[Music] Hello friends I'm Robert Evans and this is once again behind the bastards the show where we tell you everything you don't know about the very worst people in all of history uh today we're talking about the worst people in all of history the Nazis uh or rather we're talking about how Nazism and fascism got started in America Way Way Back in the day and my guest with me for this Debatably topical podcast episode Cody Johnson Katie Stoll how are y'all doing today you know living in a fascist country you know well I mean 30
of the way there getting there it's like it's like we've got time it's the national equivalent of when I was a kid and I would get a new video game and I would start installing it I would know it was going to take like three hours because my computer wasn't that great but it's like it's on its way right it's not yeah So you find something else to do to sort of distract you but you also keep going into check-in is it done yet is it done yet exactly we're doing the national equivalent of watching
Starship Troopers for the 37th time while we wait for Age of Empires 3 to download and then uh half the country watches Starship Troopers too and it's like this is a good idea for society I like this I really like that you picked Starship Troopers too oh I'm sorry you were Saying t-o-o I was thinking about the classic sequel to Starship Troopers fine film yeah so that's what it's like yeah so have you all ever wondered what the very first American fascism was like how it got here like was it a kind of thing of
like you know know got imported from Europe or like did it boil up naturally like I assumed it's like I mean the KKK was one of the first like you could say that yeah it's probably proto-fascist I Always assumed it was a natural evolution of our shittiness yeah I know like the Nazis crafted a lot of their policies on some American policies uh yeah I mean that was more like they got the idea for how to set up the zycline B Gas Chambers from like in El Paso we have for people coming in from Mexico
was stationed to delouse them and the Nazis were like oh with a couple modifications [Music] So this is more about ideology and sort of how how fascism yeah now it first crept up in America so he all will indulge me yeah fascism creep up yeah it's it's a creeper all right I'm going to read you guys 20 Pages awesome stuff a horror story in 1921 12 years before Adolf Hitler would become Germany's all-powerful viewer the National Socialist German Workers Party had roughly 2 000 members uh so it's a well-established fact that fascism can Rise to
dominate a democratic Nation from relatively humble beginnings uh keep that in mind as we talk about the birth of the American fascist movement in the United States because more than anything this is a story about how close the USA came to going down Germany's path the first fascist government on earth was formed in late 1922 when Benito Mussolini and his black shirts marched on Rome with the stated goal of bringing order to an Italy that seemed On the verge of political chaos and collapse interesting King Victor Emanuel allowed Bonita to form a government and fascists
around the world were electrified by the seeming endorsement of their quirky little belief system and you got to remember when we talk about this fascism wasn't like now 75 million people died and so we're like oh boy that's right at that point they're like oh the fish is maybe this works I feel I feel these Things it would be nice if just one angry guy could do everything right you could hurt all the people I hate that seems sufficient yeah I will not bother imagining The Logical conclusion of these beliefs yeah but uh I'm into
it so like pizza and the chef kissed yesterday fascism first came to America courtesy of the Italians or at least the first fascist group in America was formed by Italian Americans they started organizing in New York and Philadelphia Mainly in 1921 which is you know when Mussolini's party had started to gain power in Italy but before they were totally in charge Mussolini's government was instantly more interested in using the fascist movement in America to further Italian foreign policy goals he didn't seem to care much actually bringing up fascism in the USA dogs get angry when
you talk about fascia it's because they're good uh in 1924 Mussolini sent count Ignacio Theon de Ravel to the United States to organize several disparate and quarrelsome groups of italophascists into the fascist League of North America oh yeah cool this is the first American fascist organization these guys primarily positioned themselves as against quote atheism internationalism free love communism and class-hatred okay yeah I will not comment on any similarities to any sort of ideology we can save that for later yeah yeah we'll do that again So now 1924 was a kind of a banner year in
fascism it was also the year Hitler spent in prison putting the finishing touches on mein camp and it was the year that the National Socialist tutonia Association was founded in Detroit Michigan so the first American Nazis Detroit wow shout out to Detroit positive like an angry like Detroit like that yeah now the nsta pledged open support of the German Nazi party most of its members Were recent immigrants to America from Germany actual Nazis who'd fled in the wake of the beer hall Butch so they wouldn't go to prison for trying to overthrow the German government
the nsta was mainly a way to raise funds for Hitler's Nazi party from sympathetic German Americans so at this point neither of the actual growing fascist movements in Germany or Italy was interested in trying to convert Americans to Fascism when the Italian Flna proved Troublesome Mussolini's government ordered it disbanded in 1929 leaving its 12 500 members and 80 Branch offices to find some other reactionary political organization good news there's about to be a ton yeah I know you I could see where we're working yeah wide-eyed waiting for that now European fascists were actually something of
a hindrance to the early efforts of American fascist thinkers and activists to organize in 1931 as the Nazi party Crept into power in Germany their foreign office formed an official Nazi party branch in New York City and at the same time dissolved the nsta in order to create galitung USA or District headquarters USA so the Teutonia Association folded and gal USA was briefly the home of American Nazism but as Hitler gained absolute power it became clear to the Nazis that the existence of an American Nazi party was not helpful to their goals it kind of
Made them look like an evil empire-based you know on world domination when you put it like that I can see why they'd be concerned you might be suspicious about the Nazis yeah yeah yeah cert cookies they weren't dumb but they were about some things yeah about like giving coats to their soldiers sure they're effective in their goals they were good in 1933 they were firing on all cylinders we all have our strengths yeah so now in 1933 the German Nazi Party had GAO USA declared defunct and opened up the friends of Germany its goals would
be to build support for the Third Reich in the U.S and to spread Nazi propaganda but not to bring Nazism to the United States in any organized way the worldwide depression is often credited with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany although the extent to which that's true is kind of debatable I definitely had an impact on the spread of fascists thought in Europe and in the United States the first truly American fascist intellectual was a man named Lawrence Dennis now he started out as a child evangelist who attended Harvard as a young man
