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Hey there. I'm Scott rank, host of the podcast history unplugged. Now, it really is a dream come true to get paid to talk about history without all the stress while still being able to make a living. And I did it with Spreaker from iheart. Not only did they make it super easy to monetize my podcast, but ad revenue is 3 to four times higher with spreaker than with any other host I've worked with. So if you want to turn your passion into a podcast and give this a try visitspreaker.com, that's spreaker.com get paid to talk about the things you love. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your co-host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her impactful behavioural discoveries on chimpanzees. It wasn't until one of the chimpanzees began to lose his fear of me, but I began to really make discoveries that actually shook the scientific world. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Alex Fumero and I host the new podcast more than a movie, American Me, a film directed by and starring Edward James Olmos. I'll be diving into the behind the scenes controversy, including an alleged backlash from the Mexican mafia. Several people who worked on the movie have been murdered. I don't want to speak about why would people be murdered for being in a movie. Listen to more than a movie, American me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello friends, I'm Robert Evans, and this is once again behind the ******** the show where we tell you everything you don't know about the very worst people in all of history. Today we're talking about the worst people in all of history, the Nazis. 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 stole. How are y'all doing? 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 was going to take like 3 hours because my computer wasn't that great. But it's like it's on its way, right? Right. Not you find something else to do to sort of distract you, but also keep going into check in. Is it done yet? Is it done yet? We're doing the. National equivalent of watching Starship Troopers for the 37th time while we wait for age of Empires three to download. And then half the country watches Starship Troopers 2, 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 TOI was thinking about the classic sequel to Starship Troopers? Starship Troopers too. Find film. Fine film. Yeah. So that's what it's like. Yeah. So have you 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, got imported from Europe? Or like, did it it boil up naturally? Like, I assumed it's like, I mean, the KKK was one of the first, probably Proto Fascist 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, yes. I mean, that was more like they got the idea for how to set up the Zyklon B gas chambers from, like in El Paso we have for people coming in from Mexico, a station to delouse them and they're Nazis were like, oh, the couple modifications. Wasted opportunity to change the word. Louis too. Just yeah. So this is more about ideology in sort of how fascism. Yeah, now it first crept up in America. So if you all will indulge me. Yeah, fascism loves to creep up. Yeah, sure, it's a creeper. Alright, I'm gonna read you guys 20 pages of awesome stuff. The Horror Story in 1921, twelve years before Adolf Hitler would become Germany's all powerful fewer. The National Socialist German Workers Party had roughly 2000 members. So it's a well established. That fascism can rise to dominate a democratic nation from relatively humble beginnings. 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 Blackshirts 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 Emmanuel allowed Benita 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 talked about this fascism wasn't like now 75 million people died and so we're like, oh boy. At that point, like, Ohh fascism, fascism. Maybe this works. I feel these things. So like, what's it would be nice if just one angry guy we could do everything right, could hurt all the people I hate? That seems sufficient. I will not bother imagining the logical conclusion of these beliefs, but I'm into it. So like pizza and the chef kiss Jessiah, 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 about actually bringing up fascism in the USA. Dogs get angry when you talk about fashion because they're good. In 1924, Mussolini sent Count Ignazio Theon de Ravel to the United States to organize several disparate and quarrelsome groups of Italo fascists into the Fascist League of North America. Ohhh, yeah, cool. This is the first American fascist organization. These guys primarily positioned themselves against, quote, atheism, internationalism, free love, communism and class hatred. And I will not comment on any similarities to any sort of ideology. We can save that for later. 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 mine camp. And it was the year that the National Socialist. Newtonia Association was founded in Detroit, MI. So the first American Nazis Detroit. Wow. Shout out to Detroit, not Detroit. Positive. Like an angry like Detroit like that. Yeah, like I'm shutting out Detroit, Detroit. We're surprising no, no, no, nothing. Nothing so far. Super surprising. 