Page 33 MARTHA GLASER The German-American Bund in New Jersey During the economic depression of the nineteen-thirties, many Americans lost faith in their traditional economic and political system and turned for guidance to totalitarian ideologies of the left or the right. On the right, a host of pro-Nazi and pro-Fascist organizations, perhaps numbering as many as eight hundred, blamed America's troubles on the Jews, Catholics, Negroes, Bolsheviks, and other entities in their demonology. The Amnerika-Deutscher Volksbund, or German-American Bund as it was more commonly known, was one of these. It differed from most of the others in that it was strongly foreign in its loyalties; indeed, it was "for all intents and practical purposes the American Section of the Nazi Party" of Germany. The Bund received extensive attention. However, this attention was more uniformly hostile than that focused on other rightist groups because the Bund's frank loyalty to the Hitler regime came at the very time when the American public was becoming alarmed about the role of Nazi Germany in world affairs.' New Jersey and New York were the two states where the Bund was most active and had most of its membership.2 But it was in New Jersey that popular hostility to the Bund and to other pro-Nazi or pro-Fascist groups was most frequently translated into action. The story of the German-American Bund in New Jersey thus exemplifies how local and state police powers, ordinances and legislation can harass any group obnoxious to the overwhelming majority of the community. Furthermore, the hounding of the Bund in New Jersey had its counterpart in the treatment the Bund received at the hands of the federal government. The fate of the Bund in New Jersey, making due allowance for 1. Louis L. Gerson, The Hyphenate in Recent American Politics and Diplomacy (Lawrence, Kans., 1964), 116; John A. Hawgood, The Tragedy of German-America (New York, 1940), 305. 2. New York Times, Apr. 4, 1939, Martha Glaser formerly taught history at Union College, Cranford. 33
Page 34 34 NEW JERSEY HISTORY differences in specifics, can be seen as paralleling the relationship between the Bund and the federal government. The struggle between the Bund and the State of New Jersey was modified by the entry of a third party. The American Civil Liberties Union took a keen and active interest in protecting what it considered to be the legal rights of the German-American Bund. Although the ACLU had no sympathy for Nazi ideology, it decided that the principle of protection of civil rights was more important than its antipathy to Nazi views. The roots of the Bund go back to 1924 when the Teutonia Society, a small pro-Nazi group, formed in Chicago. This organization died in 1932, but in the following year most of its members formed The Friends of the New Germany. Heinz Spanknoebel, later a general in the S.S., was its first leader. The members of the new organization, largely German nationals, had to affirm that they were not Freemasons, were of Aryan extraction and "free of Jewish or colored taint."s As early as 1933, rallies of The Friends (and later of the Bund) were characterized by a pattern that soon became familiar: the meetings frequently occasioned popular riot, and the riots were usually instrumental in having legal restraints placed on the German-American group. The Friends, for example, called a meeting on October 16, 1933 in Newark's Schwabenhalle on Springfield Avenue, at which Spanknoebel was to speak. The eight hundred members and sympathizers inside the hall were outnumbered by the estimated one thousand opponents outside, who tossed stench bombs through the windows. It took almost two hundred police and their aides to control the riot. The only person arrested was Spanknoebel's bodyguard, who was found to be carrying a lead-filled rubber hose. One week later the Police Chief of Elizabeth forbade a planned Friends rally in that city, giving the Newark riot as the reason for his action.4 Feeling against The Friends and similar groups was soon reflected in the New Jersey Legislature. In 1934 Assembly Bill 272 was introduced by John Rafferty of Middlesex County and Samuel Pesin of Jersey City to prevent such groups as The Friends from flooding New Jersey with Nazi propaganda, in this decade 3. Arthur L. Smith, Jr., The Deutschtum of Nazi Germany and the United States (The Hague, 1965), 61-63, 71; Alton Frye, Nazi Germany and the American Hemisphere, 1933 -1941 (New Haven, 1967), 32-33, 62; O. John Rogge, The Official German Report (New York, 1961), 126; U.S. House of Representatives. Special Committee on Un-American Activities. Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities. Public Hearings Before the Special Committee on Un-American Activities. 73d. Cong., 2nd Sess., Vol. I, 55; Vol. II, 311. Hereafter cited as McCormack Committee. 4. New York Times, Oct. 17, 22, 1933.