and worked briefly in the Foreign Service before working as a journalist for the new Republic and the nation in 1932 in the depth of the depression he wrote his first book is capitalism doomed Lawrence worried that it was and that the void left by its absence would be filled by something Tremendously destructive like communism readers of Dennis's first book walked away with a distinct impression that fascism would be preferable to Communism since the choice was inevitable yeah I love how and especially today you talk to people and you hear people discuss these things and like
if you had to choose between fascism and socialism you choose fascism but you can't say it out loud but it's true you would nope you can look at like USSR versus zarus Russia obviously a lot of horrible things done by the USSR but also for most of the people in it probably better than life in tsarist Russia then you look at Nazi Germany versus the Weimar Republic okay uh so the friends of Germany recruited 5 000 members from between 1933 and 1935. this made them comparable in size to the American Communist party at the same
time but the friends of Germany also Drew negative attention From U.S Congress for its armed division the OD and for the fact that many of its members were German Nationals living in the United States the German government quickly folded and ordered all its citizens to leave the friends of New Germany the organization was dissolved in 1936 and absorbed by another organization the german-american Bund now this is the one that people have heard of yes I have heard of the boond yeah now the boond was led by Fritz Julius Kuhn a german-born man who'd fought for
the Kaiser in World War one and fought for the Nazis in the streets prior to Hitler's rise to power he'd moved to Mexico in 1923 and then moved to the United States Fritz Kuhn had joined the friends of New Germany in 1933 and become a citizen in 34. so the boond was not officially a fascist organization their stated purpose was to build support for Nazi Germany in the USA a description for a pro-america Rally they hosted notes that quote the boond is opposed to all isms in American public life including Nazism and fascism regarding these
political systems as Affairs of the people who live under them supported as they are by upward of 95 percent of the electors and National white plebiscites but impracticable in in expedient Innovations in the American system of government people really love fascism but we're not fans we're not advocating it but people Are happy with it but trust us yeah a lot of people are saying but a lot of people are saying it's the best kind of government not us but a lot of people and there are fine people on all sides you didn't have to squint
hard to see Nazism in the Boon's messaging quote the bundap poses Zionism as an infectious disease gnawing at the core of American political social and economic life covering an Ever widening field of activities which have already developed A power of American Life which cannot be shaken off as long as Jews control depressed the radio the screen in the stage that feels pretty explicit it feels a little Nazi doesn't it that's um yeah that's I would say now 1936 the year the boond was founded was the year of another American fascist Landmark Lawrence Dennis published his
second book The Coming American fascism his basic argument was that fascism was preferable to Communism and the Depression had proved that capitalism could not possibly continue most of his arguments had to do with economics and the felt that he felt the current debt-based state of the global economy was unsustainable I found a review of his book published in foreign affairs magazine it stated simply the author of his capitalism doomed repeats his conviction that fascism is coming and that it will do good not a great prediction historically We didn't quite work out that way but definitely
a prediction but but a prediction let's give him credit for saying words out loud yeah yeah he did say some words he just you know just tossing things on the wall and if they stick well a lot of people are going to die tens of millions will be burned alive Lawrence grew more and more renowned he booked speaking engagements all around the country talked at colleges and Published journals advocating an inter-capitalist democracy one left-wing paper at the time described him as quote the tall swarthy prophet of intellectual fascism okay as Lawrence Dennis's example shows American
fascism was not exported by foreign powers it actually grew far too quickly for the Italian fascist and Nazi parties to even manage in 1933 a former Hollywood screenwriter named William Dudley pelly founded the silver Legion of America the first Explicitly fascist and truly American organization and yeah pelly was a pretty good pick for an American Hitler if you're looking for a guy who's kind of similar and tries to do the same thing he's a pretty solid pick he had been a moderately successful screenwriter in Hollywood and made the modern equivalent of about one and a
half million dollars for the various films that he'd written he'd earlier spent time as a war correspondent in Russia and had Developed a tremendous fear of the Bolsheviks along with a profoundly anti-Semitic world view all this made him feel guilty about his life of excess in Hollywood's Golden Era on May 29 1928 he had a profound religious experience here's a quote from the wonderful book Hitler's American friends that inspired part of this podcast quote he experienced a vision of being whisked away through a bluish Mist he regained Consciousness lying on a marble Slab next to
two men who began to reveal the secrets of the universe among these was the Revelation that death was only temporary and that all human beings are reincarnated to proceed up a ladder to higher existence even more important pelly reported the men told him that he would receive additional revelations in the future claiming himself to have been reborn Pele declared that when he woke up the next morning his physical appearance had changed Lions had Disappeared from his face and he appeared more relaxed the great release as Pele called it put his life on a new course
I mean that sounds like Buddhist or something yeah having some sort of an epiphany where yeah I'm excited for him I'm excited for that inner peace that he's he's found I feel like this is going to go good directions yeah let's read the next paragraph okay yeah all right he opened a spiritualist journal And gained more than 10 000 subscribers eager to read his opinions on automatic writing and Clairvoyance most of his followers at this point were women and their donations supported the opening of Galahad press in 1931. his anti-Semitism and paranormal beliefs gradually coalesced
into a thoroughly American kind of fascism the silver Legion was formed in the hopes that it would sweep American politics and they were called the silver Legion because they wore Silver shirts with a big L on them that stood for I think loyalty and life and Legion and here's here's a picture of these guys they all look like Gavin McGinnis oh my God they sure do it's all it's just replace the L with a pocket protector nothing ever changes nothing ever nothing ever changes my goodness pelly's goal was a new fascist state where all property
was held by the government and every citizen was a Stockholder in the nation this would guarantee everyone a healthy basic income that would rise if they did things to help the state like serve in the military only White Citizens could own stock in the United States sure black Americans would be re-enslaved in order to provide the Free Labor belly system how does he not realize that's taking him down the ladder he's going away from his growth it's like oh yeah basic Income that's a thing that might be oh no this is a slow creep affection
that's a real let's slow throughout the three sentences in that paragraph oh man re-enslaved is not no such a matter of fact tossing that out there oh we're not done oh good pelly called his dream of a new nation the Christian Commonwealth and he described its Financial system as Christian economics he saw Jewish people as the main obstacle to this dream when The Commonwealth was established Pele said a secretary of jury would be appointed to restrict Jewish people to a single City per state this is a very American it's fascism but it's very clearly on
