Benson is not Jewish — he describes himself as a “lapsed Catholic” 24/8/22
By 1933, there were more than one hundred anti-Semitic groups operating openly in the United States, “Judge Perlman thought outside the box.”
Jewish kids had a favorite gangster like Catholics had a patron Saint.
Meyer Lansky was the one who lead the anti Nazi effort. Fascism gained popularity in time of economic crises like the Great Depression. German immigrants about 12 million were second only to the Irish and the German Bund was out to promote Hitler's agenda .
Henry Ford gave out free copies of the Protocols of the elders of Zion and Jews refused to buy Ford cars. Fortune magazine revealed that 1 in 10 Americans wanted Jews deported in the 1930s.
Fritz Julius Kuhn was the leader of the German American Bund. His favorite target was FDR and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of NY. Many Germans had no intention of becoming American citizens, and Kuhn was funded by a hand full of American industrialists.
John Metcalf was in the Anti American Committee who investigated both communists and fascist. Kuhn admitted to Metcalfe that he represented a foreign power.
Camp Upton was used in WW1 to train soldiers including Irving Berlin, after the war it was transformed into a school for immigrants to learn English and abandoned, then taken over as a Hitler youth camp.
Irish mobs and Jewish mobs stuck to their own turf but Jews and Italians worked well together. Jewish kids were bullied and believed they needed to be tough and stand up and fight. Many were encouraged to take up boxing and a few became professional. Boxing became a big thing within the Jewish community as well as Jewish bookmakers betting on it.
1919 The 18th Amendment brought prohibition which later the Volstead Act enforced by the treasury, repealed in 1933. Meyer Lansky made his money through bootlegging now went into casinos and had an elaborate system of paying off police and politicians. Judge Nathan Perlman and Rabbi Stephen Wise approached him. Now Perlman owed Lansky a favor. However there was a no kill rules and Lansky wanted the Jewish press not to write about what he did. The mafia often didn't do it s own killing but contracted out. For this Lucky Luciano went to Louis" Lepke" Buchhalter. Lansky felt that the Nazi's were for the Jews to deal with, even though the Italians hated Mussolini as he was anti Mafia an forced them out of Italy.
Judd Teller the journalist wrote about anti-Semitism. Undercover he got a list of Bund members in NY and their home addresses and many of them were approached in the streets and mugged.
1904 in East Village of the Lower east side the neighborhood the Lutheran Church organized a ride on the Slocum a ferry which caught on fire and 1021 people drowned after that most Germans moved to Yorkville NY. This was the deadliest NY incident till 9/11.
1938 a Bund meeting in NY celebrated Hitler's birthday . The gangster wearing American Legion hats came in and beat up the Nazi's afterwards dumped the hats and fled . The press blamed the American league.
The next meeting in Westchester only a quarter of the number attended. A stink bomb was pushed into a window behind the stage and as the Nazi's fled they were beaten up leaving.
1938 June African American Joe Louis beat German Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium. Schmeling was not a Nazi however was Hitler's pride and joy.
The Bund complained to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia that the Jews were infringing on the Bunds rights. LaGuardia agreed to get the Jewish goons off them but in NY they must not wear uniforms, display swastikas or sing songs and march with drums. He also assigned Jewish police to protect them or German dignitaries visited NY. So the Bund moved across the river to New Jersey.
1936 Father Charles Edward Coughlin a catholic priest spoke on the radio via 46 syndicated channels. He defended Nazi Germany and praised the way Nazis deal with Jews. He knew about Kristallnacht that had been on Nov. 9th 1938. He had 22 million listeners. He wanted to run a Catholic candidate against FDR but could not find one. (The only Catholic presidents have been Kennedy and Bieden). Eventually he went too far in making mistakes and was dropped by WMCA and the Detroit diocese made clear that his worldview was his own.
In Chicago Wilhelm Kunz said America should emulate Germany as Hitler got employment for 5 and a half million workers. "Sure they are in the German army" when the heckler was attacked by storm troopers it started a riot.
In Chicago "Greasy Thumb" Guzik was the most powerful Jewish gangster and was Al Capones right hand man.
Herb Brin was a gangland reporter. The anti Deformation League here was the only organization watching the Nazis.
The group that was to meet outside the German club meeting were told to say they were patriots and veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought against Franco in Spain.
Ernst Wilhelm Meyer a German diplomat in America resigned saying he could not represent the Nazi government as Hitler had betrayed Germanies interests.
New Jersey this was a period when everyone was poor, possessions were few and everyone's grandma lived with them but she spoke no English. You had horse drawn carts the iceman , a fish man and a milk man and others delivered.. Writer Phillip Roth and NY mayor Ed Koch came from here. Newark had 65 thousand German immigrants. Longie Swillman was the Jewish gangster in control. The police told him where there were Bund meetings. Nat Arno a boxer was Newark's Fighting Hebrew. Arno set up an army of close to a thousand people and they called them the Anti Nazi Minutemen of America. They also travelled to Philadelphia and busted the Bund there, when it met at the Turgemeide hall to celebrate the Anschluss of Austria.