Page 35 THIE GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND IN NEW JERSEY 35 when millions of leaflets and books from Germany found their way into the United States. The Rafferty bill passed the Assembly on April 16, 1934. Roger N. Baldwin of the ACLU, claiming the bill outlawed "all controversy," in a letter to the New Jersey Friends of the ACLU asked its members to urge the Senate to reject the bill. Perhaps ACLU lobbying, as well as editorials hostile to the bill in many New Jersey newspapers, caused the proposed measure to die in committee in the Senate.5 An intensification of the rally-riot-restriction cycle took place in 1934. As The Friends arrived on May 21 by buses from New York to attend a meeting in Irvington, they were attacked with bricks and bats. The bus drivers fled, leaving the stranded members to make their unassisted way to Newark. There, they were again attacked and sought refuge in police headquarters, from which the police escorted them to the Hudson County line. The violence in Irvington prompted the ACLU to state, "There has not been a Nazi meeting of any size in the metropolitan area of New York that has not provoked counter-demonstrations amounting in instances to riots." Officials in many cities in New Jersey agreed and took precautions. The Director of Public Safety of Newark (as of Elizabeth previously) banned all meetings of The Friends. In Union City the threat of counter-attacks by various war veterans caused the city to stop The Friends from meeting. Soon after, Union City, North Bergen and West New York forbade The Friends to parade on German Day wearing the Nazistyle uniforms they preferred, to give the Nazi salute, or to wear the swastika.0 The Friends, represented by the ACLU, responded to these restrictions by requesting Vice-Chancellor John O. Bigelow to enjoin Union City from interfering with the organization. Arthur Garfield Hays, the ACLU attorney, told the Court that as a Jew he felt it better to have'hatred openly expressed rather than forced underground; but attorney for the defendants claimed The Friends' speeches and songs were inflammatory and libelous, and that its members sang, "Our greatest joy will come when Jewish blood flows through the streets." The Court decided that the constitutional rights of free speech and assembly did not apply to corporations; and that, furthermore, The Friends, by following 5. Bergen Evening Record (Hackensack), Apr. 21, 1934; Richard O'Connor, The German American, An Informal History (Boston, 1968), 443; John Roy Carlson, Under Cover (New York, 1943), 125-27; R. Baldwin, Apr. 19, 1934, American Civil Liberties Union Archives, microfilm, N.Y. Public Library, volume 750. Cited hereafter as ACLU, with volume number. Telegram, Apr. 30, 1934, ACLU, 750; Jersey Observer (Hoboken), Apr. 21, 1934; HeraldNews (Passaic), Apr. 23, 1934; Westerfield Leader, Apr. 25, 1934. The Flanders Hall Publishing Co. of Scotch Plains published some Nazi propaganda in the state. 6. New York Times, May 22, 23, 24, June 2, 8, 12, 1934; Travis Hoke, Shirts! A Survey of the New "Shirt" Organizations in the United States Seeking a Fascist Dictatorship (New York, 1934), an ACLU pamphlet. ACLU, 718.
Page 36 August Klapprott, Eastern District leader of the Bund, in uniform. Courtesy of the Newark Public Library. a settled policy of fomenting illegal acts, had forfeited its right to relief in equity. In spite of the Eastmead decision, The Friends continued to meet regularly in towns such as Guttenberg and Irvington.7 When the legislature reconvened in 1935, Assemblyman Rafferty returned to the attack, reintroducing his measure to limit the activities of pro-Nazi groups. Despite efforts of the ACLU to stimulate a letter-writing campaign among its members and friends in order to rouse opposition in the Assembly, the measure passed the lower house on March 14 with only one negative vote. Terming the bill "more sweeping in its threat to free speech than any measure ever passed in any state," the ACLU then sought to block passage in the Senate, which had buried the measure in the previous, session. One ACLU correspondent expressed pessimism about the possibility of again defeating the Rafferty bill in the upper house. "The Senate seems to be," he wrote, "... a little afraid that Jewish voters will think they [the senators] are pro-Nazi if they defeat the bill," and added that some Jews believed the measure would "help them against vicious Nazi propaganda." Confirming his analysis, the Senate passed the Rafferty bill on April 9, 1935, with but one dissenting vote. The new law made it a misdemeanor to print or utter any statement "which in any way in any part thereof, incites, counsels, promotes, or advocates hatred, 7. New York Post, June 25, 1934; New York Times, June 26, 1934; The American League of the Friends of the New Germany of Hudson County v. Lewis B. Eastmead et al., 116 N.J. Eq. (1934).