similar lines to what Hitler's saying but it is also in a lot of ways very different and much more American sort of and very much based around white identity kind of fascism so this is the first autocathonic fascism that we have in the United States the First time it arises from within us as opposed to just Germans and Italian right it's not being imported it's like someone's like I like this I'm gonna start my own I'm gonna put my own spin on it whatever it's like that but like it's a little funky yeah yeah it's
like the Taco Bell of fascism so when American was like this is cool what if I make it terrible and easily spreadable right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but also like in this area The Original Taco is Like a pilot [ __ ] as well the original Taco is massacring millions yeah yeah not a great taco not not a great thing to take inspiration from it's a botulism Taco yeah tacoism nope Taco Bell we are looking for someone else to plug for no money yes please is n't if you want us to stop making references
to botulism in your products give us some doubles because we're going to do it a lot more yeah we will so pelie knew the chief marketing lever he had to pull to sell His brand of Yankee Doodle fascism the sphere of Marxism that was nice thank you there we go finally it's like when are we going to talk about marcusism right now I found a copy of one of the recruiting pamphlets the reds are upon us yes it's a guide for how sponsors of the silver shirt movement can create new fascist cells within the United
States so it was meant to be read out to groups of people to convert them and this will be on our site if you've Been like I could stand to read some like 1930s honest American fascism propaganda just for pleasure just for fun I was gonna do some canvassing but maybe I'll canvas about this yeah maybe I'll take this literature around it's what I did instead of write Christmas cards this year okay yeah good use of time so it's actually really cleverly organized it starts off by harping on the dangers of Communism but then a
Couple of pages in it portrays communism as a fundamentally different from not capitalism or from Americans but Gentiles so it starts just talking about communism and then it introduces the idea that communism is something fundamentally opposed to being a gentile so it it makes that clever little shift before it starts talking about Jewish people in any way sure yeah yeah yeah so here's a quote from pamphlet The Gentile says to himself there are by a known Public count less than 100 registered Communists right here in my own City why should I get excited about a
number so silly that is precisely why the Communist party is out in the open to make the average Gentile think there is really nothing to get excited about now the pamphlet continues to state that the real work of Communism is promoted in ways quote gullible Christian Americans won't recognize according to the silver Legion communism is not a small movement In the U.S at all Quote Chief pelly's personal estimate is that there are something like 22 million or one-fifth of our whole population it continues after researching the matter for 10 or more years he finds that
first of all we must take our total Jewish population into account our Jewish population constitutes the main backbone of Communism secretly or in the open my goodness does it make you feel better to know he doesn't think that all Jewish People are fundamentally Communists he just thinks that they are required by their religion to do whatever their Rabbi says and all rabbis are communists you know it doesn't make me feel better actually I appreciate the rephrasing but you know it still smells flashy it's a nice attempt I agree I don't it doesn't make me feel
super great it's putting a bow on the fascism you get a you get a taco yeah and uh it's based on [ __ ] yeah and you put a bow on it and uh that bow Is me like made a [ __ ] maybe the bow is made maybe it's really just a pile of [ __ ] on top of it yeah a [ __ ] though a dog that ate a bow and then pooped it out that's exactly what it is so it is partially intact there's a bow there it's covered in digested food
stuff yeah and bacteria it's also spray painted silver so you know yeah well it is the silver shirts exactly oh what a fun we have fun history is a hoot and a holler dislike so people who've spent some time Reading their Hitler will notice that this is yeah a pretty similar thought process to what led him to invade the USSR the idea that bolshevism and Judaism are like inherent oh yeah together that kind of thinking found a warm home in parts of the United States Pele was most popular in the Pacific Northwest particularly Washington and
Oregon and the Midwest police said he had 50 000 followers within a few months of starting the silver shirts this is Almost certainly an exaggeration but it's likely the organization had about 15 000 members at any point in time during its height so not tiny but not Giant in 1937 the Nazi party's World Service sent Hitler a memo informing him that Pele had risen to become one of the quote National men of American politics and one of the first Native fascists in the country it was noted that his movement might even be a better way
to Gain U.S support for Nazi policies than the Bund the Nazis pushed a little bit of money pelly's way it's possible that Hitler's house up in the Pacific Palisades that like Nazi compound that is a graffiti sanctuary and a beautiful hiking that was the Silver shirts they're the guys who bought oh it was and it's very possible although not confirmed that that was bought with money that was sent by the German Nazi party we don't know it was registered in The name of someone who probably didn't exist but it's all it's a big mess I
forgot that that's out there yeah it's a really beautiful hike check out the house that this American fascist built it has a 20 000 gallon fuel tank I wonder what they were planning for something interesting yeah that's right I remember that really neat yeah okay so uh when we get back we're going to talk about how talk radio helped inculcate fascism in America oh this is Exciting 80 something years ago but before we do that we should talk about products and services oh yes I would like those yeah products and services both of them and
we're back and I just want to shame our producer uh Sophie for throwing out a couple of mini mini pizza Bagels just because they were not defrosted just because they weren't defrosted tossed out a salad recently shameful shameful we're gonna food waste shame you yeah And if you're a listener at home throw some food in the trash and you can feel more of what it's like to be in this room also have Lysol scrubbing wipes yep the only scrubbing wipes on the table in front of us some Star Magazine some In Touch magazine uh this
is just audience interaction advertising by default there's whatever's around us are the products Scotch tape hiyo microphone stands that's a concerning name for a Microphone it sure is wow microphones are kind of always Sig hiling they are saluting it bears looking into white they are named Heil and maybe you should put a picture of these stands up so the listeners know we're talking about shots fired at the company who provides our microphone stands okay so yet another source of native Nazism or at least fascism in the United States was the famed radio priest Father Charles
