Learn about the 1930s American Bund with these old magazine articles. Find information on Amerikadeutscher Volksbund and the American Fascists of the 1930s New Jersey.
A year and a-half before Pearl Harbor American law enforcement agencies got serious about the domestic fascist groups. This article pertains to a twenty-five page Federal order instructing the FBI and local authorities to tap phones and monitor the movements of all groups sympathetic to Axis philosophies.
With the opening of Camp Nordland (Dorkland?) in Andover, New Jersey, the two streams of American fascism saw fit to convene there and join hands. The Italian side was lead by the American Duce Salvatore Caridi and Yankee Fuhrer Fritz Kuhn stood at the head of the American Bundists.
Amidst much heiling, drinking of imported beer and assorted flag-waving, was celebrated the cementing of the twenty-first link in a chain of camps which has been gradually growing. By car they came and by train, until the countryside was increased by ten thousand inhabitants.
One of the loyal confederates of the American Bund was Anastasy Vonsyatsky (1898 – 1965). It was his sincere belief that Fascism was the only force capable of defeating international communism – and once he conceived of this idea, he was all in: Fascism could do no wrong. Although he worked closely with the American Bund, his true allegiance stood with the Russian Fascist Party in far-off Manchukuo, China
(you can read about Manchukuo here). Vonsyatsky was arrested by the FBI five months after Pearl Harbor and released in 1946.
The Volksbund early identified itself with Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Furthermore, its members at times have indulged themselves in parades, Nazi salutes and loud ‘heils’. For these reasons the organization has drawn much criticism for ‘un-American’ activities.
As you can see by glancing at some of the other articles on this page, the Italians and Germans were not the only nations to cultivate a taste for fascism; a franchise office was opened in the United States in the mid-Thirties. This article is essentially a photo-essay consisting of twenty-six images and a brief explanation regarding the American Nazi movement that once existed in New Jersey:
The pictures on these pages were not made in Germany. They may look like accurate shots of a foreign political movement, which they are, but they were made right here in these United States. Almost coincidentally with Hitler’s assumption of power in the Reich, our free democracy began to feel the long paw of Nazi propaganda…
Read about the American reporter who became a Nazi…
Click here to read about an admired American hero who was also attracted to fascist theology.