Tear gas was first used by the police during the depression and the public were terrified of it as they had heard of the poisonous gasses used in WW1
When Bund speaker bragged about his relationship to Rudolf Hess, the FBI arrested him as an agent of a foreign government.
There was no such thing as illegal hate speech at that time and the right to assemble was protected by the constitution. The Minutemen busted the screening of a recruitment movie aimed at getting German American parents to send their kids to Nazi camps. At a meeting to celebrate the acquisition of the Sudetenland Czechoslovak sympathizers also congregated outside, while the gangsters did their work, the police to protect the Nazi's advised them to get out of the uniforms.
When the police raided Camp Norland they found evidence of espionage and weapons violations so the Bund leader had legal woes.
Jewish immigrants arrived in Minnesota directly from Poland , Ukraine, Belarus and Galicia as well as Romania some came from the Eastern cities of the USA. In Minneapolis and St. Paul's the was large German community, here the most anti-Semitic candidates often received the most votes. The Silver Legion was run by William Dudley Pelley.
Eric Sevareid was he top reporter for CBS news to the find out about the Silver Legion.
At this stage municipal Judge Larson said that the hate mail and speeches caused a deliberate stirring up of class against class and is indirect opposition to the tolerance of race and religion which our constitution protects. Hate speech was like inciting a riot. No longer was all speech protected as free speech.
Congress kept off father Couglin but The FBI raided the Front finding weapons and ammunition and plans to blow up bridges and power plants.
Hollywood was the one place that Germany's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels had an eye on and Nazi infiltration started in 1933. There were thousands arriving in LA every year especially during the depression in 1935 90% of the population had been there fewer than 15 years and there was no sizable German community. Corruption was assumed and the Silver League had a headquarters here. About 70 thousand Jews lived there mostly in Boyle Heights the movie moguls and stars lived in Beverly Hills. There were many down and out German and dust bowl migrants.
1872 Oil boom money started at the Le Brea tar pits. The oil millionaires were big anti-Semites
1910 movie studios moved there from Brooklyn, Queens
1938 Hollywood's greatest year with Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz. Germany had so many cinemas that a lot money was being made there. Germany loved Hollywood movies.
Leon Lawrence Lewis a Jewish attorney put together a squad to spy on the Nazis. Grace Comfort and her daughter Sylvia were non Jews and worked as a secretary of the Bund and spied on it. Nazis were planning to lynch 20 film moguls. The Aryan bookstore was the meeting place of pro Hitler propaganda and meetings.
Hillcrest was a Jewish country club as other LA clubs had restricted membership. The moguls were called to a secret meeting and were prepared to donate money anonymously. Lewis was able to sow disinformation and conflict within the Nazi community, and after Pearl Harbor he had a list of Nazi's to give to the FBI.
1935 Sinclair Lewis wrote the anti fascist novel "It can't Happen Here"
1939 Feb20th the Bund had a rally in Madison Square Garden to hear Gerhard Kunze who call Roosevelt Frank D Rosenfeld and the New Deal Jew Deal denouncing the Jewish Bolshevik leadership and resulted in extreme violence with protesters led by the gansters. The police 1,700 was the largest force in NY history. 2017 documental by Marshall Curry called Night in the Garden.
The Bund now moved its headquarter to Mexico city. Kuhn was accused of stealing from his organization.
When war came Kunze was arrested under the Selective Service Act
By the time of Pearl Harbor the Bund was through and Dudley Pelley's Silver Shirts were on the run, not only from angry Jews but the Un American Activities Committee also. He was convicted of sedition and in jail till 1950. Most America Nazis went far underground and disappeared. Germans conscripted were sent to the Pacific. Many German American changed their names and said they were Swedish. In Chicago the Germania club got the name Lincoln Club.
With Lucky Luciano's help the docks were protected from infiltrators and for the invasion of Sicily, Luciano supplied all the information about Sicily and it coastline and arranged the American troops would be welcome there.
1938 Nazi Perverts and Thieves- the morality of the Bund leaders was questioned. Propagandist Winterscheidt was arrested for a child sex crime. He was secretly paroled in 1940 when he turned state witness about falsified applications for US citizenship. Thomas Dewey the NY District Attorney found the Bund had fraudulent tax returns. Several Bund officials returned to Germany. Kuhn's citizenship was revoked and he was arrested as an enemy agent once the US was at war, he was deported to Germany in 1945 but arrested again under the de-Nazification laws.
Most of those Jews that fought the Nazis volunteered to go to war. The gangsters also did a lot for Israel.
Meyer Lansky was investigated by the IRS for tax evasion, but was never convicted as he had compromising photos of J.Edgar Hoover and his "close aide Clyde Tolson. Lansky died in 1983 aged 80.
After Pearl Harbor FDR shut down Coughlins radio program and forbade his periodical Social Justice from being distributed. The Bishop forced him to get out of politics to remain in the Church.
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