Nazi Town, USA | Full Documentary | AMERICAN EXPERIENCE | PBS

[Music] the following program includes derogatory images and language and historical context for educational purposes viewer discretion is advised in ever increasing numbers the nation's youth has been going away to camp this year has seen more boys and girls at Camp than ever before all of them have enjoyed common experiences common Adventures building muscle learning Fellowship acquiring Camp Spirit it looks like any summer camp in America it looked normal but it wasn't normal it was Nazi [Music] camp in the 1930s there were these camps all across the country they were indoctrinating centers that's what they were for as well as for protecting the Purity and the health of your Superior breed the camps were the creation of something called the German American boond the Boon's Vision was an America ruled by white Christians and they thought the Nazism was entirely consistent with American ideals my fellow Americans what would George Washington think and do were he alive today would he not plead with it thinking they loyal and law-abiding people the true Christian Americans the german-american Boom is after power they're after influence within the very fabric of the United States they want their ideas to become mainstream and they want people to embrace those ideas they were against democracy and thought that America would be a kind of star in a constellation of pro-nazi governments around the world we assume that democracy is something that all Americans Embrace but in the 1930s there were people in the United States who were ready to try something different at Liberty Mutual We Believe progress happens when people feel secure that's why we exist to help people Embrace today and pursue tomorrow Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Mutual Insurance is a proud sponsor of American Experience in the 1930s lots of Americans thought the whole social order was about to collapse capitalism democracy they were done for and something else was going to have to come along to take its place and a lot of people thought that was going to be [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] fascism in the 1930s one of the largest fascist groups in the United States was the German American Buon Buon simply means organization but fundamentally this is an American organization they believe in a pure Nation they believe in a strong Nation they believe that government is best when it is organized in a hierarchical way with a powerful dictator at the top and that this would improve America we have no no time nor excuse to be idle so much along with the bu the popularity of The Bu showed that there were certain elements of the fascist Vision that had real appeal in the United States we have to fight for our rights when you look at American fascism in the 1920s and 30s the outcome of German fascism had not yet happened and was not known we have the benefit of hindsight but Americans at the time didn't know where it was going to go as foreign as this might seem fascist ideology tapped into some deep historical realities dark realities in America so the United States was fertile ground for groups like the German American Boon to emerge the United States in the 1920s is a place of powerful divisions it is a place of deep anti-Semitism and it is a place that has very formal racial segregation the separation of races was something that Americans had been doing for centuries but they've been doing it legally since the end of the Civil War through Jim Crow the body of laws as well as habits and Customs that kept white and black people apart in public spaces in fact the whole structure of racism in America had brought popular support in the 1920s one of the biggest organizations in the United States was the Klux Clan which was not only anti-black it was anti-jew it was anti-immigrant and those weren't marginal ideas in 1924 four to 5 million people were in the Klux Clan including a couple dozen senators and congressmen the Clan's basic message was a combination of white Christian nationalism combined with family values which was a message that was appealing to millions of people father Cogan Charles Cogan known as the radio priest every week went on the air to 14 million listeners basically warning the country that Jews were destroying it we are Christian in so far as we believe in Christ Prin 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 anti-Semitism is r in the United States and at this point it's out in the open the most famous anti-semite in America was probably Henry Ford Henry Ford was an inventor an extraordinary capitalist but he used his wealth to promote some of the most virent anti-Semitic conspiracy theories he published a notorious book called The International Jew and had it distributed widely around the country millions of people might have heard of this book but never actually seen it well Ford took care of that at that time anti-semitic and white supremacist ideas were supported by a pseudo scientific movement that was wildly popular in Europe and in the United States called Eugenics what is the bearing of the laws of heredity upon human Affairs Eugenics provides the answer so far as this is known Eugenics seeks to apply the known laws of heredity so as to prevent the degeneration of the race and improve its inborn qualities Eugenics said that what Supremacy was biologically determined and could be proven as the identities of the inferior you know so-called inferior races it rationalized white supremacism by apparently giving it a scientific basis laws were based on these ideas in 1924 the United States passes the Johnson Reed act which puts a quota system on people immigrating into the United States from Europe under this new law roughly 90% of them are going to come from northern European countries AKA white all this led right-wing groups like the German American bond to believe that they would actually have a receptive audience