Support NeoGAF

[Bamboo]

This was shared with me today. I had no idea this took place, maybe it's of interest to some of you.

Short article and video from The Atlantic. Video is about 7min, exclusively archive footage.
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/542499/marshall-curry-nazi-rally-madison-square-garden-1939/

In 1939, the German American Bund organized a rally of 20,000 Nazi supporters at Madison Square Garden in New York City. When Academy Award-nominated documentarian Marshall Curry stumbled upon footage of the event in historical archives, he was flabbergasted. Together with Field of Vision, he decided to present the footage as a cautionary tale to Americans. The short film, A Night at the Garden, premieres on The Atlantic today.

 

[Snaku]

Surely all of these people were put in detention centers during the war too?

 

[HStallion]

Damn that is haunting stuff and the name on the marquis for the event looks mighty familiar.

 

[ponpo]

I only knew about this because The Atlantic wrote another article about it a while ago. Made a thread on it actually http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1386264

Not this video though, that's new.

 

[Hale-XF11]

Completely surreal and utterly frightening. Also, it's like a prelude to Wolfenstein 2.

 

[Shaanyboi]

Jesus Christ...

 

[Ottaro]

Do we know who the man is that rushed the stage?

 

[maxxpower]

I'm pretty sure that the US wasn't really anti-Nazi when they fought Germany in WWII. They just didn't want Hitler's power to grow stronger and eventually take over the world.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Yep, that’s America

 

[qcf x2]

Greatest generation, times were better back then, etc.

I guess Man in the High Castle wasn't entirely alternate history. It was spooky to see Washington next to the swastikas... I do recall that WW2 era poll of college students asking whether the US should help the Jews in Europe, or was that proven to be a hoax?

I'm pretty sure that the US wasn't really anti-Nazi when they fought Germany in WWII. They just didn't want Hitler's power to grow stronger and eventually take over the world.

Correct. It wasn't a rescue mission or an act of goodwill, same as most wars. Where it gets weird for me is when America quickly changed from not giving a shit about the Jews being exterminated to being aggressively pro-Israel and anti-Muslim post WW2. I suppose they consider it a power/influence thing as well.

 

[DogDude]

I like how this idea that America has some hard stance against nazis as if they didn't ignore the war for as long as possible before being drawn into it not by Germany, but by Japan. The the US then needed to take down Russia and had to race to beat Germany to do so.


Nah racism has always been ingrained into the country.

 

[Windam]

Not surprising. The US couldn't be bothered to get involved in the war until years after it started.

 

[Fancyarcher]

I'm pretty sure that the US wasn't really anti-Nazi when they fought Germany in WWII. They just didn't want Hitler's power to grow stronger and eventually take over the world.

A lot of people from different countries were sympathetic / supporting to the Nazis before the war even started too. Creepy video though, Nazis sympathizers have been around since forever.

 

[L Thammy]

My father was musing the other day how America did a great job de-Nazifying Europe with their involvement in the Nuremberg Trials and all, but didn't get around to de-Nazifying America.

 

[Bamboo]

I only knew about this because The Atlantic wrote another article about it a while ago. Made a thread on it actually http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1386264

Not this video though, that's new.

Thank you for sharing, I'll just copy the link to the article here, if you don't mind. Some of these images are surreal.

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2...-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/

Do we know who the man is that rushed the stage?

It's in the article ponpo shared:

Stormtroopers subdue a heckler on the platform at New York’s Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939. Police who rescued and later arrested the man, whose clothing was torn from him in the struggle, identified him as Isadore Greenbaum, 26, a hotel worker.

It was spooky to see Washington next to the swastikas...

same article

A crowd of approximately 20,000 attends a German American Bund Rally at New York's Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. At center is a large portrait of George Washington, claimed as an icon by the Bund, who called him "the first Fascist", claiming Washington "knew democracy could not work.

 

[spwolf]

so who were the people protesting? Poland was not invaded yet, so I guess Jewish? Or?

It would be nice to have more bg info.

ah got it from link above:

The rally, attended by 20,000 supporters and members, was protested by huge crowds of anti-Nazis, who were held back by 1,500 NYC police officers. As World War II began in 1939, the German American Bund fell apart, many of its assets were seized, and its leader arrested for embezzlement, and later deported to Germany.

 

[mjc]

My father was musing the other day how America did a great job de-Nazifying Europe with their involvement in the Nuremberg Trials and all, but didn't get around to de-Nazifying America.

Yup, they never left they just ingrained their ideals in their families.

 

[Ovid]

Looks like the damn origin story for the Galatic Empire.

Geez.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Yeah I saw something on this on history channel or something years ago. That was certainly a crazy time in history.

 

[milanbaros]

The idea that the US went to war because of ideological reasons held against the Nazi's is laughable but makes a better story.

 

[Keasar]

It is frightening how much of this looks familiar from just the last year.

 

[zorlaczerohero]

so who were the people protesting? Poland was not invaded yet, so I guess Jewish? Or?

Just a guess but the early 1900's upto the outbreak of the war saw massive increases in immigration, most of which I am guessing would be from Europe and New York would be the obvious hub for it. I'd guess many of the Protesters and Nazi's would be part of this immigration influx and worried about family still back in the "old country".

