welcome in their city. About 100,000 anti-Nazi protesters gathered around the arena in protest of the Bund, carrying signs stating "Smash Anti-Semitism" and
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The rally occurred when the German
American Bund's membership was dropping; Kuhn hoped that a provocative high-profile event would reverse the group's declining fortunes. The pro-Nazi Bund was unpopular in New York City, and some called for the event to be banned. Mayor
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At 8 p.m., a loudspeaker in a second-floor window of a rooming house at Forty-ninth Street and Eight Avenue began blaring a denunciation of Nazis and urging, "Be
American, Stay at home". The voice came from a record which was timed to start playing
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headquarters, authorities discovered that $ 14,000 (about $ 273,000 in 2021) which were raised by the Bund during the rally were unaccounted for – Kuhn had spent them on his mistress and various personal expenses. Kuhn was convicted of
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by
Inspector Costuma himself, denying the former magistrate entry based on the failure to present a ticket. Outside Madison Square Garden, thirteen people were arrested during protests of the rally.
737:"Free America!" The German American Bund at Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939. Speeches by J. Wheeler-Hill, Rudolf Marman, George Froboese, Hermann Schwinn, G. William Kunze, and the Bund's
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pm with a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner", sung by Margarete Rittershaush. Next, James Wheeler-Hill, national secretary of the Bund, opened the night with the statement that "if
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veterans, wrapped in Stars and Stripes, were held off by police on mounted horseback, the next, a "burly man carrying an American flag" and finally, a Trotskyist group known as the
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for attacking Nazi officials. Midwestern Gau leader George Froboese was next to speak, pushing themes of 'Jewish world domination', blaming the 'oriental cunning of the Jew
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from August 11–12, 2017, that rally has frequently been compared to the German American Bund's rally in Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939
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allowed the event to go forward, correctly predicting that the Bund's highly publicized spectacle would further discredit them in the public eye.
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311:." Calling upon his fellow Americans, Wheller-Hill challenged Bund members to restore America to the 'True Americans' while condemning President
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233:"Drive the Nazis Out of New York". A total of three attempts were made to break the arm-linking lines of police, the first of these, a group of
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The event was highly choreographed in the fascist style, with uniformed Bund members carrying American and Nazi flags, the display of the
424:", illustrating an alternate history in which the Nazis invaded and occupied the United States with the help of aliens from the future.
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643:"22,000 Nazis Hold Rally in Garden; Police Check Foes; Scenes as German-American Bund Held Its 'Washington Birthday' Rally Last Night"
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181:. The Bund was the most influential of several pro-Nazi German groups in the United States in the 1930s; others included the
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The largely decentralized Bund was active in several regions; still, it attracted support only from a minority of
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was used to salute the American flag, which was marched down the aisle at this event), and the playing of
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The pro-Nazi organizations in the U.S. were actively countered by anti-Nazi organizations led by
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The Capra Touch: A Study of the Director's Hollywood Classics and War Documentaries, 1934-1945
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German - American Bund Rally Address by Its Leader Fritz Kuhn. Audio from US National Archives
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Actual footage of the rally was incorporated into a fictional newsreel created for the 2004
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767:"When Nazis rallied in Manhattan, one working-class Jewish man from Brooklyn took them on"
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Shortly after the rally, the Bund rapidly declined. Two months after the rally, the film
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Bell Lelland, "The Failure of Nazism in America: The German American Bund," 1936-1941,
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Kramer, Sarah Kate, "When Nazis Took Manhattan," NPR Radio Diaries, February 20, 2019
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by midnight, all was quiet, or it was as quiet as it could be in downtown New York.
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was a featured speaker. The Bund billed the event, which took place two days before
883:""A Night at the Garden" Is the Most Terrifying Movie You Can Watch This Halloween"
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13 Held on Minor Charges – Only thirteen arrests were made, all on minor charges.
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in the United States, combining Nazi imagery with American patriotic imagery.
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Swastika Nation, Fritz Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the German-American Bund
864:"Footage of German American Bund Nazi Rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939"
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Swastika Nation: Fritz Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the German-American Bund
208:. The Joint Boycott Committee held a rally at Madison Square Garden in 1937.