Coughlin Coughlin had been born In Canada in 1891 and wound up in America On Assignment from the Catholic church he started his radio career in 1926 speaking out against a rash of cross burnings by the KKK he was actually victimized himself by the clan shortly after he moved to Michigan His Radio Show proved riotously popular and by 1931 he was probably the largest Radio Star in the world and may be the largest Radio Star in history at his Peak Coughlin was reaching roughly 29 Million American listeners per broadcast the only other broadcasters ever come close
is Rush Limbaugh at 20 million so wow so still yeah and there was a hundred million Americans in the 30s right yeah yeah a third of the country that is nuts like again it's probably the most popular any single radio personality he's ever been now Coughlin started out angrily decrying the KKK and moved on to attacking the banks as the Great Depression kicked off He railed against both capitalist excess and Godless communism by 1931 the focus of most of his ire were the international Bankers who'd started World War One the term International Bankers was of
course seen by many as a synonym for the term Jews could we put some parentheses around that there are there every time I can't type International bankers and not put parentheses around it it's just your computer does it automatically Oh he just starts shouting 1488 all over my documents here now CBS wound up kicking father Coughlin off the air after his jubating got a little bit too hardcore sure NBC refused to pick up his show so father Coughlin created the radio League of the Little Flower where for the cost of one dollar a year users
could support Coughlin in his screaming at the people they hated This allowed him to buy time on 11 and eventually 27 stations across the country he was paying something like a quarter of a million dollars a week to run his radio stations that's how much money is coming into this [ __ ] radio priest so they were paying for it to be out everywhere so like a little patreon yeah I like it is it is it's exactly that he was ahead of his time he was basically using patreon to fund His Radio Show so that
he could say what he Wanted with no restrictions wow and I'm gonna give you one guess as to where he turns when there's no restrictions on him towards the light now in 1932 father Coughlin endorsed Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the DNC he did this because he was essentially trying to push FDR to fix the depression and he was very vocal about this he wanted FDR to fix the depression by minting gold and silver coins in order To create inflation which would reduce debt and unemployment so Coughlin turned on FDR when he became present because FDR
didn't do any of this uh in 1934 the treasury Department announced that coughlin's secretary owned 500 000 ounces of silver and was the largest silver holder in the state of Michigan the purchase of all this silver had been paid for in part by donations to the radio League of the Little Flower some people allege that Coughlin support of SDR was basically a scheme to make a shitload of money off of Silver a lot of people are saying that huh also weird how nothing has changed about radio selling gold like I'm waiting for you to be
like oh and then he started selling brain pills to everybody that's an innovation from Alex Jones but very proud to uh putting sawdust in capsules and selling it to people yeah to fix their brains The poisoning at the same time well that's how you keep them coming back it's that razor razor blade both of which cut the customer philosophy yeah yeah so whatever the case by 1934 Coughlin was pissed at the Democrats and announced the start of his own political party the national Union for social justice now the nusj was open to people of all
religions as long as that religion was Christianity and it called upon Americans to resist Communism and socialism Coughlin also urged the abolition of the Federal Reserve near the end of the year during one of his wildly popular radio broadcasts Coughlin announced that there was no longer any hope for capitalism or democracy in the United States of America or democracy some sort of dictatorship might be preferable to the current conditions Maybe By the end of 1935 membership in coughlin's Union was somewhere between 1 and 8.5 million people the radio priest teamed up with Kenneth Smith a
Midwestern preacher who'd worked with Huey Long and Francis Townsend a political Firebrand who wanted to solve the depression by giving old people huge pensions that they would then be required to support every month so he gets up with these other two populist politicians and together their alliances Believed to be as good for as many as 20 million votes like okay they represent a lot of people right so they begin to campaign around the country laying the ground for a vast union party ticket in the 1936 elections they had great early success and now that he
was addressing crowds of cheering supporters father Coughlin really turned up the anti-Semitism I'm going to play A short segment from a speech he gave in Cleveland Oh yes God Cleveland whenever something bad happens in American history one fourth of the time it'll be in Cleveland land of the cleave land of burning Rivers Cleveland everything terrible in America starts there or at least goes through Cleveland at some point it's like a body of water in flames here's a short segment from a speech in Cleveland we are Christian in so far as we believe In Christ's principle
of love your neighbor as yourself and with that principle I challenge every Jew in this nation to tell me that he does not believe in it what that was one sentence what a hell of a sentence that was a sentence with an ark there's a whole hero's journey and it completely cancels out the first part of the sentence teams you're like oh that well that's your low point where are you gonna come oh dear God Stunning orator though good voice I mean he does have a he's got a good speaker you can see why people
listen to that yeah yeah absolutely that's a voice you can trust so unfortunately for the union for social justice but fortunately for the country and World Coughlin and Smith were a couple of messy [ __ ] who couldn't keep their [ __ ] together Coughlin got jealous of the fact that Smith was a better public speaker than Him and refused to share the stage at any events Kenneth Smith went bug [ __ ] nuts shortly at thereafter declared on stage that quote The Lunatic Fringe is about to take over the government and then decided that
the union party was too moderate for him and now his goal was to seize control of the government this happens yeah October of 1936 that was the October surprise there's always one you know it's not like a tape of admitting to like sexual Assault it's just uh I want to take over the uh I want to be the dictator hmm you know I've been talking about how democracy is bad well surprise about that I'm a fascist the union party was resoundingly defeated in the election Coughlin disbanded the party and announced his retirement from broadcasting this
lasted until January of the next year when he said in essence okay if y'all want me back that bad welcome back now I had a lot of trouble Deciding how to organize this episode Bradley Hart the author of Hitler's American friends separates father Coughlin the silver shirts and the boond into different chapters I made a decision to try to do all this chronologically because I think it's important to really get a sense for the pace at which fascism bubbled up in American politics I cropped up all over the country in a bunch of different locations
and among different sections Of American society and at this point in the story there was fairly little convergence between the sundry fascist groups so the silver shirts were active in the 1936 election as well pelly their founder had just recovered from a minor Scandal he'd basically defrauded shareholders in his book production company Galahad press and used it to fund his fascist militia Shameless fraud another strong American tradition He'd been indicted in North Carolina arrested and convicted but he was out of jail and back in politics by 1935. he announced to his thousands of followers that