in America because look Americans had cast themselves as a white Nation we are decided not preaching un americanism or anything basically new we have an Asiatic Exclusion Act Jim Crow laws and a complicated system of immigration quarters differentiating even between the various white peoples it has then always been very much American the leader of the boo was a naturalized American citizen named Fritz Julius had some bold ambitions he presented himself as an American furer and his vision was to become the absolute leader the absolute dictator of this organization that claims is going to take control of the United States let me welcome you the name of our local unit of CH American bu for and i' like to tell you a few words about our purpose and aims he imagined that he was going to build a distinctively American version of Nazism because America's problem is that it has has too many differences it has too many races all mingled together too many languages this country can't possibly survive for a long time in such a crazy state it should be organized it should be disciplined and it should be unified by one charismatic leader Coon's path to the United States was somewhat typical for men of his generation who had lived through World War I only to experience the economic ruin that Germany went through in the early 1920s European Society was devastated after World War I and Germans as the losing side of the war were especially affected you had hyperinflation you had unemployed soldiers unemployed workers all desperate everyone was looking for a [Music] solution FR [Music] imperialism a lot of people thought that communism was the answer but others were very very worried that revolutionaries were coming that property would be abolished and this infection would spread in Europe one main ideological counter to Communism was fascism our association of fascism with the second World War and particularly with the Holocaust isn't a set of associations that anyone had in the 1920s people looked at the fascist Italian dictator musolini and said musolini has solved Italy's economic crisis by suppressing the Communists by getting rid of parliament getting rid of divisive political parties and he's basically asked Italians to trust him and his vision of a United Country f ISM was a word that was coined by musolini to identify his political movement it says that in order to reclaim the strength and the Purity and the nobility of your country you need to purify your nation of the wrong people to get back to what the nation is supposed to be it's essentially a white nationalist movement so a lot of Americans were intrigued by fascism at least in its Italian form I am very glad to be able to express my friendly feelings towards the American Nation my fellow citizens who are working to make America great in Germany Adolf Hitler's Nazi party is first seen as a very marginal group of thugs Hitler Rises to power on one promise to save Germany and to save Germany he's going to get get rid of the Communists and the Jews Fritz was involved in the early days of the Nazi party he claimed that he had been part of Hitler's failed coup attempt in 1923 is emblematic of this generation of young German men who feel that they are the victims of the outcome of the first world war they want Unity they want comradeship but most of all they want employment so in 1924 he decides to do what many other Germans do leave the country and come to America German Americans and their descendants had been in the United States for a long period of time at this point there were actually multiple waves of German immigration to the US so went to Detroit and got a job at the Henry Fort hospital as an x-ray technician it was a hospital that had a policy of no Jewish doctors it's an era of deep anti-Semitism of legalized racism of growing inequality across the United States and then the Great Depression [Music] begins in October 1929 the stock market crashed with the subsequent onset of a massive dep depression the stock market lost about 90% of its value in places where you had a largely foreign born industrial workingclass population as many as 80% of those workers were out of work in the depths of the depression a great many Americans started to ask themselves whether the American experiment was failing in one pole of conservative professionals something like a third of them said it was time for a revolution some kind of change whether it was going to be democracy whether it was going to be communism whether it was going to be fascism all these ideas were finding [Applause] supporters the 1930s is a period that can be characterized by fear fear of the other fear of want fear of losing everything the only thing we have to fear is fear itself Franklin Roosevelt comes into the White House in March of 1933 in the midst of the biggest economic and social crisis since the Civil War my most immediate concern is in carrying out the purposes of the great work program just enacted by the Congress his solution is to introduce a series of programs that come to be known as the New Deal there has not been another president that has introduced more legislation than Roosevelt did in his first 100 days [Music] American right-wing groups were rapidly opposed to Roosevelt's New Deal which they saw as a communist plot as a redistribution of property and began calling it the Jew deal because they said that Roosevelt was being manipulated by Jewish financiers who were pulling the strings 1933 was also the year that Adolf hit came to power in Germany so there was a sense not only that there was a crisis at home uh but that fascism was really beginning to take root around the world Hitler puts Germany on what appears to be a very successful course inflation is under control and according to the Nazis official figures unemployment has all but disappeared Americans who see their own system in crisis are looking at fascism and Nazism as perhaps models that could be emulated in the United