Thousands of Nazis held big rallies in America less than 100 years ago
Nazi supporters held huge rallies and summer camps for kids throughout the United States in the 1930s.
24 October, 2020
Credit: Bettman / Getty Images
- During the 1930s, thousands of Americans sympathized with the Nazis, holding huge rallies.
- The rallies were organized by the American German Bund, which wanted to spread Nazi ideology.
- Nazi supporters also organized summer camps for kids to teach them their values.
<p>Having radical fringe groups tearing at the seams of America is not a new phenomenon. Less than a 100 years ago, the Nazis were gathering for big rallies on U.S. soil, running youth camps, their numbers growing by tens of thousands.</p><p>In the America of the 1930s, pro-Hitler groups like "The Friends of New Germany" carried out propaganda and intimidation campaigns to disseminate the National Socialist agenda. Their members wore uniforms, consisting of a white shirt and black trousers for men, topped by a black hat with a red symbol. Female attire included a white blouse and a black skirt.</p><p>In 1936, the<em> Amerikadeutscher Volksbund</em>, or<em> </em>German American Bund, was created as "an organization of patriotic Americans of German stock." They ran around 20 camps for youth and training, eventually establishing 70 regional divisions around the nation.</p><p>The ostensible goal of the German American Bund was to represent Americans of German descent but its true objective was to promote the views of Nazi Germany. The Bund played into the growing <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/trump-america-first/514037/" target="_blank">"America First"</a> stance that sought to keep the U.S. out of World War 2, while amplifying its racist messages.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU3NjQyMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMjc4NDEyMn0.kpRmhzloYGASsD4ouyesMz7880Ux6a87sCFYDfArGGw/img.jpg?width=980" id="406a6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bf0579c5c98ceb067ab211c8481666a0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A Bund parade in New York, October 30, 1939.
Credit: Library of Congress
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">One of the most astonishing events held by the Bund was the "Americanization" rally it help at Madison Square Garden in New York on February 20th, 1939. The event, attended by 20,000 people, consistent of railing against Jewish conspiracies, President Roosevelt and similar sentiment. While speaking, the leader (</span><span style="background-color: initial;"><em>Bundesführer</em><em>)</em></span> of the organization, Fritz Julius Kuhn (a chemical engineer by trade), spewed anti-Semitism, <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/americans-hold-nazi-rally-in-madison-square-garden" target="_blank">calling</a> the President "Frank D. Rosenfield" while describing his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal" target="_blank">New Deal</a> as a "Jew Deal". He referred to the U.S government as a whole as "Bolshevik-Jewish" and kept attacking the press and American culture as being run by the Jews.</p><p>The rally featured a giant banner of George Washington, as the speakers tried to link the event to his birthday and supposed non-interventionist positions. </p><p>Huge crowds up to 100,000 people of anti-Nazi protestors also came to make their voices heard at this event, but were held back by 1,700 New York police officers.</p><p>For chilling footage and more on the Manhattan rally, check out the Academy-Award-nominated short documentary film "A Night at the Garden":</p>
<div style="padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/237489146?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&badge=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div><script src="https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js"></script><p><a href="https://vimeo.com/237489146">Field of Vision - A Night at the Garden</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/fieldofvision">Field of Vision</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>Besides the rallies – there were many held throughout the 30's – one of the main efforts to inculcate Nazi ideology in America took place in summer camps.</p><p>Audrey Amidon from the National Archives shared in her interview with Gizmodo the significance of the camps:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"The summer camps, complete with the official uniforms and banners of the Hitler Youth, might be the most visual and chilling example of the [Bund's] attempts to instill Nazi sympathies in German-American children," <a href="https://gizmodo.com/how-american-nazis-used-summer-camps-to-indoctrinate-th-1743267747" target="_blank">said Amidon. </a></p>
<p>The camps had boys and girls from 8 to 18, most often the children or grandchildren of German immigrants. Nearly a quarter of all U.S. citizens was of German descent in the 1930s, but the vast majority of them did not support Nazi ideology.</p><p>Along with usual activities you might find at a summer camp, the kids who attended were taught about Hitler's racial ideas, dressed in Nazi-esque uniforms, practiced drills and addressed higher-ups with Hitler salutes. </p><p>One prominent such camp was Camp Siegfried, in the Yaphank hamlet on Long Island. The town regularly held Nazi parades, while its streets were named after Hitler and his top brass like Goebbels. </p>
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<p>The Bund's activities obviously wound down as the U.S. entered World War 2, with many of their leaders eventually arrested as enemy agents. For more striking fascist Bund camp footage, check out this home movie:</p>
1930s AMERICAN FASCIST BUND CAMP HOME MOVIE BERGWALD NEW JERSEY
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Americans under 40 want major reforms, expanded Supreme Court
Younger Americans support expanding the Supreme Court and serious political reforms, says new poll.