Page 37 THE GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND IN NEW JERSEY 37 violence, or hostility against any group or groups of persons residing or being in this State, by reason of race, religion or manner of worship."8 Already the Friends had begun to be the object of Congressional attention. In 1933 Representative Samuel Dickstein of New York had used his chairmanship of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization to investigate Nazi activities in the United States. Then, on January 3, 1934, he offered a resolution to appoint a committee to investigate Nazi and subversive propaganda. Supported by the AFL, veterans' organizations, and Representative Frederick Lehlbach of New Jersey, the measure overwhelmingly passed the House on March 20. The Committee, popularly called the McCormack Committee, after its chairman, John McCormack (D.-Mass.) early concerned itself with the activities of The Friends in New Jersey. The organization had established two camps in the state, one at Mountain Lakes and another at Griggstown, the latter named Willie und Macht. Testimony before the Committee by Hugo Haas, the director of Willie und Macht, revealed that the camp had about 176 boys between the ages of eight and sixteen in residence. The campers spoke German almost exclusively and wore uniforms of brown shirts and black ties. They were told to be guided by "the Hitler philosophy." Widespread fear of pro-Nazi activities resulted in the recommendation of the McCormack Committee that propaganda agents of foreign governments be required to register as such.~ Beset by all levels of government, the Friends of the New Germany, meeting at Buffalo, New York in March, 1936, changed its name to the AmerikaSDeutscher Volksbund and announced as its goal the combatting of "the Moscowdirected madness of the Red world-menace and its Jewish bacillus carriers." Fritz Kuhn, a former Freikorps member and former chemist for the Ford Motor Company, was chosen Fuehrer of the Bund and its subsidiaries, the Ordnungs Dienst (Storm Troopers), the German-American Business League (DKV), and the A.V. Publishing Company.'0 The Bund's membership at about this time was estimated to be between five thousand and sixty-five hundred persons, although Kuhn claimed a membership of two hundred thousand. Germany had ordered all German Nazis out of The Friends in 1934, and all German nationals, including those with first American citizenship papers, out in 1935, but these orders were never completely carried 8. S. Puner to T. McCampbell, Mar. 8, 1935, ACLU, 846; J. Bebout to S. Puner, Mar. 22, Apr. 8, 1935, ACLU, 846; Press release, Apr. 10, 1935, ACLU, 846; New Jersey, Laws of 1935, Ch. 151, Z2a. 9. New York Times, July 12, 16, Aug. 8, Oct. 21, 1934; U.S. Congressional Record, 73d Cong., zd Sess. Vol. 78, part 1, 13, 4934-36, 4941, part 5, 947; McCormack Committee, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., Vol. I, 76-77, 91. 10. New York Times, Apr. 1, 1936; Harold Lavine, Fifth Column in America (New York, 1940), 158-59.
Page 38 38 NEW JERSEY' HISTORY out. The orders were given to counter growing dislike in the United States for Nazi activities here. Nevertheless, the Bund's membership, mostly workingclass first-generation immigrants, remained in large part alien. To have eliminated the alien element would have meant dissolving the Bund. Similarly, the German Foreign Office, in response to American complaints through diplomatic channels of Bund ties to German agencies, ordered that all ties to the Bund be broken off. The effect of this order was somewhat undermined by the subsequent visits to Germany of Kuhn and dozens of other Bund members." Increased anti-German sentiment in the United States was at least partially attributable to Bund activities. Public opinion polls in the years from 1935 through 1939 show that Germany was one of the least-liked European countries, and that a majority of Americans thought Nazis in this country a menace. No less a person than Hans Dieckhoff, the German ambassador to the United States, soon wrote to Berlin that the Bund was harming the German cause here.12 By 1937 the Bund had become very visible indeed. In January of that year Dickstein, who was called "the ghetto Representative in Congress" by the Bund, introduced a resolution in Congress to investigate un-American activities. A revised form of the resolution, introduced by Martin Dies of Texas, passed the House in May, 1938. Dickstein was one of those who spoke in favor of Dies' resolution, calling the attention of the House to the opening of Camp Nordland in Andover, Sussex County, New Jersey