States so extremist groups pop up all over the country inspired by what's going on in Europe there was the order of 76 there was the black Legion there was the Liberty League there were the white shirts the black shirts and brown shirts there were the silver shirts please be stop by Riot they just proliferated in its earliest Expressions fascism was thought by many Americans to be a suitable answer to America's problems but there were others who opposed fascism from the beginning Dorothy Thompson was one of the first female foreign correspondents for American newspapers and was working in Europe Europe during the rise of fascism she could see the danger that it posed and she was very outspoken about it from very early on she had the honor I think um of being the first American foreign correspondent to be ejected from Germany after Hitler came to power there seems to me to be a a certain misunderstanding about about the anti-semitic end of the Hitler movement a great many people uh didn't believe that if they came to power they would carry this uh carry this program out but as a matter of fact they're doing what they have said for 13 years that they would do if they came to power another one of the great public figures of that era Rabbi Steven wise steps forward and says we are going to act we're going to mobilize against Nazism wise called for a boycott of all German products until Hitler sto persecuting all minorities not just Jews but all minorities it led to a big decline in German Imports this presents a challenge to Berlin which is how do we improve our reputation in the United States while also pursuing our policies against the Jews here in Germany Rudolph Hess the number two Nazi leader was looking at the American situation and saying how we going to offset this and so he helped create the friends of New Germany the membership card and the friends of the new Germany note the American emblem and over it the Nazi swasa people join the friends of New Germany in the same way you would join the Masons or the Odd Fellows of the Elks so kunon joins the friends of New Germany and becomes head of the Midwest District it was one thing for Americans to say well Hitler's doing great things for Germany um from a distance but Americans didn't actually like seeing swas stickers in their neighborhoods this began to turn American public opinion against the friends of New Germany and against the Nazis in the 1930s there was a very strong Jewish presence in the mafia and they had an army of Jewish prize Fighters guys who know how to work their fists at this time about a third of professional boxers were Jewish and many of those Jewish boxers were very proud of their Heritage and they had stars of David on their trunks they saw it as their duty to take on the friends of New Germany in New Jersey this Army of boxers was called the Minutemen because they could be there in a minute they would burst into open meetings of the friends of New Germany and they would beat the stuffing out of them in Newark New Jersey they were so angry there was a massive brawl that lasted for hours until the police were able to get it under control the government in Berlin starts to feel that it's more of a problem than it is an asset and in late 1935 they disbanded the organization the friends of New Germany was no more and Fritz scon saw his opportunity and seized it he said you know we have to reform this group we have an infrastructure already in place with chapters all over the country so in early 1936 Fritz founds the German American Bond and was trying to sell it as an American organization what you begin to see in 1936 with the creation of the bond is what I would call the beginning of Star Spangled fascism the American bu is a patriotic L biting and H Hound biting organization of glal Americans of German exraction fighting to exterminate Jewish interational atheistic pism the German American B starts very deliberately cloaking itself in the explicit symbols of americanness George Washington the American flag you have these bizarre mixtures of American symbols with the symbols of Nazism people dressed as Minutemen from the American Revolution standing on stage next to these boond members in their own uniforms or a man dressed as a Native American Chief Kun is trying to change the conversation a little bit by saying you can be a patriarch American and you can be proud of the Nazi government as well so he is going to try to square the circle which is to make Americans and American citizens a part of an organization that is basically designed to propagate Nazism the national Bund establishes its headquarters on the upper east side of Manhattan in the Yorkville neighborhood German was spoken in the streets the shops had signs in German if you walked through Yorkville in 1936 you could think you were in a German City the boond also had a fairly extensive business arm New York City had beer Halls where its members would gather and these were often owned and operated by the [Music] Boom nationally most German Americans were not supporters of the Bund but the german-american Bund had a great presence in New York so it was deliberately provocative for the Jewish Community because they were literally holding parades in front of Jewish people's homes we are American citizen and we demand our rights to be American citizens like Hitler wanted to establish a right that would last for a thousand years so he gets to work expanding the group in 1936 and 37 the Bund has a period of real growth there were three big districts of the Bund in America but there were about 45 Regional districts and then 80 smaller little branches they're all over the place in the west coast Midwest and East at its peak the boond attracts as many as 100,000 members and there were thousands of people who were also sympathetic to the boond who were attending its events one of the best ways to get people on board is to Target their children people can say well this is a good