22 October, 2020
Credit: Jon Cherry/Getty Images
- Americans under 40 largely favor major political reforms, finds a new survey.
- The poll revealed that most would want to expand the Supreme Court, impose terms limits, and make it easier to vote.
- Millennials are more liberal and reform-centered than Generation Z.
<p>A new nonpartisan poll of Americans under 40 finds they want serious reforms in the American political system. The survey, conducted by the University of Massachusetts Lowell, showed great support for expanding the Supreme Court, terms limits, and abolishing the electoral college.</p><p>In particular, the researchers looked at opinions from 1,503 people between 18 and 39 years old, representing millennials – those born from early 1980s to mid-1990s, and the succeeding Generation Z – those born in the mid-to-late 1990s until early 2010s. Overall, most everyone agreed that the political system is quite broken, with only 24 percent having trust in the government. Interestingly, millennials appear more liberal-minded and want reforms more than the younger cohort.</p><p>The majority of the polled (52 percent) were in favor of upping the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to 13, with 66 percent of the millennials and 62 percent of the Gen Z'ers supporting. Seventy-two percent of all surveyed wanted to do away with lifetime appointments of the justices and impose term limits. Seventy-nine percent of the millennials and 62 percent of Gen Z approved this measure. Eighty-four percent of all surveyed wanted Congressional term limits.</p>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">Political science professor John Cluverius, associate director of the </span><span style="background-color: initial;"><a href="https://www.uml.edu/research/public-opinion/" target="_blank">UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion</a></span><span style="background-color: initial;">, which carried out the poll, sees a correlation between the views of the younger Americans and the politics in the run-up to the 2020 elections:</span></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It's no coincidence that as Joe Biden's lead has grown in the polls, the more comfortable Americans are with expanding the size of the Supreme Court," said Cluverius in a <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/uoml-nnp102120.php" target="_blank">press release</a>. "As the chance of Trump holding a second term and appointing more justices dwindles, the opposition to court-packing dwindles as well. Saying Americans are opposed to expanding the court used to be conventional wisdom; now it's a commonly held misconception."</p><p>Americans under 40 also want to eliminate the Electoral College and rather pick Presidents by popular vote, with 58 percent overall in favor to the idea. That includes 64 percent of millennials and 54 percent of Gen Z people polled. Sixty-nine percent of all adults also like the idea of "no excuse" absentee balloting for any voter. Additionally, 71 percent of millennials would rather see more than two political parties being competitive in the U.S., compared to 61 percent of all and 59 percent of Gen Z participants.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU1OTE1OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNTc5NDI2NX0.GCiPQgPiUWv7qkONIvergMHcuAiMwrs3ksV2Hkmm0Gg/img.png?width=980" id="f3fb1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b9e0e653081a68fd9e920e0ae80641f2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p>On the issues of social justice and the Black Lives Matter movement, the poll found 8 percent fewer overall saying that Black people are treated less fairly than whites, in contrast to a similar poll from August. Forty-three percent of the respondents had such opinions, with Gen Z'ers leading in this belief at 54 percent.<br></p><p> Joshua Dyck, director of the Center for Public Opinion and associate professor of political science, commented that the ideological divide didn't break down in an expected way:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"What I find most interesting is that it is not always the youngest Americans who espouse the most liberal viewpoints," <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/uoml-nnp102120.php" target="_blank">he shared</a>." Here we see millennials, the oldest of whom are about to turn 40, as the driving force behind the vision for a more progressive future."</p>
<p>The poll also revealed that the vast majority of Gen Z (84 percent) and millennial (85 percent) responders are very likely to believe that human activity contributes to climate change. They also think the U.S. government has not done enough to combat it, with 64 percent of Gen Z'ers and 65 percent of millennials holding such views.</p><p>Americans under 40 are also largely in favor of canceling all student loan debt, with 66 percent of Generation Z and 66 percent of millennials supporting. In a telling comparison, the older generations are less on board, with Gen X'ers (those born from mid-60s to early 1980s) split, with 51 percent favoring the idea. Only 38 percent of the Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) and 31 percent of the Silent Generation (born 1928 to 1945) back the notion.</p><p>Check out the <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/public-opinion/polls/default.aspx" target="_blank">detailed results of the poll.</a></p>
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Finding joy in 2020? It’s not such an absurd idea, really
Amid such suffering, people need some joy.