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 putch so they wouldn't go to prison for trying to overthrow the German government. The NSA 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 could see we're worried about 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 corrupt into power in Germany, their Foreign Office formed. Official Nazi party branch in New York City and at the same time dissolved the NSA in order to create Gali Tung 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 about suspicious about the Nazis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So cookies, they weren't dumb and they were about something about, like, giving coats to their soldiers. Effective in their goals, they were good at 1933. They were firing on all cylinders. We all have our strengths. Yeah, so now, in 1933, the German Nazi party had Gall USA declared defunct and opened up the Friends of Germany. Its goals would be to build support for the Third Reich in the US 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. Definitely had an impact on the spread of fascist 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 and 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 the distinct impression that fascism would be preferable. Of 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. You can look at like USSR versus zaris 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. So this is what one was looking at those things. OK, so the friends of Germany recruited 5000 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 boont. Yeah. Now the bunt was led by Fritz Julius Kuhn, a German born man who fought for the Kaiser in World War One and fought for the Nazis in the streets prior to Hitler's rise to power. He 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 bond was not officially a fascist organization. Their stated purpose was to build support for Nazi Germany and the USA. A description for a Pro America rally they hosted notes that. Quote The Bund 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% of the electors, and nationwide plebiscites but impracticable and inexpedient innovations in the American system of government. People really love fascism. But we're not fans of, we're not advocating it, but people are happy with but trust us. Yeah, a lot of people are saying, a lot of people are saying it's the best kind of government, not us. Well, a lot of people, and there are fine people on all sides. You didn't have to squint hard to see Nazism in the buns. Messaging quote The Bunda 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 the press, the radio, the screen and escape, that feels pretty explicit. It feels a little Nazi, doesn't it? That's yeah, that's. I would say that's more than just a smidge fashion. Yeah, no. Now 1936, the year the Bund 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 fact 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, didn't we? Didn't quite work out that way. Definitely a prediction, but a prediction. Let's give him credit for saying words out there. Yeah, he did say some words. Just, you know, just tossing things on the wall. And if they stick well, a lot of people are gonna die. A lot of people, 10s of 1,000,000 will be burned alive. Learn more renowned he books speaking engagements all around the country, talked to colleges and published journals advocating an end to capitalist democracy. 1 left wing paper at the time described him as quote, the tall, swarthy prophet of intellectual fascism. OK, 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 Pelley founded the Silver Legion of America the 1st. Explicitly fascist and truly American organization. And yeah, Pelli 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 $1,000,000 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 worldview. All this made him feel guilty about his life of excess in Hollywood's golden era. On May 29th, 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, Pelley. Reported the men told him that he would receive additional revelations in the future, claiming himself to have been reborn, Pelly 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. Their great release, as Pelley called it, put his life on a new course. I mean, that sounds like Buddhist or something like having some sort of an epiphany where, yeah, I'm excited for that inner peace that he's he's going to good directions. Yeah. The next paragraph OK, yeah, alright. 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 donation 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 they stood for, I think, loyalty and life and legion. 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 replaced the L with a pocket protector. Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever. Nothing ever changes. My goodness. This 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. Black Americans would be re enslaved in order to provide the free labor Pelly system. Tell you. How is it immediate term? How does he not realize that's taking him down the letter he's going away from his growth. It's like, Oh yeah, basic income. That's a thing that might be ohh no, he was slow. Creep of fashion. That's a real slow throughout the three sentences in that paragraph. Ah, man, Reinson slaved is not no such a matter of fact. Tossing that out there, 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, Pelley said, a secretary of jewelry would be appointed to restrict Jewish people to a single city per state. Grumble grumble. So this is a very American, it's fascism, but it's very clearly on similar lines to what Hitler saying. But it is also in a lot of ways a very different and much more American sort of and very much based around white identity kind of fascism. So this is the first auto Catholic fascism that we have in the United States. The first time it arises from within us as opposed to just Germans