organization it teaches them about the beauty of nature it teaches them vital skills in life and it's familyfriendly and family oriented by the way we hate Jews we hate blacks we hate [Music] Catholics [Music] you get kids out of unhealthy City environments and put them into these summer camps it's all about making sure that your Superior breed is kept separate from pollutants people of inferior races and ethnicities children are essential to the future of the movement they have to be physically primed to become the leaders of this Nazi Reich so there was Camp Upstate New York Milwaukee Chicago Los Angeles San Francisco the Pacific Northwest there were camps located all over the [Music] country the grand opening for Camp Norland was July 18th 1937 and it was an event to be [Music] seen there were more than 10,000 people there and this was in New Jersey 60 M outside of Manhattan I call upon all of you to join us in the battle for a ass good financially independent and do free [Music] America the biggest camp that the bun built was Camp Sig freed in yapank Long Island it was a destination for lots of people from the New York area not just during the summer camp but for rallies and picnics and Gatherings throughout the year there was a train every Friday direct from Pen Station to Long Island called the zigf freed special and it would be packed with people getting away for the weekend Kemp sik freed was so popular the bun created a front organization called the German American settlement League which bought property so that they could establish not only camps but actual planned communities and at yappen they did build a German American settlement called German Gardens the town that they set up named streets on Long Island after prominent Nazis so there was Adolf Hitler Street and there was Goring Street they had laws on the books restricting ownership so unsurprisingly this community was not willing to admit Jewish homeowners it was designed around the idea of creating an idealized sort of Nazi town in the late summer of 1936 President Roosevelt calls Jay Edgar Hoover who is the head of the FBI asking him to look into the activities of Nazis in the United States one of the first things that the FBI sets out to investigate is the German American w ultimately the FBI produces a thousand page report which really lays out some of the more outrageous aspects of this organization the prazi imagery the pro- Hitler sentiments the anti-Semitism all of it's there but Hoover was not terribly interested in taking this on why is Hoover sitting on his hands doing nothing with the Nazi fascist threat the answer is actually pretty simple it's because he was a rabid anti-communist the Communist Party of the United States is not a political party it is a way of life an evil and malignant way of life like many Americans Hoover thought well I don't really like fascism but I do like it's anti-communist credentials so people are tolerated organizations like the German ameran B that were explicitly anti-communist we stand beside you as Christian soldiers in your Valiant fight against Jewish communism there is a movement to stop hate speech and in facted New Jersey legislature passes the race liable law you can't liable somebody because of their race their religion their color this is in some ways a a novel Concept in law the problem with this is is that groups like the ACLU immediately become involved and raise the obvious constitutional objection of how can you possibly Outlaw speech that is offensive to a particular group for all of the kind of horror of the idea of pro-nazi forces acting in the United States it's really not clear that they were breaking any particular federal law that existed at that point by engaging in the activities they were engaging ultimately the big test for the race Lial law comes because of camp nordland the german-american boond camp in the state of New Jersey because of speeches that were defamatory towards the Jewish Community we know that the Jewish most concerned with maintaining his sprangle hold and the financial systems of the world ultimately there is a conviction of nine boond members for violating the race liable law but that's struck down by the New Jersey state supreme court in the end the ACLU publishes a pamphlet defending their decision to defend the free speech of Nazis this is the double-edged SW of the First Amendment it is a fundamental American right to be allowed to say horrible things but the protection of the right to be hateful is what allows these ideas to proliferate in early 1937 a Chicago newspaper the Chicago Daily Times decides it's going to send reporters Incognito into the world of the German American Bond John and James metf were brothers born in Germany were both reporters for the Chicago Daily Times They were assigned to go undercover and infiltrate the bond they had German birth certificates and they could speak German so they had the perfect credentials John had a little toothbrush mustache if that might be a little familiar and looked the part he approaches the Bund headquarters in New York and works his way into the organization metf goes by an alias Helmut obber vendor and very quickly ingratiates himself with Fritz Kun because he's willing to dedicate himself to the cause within just a few months John metf becomes Coon's right-hand man and dispatches metf as a personal Emissary to local and Regional Boon chapters so metf travels all over the country visiting with various boond leaders and all along the way he's filing reports back to his paper everything from how a local Boon chapter might be completely Ina that were more interested in having drinking parties than than politics to Boon leaders scoffing at Coon's Authority all the way to individual Rank and file members talking about their Ambitions to to actually overthrow the US government and establish a Nazi [Music] dictatorship in September of 1937 the Chicago Daily Times drops the bomb they publish a series