America-German Confederation

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"Bund" event (1938)

The Amerikadeutsche Bund , also Amerikadeutscher Volksbund or German-American Bund , was a National Socialist organization in the USA before the beginning of the Second World War . It is not to be confused with the German-American Association (German American League) that still exists today .

Origin and structure

"Bund" leader Fritz Kuhn (1938)
Propaganda chief Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze (1938)

The Amerikadeutsche Bund began in 1933 as Friends of New Germany under Heinz Spanknöbel in Chicago , an amalgamation of the Free Society of Teutonia and the National Socialist Party , both of which had been active since the 1920s . Then there was the Swastika League . After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the organization grew rapidly. In 1936, as a result of investigations by the “ Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities ” , it renamed itself “America-German Bund”, elected Fritz Julius Kuhn as “Federal Leader”, and declared itself “100% American”.

The federal government divided the United States into three geographic districts, which it called Gaue . Los Angeles was the headquarters of the “Western Gau”, which, according to FBI estimates, had around 6,600 members at its peak, 500 of them in the city itself. In the German House in downtown Los Angeles, “Gauleiter” Hermann Schwinn directed the actions and was finance secretary Arno cracks . The other centers were "Mid West" in Milwaukee under George Frobose and the headquarters in New York City with "Gauleiter" Rudolf Markmann.

Sowilo rune as a victory rune on the flag of the youth organization

A “German-American Youth” with boys and girls existed along the lines of the Hitler Youth and BDM . Their guides also traveled to Germany for training. The motto of the "Frauenschaft Division" was "Speak, sing, think, buy, act German!" (“Speak, sing, think, buy, act in German!”).

aims

The Amerikadeutsche Bund committed itself to the idiosyncratic "constitution, the flag, and a truly free America directed by white non-Jews". He pursued several goals, including the fight against the Jewish goods boycott of Nazi Germany initiated by Samuel Untermyer , the formation of a primordial cell for a new US army in the fight against communism and the takeover of the parts of the Nazi economy that were intended for Restoration after the Great Depression considered useful. The federation was organized according to the leader principle under the "federal leader" as "historical personality". According to the Nazi idea that blood is more important than citizenship or place of birth , all German-Americans who were called “Germans in America” were connected to the “fatherland”. Adapted were u. a. the Hitler salute , blood and honor belts , swastika flags.

Actions

Kuhn at a "Bund" event
"Bund" publication
"Bund" demonstration in New York (1939)

The federal government distributed literature, maintained the newspaper Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter under the direction of the federal press attendant Walter Cap , held public meetings, beer evenings, coffee hours and patriotic celebrations; for example in the German House in Los Angeles and in Hindenburgpark in La Crescenta, California . Hitler's birthday was celebrated, the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 and the “liberation” of the Sudetenland in 1938 . Speakers from other fascist organizations such as the Silver Legion and the Militant Christian Patriots were invited to reach a larger audience. Joint meetings were held with American black shirts , Ukrainian separatists, Russian monarchists and the Ku Klux Klan . 27 recreation areas across the country were set up as tent camps in the summer , such as "Camp Sutter " in Hindenburg Park , "Camp Siegfried" on Long Island , "Deutschhorst" in Pennsylvania , "Efdende North" in Michigan , "Nordland" in Andover and "Camp Bergwald" in Riverdale, New Jersey , "Hindenburg" in Wisconsin , "Windham" in the state of New York, which were attacked many times and later, depending on the state, also banned.

Visit to Berlin in 1936

The Hitler government and its US ambassador Hans Heinrich Dieckhoff officially kept their distance from the American-German Confederation. 200 Bundists traveled to Berlin for the 1936 Summer Olympics and Kuhn briefly met Hitler, to whom he presented a golden book with the signatures of donors for the Winter Relief Organization of the German People . On another visit to Berlin in 1938, Kuhn allegedly had lengthy conversations with Goering and Goebbels , but this turned out to be untrue. When asked by Ambassador Dieckhoff, the Foreign Office said that Kuhn had only been received by the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle , where it was explained to him that the Reich leadership could not approve of the way in which he ran the Bund. The Foreign Office came to the conclusion that Kuhn had - as in other cases - deviated from the truth in order to strengthen his position with his supporters.

Madison Square Garden 1939

Madison Square Garden (1939)

The American German Confederation reached its climax on February 22, 1939 with a gathering of 22,000 people in New York's Madison Square Garden , which was marked on the verge of violent clashes with opponents. Kuhn criticized President Franklin D. Roosevelt and repeatedly called him "Frank D. Rosenfeld"; He called his New Deal "Jew Deal" and declared that a Bolshevik- Jewish conspiracy was taking place in America .

Decline

In 1939, Bund leader Fritz Kuhn was sentenced to several years imprisonment for embezzling funds from his organization and tax evasion. Several new Bund leaders followed him for a short time. The organization dissolved in the following period.

Media of the American-German Confederation

  • Literature:
    • Amerikadeutscher Volksbund (newspaper)
    • German wake-up call with regional editions in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles; there as a California wake-up call from January 1, 1936
    • Matilde B. Schley: German America . Westside Printing, Milwaukee 1935.
    • Malcom Letts: Nazi Germany: "I Lived with the Brown Shirts." Los Angeles, October 1933.
  • 16mm films about Camp Bergwald, Federal Hill, and Riverdale summer camps

literature

Fiction
  • Ulla Lenze : The recipient , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2020, ISBN 978-3-608-96463-9 . In the novel, Ulla Lenze takes up the story of her great-uncle Josef Klein, who was also active in the American-German Confederation and was imprisoned for several years for this.
Non-fiction

Web links

Commons : German American Bund  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The German American Bund
  2. ↑ Time magazine March 14, 1938 ( Memento of the original from November 19, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The article is only available to subscribers. For the fight of the federal government against Jews and against Samuel Untermeyer see instead: James E. Geels: The German-American Bund , p. 67 ff. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / content.time.com
  3. ↑ BundesfÜhrer Kuhn , American Heritage, Volume 46, Issue 5, September 1995
  4. ^ Documents On German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945. From the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry. Vol. IV, Washington D. Series 1951, Doc. No. 500 (letter from Dieckhoff to AA dated November 8, 1938), Doc. No. 508 (letter from AA to Dieckhoff dated December 15, 1938).
  5. ^ German films about Camp Bergwald, the Bund Camp on Federal Hill, Riverdale, NJ
  6. ↑ Anja Dolatta: Double agent out of fear. The recipient of Ulla Lenze , NDR Kultur, February 21, 2020