and Italians. It's not being imported. It's like someone's like, I like this, I'm going to start my own, my own spin on it like that, but like. Chunky? Yeah, it's like that Taco Bell of fascism. Sure. American was like, this is cool. What if I make it terrible and easily spreadable, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, like, in this scenario, the original Taco is like a pile of **** as well. The original Taco is massacring millions. Yeah, not a great Taco. Not great thing to take inspiration from. Botulism talk. Yeah. Taco Bell, we are looking for someone else to plug for no money. Yes, please. If you want us to stop making references to Botulism and your products, give us some. Because we're gonna do it a lot more. Yeah, we will. So Pelli knew the chief marketing lever he had to pull to sell his brand of Yankee Doodle Fascism. This fear of Marxism. That was nice. Thank you. There we go. Finally. It's like, when are we going to talk about Marxism? You're Marxism right now. I found a copy of one of the recruiting pamphlets. The Reds are upon us. 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 going to do some canvassing, but maybe I'll canvas about this. Maybe I'll take this literature around. It's what I did instead of write Christmas cards this year. OK, 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 it it makes that clever little shift before it starts talking about Jewish people in any way. Yeah. So here's a quote from pamphlet. The Gentile says to himself, there are, by 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 US at all. Quote, Chief Pelley's personal estimate is that there are something like 22. Billion or 1/5 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. Good news. 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 communist? You know, it doesn't make me feel better, actually. I appreciate the rephrasing, but, you know, 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 a little bit. Yeah, and it's based on ****. And you put a bow on it, and that bow is me. Like, maybe it's really just a pile of **** on top of it. Uh, **** bow. 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 and bacteria. Also spray painted silver, so you know, yeah, it is the silver shirts. Exactly. What a fun. We have fun, don't we? Smaller 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, inherently, yeah, together that kind of thinking found a warm home in parts of the United States. Pelley 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 the context of the whole country. In 1937, the Nazi Party's World Service sent Hitler a memo informing him that Pelley 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 US support for Nazi policies than the Bund. The Nazis pushed a little bit of money pelley's way, it's possible that Hitler's house up in the Pacific Palisades, that like Nazi compound, that is a graffiti. Sanctuary and beautiful hiking. That was the silver shirts. They're the guys who bought it, 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. Like it's all. It's a big mess. 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. I remember that. Really neat. OK, so when we get back, we're going to talk about how talk radio helped inculcate fascism in America. Years ago. But before we do that, we should talk about products and services. Yes, I would like those products and services, both of them. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. 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You maybe even heard the rumors, your friends and loved ones. But are any of the stories about government conspiracies and cover ups actually true? The answer is surprisingly or unsurprisingly, yes. For more than a decade, we here at stuff they don't want you to know have been seeking answers to these questions, sometimes their answers that people would rather us not explore. Now we're sharing this research with you. For the first time ever in a book format, you can preorder stuff they don't want you to know. Now it's the new book from us, the creators of the podcast and video series. You can turn back now or read the stuff they don't want you to know. Available for pre-order now, it's stuff you should read books.com or wherever you find your favorite books. My name is Erica Kelly and I am the host and creator of Southern Freight true crime. There are so many people that just have no idea about some injustices in the world, and if you can give a voice to them, you can create change. To be able to do it within podcasting is just such a gift. I believe it was 18 months after I got on with Spreaker that I was making enough that I could quit my day job. It was incredible. I always feel like an ambassador for speaker, but that's because I'm passionate about podcasting. It's really easy to use. I always tell people I am so not tech. Took me 5 minutes to get comfortable with speaker, and when I find a new friend that has an incredible show, I want them to make money. I want them to be able to do what I did. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's break your handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Get paid to talk about the things you love with spreaker from iheart. And we're back. And I just want to shame our producer Sophie for throwing out a couple of mini mini pizza bagels just because they weren't. They weren't. Tossed out a salad recently? Shameful. Shameful. We're gonna food waste. Shame you get frost, 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. The only scrubbing wipes on the table in front of us. Some Star magazine, some in Touch magazine. It's just audience interaction, advertising by default, whatever's around us or the products we sell. Scotch tape. Hi. Oh, microphone stands. That's a concerning name for a microphone. It sure is. Every time I see it. Microphones are kind of always they are saluting. We're looking into why they are named Kyle, and maybe you should put a picture of these stands up so the listeners know what we're talking about. Shots fired at the company who provides our microphone states. OK, 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 Klan. 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 maybe the largest radio star in history. At his peak, Coughlin was reaching roughly 29 million American listeners per broadcast. The only other broadcaster who's ever come close is Rush Limbaugh, at 20 million. So wow. So still. Yeah. And there was 100 million Americans. 30s, right? Yeah, a third of the country is like, again, is probably the most popular any single radio personality 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, they are there every time. I can't type international bankers and not put parentheses around it. It's just your computer doesn't automatically. You know what's going on. That's the clippy. Clippy just right. I hear you. If you seems like your dog whistling antisemitism, would you like to add some? Parentheses. Ohh clippy. Ohh clippy. No clippy. Why are you doing OHP? He just starts shouting 1488 all over my document. Now CBS went up kicking Father Coughlin off the air after his Jew baiting got a little bit too ********. Sure, NBC refused to pick up his show. So Father Coughlin created the Radio League of the Little Flower where for the cost of $1.00 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 1/4 of $1,000,000 a week to run his radio stations. That's how much money is coming into this ******* radio price. And so they were paying for it. Be out everywhere. So like a little Patreon? Yeah, 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 going to give you one guess as to where he turns when there's no restrictions on him towards the light. Like a pyre maybe. Yeah, furnace. Like a burning cross. Like a burning cross. Or if, well, he was against the KKK. Yeah, it's not. At least at least can hate each other. At least he was against the KKK. 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 president because FDR didn't do any of this. In 1934, the Treasury Department announced that Coughlin 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 **** load of money off of silver. People were saying that also. Weird how nothing has changed. That radio. Selling gold like, I'm waiting for you to be like, oh, and then he started selling brain pills to everybody. Like, that's an innovation from Alex Jones, but very proud to putting sawdust in capsules and selling it to people to fix their brains. Then he is also poisoning. At the same time, he's also giving poisoning. Yeah, well, that's how you keep them coming back. That razor, razor blade, both of which cut the customer losophy. Yeah. So whatever the case, by 1934, Coughlin was ****** at the Democrats and announced the start of his own political party, the National Union for Social Justice. Now, the NUS J 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. Autocracy or democracy. Sneaking in there some sort of dictatorship might be preferable to the current conditions. By the end of 1935, membership and Coughlin's Union was somewhere between one 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 there are alliances believed to be as good for as many as 20 million votes. Like they represent a lot of people, 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. Cleveland, Cleveland. Whenever something bad happens in American history, 1/4 of the time it'll be in Cleveland, land of the Cleve, land of Burning rivers. Cleveland everything terrible in America starts there, or at least goes through Cleveland at some point, like body of water in flames is perfect. Here's a short segment from a speech in Cleveland. We are Christian in so far as we believe in Christ, 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. Why? That was one sentence, one hell of a sentence. Way to cancel is a sentence with an arc. There's a whole hero's journey, and that politely cancels out. The first part of the sentence. Well, that's your low point. Where you gonna go? Ohh dear God. Stunning orator, though. Good voice. I mean, he does have a you can see why people listen to that. 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 ******* nuts shortly 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, I want to take over the I want to be the dictator. 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, OK, if y'all want me back that bad, I'll. Come 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 and the Silver Shirts and the Boone 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. It 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 basically defrauded shareholders in his book production company Gallahad Press, and used it to fund his fascist militia fraud. 