of articles on the German American Bund and they don't hold [Music] back these stories came out one after the other these exposes of how the Nazis and America are trying to undermine the American people the American government and the American way of life The metf Whispers inside the Boon's Inner Circle of something called derog which translates to the day the day when the Boon believes there will be a fascist revolution in the United States this would be the day that there would be an Insurrection they would take over the United States government and the swastic would fly above the capital the metf scoop really galvanizes public opinion opinion against the Bo and Congress begins to enter the discourse about what should be done about subversive groups in the United States Congressman Martin D Jr becomes the chairman of what will come to be called the house unamerican Activities Committee or who act tactics of communist Nazis and fascists are now endangering this country America must wake up to its danger to whom were you sending these letters I sent that to a list of approximately 100 50 people hak was very much in the mindset that there were an array of subversive organizations that needed to be investigated and that a lot of them actually were on the right John metf is the first witness called before the committee and there's incredible images of him giving Martin D and the committee the Nazi salute from the witness table and then he showed them photos of how the boond Was preparing some sort of military coup what were we going to be as a nation because what the Bund wanted America to be was a nation that was proud of its white Aryan past but there were people who stood up for the right cause who stood up for what we think of as American ideals Dorothy Thompson had interviewed Hitler in 1931 and was very clear about the risks that he posed and not just to Europe the classical End of All Pure democracy is the popular tyrants and incidentally all successful tyrants throughout history have been popular Idols in 1938 alone she gave more than 50 speeches about the importance of democracy and fighting Fascism and her radio broadcasts reach more than 5 million people the Tyrant said Mai MOS is the of the people as their Champion against the rich and aristocratic as the incorporation of the people's will they must be made to feel that through him in his person they are actually ruling this was the formula of Caesar and it's the formula of Salin musolini and Hitler her point was never be complacent her point was this can happen anywhere and you have to be on your guard on November 9th 1938 in hundreds of cities across Germany we have Crystal KN KN of the broken glass for two nights Jewish businesses are destroyed [Music] their homes rans sacked synagogues are [Music] burned 30,000 Jewish men are rounded up and sent to concentration camps Americans now knew that Nazi Germany wasn't just a normal country with a fascist dictator it was a malevolent force in the aftermath of CST the Boon's tactics are very provocative in the eyes of most Americans but rather than disappear from the public eye the german-american boond decides on mass provocation by the end of 1938 Bund made it clear that what they wanted to do was to show that we are popular that we are relevant that we're fulfilling our ambition of making german-americans into good Nazis and Americans at the same time how can we do that let's have a [Music] rally people appealed to May LaGuardia and saying how can you allow this to happen LaGuardia said they have every right to do it and he wasn't going to St stand in the way it was the first amendment in those days just like today New York had the largest Jewish population in America of course there have been fascist demonstrations before all around the country but the bun was going to Madison Square Garden in the center of the Jewish American World over 20,000 bundists were admitted inside the Garden that night outside were tens of thousands of anti- bundists wanting to get [Music] [Music] inside [Music] attention I pledge undivided 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 because of the visibility of this event there had been a sort of General assumption that the Boon speakers would refrain from their most hateful speech especially against Jews but that proves not to be the case the Jew is a thousand times more dangerous to us than all the others by reason of his parasitic nature also present that night was the indomitable Dorothy Thompson who was curious that this rally was taking place and amidst 22,000 fascists she started shouting bunk Dorothy Thompson didn't hold anything back she went there to Heckle she went there to cause a [Music] fuss there is footage of Dorothy being hustled out bodily thrown out of Madison's Garden inside the Gardon the final speaker is Fritz himself we love him for the enemies he has made ladies and gentlemen Mr Fritz ladies and gentlemen fellow Americans American Patriot if you ask what we are actively fighting for under our charam first a social just white Gentile who ruled United States [Music] second Gentile controlled labor union free from Jewish Moscow Direct the domination wait wait a 26-year-old Jewish plumber named Isidor greenbound can't stand what he's hearing and he runs onto the stage Stormtroopers grab him and are beating the hell out of him they could have killed him except the police came in and stopped the fight he be seated please one ftic don't making a difference ladies and [Applause] [Music] [Applause] gentlemen so the rally really comes to this this violent conclusion outside there's an almost riotous situation as protesters flash with the police and with boond [Applause] [Music] [Applause] members after the rally New York mayor LaGuardia was Furious that this thing had happened in his City so he called his district attorney Thomas Stewie and said we can't get Fritz scon for what he says but there's got to be another way to get him so his office