the week before. He pointed out that--an adumbration of disaster the Bund camp was located near an ammunition dump and powder plant. New Jersey Congressman J. Parnell Thomas, Republican of Sussex, noted that New Jersey State Senator William Dolan, a Democrat, had aided the Bund in buying Nordland and that the Democratic Township Committee of Andover had granted Nordland a liquor license. Dickstein's reply was to call for Dolan's impeachment.'a Camp Nordland was made to order to rouse anti-Bund feeling. The camp opened on July 18, 1937, for the purpose of filling "an ever-felt void in the lives of all christian German Americans." Opening exercises were led by New 11. New York Times, Apr. 1, 1936; Frye, 46, 62-63, 82; Donald S. Strong, Organized Anti-Semitism in America (Washington, 1941), 33-34; New York Herald-Tribune, July 10, 1942; U.S. House of Representatives. Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States. Hearings Before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities. 76th Cong., 3d Sess., Executive Hearings, IV, 1526-27. Hereafter cited as Dies Committee. 12. Joachim Remak, "Friends of the New Germany," Journal of Modern History, XXIX (Mar., 1957), 40; Hadley Cantril, Public Opinion, 1935-1946 (Princeton, 1951), 266, 948-49;. Leland V. Bell, "The Failure of Nazism in America: The German American Bund, 1936 -1941," Political Science Quarterly, LXXXV (Dec., 1970), 591. 13. Congressional Record, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., Vol. 81, part 7, 7629, 7633, 7635-36.
Page 39 Members of the Ordnungs Dienst parading at Camp Nordland, July, 1939. AP photo, courtesy of the Newark Public Library. Celebration of the first anniversary of Camp Nordland, July, 1938. Courtesy of the Newark Public Library.
Page 40 40 NEW JERSEY HISTORY Jersey Bund leader August Klapprott, and by Dr. Salvatore Caridi of the blackshirted Union City Italian World War Veterans. The ceremonies included the singing of "Deutschland Uber Alles," the flying of the Nazi flag, heiling before a large picture of Hitler, and marching in uniforms closely resembling those of the Nazis in Germany. These sensational events were given wide coverage in the press and remarked upon in Congress. Representatives Mary Norton of Jersey City and Fred A. Hartley of Kearny asked for a Federal investigation of Camp Nordland. J. Parnell Thomas demonstrated an interest, too, as did various veterans' organizations. Meeting in Newark, the veterans asked that the Department of Justice and the State Attorney General and Legislature investigate Nordland.'4 The number of visitors to the camp was very large. During the week the campers were children, but on weekends they were joined by adults. On one -'occasion that summer, eighteen thousand persons were reported to be at the camp. That all these people were strongly pro-Nazi may be doubted. Testimony taken by the Un-American Activities Committee in 1940 revealed that, "a nice time, good eats, and so forth," could be the attractions for some. One witness stated, "You see I go to Camp Nordland like to any other lake or place for the weekend. My wife like it. It was a nice big place so we went there... Oh, we went boating and then we lay down in the sun and sometimes we were sitting and looking at the people there." Of course, by 1940 memories may have become selective about why one had gone to Nordland.1 -In addition to rising congressional hostility, the Bund found itself the object of continuing animosity in New Jersey. In Bergen County Naturalization Court, on November 19, Judge J. Wallace Leyden warned that he would deny citizenship to any applicants who were Bund members, because he believed Bund membership to be incompatible with the oath of loyalty to the United States. Judge Leyden's stance anticipated Federal contentions still many years in the future. The Bergen Evening Record applauded Leyden's action and hoped that it would be "thoroughly digested in Carlstadt, Hackensack, Paramus, Union City, Hanover, and the other foci of the nut devotees of the nutty European tyrannies." The Bund held a rally in Hackensack, where the audience heard Klapprott, Kuhn, and other Bund notables attack Leyden, but the Judge won high praise from several posts of the American Legion and from the Bergen County Police Chiefs. In Congress Dickstein was so inspired by Judge Leyden's 14. Philadelphia Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter, May 20, 1937; New York Times, July 23, 25, 27, 1937; Bergen Evening Record, July 21, 23, 1937. 15. New York Times, Sept. 27, 1937; Dies Committee, 76th Cong., 3d Sess,, Executive Hearings, IV, 1783, 1777.