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Hitler's American Friends: The Third Reich's Supporters in the United States
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at end of "When Nazis Took Manhattan," NPR Radio Diaries, February 20, 2019
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Hitler's American Friends: The Third Reich's Supporters in the United States
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189:(also known as the Hitler Club). Alongside allied groups, such as the
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288:(but this was problematic because at that time, the very similar
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Maloney Russel, "Heil Washington!" The New Yorker, April 4, 1939
405:, the second film of Frank Capra's wartime documentary series
838:"Star Trek: Enterprise – Storm Front, Part II (Review)"
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A similar rally is depicted in the 2020 HBO miniseries
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Antisemitic attacks and incidents in the United States
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List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
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452:Another similar rally is depicted in the 2022 film
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481:List of antisemitic incidents in the United States
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675:"Bund Rally Bomb Rumor Fails to Worry Mayor",
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551:"When Nazis Took Over Madison Square Garden"
511:History of antisemitism in the United States
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624:(Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 230.
307:were alive today, he would be friends with
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921:(New York City: St. Martin's Press, 2013)
691:"TimesMachine: Tuesday February 21, 1939"
578:, New York City: St. Martin's Press, 2013
381:Germany declared war on the United States
166:organization in the United States before
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141:. More than 20,000 people attended, and
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162:The German American Bund was a pro-
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765:Bump, Philip (February 20, 2019).
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881:Schwarz, Jon (October 29, 2017).
862:Buder, Emily (October 10, 2017).
810:Gunter, Matthew C. (2011-12-01).
506:Antisemitism in the United States
549:Bort, Ryan (February 19, 2019).
791:Federal Bureau of Investigation
327:, is deliberately minimized."
315:'s Secretary of the Interior,
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955:Antisemitism in New York City
622:American Jewry: A New History
516:Radical right (United States)
912:Political Science Quarterly,
387:in 1942 after he received a
147:George Washington's Birthday
606:(St. Martin's/Dunne, 2018).
193:, these organizations were
40:February 20, 1939
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496:Propaganda in Nazi Germany
468:The U.S. and the Holocaust
399:The rally was featured in
212:Preparations for the rally
914:Vol. 85, (December 1970)
529:Charlottesville, Virginia
527:rally that took place in
354:Confessions of a Nazi Spy
31:Photograph from the event
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442:The Plot Against America
129:On February 20, 1939, a
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296:and German folk songs.
239:Socialist Workers Party
206:boycott of German goods
787:"Vonsiatsky Espionage"
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187:Friends of New Germany
945:1939 in New York City
650:. February 21, 1939.
521:Unite the Right rally
433:A Night at the Garden
417:Star Trek: Enterprise
383:. Froboese committed
333:United States history
313:Franklin D. Roosevelt
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170:. The group promoted
135:Madison Square Garden
55:Madison Square Garden
975:German American Bund
960:February 1939 events
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436:is about the rally.
363:Yorkville, Manhattan
299:The rally began at 8
139:German American Bund
133:rally took place at
107:German American Bund
75:American nationalism
772:The Washington Post
279:Fiorello La Guardia
137:, organized by the
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950:1930s in Manhattan
924:Hart Bradley W.,
917:Bernstein, Arnie,
696:The New York Times
677:The New York Times
648:The New York Times
620:Eli Lederhendler,
574:Bernstein, Arnie,
471:covers the event.
395:In popular culture
389:federal grand jury
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244:The New York Times
226:Fiorello LaGuardia
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903:Diamond, Sander,
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602:Bradley W. Hart,
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235:World War I
195:antisemitic
939:Categories
848:2019-03-31
796:2023-02-21
702:2020-11-02
536:References
391:subpoena.
158:Background
63:Nazi rally
44:1939-02-20
656:0362-4331
463:Ken Burns
455:Amsterdam
420:episode "
377:espionage
347:Aftermath
321:Karl Marx
151:swastikas
475:See also
385:suicide
120:Arrests
42: (
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739:Führer
698:. 1939
661:May 1,
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224:Mayor
164:Hitler
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