19 October, 2020
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The year 2020 hasn't been one to remember – in fact, for a lot of people it has been an outright nightmare. The pandemic, along with political turmoil and social unrest, has brought anxiety, heartbreak, righteous anger and discord to many.
<p>Amid such suffering, people need some joy.</p><p>As a <a href="https://www.baylor.edu/truett/index.php?id=927922" target="_blank">scholar who has investigated the role of joy</a> in day-to-day life, I believe that joy is an incredibly powerful companion during suffering.</p><h2>Speaking at funerals, teaching joy</h2><p>This is more than academic work for me. In late 2016, less than a year after I was hired to be on a team researching joy at Yale University, three of my family members unexpectedly died within four weeks: my cousin's husband Dustin at 30 by suicide, my sister's son Mason at 22 of sudden cardiac arrest, and my dad, David, at 70 after years of opioid use.</p><p>While researching joy, I was speaking at funerals. At times, even reading about joy felt so absurd that I almost vowed to be anything but joyful.</p><p>In 2020, many people can relate to this.</p><p>I want to be clear: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1690669" target="_blank">Joy is not the same as happiness</a>. Happiness tends to be the pleasurable <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1685571" target="_blank">feeling we get from having the sense that life is going well</a>.</p><p>Joy, on the other hand, has a mysterious capacity to be felt alongside sorrow and even – sometimes, most especially – in the midst of suffering. This is because joy is what we feel deep in our bones when we realize and feel connected to others – and to what is genuinely good, beautiful and meaningful – which is possible even in pain. Whereas happiness is generally the effect of evaluating our circumstances and being satisfied with our lives, joy does not depend on good circumstances. </p>
<h2>An illumination</h2><p>A couple of days after my cousin's husband died, a small group of family members and I were shopping for funeral items when the group decided to go to the place where Dustin had died by suicide. It was getting dark and the sun had almost set. As we were taking in the landscape we suddenly noticed a star above the trees. Standing next to one another in a line, we looked across the sky and one of us asked whether any other stars could be seen. There were none. We realized that there was just this one exceedingly bright shining star in the sky.</p><p>Gazing at the star, we felt as if Dustin had met us there, that he'd allowed that single star to be seen in the sky so that we would know he was all right. It was not the kind of relief we wanted for him. But for a few minutes we allowed the tragedy of what had occurred in this very space just two days before to hang in the background, and we instead focused on the star. We were filled with a kind of transformative, quiet joy. And we all gave ourselves over to this moment.</p><p>As <a href="https://www.wm.edu/as/english/facultystaff/potkay_a.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">scholar Adam Potkay</a> noted in his 2007 book "<a href="https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/59/242/815/1586259?redirectedFrom=fulltext" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Story of Joy</a>," "joy is an illumination," the ability to see beyond to something more.</p><p>Similarly, <a href="https://education.asu.edu/inside-the-academy-of-education/honorees/nel-noddings" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nel Noddings</a>, Stanford professor and author of the 2013 book "<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520275706/caring" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Caring</a>," describes joy as a feeling that "accompanies a realization of our relatedness." What Noddings meant by relatedness was the special feeling we get from caring about other people or ideas.</p><p>Joy is also the feeling that can arise from sensing kinship with others, experiencing harmony between what we are doing and our values, or seeing the significance in an action, a place, a conversation or even an inanimate object.