God had sent him a message another economic crash was coming he formed the Christian party essentially the political wing of the silver shirts in order to rescue America from disaster now President Roosevelt according to Pelley was a Secret Surprise Jew whose real name was Rosenfeld oh my God Alf Landon the Republican candidate was conspiring with FDR to destroy the Christian party by hosting his campaign events in the same cities that Peli was since the conspiracy against him was clearly so far-reaching and Powerful pelly had to get creative in order to build support I'm going to
read a quote from Hitler's American friends and y'all are gonna like this part I want you all to think there was a proud boy recently who was exposed as One of the violent people I think in the Portland rallies and it might have been in New York there were pictures of him with his I guess wife yeah girlfriend yeah yeah who's a black woman in there and their children yeah just started as trial yeah got all clean-shaven and yeah yeah so keep that in mind as I read this next point one of his more bizarre
ploys involved an effort to convert Native Americans to the silver shirt cause pelly's sudden interest in Native Americans stemmed from a supposed Divine realization that the Bureau of Indian Affairs had been taken over by Bolsheviks Native Americans were therefore natural allies for his political movement because they too were supposedly victims of the Jewish conspiracy Pele saw everywhere among the many problems with this eccentric plan was the fact that Pele did not actually know many Native Americans his efforts to reach out by referring to himself as Chief pelly of the tribe of silver and writing articles
and prose that could have been lifted from stock characters of Hollywood westerns gained few supporters but what pelly did succeed in getting one actual Native American supporter a Portland attorney named Elwood town owner now Towner was part native American but he saw a money-making opportunity in budding American fascism he started calling himself Chief redcloud and began touring Boond and silver shirt meetings across the West Coast thousands of people who probably wouldn't have shown up to electron fascism showed up to see chief redcloud for the same reason certain white people today wear feather headdresses at music
festivals here's how one attendee at a speech described Elwood dressed in full Indian costume beautiful headdress of white green and lavender feathers a Thunderbird design in the center of his headband with a Swastika on each side pants of Buckskin trimmed with fringe and Beads a beaded vest and armbands beaded in swastika and Thunderbird design I found a picture of the guy and it is this is cringe-worthy pretty special oh my goodness you can make out those swastikas on the top you sure can just your can you don't even have to squint [Laughter] um surrounding himself
by with frauds and Charlatans oh my God so I found a fun article on Chief Red Cloud on the website Crosscut they note that he was famous for calling FDR's New Deal the Jew deal of course why it's right there it's right there it's right in front oh easy you just live in racism on the table it would have been a crime not to snatch that exactly thank you furthermore quote Towner also began preaching a false history of America saying that George Washington Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin had been warned to keep Jews out of
America but were thwarted in getting that provision in the U.S Constitution a Native American inspired document he said by none other than Alexander Hamilton Towner lectures sometimes included readings from an infamously debunked track embraced by violent anti-semites even today the protocols of the Elders of Zion Chief redcloud claimed that the coming Of Germans to the Americas had been quote glowingly prophesied by his ancestors Jews were quote the gold worshipers who would corrupt the Aryan Indians and put them in concentration camps he would often close a speech by saying quote our people admire Hitler for this
reason that he adopted for his symbol the swastika it means Prosperity good luck and Christian government Hitler also adopted our salute which means peace be unto you advance friend So that's what these mic stands are saying exactly Advanced front yeah Advanced gold worshipers unlike US silver worshipers and it's important to note that Chief red clown went around to all the different he was at the boond he was with the silver shirts he hung out at Italian fascist meetings I think and he made a lot of money sure during these years doing this like this seems
to have been a grift I don't know maybe he also believed all of this I mean yeah half of It's usually a grift right yeah I mean a lot of it is he's putting on a performance here his name is Elwood and he was a lawyer before this and now he's chief makes me think of the Reds gummies exactly yes I don't trust this guy there you go he might be a secret communist which is the same thing as fascism according to fascists today it's the same thing and one's worse who can keep track I
do love it when you get the Nazis who will both simultaneously deny Nazi crimes and also point out the Socialist part yeah it's like what is even the argument you're making it didn't happen also they were Communists my favorite thing now is also like uh oh the you know the nurses were socialists it's right there in the name the healthcare and all that stuff and the second the President says he's a nationalist yeah like oh that's good it's not a bad thing that's the good Part the good part of the Nazis was the Nationalist part
idiots if they just hadn't had that socialism it would have been fine uh fun fact they did kill all of the Socialists that was what the Long Knives was interesting fun facts there uh fact that everyone should know but doesn't yeah and rejected the very idea of like class conflict yeah oh history hierarchies you need to look too closely at history because history is boring and No one learns anything from it ever why would you why would you learning is not to happen again yeah it was such a ride the last time right but maybe
this time it'll be different so in spite of Chief red clouds endorsement pele's Christian party did not do well in the 1936 elections oh they only made it on the ballot in Washington state and they didn't even rack up 2 000 votes in Washington so the german-american Boon was of course also Active in the 1936 election they took a different tact than their other far-right compatriots they did not create a political party since they were explicitly not supposed to be a political party they instead threw their support behind the party they saw as most being
supportive of Nazi Germany so in October of 1936 Fritz couldn't announced a Bund command to all his members ordering them to vote for Alf Landon the Republican presidential Candidate he claimed that Landon's Administration would have quote more favorable commercial relations with Germany he also attacked Roosevelt's quote preference for the Jewish element and his placing of too many Jews in public office Landon did not win sorry well end of story everything you're dead and forgotten now I lived happily ever after yeah so the party that would have been most beneficial to the Nazis That's what the
Nazis thought it seems to be what how the Nazis thought about oh yeah oh yeah yeah so the 1936 elections were kind of a defeat across the board for the American fascist movement but the increased visibility they'd gotten in the press and through the speaking tours of people like Coughlin and Pelly and of course Chief Red Cloud had made the country meant that as 1937 dawned more Americans than ever were curious about and Sympathetic towards fascism a Gallup poll taken that year asked respondents whether they'd prefer to live under fascism or communism 45 percent of
