German American Bund Rally in Madison Square
Garden (1939)
The German American Bund, a pro-National Socialist organization established in the United States March 29, 1936, organized a rally at New York's Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939 that drew more than 20,000 attendees who booed any mention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and cheered "Heil Hitler!".
At Madison Square Garden, the rally opened with the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. The mood was jubilant. Attendees wore swastika armbands, waved American flags and held aloft posters with slogans like "Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America." There were storm troopers in the aisles, their uniforms almost identical to those of National Socialist Germany.
The History of American National Socialism – Part I: 1924-1936
IN ORDER TO CHART a course for American National Socialism into the future, we must know where we stand today. And to have an accurate understanding of our present position we need to know where we came from.
It is the goal of this series of articles to provide an outline of the history of the Movement in the United States. But we are not interested here in a simple timeline recitation of names and dates. Rather, we wish to provide a framework for a critical analysis of NS development. A hagiographical account, in which every event and decision is presented as being necessary and perfect, will not accomplish our purpose. Instead, we must be willing to ruthlessly examine the mistakes that were made as well as congratulating ourselves on the modest successes of our struggle. For only in recognizing where things have gone wrong can we hope to correct any missteps we have made.
Although any telling of our story will inevitably highlight the Movement’s leaders, we need to also keep in mind the countless thousands of rank-and-file members and supporters: the nameless street activists who time and again risked life and limb for the cause; the women comrades who labored behind the scenes in an often thankless support capacity; the financial benefactors who provided the economic wherewithal that financed our efforts; and the silent aid rendered to us by sympathizers whose employment situation or family obligations prevented them from openly proclaiming their National Socialist faith. If the well-known names of our leaders have provided the head of the Movement, these unknown and unheralded comrades have provided its body.
The Movement’s Beginnings: Teutonia
The earliest manifestation of organized National Socialism in the US dates back to the early 1920s. Various private associations — clubs, really — sprang up in cities with a high concentration of German nationals, many whom were newly arrived since the end of the First World War. Following the unsuccessful National Socialist revolt in Munich in November of 1923, a number of members of the Hitler movement emigrated from Germany to the US. Little clusters of like-minded men gradually found each other in the tightly knit German communities of cities such as Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee and New York. These little groups were formed mainly for social reasons, and none of them amounted to much — and, indeed, expansion and recruitment were not really on their agenda.
One of these little groups was known as the American National-Socialist League, but like the others, it faded away almost as soon as it had arisen, and vanished without a trace. The first serious attempt at building National Socialism on these shores was the “Free Association of Teutonia.” It was founded in October of 1924 in Chicago by 21-year-old Fritz Gissibl and his brothers Peter and Andrew. Joining with them in the enterprise was 19-year-old Walter Kappe, who edited Teutonia’s small German-language newspaper Vorposten (“Picket”). That the group even had a publication, as modest as it was, placed it head-and-shoulders above earlier NS efforts. Teutonia quickly obtained a headquarters for itself by leasing a room in Chicago’s Reichshalle.
An early recruit to the group was Joseph “Sepp” Schuster. He had been a member of the Sturmabteilung in Munich, and had participated in the fateful march that had ended so tragically. Schuster organized Teutonia’s equivalent of the SA. It was named the Ordnungsdienst, or “Order Service” in English. Eventually, the OD wore uniforms patterned on those of the SA, with similar insignia. No doubt at the time forming a unformed paramilitary formation that copied the German model seemed normal and organic. But in hindsight it proved to be an unfortunate development, from which the Movement still has not recovered today, for it set a precedent that every subsequent NS group has followed — often to the Movement’s detriment, as we will discuss later.
* Parts 1-8 Are Available
Read more:
https://nationalvanguard.org/2017/10/the-history-of-american-national-socialism-part-i-1924-1936/