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. God. Al Flandin, the Republican candidate, was conspiring with FDR to destroy the Christian party by hosting his campaign events in the same cities that Pelley was. Since the conspiracy against him was clearly so far reaching and powerful, Pelley 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 going to 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 might have been in New York. There were pictures of him with his, I guess, wife girlfriend who was a black woman and their and their children. Yeah, just started his trial, got all clean shaven and yeah. So keep that in mind as I read this next .1 of his more bizarre ploys involved in effort to convert Native Americans to the silver shirt cause pelley's sudden interest in Native Americans stemmed from a supposed divine realization that the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Have 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 police saw everywhere. Among the many problems with this eccentric plan was the fact that Pelley did not actually know many Native Americans. His efforts to reach out by referring to himself as Chief Pelley of the Tribe of Silver and writing articles in prose that could have been lifted from stock characters of Hollywood Westerns gained few supporters, but Pelli did succeed in getting one actual Native American supporter, a Portland attorney named Elwood Towner. Now Towner was part Native American, but he saw a money making opportunity in budding American fascism. He started calling himself chief Red Cloud and began touring boomed and silver shirt meetings across the West Coast. Thousands of people who probably wouldn't have shown up to a lecture on fascism showed up to see Chief Red Cloud 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 arm bands beaded and swastika and Thunderbird design. I found a picture of the guy and it is this is cringe worthy. Pretty special. And you can make out those swastikas on the top. Sure can't. You can. You don't even have to squint. 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 of you. Just leave it. Racism on the table. It would have been a crime not to ****** that. Exactly. Thank you. Furthermore, quote, Toner 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 US Constitution. A Native American inspired document, he said by none other than Alexander Hamilton. Toner lectures sometimes included readings from an infamously debunked track embraced by violent anti Semites. Even today, the protocols of the Elders of Zion Chief Red Cloud claimed that the coming of Germans to the Americas had been quote glowingly prophesied by his ancestors. Jews were, quote the gold worshippers who would corrupt the Aryan Indians and put them in concentration camps. He would often close his 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, advanced friend. So that's what these mic stands are saying exactly. Advance friends, advanced gold worshippers, unlike US silver worshippers. And it's important to note that Chief Red Cloud went around to all the different. He was at the Boone, he was with the silver shirts, he hung out at Italian fascist meetings, I think. And he he made a lot of money 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? 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 cheap. Right now he's wearing, which isn't even a good name. No, it's not Elwood. Elwood makes me think of the Reds commies. Exactly. Yeah, 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 ones 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 of yeah, it's like, what is even the argument? We're making it didn't happen. Also, they were communists. My favorite thing now is also like, ohh the, you know, the notices were socialists right there in the name, the healthcare and all that stuff. And the second the president says he's a nationalist, you're like, that's good. That's the good part. The good part of the Nazis was the nationalist part. They just hadn't had that. Socialism would have been fine. Fun fact, they did kill all of the socialists. That was what the night of Long Knives was interesting fun. Back there. That everyone should know, but doesn't. Rejected the very idea of, like, class conflict. Yeah, history, hierarchies and inequality 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 to happen again? It was such a ride the last time. But maybe this time it'll be different. So in spite of Chief Red Cloud's endorsement, Pelley's Christian party did not do well in the 1936 elections. They only made it on the ballot in Washington state, and they didn't rack up 2000 votes in Washington. So the German American Bund was of course also active in the 1936 election. They took a different tack 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 Kuhn announced a Bund command to all his members, ordering them to vote for Alf Landon, their 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. End of story. End of story. You're dead and forgotten now. Lived happily ever after. Yeah, but he's got so many more pages in his hand, so the party that would have been most beneficial to the Nazis. Put the Nazis thought. That seems to be what? How the Nazis thought about yeah, yeah. So the 1936 elections were kind of defeat across the board for the American Fascist movement. But the increased visibility they've gotten in the press and through the speaking tours of people like Coughlin and Pelley 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 prefer to live under fascism or Communism, 45% of Americans. Fascism? Yeah. Idiots. *******. I feel like this is gonna work out great for me. Oh my gosh. So we're going to get into what came next for fascism in America. But first, what comes next for ads on this pod podcast? Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. 