Americans picked fascism yeah idiots I feel like this is going to work out great for me oh my gosh so uh we're gonna get into what came next for fascism in America but first what comes next for ads on this pod podcast there it is and we're back we're back we're talking About fascism uh but why because it's not relevant to things happening today good yeah good yeah I'm tired of things being relevant today that's just useless so the late 30s was a time of great growth and increasing acceptance of fascism in America the german-american
Boon to open a network of summer camps in the United States as an undercover reporter in the boond John C Metcalf later testified quote American boys and girls sing hymns to DARE fuhrer Into the waterlen they have never seen their youthful feat gustep in a March of racial and religious hatred the minds and Souls of these babes in the woods are a fertile field for the propaganda of the boond maybe not the most chilling thing about Nazi Germany but it is chilling to me when I think about the indoctrination and what they what they did
to these kids yeah it's the scariest part yep and now it's unclear how many total American Children went through Boon to training camps and received Nazi indoctrination Bradley Hart author of Hitler's American friends estimates around 7 200 per year so oh my God 20 to 30 000 probably the biggest Camp Siegfried was located in New York and turned into something of a Nazi town right in the east coast there was a small neighborhood of houses and the whole Camp was owned collectively by the homeowners on the land quote Adolf Hitler Street was a major thoroughfare
All those streets were similarly named for Nazi bigwigs guests from Germany were frequently hosted at Siegfried and during the summer the OD trained there with rifles and other Firearms promising members of the youth division from all over the country were also sent to Siegfried the further Education and Training making it effectively the same Center of Boone training operations Nationwide major celebrations such as the 4th of July celebrations that began This chapter could attract tens of thousands of people from New York City to siegfried's Leafy surroundings so tens of thousands of Americans being like I'm not
on board with the Nazis but I want to see their fireworks show and thousands and thousands of kids yeah it's just like a community thing yeah I bet all those little Nazis grew up to be adult Nazis and I bet it didn't act children that are now running maybe not now but I bet we'll never have an Episode where we talk about what some of the people who went to these summer camps went on to do I will not take that back now on an interesting side note the Nazi homeowners association that owned Siegfried continued
to be a thing after the Boon collapsed at the outbreak of War they even had rules about what races you couldn't be to live there the board of homeowners had to sign off than any new buyers met their quote racial qualifications you want to guess how Long this went on how long this how Nazi homeowners association decades a lawsuit founded in violation of the fair housing act in 2015. no no right 2015. goodness that stuff right there that's a good that's the good bad stuff that's the good bad stuff now I bet you're all wondering
just what the [ __ ] went on in America's Nazi summer camps good news Charles Bukowski went to one as a kid And wrote extensively about the experience he became a member of the Bund in 1938 at age 18 and remained one until the outbreak of war in 1941. later in life he wrote a novel Ham on Rye where he basically fictionalized his real experiences as a young Nazi and explains why the movement was so compelling to him Bukowski was born in Germany so he was a first generation german-american immigrant quote I had no freedom
I had nothing with Hitler around Maybe I'd get a piece of ass now and then and more than a dollar a week allowance as far as I could rationalize I had nothing to protect having been born in Germany there was a natural loyalty and I didn't like to see the whole German Nation the people depicted everywhere as monsters and idiots in the movie theaters they sped up the newsreels to make Hitler and Mussolini look like frenetic Mad Men also with all the instructors being anti-german I Found it personally impossible able to Simply agree with them
out of sheer alienation and a natural contrarianist I decided to align myself against their point of view that's how it happened that's exactly it that's actually very well said he's a great artist yeah and self-reflective and uh early on the ball in terms of like that is exactly that's a thousand percent my piece of ass just like yeah but yeah but like that feels just like stamp it 2016 Like yeah that's uh I'm tired of you telling me that my people are bad and yeah there was unfair demonization of the Germans during World War One
they weren't really any worse than any of the other sides everyone was garbage in World War one it was a garbage War right but yeah world wars in general nobody comes across looking great yeah in a worldwide war yeah where we decide civilians and civilian cities are acceptable targets yeah universally Nobody's the great guy right although it's just really easy to look good next to the Nazis it really is it is super easy uh natural contrarian yeah that's that is Bukowski also gives a typically blunt rundown of one of their meetings quote we went down
into a Cellar they had this great big American flag there we all stood up to pledge allegiance to the flag then we started talking about the Communist Menace yeah yeah so I want to Note that I learned all about this from a UC Boulder undergraduate honors thesis by Patrick Rodriguez so thank you Patrick otherwise it's very useful uh he also describes how the armed wing of the Bund the OD was formed and trained into something approaching a militia even while the Boon continued to maintain a banal friendly exterior quote composing roughly 10 of the Boon's
membership the OD despite its name which translates Into armed guard was an unarmed ceremonial organization reserved for ambitious young men between the ages of 18 and 25 because it offered close proximity to the bunsphere full access to the Boone's recreational facility such as Camp Siegfried in Upstate New York and the promise of a steady wage young men flocked to the OD for support for Less athletic individuals the Bunda offered other possibilities for economic advancement the wound often used its Propaganda Machinery to promote the small businesses of pro-german pro America members such was the case with
Cafe Hindenburg a cocktail lounge in Manhattan named after Paul Von Hindenburg so this is a complicated situation there are other reasons at this point other than just being an inherent monster that people support these organizations like Bukowski grew up like well I think that's important when you're looking at the rise of any Of these movements and Nazi Germany it's not a lot of it because oh we hate Jews it's because we are afraid and we don't know what to do next and we really are in kind of Dire Straits and this is a different answer
everything is [ __ ] up and confusing every exactly no one knows what's going to happen that's why those are the environments where these things happen that's literally the birth of American fascism is that Lawrence Dennis being like capitalism seems like it's on Its way out something's got to replace the Great Depression yeah right everyone's looking for answers and sometimes grifters might take advantage of that yeah they might what's your issue with Chief Red Cloud code nothing nothing he sounds uh trustworthy yeah I feel like he's the hero of this episode you feel like that