Page 41 THE GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND IN NEW JERSEY 41 pronouncement that he proposed a law to deny naturalization to members of any organizations advocating dictatorship.'6 The 1933 cycle of sensational meetings, accompanied by rioting and attempts to circumscribe The Friends' activities, was repeated in 1938 in connection with the Bund. Gerhardt Wilhelm Kunze was loudly booed and drowned out at a March meeting in Trenton. In Elizabeth, on September 16, a scheduled Bund meeting was halted when thousands of anti-Bundists prevented anyone from entering the meeting hall. Shortly after, in Union City, a speech by Fritz Kuhn was cancelled on the advice of the police, as over one thousand anti-Bundist demonstrators rioted and threw bricks. An ACLU investigation of this last incident found that the police could have adequately protected Kuhn from the mob. The ACLU decided to offer its help to the Bund but was told it was not needed, since the disorders "don't seem to unduely (sic) excite neither leadership nor following of our movement."1 Perhaps the Bund's leaders thought the violence accompanying their activities would eventually work to their advantage. After all, the Nazi Party in Germany habitually fomented disorders and violence in order to attract attention and new support, and to intimidate its opponents. An incident in New Milford suggests that at that time the Bund did not consider violence detrimental. On SOctober 10, a Bund meeting was held at the home of Caroline Meade. Hundreds of opponents appeared, throwing stones, apples, flowerpots, and other available missiles. The sole personal injury was sustained by Miss Meade's husband, who either slipped or was thrown into a nearby pond. Caroline Meade, when questioned about the wild night at her home, claimed she found the disorder positively gratifying because it showed "just what is wrong with democracy." The riots would prove "the Jews are a menace and that you can't have a democracy with them around." The ACLU quickly concluded that the eighty police and firemen of New Milford protected the Meade premises only after property damage was inflicted. The ACLU charged the mayor and council of the town were evading their responsibilities when they requested that no more Bund meetings be held, in the interests of public safety.18 Nor did the situation at Nordland remain quiet. The Andover Township 16. Bergen Evcning Record, Nov. 19, 22, 29, Dec. 2, 29, 31, 1937; Congressional Record, 75th Cong., 2d Sess., Vol. 82, part 1, 290. 17. New York Times, Mar. 26, Oct. 3, 1938; R. Baldwin memo, ACLU, 2043; C. Nicolay to R. Baldwin, Oct. 8, 1938, ACLU, 2043; R. Baldwin to German-American Bund, Oct. 4, 1938, ACLU, 2043. --- - -- 18. Bergen Evening Record, Oct. 11, 1938 A llinger to F. McKee, Oct. 20, 1938,JACLU, 2043; Minutes of N.J. Civil Liberties Union Executive Board Meeting, Oct. T,-19, ACLU, 2039; NJCLU to ACLU, Nov. 1, 1938, ACLU, 2039. '. i
Page 42 42 NEW JERSEY HISTORY Committee, responding to increased local opposition to the camp, passed an ordinance requiring a $500 license fee for shooting galleries. Nordland owned the only one.19 This unusually high fee was but the first of many legal maneuvers designed to hinder Nordland. Among the camp's attractions were its Nazi ideology, ceremonial and uniforms-and its sale of large quantities of beer. Uniforms and beer became the next targets of the opposition. On June 26, 1939, an amendment to "An act concerning propaganda inciting race, color or religious hatred" passed the New Jersey Legislature. The new law, aimed more specifically at the Bund than the Rafferty hate law had been, made it illegal to appear in public in a uniform "similar to that worn by the military... of a foreign State, nation or government," or to allow the same on one's premises. On July 12, violation was made a misdemeanor." The attack on Nordland commenced when Andover, on complaint of local veterans' groups, began hearings on whether to renew the camp's liquor license. It was decided to deny the license on the grounds that August Klapprott, the actual license holder and Eastern District leader of the Bund, had violated the Rafferty hate law and the anti-uniform law just passed. The case meanwhile was taken to the New Jersey State Alcoholic Beverage Commission, where testimony showed that Klapprott was the front for Nordland and therefore responsible for the camp's violations. Commissioner D. Frederick Burnett rejected Klapprott's claim that the swastika and Nazi salute seen at Nordland originated with the American Indians, stating that, "If I see a swastika... I think about Germany." In September Commissioner Burnett upheld Andover's refusal of a permanent liquor license to Klapprott because, "Licensed premises will not be tolerated as hotbeds in which to incubate hate and inculcate subversion." The New Jersey Supreme Court refused to review this decision.2' Hostile