</p><p>When I teach about joy, I use an example from my family to explain this. When my sister looks at a Mason jar now – whether in someone's hand filled with tea or bursting with flowers on a friend's coffee table – it reminds her of her son Mason. It is not just an object she is seeing, but a relationship imbued with beauty, goodness and meaning. It gives her a feeling that can be described only as joy.</p><p>We cannot put joy on our to-do lists; it does not work that way. But there are ways we can prepare ourselves for joy. There are "gateways" to joy that help us to become more open to it.</p><p>Gratitude involves bringing to mind the good that is in the world, which makes rejoicing possible. The feeling that follows contemplating nature or art that we find inspiring is often joy, as these are experiences that help people feel connected to something beyond themselves, whether to the natural world or to others' feelings or experiences. Since "hope," as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s04zdvrBz-c" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">theologian Jürgen Moltmann</a> has said, is "the anticipation of joy," writing out our hopes helps us to expect joy.</p>
<h2>Three types of joy</h2><p>In my book, "<a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7794/the-gravity-of-joy.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Gravity of Joy</a>," I identify multiple kinds of joy that can be expressed even in today's troubled times.</p><p>Retrospective joy comes in vividly recalling a previous experience of unspeakable joy. For example, we can imagine in our minds an occasion when we helped someone else, or someone unexpectedly helped us, a time we felt deeply loved … the moment we saw our child for the first time. We can close our eyes and meditate on the memory, even walk through the details with someone else or in a journal and, often, experience that joy again, sometimes even more acutely.</p><p>There is a kind of joy, too, that is redemptive, restorative – resurrection joy. It is the feeling that follows things that are broken getting repaired, things that we thought were dead coming back to life. This kind of joy can be found in apologizing to someone we have hurt, or the feeling that follows recommitting ourselves to sobriety, a marriage or a dream we feel called to.</p><p>Futuristic joy comes from rejoicing that we will again glimpse meaning, beauty or goodness, and seemingly against all odds feel that they are connected to our very life. This type of joy can be found, for example, through singing in a religious service, gathering at a protest demanding change or imagining a hope we have being realized.</p><p>In the midst of a year in which it is not difficult to stumble onto suffering, the good news is that we can also stumble onto joy. There is no imprisoned mind, heartbreaking time or deafening silence that joy cannot break through.</p><p>Joy can always find you.</p><p><a href="https://www.ats.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">George H. Truett Theological Seminary is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.</a><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145993/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation"></p>The ATS is a funding partner of The Conversation US.<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/angela-gorrell-1154982" target="_blank">Angela Gorrell</a>, Assistant Professor of Practical Theology, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/george-w-truett-theological-seminary-at-baylor-university-4850" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/finding-joy-in-2020-its-not-such-an-absurd-idea-really-145993" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Moral failings of leaders collapsed even the best societies, study finds
Researchers found a common element in the destruction of even the most powerful empires.
18 October, 2020
Credit: Thomas Cole. 1836.
- Researchers found a commonality between the collapse of ancient empires.
- Even the best-run nations fell apart because of leaders who undermined social contracts.
- The scientists found that societies that had good governments broke up even worse than those with dictators.