but just sit tight just just don't hold it so Hitler actually cut off funding to the german-american booned in 1938. some Of that probably had to do with the fact that John Metcalfe that undercover reporter started publishing his articles from the inside of the Boon to 1937. there's a lot to talk about metcalf's a real hero and like one of these journals who gets inside this organization and like both writes good articles about it but also provides the government with information about crimes that they're committing he's a real cool guy um big fan of John
yeah different kind Of podcasts different kind of artists behind the guys who weren't bad yeah so it seems like the funding in front of the bastards win fists yeah punching them now it seems like the bones funding was cut off because uh the fuhrer was again worried about upsetting U.S public opinion if so that's actually more evidence for how out of touch Hitler was with the United States in June of 1938 Gallup asked Americans which was worse Fascism or communism nearly half of respondents didn't answer 32 said communism just 23 found fascism more dangerous now
Ernst homschtengel AKA putsy was a good friend of Hitler's and an American for some reference Hitler was in love with his wife for a while and she stopped him from killing himself after he [ __ ] up the Munich Beer Hall push that weird crush on her yeah yeah what's wrong with you I mean no I yeah it's that's mean I'm not gonna bag on Helena I'm gonna bag on putsy sure I mean they all were probably pretty flashy I mean right none of them are great people putsy was later interviewed by the US government
about Hitler because he had a falling out he wasn't around for the whole World War II thing um that whole thing that Old Chestnut hunt Stengel said that Hitler had a quote wildly superficial understanding of American culture I never really succeeded in bringing home the Importance of America as an integral factor in European politics to Hitler he wanted to hear all about the skyscrapers and was fascinated by details of technical progress but failed utterly to draw logical conclusions from the information now Hitler did at one point express interest in making a pact with the Ku
Klux Klan so he never really seemed all that motivated to push fascism in America but in 1938 American fascism seemed to be doing pretty well Without Hitler's help pelly published a manual can't take that yeah take that Hitler you never believed in US in 1938 uh Peli published a manual a million silver Shirts by 1939 and announced that each state needed to sign up 100 new fascists every day the silver shirts launched a major recruitment Drive ixnaying the anti-Semitism and really hampering on communism one Washington State fascist wrote that year to a Critic the only
reason we make open Opposition to the Jews is because they are the ones who support communism which is atheism and are out to destroy Christianity we are not Jew haters as reported we are only against their system I do not hate a single Jew but I do feel sorry for them I do not hate a single person on this Earth including all Jews but I do feel sorry for them you really talked about the Jews a lot there buddy yeah he's not an anti-semite you really dropped your really really in Size English and they're atheists
yeah okay okay I just want to make sure yeah yeah yeah who listen unfailingly to their Rabbi because they're atheists I get I get it totally logically consistent honestly checks out yeah it really seems to hold together tight so the mild rhetoric was in direct contrast to their behavior pelly the chief traveled with a 40-man bodyguard all of whom carried pistols Openly and basically told law enforcement in Seoul towns what are you gonna do about it also in 1938 a silver shirt officer told a Milwaukee reporter that all members of the Legion had been advised
to buy sawed-off shotguns and 2 000 rounds of ammo in order to protect quote white Christian America uh-huh so President Roosevelt was obviously not super happy with the uh violent Nazi rhetoric uh and the militias one would hope he'd have his finger on that button Uh he was particularly concerned with Pelly and asked the doj if it would be possible to sue him for libel they weren't able to do that initially but this does start a chain of reactions that leads to prosecutions repelling the gradual end of the silver shirts they don't wind up taking
America by storm um but there were plenty of other American fascists don't you worry oh one of them was John rinrod John winrod was also a huge fan of the protocols of the Elders of Zion and of course the father Coughlin and when father coughlin's union party fell apart in 1936 when Rod decided to try and pick up the pieces in 1938 one of Kansas's Senate seats was open and winrod decided the Democratic incumbent looked vulnerable John winrod's plan was to win election in 1938 and then ride the surely forming Red Wave into the Republican
nomination for the 1940 presidential election he started a radio show and bought time on Stations all over the country mostly lamenting the state of the economy and making failed references to Jews quote perhaps you have thought the United States Congress controls the nation's money this most decidedly is not the case who's decided that I'll give you one guess in three letters so uh when rot attacked Roosevelt for going after the fascist powers without equally criticizing the Soviet Union when Rod harranked voters twice a day on The air and he gave speeches that attracted audiences of
thousands he was only defeated in Kansas because the state Republican party United against him and convinced former Governor Clyde Reed to want to run an opposition the Republicans successfully opposed him and voted uh not fascist into office winrod still received 53 000 votes wow but hey the Republican Party unlike the episode that will have run like the week before this where they filmed with like three States to stop ashes they have their act together in this right they're aware and they're not cool with it they're like boy we don't want something yeah we don't want
people to mistake conservatism for fascism so we should oppose fascists it's not so refreshing what if we uh give it a few decades if only 2018 Republicans would take a leap out of 1938 Republicans so uh father Coughlin was also active in 1938 in January of that year he founded the Christian front a nationwide organization dedicated to fighting communism Jews were forbidden from joining members were encouraged to arm themselves and regularly train at gun ranges the Christian front proved popular with the same sort of people who become proud boys today soon mobs of them were
beating up Jews on the street in various cities some even call themselves Father coughlin's Brown Shirts it became known that during rallies where father Coughlin would speak the Christian front members would fight with anti-fascist protesters because again get out of here man now nothing ever changes in all of history everything is the same so I hate this it's it's pretty wild it is it's just the safe thing and it's like it's just all stuff like yeah like you see this Parallel but then just like every single thing he's saying super little on the nose it's
like a guy covered in pro-trump propaganda stickers mailing bombs to all the people trump it is on the nose that sounds unbelievable and yet and yet and yet in February 1939 Fritz Kuhn held an event that would prove to be the apex of the German American Boon's power 22 000 bundests and sympathetic listeners showed up at Madison Square Garden for a gigantic America-themed Nazi rally it was billed as a mass demonstration for true americanism and a celebration of George Washington's birthday in the book swastika Nation Arne Bernstein writes quote the unprecedented event was really intended
to be the German American Boons hypothesis proof positive to America and the world as well as Berlin that the American Nazis were here to stay the rally was to be Coon's Shining Moment an Elaborate pageant and Vivid Showcase of all he had built in three years Coon's dream of a swastika Nation would be on display for the whole world right in the heart of what Berlin press called the scimitized Metropolis of New York nearly 100 000 counter protesters also showed up you might wait say that number again one hundred thousand wow you might call them