Really powerful video, cunts everywhere, in every time.

 

[SeanC]

"Very fine people."

 

[Azuran]

Correct. It wasn't a rescue mission or an act of goodwill, same as most wars. Where it gets weird for me is when America quickly changed from not giving a shit about the Jews being exterminated to being aggressively pro-Israel and anti-Muslim post WW2. I suppose they consider it a power/influence thing as well.

The only reason the US cares about Israel is because they get to have a stooge in that region. Like they really give a shit about that whole holy land nonsense.

 

[ghostmind]

The Dollop had a great podcast about the German American Bund.

 

[Bamboo]

Looks like the damn origin story for the Galatic Empire.

Geez.

The Nazis sure knew how to stage their shows. Wasn't George Lucas even influenced by Nazi-documentarist Leni Riefenstahl's Triumpf of the Will?

 

[TarNaru33]

Correct. It wasn't a rescue mission or an act of goodwill, same as most wars. Where it gets weird for me is when America quickly changed from not giving a shit about the Jews being exterminated to being aggressively pro-Israel and anti-Muslim post WW2. I suppose they consider it a power/influence thing as well.

It helps to know that the vast majority of Americans did not know of the extermination until after joining. The Nazi supporters in U.S as far as most Americans knew, were just supporters/sympathizers of a foreign power and had nothing to do with mass genocide.

Basically, while the Nazi ideology was scary and wrong even at that time, it is good to keep in mind that this is before the actual exterminations happened (though many did know that the Jews were in genuine danger) and before people know of the scale of the genocide.

 

[Karkador]

The bizarre thing about the guy who rushed the stage (Isadore Greenbaum) is that when he passed away in 1998, a local TV news channel gave him an obituary and made zero mention of the whole "rushing the Nazi stage" thing.

 

[Captin Quacker]

These must be the good old days we've heard so much about

 

[Nokterian]

Fucking depressing seeing this..never seen this footage only photos and read the story's.

 

[Skellig Gra]

The Nazis sure knew how to stage their shows. Wasn't George Lucas even influenced by Nazi-documentarist Leni Riefenstahl's Triumpf of the Will?

Hard not to be influenced by her work she was an all time great. Just horrible subject material.

 

[Tubobutts]

Interesting that back then the police rescued the protestor from the nazis.

 

[Occam]

Here's a video of American nazis descending on Washington DC:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PdantUf5tXg

 

[KirbYuuYuu]

Yep.

Not surprised. This country had literal Nazi Summer camps and other individuals that flirted with Nazi-ism. We pretty much exported even the gas chambers right down to the chemical compound used for "de-licing Mexicans.

Where do you think America First came from?

 

[qcf x2]

It helps to know that the vast majority of Americans did not know of the extermination until after joining. The Nazi supporters in U.S as far as most Americans knew, were just supporters/sympathizers of a foreign power and had nothing to do with mass genocide.

Basically, while the Nazi ideology was scary and wrong even at that time, it is good to keep in mind that this is before the actual exterminations happened (though many did know that the Jews were in genuine danger) and before people know of the scale of the genocide.

As far as I am aware, it was before they knew of the exterminations but NOT before they knew that the Nazi platform was built on hatred of the Jews. They knew it was a platform for hate and that the hate was directed at minorities while propping up a so called pure race.

Yep.

Not surprised. This country had literal Nazi Summer camps and other individuals that flirted with Nazi-ism. We pretty much exported even the gas chambers right down to the chemical compound used for "de-licing Mexicans.

Where do you think America First came from?

Let's not forget the Japanese camps here.

 

[L Thammy]

Just a guess but the early 1900's upto the outbreak of the war saw massive increases in immigration, most of which I am guessing would be from Europe and New York would be the obvious hub for it. I'd guess many of the Protesters and Nazi's would be part of this immigration influx and worried about family still back in the "old country".

Really powerful video, cunts everywhere, in every time.

I believe there had been a large ethnically German population in America itself for some time; they're still the largest self-identified ethnic group in the country. I don't want to confuse it with "all Germans are Nazis" but I wonder if Nazi ideology itself might have appealed to some people in America with no real connection to Nazi Germany as well; I'd assume that the idea of the racial hierarchy wouldn't exclude them. Some brief googling makes it seem like American Nazi organizations were founded by recent immigrants though.

 

[parrotbeak]

Do we know who the man is that rushed the stage?

Can't find much but seems he was a Jewish hotel worker named Isidore Greenbaum.

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/n...-attempted-to-attack-fritz-picture-id97344859

 

[TarNaru33]

As far as I am aware, it was before they knew of the exterminations but NOT before they knew that the Nazi platform was built on hatred of the Jews. They knew it was a platform for hate and that the hate was directed at minorities while propping up a so called pure race.

Are you forgetting U.S's history? U.S is largely founded upon racism... many countries at the time were also anti-semetic. Yes they knew of the Nazi platform, but it is way different than knowing of an actual plan to wipe out said ethnic groups. What basis at that time to stop such gatherings would U.S have when it was "neutral"? Especially with how large the German-Americans population was?