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Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Get paid to talk about the things you love. Spreaker from iheart. And we're back. We're back. We're talking about fascism. But why? Because it's not relevant to things happening today. Good. Yeah. Good. Yeah, I'm tired of things being relevant today. Just useless. So the late 30s was a time of great growth and increasing acceptance of fascism in America. The German American Bund opened a network of summer camps in the United States as an undercover reporter in the Bund. John C Metcalf later testified. Quote American boys and girls sing hymns to Darfur and to the Vaterland. They have never seen their youthful feet goose step 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 bond, the Hitler youth thing. Yeah, this really bothers me, this part. I really don't like his part because that's one of the most. 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. It's the scariest part, and now it's unclear how many total American children went through boot training camps and received Nazi indoctrination. Bradley Hart, author of Hitler's American friends, estimates around 7200 per year, so that would have been 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 in the whole camp. Is owned collectively by the homeowners on the land. Quote Adolf Hitler St was a major thoroughfare. 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 sigfried, the further education and training making it effectively the center of Boone training operations nationwide. Major celebrations such as the 4th of July celebrations that began this chapter could attract 10s of thousands of people from New York City to Sigfried. Leafy surroundings, so 10s 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 being like a community thing. Yeah, I bet all those little Nazis grew up to be adult Nazis and procreated children that are now running. Maybe not now, but we'll never have an episode where we talk about what some of the people who went to the summer camps went on to do. I will not take that back. Now, on an interesting side note, the Nazi Homeowners Association that owns Sigfried continued to be a thing after the bone 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. Then any new buyers met their quote. Racial qualifications. You want to guess how long this went on? How long this Nazi homeowners association was that you want to guess decades? A lawsuit found it in violation of the Fair Housing Act in 2015. That's no, that is way past. But I thought you were going to say I was prepared to be shocked at 1995 or something 2015 goodness. That's a good guess. 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. Picasso 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 *** 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 speed 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 to simply agree with them. Out of sheer alienation and a natural contrariness, I decided to align myself against their point of view. That's how it happens. That's exactly it. I mean, that's actually very well said. Like he's a great artist who later, yeah, and self reflective and really on the ball in terms of like that is exactly like 1000% my. He's like, yeah, but yeah, but like, that feels just like, stamp it 2016. Like that's. I'm tired of you telling me that my people are bad and which is a little bit 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 garbage war, world wars in general. Nobody comes across looking great and a worldwide war. Yeah, where we decide civilians and civilian cities are acceptable targets. Yeah, universally. Nobody's the great guy, although it's just really easy to look good next to the Nazis. It really is. It is super easy. Natural contrarian. Yeah, that's. Hmm, 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. 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. I probably would have found this otherwise. It's very useful. He also describes how the armed wing of the boom to the OD was formed. Trained into something approaching a militia even while the boons continue to maintain a banal frame friendly exterior quote composing roughly 10% of the Boones 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 Bund sphere, full access to the buns recreational facility such as Camp Siegfried and Upstate New York, and the promise of a steady wage, young men flocked. The Bund often used its propaganda machinery to promote the small businesses of Pro German. Rural American 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 the Gowski grew up like, well, I think that's important when you're looking at the rise of any of these movements. And Nazi Germany is 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 aren't. Kind of dire straits, and this is a different answer. Everything is ****** ** and confusing. Every exactly no one knows what's going to happen, and 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 gotta replace Great Depression. Everyone's looking for answers, and sometimes grifters might take advantage of that. What's your issue with Chief Red Cloud? Nothing. Nothing. He sounds trustworthy. Good. I feel like he's the hero of this episode. You feel like that, but just sit tight. Just just hold on. So Hitler actually cut off funding to the German American boomed 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 boom in 1937. There's a lot to talk about. Metcalfe's a real hero, and like one of these journalists 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. Big fan of John Metcalf. Different kind of podcast, different kind of behind the guys who weren't bad. Yeah. So it seems like the funding to the front