The American Nazi Party

[dearth]

Background and a question. In one of the US’s lesser known parties in which is not talked about very often and many Americans and to that effect most people don’t know is that for about is that there was a party in the US called the German American Bund which was formed to promote Nazi Germany and by proxy Naziism.

My question is while it was never a large party and only lasted a few years(1936-41) did it have any real effect on the US populace and did any members after disbandment volunteer to be spies for Germany in the US?

[klkevelson1]

No, it never became a major force because conditions in the US weren’t conducive to it, and they grossly underestimated the extent of the assimilation of Germans.

[NormanStewart]

Its heyday was when they rallied in Madison Square Garden in 1939. This colorized photo was from a later rally, also in New York City, in October 1939.

By the end of that year, Fritz Kuhn was under arrest.

Fritz Kuhn under arrest (12-5-39)

[image] On December 5, 1939, Kuhn was sentenced to 2½ to 5 years in prison for tax evasion and embezzlement. Here, handcuffed to two other prisoners, Kuhn walks into Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, to begin serving his sentence. In the fall of 1939, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia ordered the city to investigate the Bund’s taxes. It found that Kuhn had embezzled over $14,000 from the organization, spending part of the money on a mistress. District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey issu…