It is the same issue then that we have now, U.S can not legally stop (unless we decide to interpret hate speech as incitement of violence), gatherings of such groups. I think only during war time can they stop it.

 

[Blueblur1]

I just finished reading about this on Politico. They wrote about it back in August right after Unite the Right happened.

 

[Salmonax]

Boy, all that "return to the values of America's founders" talk sure sounds familiar. Unsettling that it was even possible for us to return to this kind of bullshit.

 

[LiquidSword]

Holy shit. At 4:15 that kid in the band giddily jumping and rubbing his hands when they are taking out the Jewish guy who rushed the stage. I need to step away from the internet for a bit. The quality of this footage makes it so surreal too.

 

[parrotbeak]

Holy shit. At 4:15 that kid in the band giddily jumping and rubbing his hands when they are taking out the Jewish guy who rushed the stage. I need to step away from the internet for a bit. The quality of this footage makes it so surreal too.

Ya that was crazy. Reminded me of the dancing kid in that James Wan ghost movie.

I'd really like to know what these people did with their lives. No doubt most blended into mainstream America easily.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

I'm pretty sure that the US wasn't really anti-Nazi when they fought Germany in WWII. They just didn't want Hitler's power to grow stronger and eventually take over the world.

More like stop the soviets from taking Europe whole, which I thought was the US's pretty well understood motive (but apparently not outside of Europe... ). The war was pretty much done by the time d-day (june '44) happened, with the soviets having done the overwhelming part of it.

Also, on movies and Goebbels: having seen fragments of Birth Of A Nation (1915), it immediately occurred to me where Goebbels (who was, unfortunately, an actually brilliant propagandist, as well as a hateful pos) had gotten the idea for his infamous The Eternal Jew (1940).

To be fair, the fact the US was mostly sympathetic to the nazis before the actual war is also not spelled out in European history textbooks either. Had to learn that as an adult too. Btw, fun fact from looking at imdb's page of the above mentioned movie, the 'people also liked' movies are both the expected nazi shit... and Tucker Carlson Tonight.

 

[Angelus Errare]

Most US schools don't ever talk about the German American Bund or America Nazi sympathisers. WWII is always framed as US being horrified at how Nazi Germany treated Jewish people and we had to save them, on this "we're all created equal and should be treated as such" bullshit.

 

[RCSI]

Yep.

Not surprised. This country had literal Nazi Summer camps and other individuals that flirted with Nazi-ism. We pretty much exported even the gas chambers right down to the chemical compound used for "de-licing Mexicans.

Where do you think America First came from?

And IBMs technology.

While watching The World at War (must see), I saw one footage with "America First" written on the side of a tank.

 

[fatigues_gasolini]

The dollop had a great podcast on it

http://thedollop.libsyn.com/233-american-summer-hitler-camps

 

[spwolf]

More like stop the soviets from taking Europe whole, which I thought was the US's pretty well understood motive (but apparently not outside of Europe... ). The war was pretty much done by the time d-day (june '44) happened, with the soviets having done the overwhelming part of it.

uh, so where does this propaganda come from?

US gave USSR $150 billion in aid in war against Germans, from 1941. Literally a lot of their weapons came from US/Canada deal.

It is very much unlikely that Russians would win vs Germans if not for US.

 

[Nvzman]

I like how this idea that America has some hard stance against nazis as if they didn't ignore the war for as long as possible before being drawn into it not by Germany, but by Japan. The the US then needed to take down Russia and had to race to beat Germany to do so.


Nah racism has always been ingrained into the country.

The amount of historical incorrectness in this post is astounding.
FDR wanted to get America into WWII, especially after immense pressure from the British, and he was even seen discussing that the policy for WWII was "Europe First" (Or "Germany First") at the ABC-1 conference that took place less than a year before Pearl Harbor. The only reason FDR didn't get the country into WWII sooner was because of the massive negativity that surrounded Wilson after he got the country into WWI, as none of the masses wanted to be involved with European affairs. FDR didn't want to kill his presidential career, and found Pearl Harbor to be the perfect scapegoat into entering the war. It motivated the masses into wanting to join in WWII.
And the U.S. was never at odds with Russia during the war, where the hell do you even get that from? They weren't on the friendliest of terms, but they still met as the "Big Three" with the U.K. (Churchill) being included in that. The only time the Soviet Union started to become weary of the U.S. was after the two nuclear bombs were dropped and the war officially ended, as the U.S. had cemented it's anti-communist ideology and the Soviets saw that as a potential threat to their own country. Hell, Russia and the U.S. never even fought in the same places during the war, Russia was regaining it's lost ground (Stalingrad) while the U.S./U.K./Canadians where pushing into Germany itself (through France, Italy, and North Africa).

But no, keep telling yourself that racism is embedded in this country. The United States masses had no idea the holocaust (specifically killing of jews) was even happening in Germany until after the liberation of camps for fuck's sake.
Because I know someone's gonna call my post made-up or some dumb shit like that, you can read about this on Wikipedia.

 

[L Thammy]

But no, keep telling yourself that racism is embedded in this country

I was with you until this part.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

I was with you until this part.

I mean