any fascists that might be a good way to do it easier way We'll figure it out yeah opposite of okay 1700 police officers were deployed to keep the Nazis safe at the time this was the largest show of force in NYPD history there is quite a lot of video of this rally and it is it is [ __ ] chilling it's been cut into a short documentary called a night at the Garden which you can watch online the rally stage has a full marching band and a giant painting of George Washington that honestly looks exactly
like a [ __ ] Screen grab from a BioShock game like it is bad on the nose it in addition includes a man I can only describe a Sig hiling Ted Cruz because [ __ ] look at that I just look at this the other day I saw this unbelievable look at that [ __ ] that's [ __ ] Nazi Ted Cruz I'll put that picture up too like it it's just it's uncanny yeah it's really uncanny no that's got to be a relationship it's a really close look right it's really close all checks out
yeah so the rally Opened with the Pledge of Allegiance slightly notified and I think you guys should hear this okay if I have to yeah you do captive audience I pledge allegiance to mine I recommend watching the documentary and seeing this because like the visuals of this are pretty pretty goddamn striking [Music] [Applause] a legend to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic of which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Applause] it's it's like a [ __ ] screen break from a bad alternate history movie yeah
um I pledge what did they say I pledge undivided Allegiance was like wow yeah that's a that's a wrinkle on that yeah So fritzcoon took the stage next and began to deliver a speech at which point a jewish-american protester who worked as a janitor in Madison Square Garden rushed onto the stage and was horribly beaten and stripped mostly naked by the Nazis he had to be rescued by the NYPD the whole moment was actually filmed and we are going to watch it oh good yeah first a social just white Gentile ruled United States second [Applause]
Gentile controlled labor union free from Jewish Moscow direct determination [Music] [Applause] yeah it's 22 000 people sharing the beating of a man oh that's hard to watch yeah it's rough it's real rough the good news is that this rally at Madison Square Garden would prove to be the high water mark for the german-american Bund but Not it turned out for fascism in America when we come back in part two we're going to talk about the fall of fritzcoon one potential candidate for American fuhrer and the rise of a second candidate Charles Lindbergh [Music] [Laughter] it
really makes you feel like wanting to die it's it's bad it's real bad and like oh my God so not far off no no no no no and like Knowing who's in charge and like what he wants and like what he's like into and what he accepts and like it's it's I hate that one of the things that is interesting to me we will save the explicitly political stuff in the end of part two but this book Hitler's American friends is the second book that I've talked about heavily on this podcast this year the first
being the death of democracy both of which are written by Scholars and historians who focus on the History of the Third Reich and the end of the Weimar Republic multiple of them now have all been like I should really need to put out a book that specifically addresses the things that are happening now that happened because it's so similar wait they're putting books out now yeah this book was written and Hitler's American friends was written in reaction to the 2016 election really so was the death of democracy really yeah they did this quick they put
them out Because they were like oh my God this is the thing I've studied my entire life and it seems to be happening again that's the thing that we don't talk about or not or we do talk about it but well we talk we talk about it but people don't talk about it because in many ways it's like yeah there are similarities uh there are things that hopefully aren't going to happen but there are things that have happened that didn't happen like there are things that this is Further along than ever before here at least
yeah when people were calling George W bush a Nazi or Hitler it was left-wing protesters but it was not academics it was not people who had specifically spent their life studying this period in history they're all coming out now you don't find any being like no the comparisons to Fascism and Nazism are overblown it's like they're all like no this is really concerning every single one of them and it's always People who study the part before the stuff that everyone before all of the killing right yeah like every single person is like what is like
if if he were a fascist could you say he was a fascist well that's the second half yeah like we're not in the second half we're not in part two yet that's what it's so maddening uh and like self-proclaimed like intellectuals and like thought leaders who like just dismiss it outright when like no literally people Who study this for a living are talking about and the guy who came up with Godwin's law specifically said like no no no you you do it do it it's this is the time this is the time and like I
didn't realize that both of those books were uh they're not the only ones written in direct reaction to the current things happening in America by Scholars of that but they're the two we've talked about this yeah um and even that um I forget his name Came out and was like talk about the similar between Mitch McConnell yeah uh and just like yeah he's the guy yeah okay I might have been Kurt Von Schleicher one of the guys oh to Hindenburg right yeah right um and she's like yeah uh he he literally used the phrase the
grave figure of democracy yeah uh because he spent his entire career obsessed with money and power and doing his best to suppress democracy and go along with whoever gives him more Power but to do the things he wants we have failed to not talk about politics at the end of this we're going to get into more Nazis next time on Thursday and there's going to be some fun stuff in this one oh I can't wait it's gonna it's gonna be really neat no more Chief Red Cloud tragically he's playing his part you know he sure
did and there is still a surprise reveal ahead so um yeah yeah It's founder of American fascism turns out there's a Twist what a treat all right plugables plug yeah uh patreon.com some more news twitter.com some more news youtube.youtube.com search for some more news for all of the videos that we talk about this kind of stuff and other stuff and check out out our podcast even more news for all the podcast places Dr Mr Cody is my Twitter handle it's my personal thing mine's Katie stole Katie With the Y yeah like Katy Perry like Katy
Perry I'm Robert Evans like the guy who produced Godfather uh you can find me on Twitter at uh I write okay you can find this podcast on the internet at behindthebastards.com you can find us on T public behind the bastards buy some T-shirts I will use the money to I don't know sometimes I watch a video about a Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden and I need to buy beer that's what you can Help with if you enjoyed this podcast research adjacent I would I do write it off on my taxes sanity liquor yeah exactly
yeah medication medication journalism medication yeah you can find this website on the internet at behindthebastards.com where you will find among other things Nazi Ted Cruz oh my God it's uncanny it's really surreal it's beautiful you guys are gonna love it all right this has been the podcast I have been Robert Evans and once more I Love about 40 of you [Music]