of the ******** with fists punching the ********. Now it seems like the bones funding was cut off because of the fear was again worried about upsetting US 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 Tomsche Angel. Like a ***** 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 ****** ** the Munich Beer Hall putsch. Weird Crush on her. Yeah, what's wrong with you? I mean, no, I mean, I'm not going to beg on Helena, going to bag on putzie. Sure. I mean, they all we're probably pretty fashy. Like none of them are great people, yeah. Putsy was later interviewed by the US government about Hitler because he had a falling out and he wasn't around for the whole World War Two thing. That whole thing, that old chestnut hunch, Stangle 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 Klu 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. Pelley published a manual. We don't need you never believed in us. In 1938, Pelley published a manual 1,000,000 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 Dr Exning the anti-Semitism and really hammering on Communism, 1 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're really talked about the Jews a lot there, buddy. You really dropped her. Really, really emphasize. Seems to be their Jewish and their atheist. Yeah, OK, just want to make sure we're all communists. Who listen unfailingly to their rabbi because they're atheists. Totally logically consistent. Honestly checks out. Yeah, really seems to hold together type. So the mild rhetoric was in direct contrast to their behavior. Pelley, the chief, travelled with a 40 man bodyguard, all of whom carried pistols openly and basically told law enforcement in small towns. What are you going to do about it? Also in 1938 a silver shirt officer told him, Milwaukee reporter, that all members of the Legion had been advised to buy sawed off shotguns in 2000 rounds of ammo in order to protect, quote, white Christian America. So President Roosevelt was obviously not super happy with the violent Nazi rhetoric and the militias. One would one would hope he'd have his finger on that button. He was particularly concerned with Kelly 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, but there were plenty of other American fascists, don't you worry. One of them was John Winrod. 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, Winrod 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 Shirley 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. Road references to Jews quote perhaps you have thought the United States Congress controls the nation's money. This most decidedly is not the case. I'll give you one guess and three letters. So Winrod attacked Roosevelt for going after the Fascist powers without equally criticizing the Soviet Union. When Rod harangued 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 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 not fascist into office. Winrod still received. 53,000 votes. Wow. But hey, the Republican Party, unlike the episode that we'll have run like the week before this where they fail with like 3 states to stop fascists, they 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 something. Yeah, we don't want people to mistake conservatism for fascism, so we should oppose fascists. That's so refreshing. What if we give it a few decades of only 2018 Republicans would take a leaf out of 1938 Republicans. Yeah. So 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 of them called 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, nothing ever changes. In all of history everything is the same. So. I hate this. It's pretty wild. It is. It's just the same thing. And it's like, it's just all stuff. Like, yeah, like, you see this parallel, but then just like every single thing is saying it's a little on the nose, so on. It's like a guy covered in pro Trump propaganda stickers, mailing bombs to all the people Trump. It is, like, would never happen on the nose. That sounds unbelievable. Yet. And yet in February 1939, Fritz Kuhn held an event that would prove to be the apex of the German American Bund. Hour 22,000 bundists 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, Arnie Bernstein writes quote. The unprecedented event was really intended to be the German American boons, apotheosis proof positive to America and the world as well as Berlin, that the American Nazis were here to stay. The rally was to be Koons, shining moment, an elaborate pageant and vivid showcase of all he had built in three years. Koons's dream of a swastika nation would be on display for the whole world, right in the heart of what Berlin press called the Schematized Metropolis of New York, nearly 100,000 counter protesters also showed up. You might wait. Say that number again. 100,000. Wow. Most, you might call them. Any fascists? I would call that. What if? What if I want to shorten that? Yeah, that might be a good way to do it easier. We'll figure it out. Yeah. Opposite of 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 that on the nose? It, in addition includes a man I can only. Gripe is Sig Heiling Ted Cruz because ******* look at that. I just look at this other day I saw this, look at that **** that's ******* Nazi Ted Cruz. I'll put that picture up too, like it's it's just it's uncanny. It's really uncanny. It's got to be a relation. 