started [Music] investigating Thomas dwey discovered that had been using money from the bun coffers to pay for his romances throughout his leadership of the boond Kun is maintained a network of Mistresses across the country and he's used some of these funds to not only pay for his personal expenses but also those of his lady friends the law books a would be American fura on charges of grand Len and forgery he's Fritz cun B leader and friend of Hitler but right now his chief task is to explain about some $14,000 he's accused of stealing from his followers Fritz is found guilty of embezzlement and tax evasion and he sentenced to 2 and a half to 5 years in prison as is sitting in Sing Sing prison he learns that Hitler has invaded Poland and War has now Broken Out In Europe for the second time in a generation debate is Raging all over the country about whether the US should even take sides in the war in Europe there was a coalition of unlikely bedfellows of people who wanted to keep the United States out of the war for different reasons there were big business interests there were pacifists and then there were Nazi sympathizers so all of these people formed this Coalition called America First and Charles Lindberg became their spokesperson I have been forced to the conclusion that we cannot win this war for England regardless of how much assistance we send that is why the America First committee has been formed Lindberg had first come into prominence in 1927 when he was the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic he's a true national hero and one of the most famous men in the world in this period at its peak in mid 1941 America First has 800,000 members Nationwide dwarfing any other nonpartisan political organization of the era the imminent danger of War lies in the action taken by President Roosevelt and his supporters I appeal to all Americans no matter what their viewpoint on the war may be to unite behind the demand for a leadership in Washington that stands squarely upon American tradition Lindberg not only criticizes the Roosevelt administration but also begins to really flirt um in pretty overt ways with uh pro- Hitler sentiments with anti-Semitism here at home and becomes kind of uh the hero of the to some degree anti-war and to some degree pro-hitler right another belief of the Boon was that after the fascist Revolution after d to some leader will be swept into power on the Boon's political platform now who is this leader Fritz might be one option but the name that is whispered more commonly is Charles Lindberg there was talk of him running for president and in fact the America First committee was organizing itself into a political party when Pearl Harbor happened and everything you know unfurled [Music] differently Japan attacks Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 and the US declares war against Japan few days later Hitler and Germany declare war on the United States with the United States entering the war you begin to get new laws uh that require uh non citizens in the United States to register with the federal government you get laws like the Smith Act which says that any group that advocates for the violent overthrow of the US government can be subject to a whole host of criminal penalties so after he's released from prison was then convicted a second time and given a second jail sentence for never having registered as a foreign agent of the German government and then in 1945 he stripped of his citizenship and sent back to Germany the Bund as an organization collapsed but of course the people who were in The boond didn't then disappear the end of the boond just meant that they Blended back into American Life they go on to run businesses they go on to be doctors and dentists and police Chiefs so when we say a group has disappeared in a lot of ways that means nothing because until the ideas are actually gone it's still there it's the ideas that matter fritzon tapped into something that was unfortunately I wouldn't say just part of the American makeup but part of human makeup the part that we don't like to look at America triumphantly wins the second world war which justifies a sense of Pride and recognition of sacrifices made by Americans to defeat Nazism but there's not so much a Reckoning with the ideology that had motivated organizations like the Bund those questions go unasked and unanswered after World War II there's this huge wish to Simply forget about the fractious politics of the 1930s to think that groups like The Boon were something that couldn't possibly present a serious threat to American democracy it was unlikely that an avowedly pro-german organization was going to become the vehicle through which fascism came to America but it doesn't mean that that can't or won't happen the history of the german-american Bund reminds us that fascism is ultra nationalist in other words there's no such thing as foreign fascism fascism is always [Music] homegrown next time stewardesses were glamorous it just looked like the world was theirs and I wanted that that life but no other job offered as much Freedom with such a high cost of Conformity these were not women who were setting out to break barriers for women they just wanted to keep their jobs fly with me next time on American Experience made possible in part by Liberty Mutual [Music] Insurance [Music]

Channel: American Experience | PBS

Views: 1,240,191

Keywords: history documentary, us history, german american bund, fritz kuhn, camp siegfried, camp nordland, german gardens, world war II, antisemitism, fascism, charles coughlin, henry ford, charles lindbergh, dorothy thompson, rabbi stephen wise, john metcalfe, james metcalfe, first amendment, madison square garden rally, america first, Arnie Bernstein, Sarah Churchwell, Beverly Gage, Bradley W Hart, William Hitchcock, Leah Wright Rigueur, Steven J Ross, far right

Id: g9HmV_-EE8g

Length: 53min 20sec (3200 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2024