<p>As America chooses its next President, a new study suggests that even the most powerful and best-run empires have collapsed under leaders who broke social contracts.</p><p>The anthropology study took a deep dive into 30 pre-modern societies and found that even those that had "good" governments were not immune to catastrophic demise. In fact, societies where the government provided goods and services and prevented drastic inequalities of wealth and power, tended to fall apart even more dramatically than those who had despots. One commonality in the destruction of such societies – the failings of leaders who gravely weakened them by tearing apart societal ideals and morals.</p><p>Many pre-modern societies were similar to ours, even exhibiting what we can expect in contemporary democratic countries, explained Gary Feinman, the MacArthur curator of anthropology at Chicago's Field Museum, who was also a co-author of the study. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"The states that had good governance, although they may have been able to sustain themselves slightly longer than autocratic-run ones, tended to collapse more thoroughly, more severely," said Feinman in a <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/fm-wgg100920.php" target="_blank">press release.</a></p>
<p>The study's lead author, Richard Blanton, a professor emeritus of anthropology at Purdue University, thinks that the degradation of such societies could have been anticipated and even prevented, but singular leaders managed to shake them up to the point where there was no turning back.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We refer to an inexplicable failure of the principal leadership to uphold values and norms that had long guided the actions of previous leaders, followed by a subsequent loss of citizen confidence in the leadership and government and collapse," pointed out Blanton.</p><p>A particular focus of the study were four societies that lasted for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years: the Roman Empire, the Ming Dynasty of China, India's Mughal Empire, and the Venetian Republic. All of these had relatively even breakdown between the haves and the have nots, although they did not hold popular elections. </p>
<p>As there were no exact equivalencies to modern democracies in ancient times, the anthropologists used other points of comparison like the main features of good governments, which meet the needs of their people.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"They didn't have elections, but they had other checks and balances on the concentration of personal power and wealth by a few individuals," Feinman <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/fm-wgg100920.php" target="_blank">elaborated</a>. "They all had means to enhance social well-being, provision goods and services beyond just a narrow few, and ways for commoners to express their voices." </p><p>Such governments provided necessary "communication and bureaucracies to collect taxes, sustain services, and distribute public goods." In this way, the economy was both helping the people and funding their leadership.</p><p>These societies lasted longer than those ran by autocrats or small power groups, but their collapses had worse effects on their citizens who came to rely on the government support for their lives. If a dictator-led country fell apart, the economic transformation was likely less pronounced as these leaders monopolized all resources and did not rely as heavily on taxation. It also stands to reason that people in such nations could have already been living worse due to the unethical behavior of those in power. </p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDUyOTIwMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MDU4MDg4M30.NSdJkmPRE-J4vu4_7u9uHRwLRdUtIH6Fs4XNDumC7VY/img.jpg?width=980" id="65a28" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2cb0fa9514e44b64c4b672c83729e32c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The ruins of the Roman Forum, which served as representational government.
Credit: Linda Nicholas / Field Museum
<p>What were the qualities of a leader who could shake up and ultimately destroy a previously well-governed country? </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"In a good governance society, a moral leader is one who upholds the core principles and ethos and creeds and values of the overall society," <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/fm-wgg100920.php" target="_blank">related Feinman</a>. "Most societies have some kind of social contract, whether that's written out or not, and if you have a leader who breaks those principles, then people lose trust, diminish their willingness to pay taxes, move away, or take other steps that undercut the fiscal health of the polity."</p><p>The obvious connection to the present is that any society can fail, no matter how powerful or virtuous, as it's a "fragile human construct," stated Professor Blanton. Living off of past glory is no guarantee of future success, if you choose leaders who are willing to disrupt the society for their own benefits and immoral pursuits. </p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">Check out the study "</span><span style="background-color: initial;">Moral Collapse and State Failure: A View From the Past" </span><span style="background-color: initial;">in <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2020.568704/full" target="_blank">Frontiers in Political Science</a>.</span></p>
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What does kindness look like? It wears a mask.
Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling has an important favor to ask of the American people.
16 October, 2020
- Michael Dowling is president and CEO of Northwell Health, the largest health care system in New York state. In this PSA, speaking as someone whose company has seen more COVID-19 patients than any other in the country, Dowling implores Americans to wear masks—not only for their own health, but for the health of those around them.
- The CDC reports that there have been close to 7.9 million cases of coronavirus reported in the United States since January. Around 216,000 people have died from the virus so far with hundreds more added to the tally every day. Several labs around the world are working on solutions, but there is currently no vaccine for COVID-19.
- The most basic thing that everyone can do to help slow the spread is to practice social distancing, wash your hands, and to wear a mask. The CDC recommends that everyone ages two and up wear a mask that is two or more layers of material and that covers the nose, mouth, and chin. Gaiters and face shields have been shown to be less effective at blocking droplets. Homemade face coverings are acceptable, but wearers should make sure they are constructed out of the proper materials and that they are washed between uses. Wearing a mask is the most important thing you can do to save lives in your community.
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