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, OK. Do you do, captive audience? I pledge allegiance to mine. Come, come. I recommend watching the documentary and seeing this, because, like, the visuals of this are pretty pretty ******* striking. I. And divided allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. It's it's like a ******* screen grab from a bad alternate history movie, yeah? I pledge. What did they say? I pledge undivided allegiance was like, wow, that. Yeah, that's a that's a wrinkle on that. Yeah. So Fritz Kuhn 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 home moment was actually filmed and we are going to watch it. Yeah. People fighting for under our children first, our social trust, white Gentile, ruled. United States second. No controlled labor union free from Jewish Moscow directed domination. Reading 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 watermark for the German American Bund. But not, it turned out, for fascism in America. When we come back in Part 2, we're going to talk about the fall of Fritz Kuhn, one potential candidate for American fewer, and the rise of a second candidate, Charles Lindbergh. So. Yeah, it's so upsetting. It's really, it really makes you feel like wanting to die. It's it's bad. It's real bad. And like God, so not far off. 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 hate that one of the things that is interesting to me, we will save the explicitly political stuff from the end of Part 2. But this book, Hitler's American friends, is the 2nd 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. Happened because it's so similar that 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 we do talk about it, but we talk, we talk about it. People don't talk about it because in many ways it's like, yeah, there are similarities. 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. In history, right. They're all coming out now. You don't find any being like, no, the comparisons to fascism and Nazism are overblown. Like, they're all like, no, this is really concerning. Single one, 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. So it's like if 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, we're not in Part 2 yet. That's what it's so madding and like, self-proclaimed, like intellectuals and like thought leaders who like, just dismiss it outright. We're like, no, literally people who study this for a living are talking about it. And the guy who came up with Godwin's law specifically said like, no, no, no, 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 yeah, they're not the only ones written and direct reaction to the current things happening in America by scholars of that, but they're the two we've talked about this. And even that, I forget his name came out and was like, talk about the the similar between Mitch McConnell and just like, yeah, he's the guy who might have been Kurt von Schleicher, one of the guys to Hindenburg, right? And he's like, yeah, he he literally used the phrase the grave digger of democracy 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 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. It's going to be really neat. No more chief Red Cloud tragic other some really, really played his part, you know? He sure did. And there is still a surprise reveal ahead. So yeah, we're excited about Lawrence. Founder of American fascism. Turns out there's a twin. What a treat. All right. Plegables plug. Yeah. Patreon.com/somemorenews, twitter.com/somemore news.youtube.com.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 our podcast. Even more news, more and all the podcast places. Doctor Mr Cody is my Twitter handle. It's my personal thing. Mine is Katie stole Katie with a Y. Yeah, like Katy Perry. Like Katy Perry. I'm Robert Evans. Like the guy who produced godfather. You can find me. On Twitter at a I write. OK you can find this podcast on the Internet at behindthebastards.com. You can find us on T public behind the ********. Buy some T-shirts with my team. 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, would you call that some T-shirts research to Jason? I would. I do write it off on my taxes. Sanity? Liquor part. 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 it's uncanny. It's really surreal. It's beautiful. You guys are going to love it. All right? This has been the podcast I have been Robert Evans. And once more, I love about 40% of. Hey there. I'm Scott rank, host of the podcast history unplugged. Now, it really is a dream come true to get paid to talk about history without all the stress while still being able to make a living. And I did it with Spreaker from iheart. Not only did they make it super easy to monetize my podcast, but ad revenue is 3 to four times higher with spreaker than with any other host I've worked with. So if you want to turn your passion into a podcast and give this a try. Visitspreakercomthatsspreaker.com get paid to talk about the things you love. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your co-host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her social discoveries on chimpanzees. For four whole months, the chimps ran away from me. I mean, they take one look at this peculiar white ape and disappear. To the vegetation. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Sisters of the Underground is a podcast about fearless Dominican women who stood up against the brutal dictator Kapal Trujillo. He needs to be stopped. We've been silent and complacent for far too long. I am Daniel Ramirez, and as a Dominicana myself, I am proud to be narrating this true story that is often left out of the history books through your husband blood. In his hands, listen to sisters of the underground wherever you get your podcasts.