Fascism. Madeleine Albright
fraction, who declared their support for Hitler. Fritz Kuhn was such a man. A chemical engineer who came to the United States in 1928, Kuhn organized the German American Bund (GAB) eight years later. Members of the group wore brown shirts and black boots, and displayed the swastika at rallies alongside a portrait of George Washington, whom they hailed as America’s “first Fascist” because of his alleged distaste for democracy. “Just as Christ wanted little children to come to him, Hitler wants German children to revere him”—this was the message conveyed at the Bund schools that sprouted around the country, most commonly in the Midwest.
The Bund fully expected a National Socialist victory in Europe and saw a chance to copy that anticipated triumph on U.S. shores. To bring that goal closer, the GAB demanded full obedience from members and urged the United States to remain neutral in any dispute involving Germany and the Allied powers. Despite their foreign roots, Bund enthusiasts portrayed themselves as the truest and purest Americans, defending the country against such perils as Communism, miscegenation, and jazz. The movement reached a rowdy climax at Madison Square Garden in February 1939, when Kuhn spoke to an amped-up crowd of twenty thousand. To shouts of “Sieg Heil,” he gleefully mocked President Frank D. “Rosenfeld” and his “Jew Deal.”
The GAB encountered stout opposition from mainstream German-American organizations, trade unions, Jewish activists, and at least a few gangsters. “The stage was decorated with a swastika and a picture of Adolf Hitler,” recalled notorious mob boss Meyer Lansky of one Fascist rally. “The speakers started ranting. There were only fifteen of us, but we went into action. We threw some of them out the windows. Most of the Nazis panicked and ran out. We chased them and beat them up. We wanted to show them that Jews would not always sit back and accept insults.” Given the connection with the underworld, it seems appropriate that the career of Fritz Kuhn ended not in an act of violence but—as with Al Capone—in a prison sentence for tax evasion and, in Kuhn’s case, an added conviction for embezzling GAB money to support a mistress.
In hindsight, it is tempting to dismiss every Fascist of this era as a thoroughly bad guy or a lunatic, but that is too easy, and by inducing complacency, also dangerous. Fascism is not an exception to humanity, but part of it. Even people who enlisted in such movements out of ambition, greed, or hatred likely either were unaware of, or denied to themselves, their true motives.
Oral histories from the period testify to the hope and excitement that Fascism generated. Men and women who had despaired of political change suddenly felt in touch with the answers they had been seeking. Eagerly they traveled long distances to attend Fascist rallies, where they discovered kindred souls keen to restore greatness to the nation, traditional values to the community, and optimism about the future. Here, in this crusade, they heard explanations that made sense to them about the powerful currents that were at work in the world. Here were the chances they had sought to participate in youth groups, athletic organizations, charity drives, and job-training activities. Here were the connections they needed to start a new business or take out a loan. Many families that had stopped after bearing two children, thinking that number all they could afford, now found the confidence to bear four or five or six. In the congenial company of fellow Fascists, they could share an identity that seemed right to them and engage in a cause that each could serve with gladness and singleness of heart. These were prizes, they believed, worth marching for and even giving up democratic freedoms for—provided their leaders could do as promised and make their fantasies real.
For a long while, it appeared that those leaders could do exactly what they pledged. Throughout the 1920s, Mussolini had the look of a winner, and so, after 1933, did Hitler. They—more than any other European statesmen—were trusted to deliver where conventional politicians fell short. They were the trailblazers, the visionaries firmly in touch with the disturbing yet exhilarating zeitgeist, the spirit of the time.
In Cabaret, there is an electrifying moment at a beer garden when a young Nazi rises to his feet and, joined by most but not all of those present, belts out an anthem of promise and horror:
The branch of the linden is leafy and green,
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea.
But soon, says a whisper: “Arise, arise,
Tomorrow belongs to me.”
Oh Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see.
The morning will come when the world is mine.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
Fascism caught on because many people in Europe and elsewhere saw it as a mighty wave that was transforming history, that was owned by them alone, and that couldn’t be stopped.
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