publicity continued to expose Bund activities, although the Bund, its membership declining from a high estimated at twenty-five thousand, probably began to doubt the value of notoriety. The Newark Ledger, which gave much space to stories and editorials about the Bund, was sued by it for almost $2,000,000 in damages, but the complainant failed to appear for the trial. More harmful than unfriendly publicity was the indictment in New York of its Fuehrer, Fritz Kuhn. He was accused of taking thousands of dollars from his organization's treasury. Kuhn's trial showed that he was more devoted to high lnga womanizing than he was to the iind. These revelations and Kuhn's conviction proved to be very damaging to the unity of the Bund; several posts split into factions as a result.22 19. New York Times, July 1, 1938. 20. New Jersey, Laws of 1939, Ch. 210, la, Ic. 21. New York Times, June 30, July 15, 25, 26, Sept. 14, Nov. 5, 1939. -e-York Tis,7ar 39; PM (Nwew York),J;ii$ y11940... -
Page 43 THE GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND IN NEW JERSEY 43 When Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey had the Bund under investigation for sales tax evasion, the organization tried to move out of New York City and make City Hall Tavern, in Union City, its new national headquarters. Union City refused to provide a home for the would-be refugees. The mayor called a meeting to discuss ways of keeping out these unbidden guests, a tactic the ACLU charged smacked of vigilantism. Mayor Thourot could not prevent the Bund's using the tavern as one of its meeting places, but he retaliated by putting signs nearby reading, "Love America or Leave America." Two years later the tavern owner was denied a liquor license because of Bund activities on his premises, and in 1943 he lost his citizenship.23 By 1940 Kuhn's conviction, the tense international situation, and the Rafferty and anti-uniform laws in New Jersey took their toll. Attendance at Nordland dropped sharply, and heiling, the use of the swastika and photos of Hitler were forbidden by the management. The lack of a liquor license did not completely prevent the sale of beer at Nordland, which was under investigation by the Dies Committee, and under surveillance by the sheriff at Andover, Denton Quick. The intense interest in Nordland was only partially attributable to the illegal flow of brew. There was also growing fear that Nordland and another Bund camp, Bergwald at Federal Hill in Bloomingdale, were too convenient to the New York-New Jersey water supplies, and that many of those frequenting the two camps might have jobs in nearby defense plants. Fear of sabotage arose from the desperate situation in Europe and from warnings from other sources as well. The Enemy Within, by Henry Landau, purported to tell "the true facts" about German sabotage, especially in New Jersey, before World War I. A series of articlesby Col. William. Donovan and Edgar Mowrer in The New York Times attribut te antastic Nazi successes in Europe~FoTiEI Columns, which, a poll showed, over 70 per cent of Americans believed had already been estahsed here by Germany. The Dies Committee manifested a special interest in the defense plant question, as did Sheriff Quick, who made a practice of taking down the license plate numbers of cars at Nordland. The Sheriff matched plates to owners and then sent their names to defense plants for checking.2' On July 4, 1940, before the sabotage issue came to a head, Sheriff Quick stood in front of a crowd of several thousand at Nordland, arrested several Bund leaders and issued warrants for the arrest of many more. They were 23. Newark Ledger, Oct. 19, 1939; R. Baldwin memo, Nov. 29, 1939, ACLU, 2134; New York Herald-Tribune, July 12, 1942; New York Daily News, July 19, 1941; New York Times, June 16, 1943. 24. New York Times, Aug. 6, 11, 20, 21, 22, 1940; Newark News, May 24, 1940; New York Journal and American, Sept. 11, 27, 1940; Henry Landau, The Enemy Within (New York, 1937).
Page 44 44 NEW JERSEY HISTORY charged with violaton of the anti-uniform and hate laws. The Sussex County Grand Jury had not yet handed down indictments when the fears of a repetition of the Black Tom and Kingsland explosions, described by Captain Landau, seemed to be realized. On September 12, 1940, a huge explosion ripped the Hercules Powder Plant at Kenvil, killing forty-two persons. It was immediately assumed by local authorities that the Bund was connected to the disaster. The next morning Sheriff Quick and assisting police raided Nordland. There they seized several stacks of anti-Semitic literature and a rifle with a telescopic sight. In this atmosphere of panic a member of the Andover Township Committee stated that if there had been no indictments on the anti-uniform and hate laws charges, "I'm mighty afraid that the good citizens of Sussex County would have taken the law into their own hands and gone in there with clubs." A total of ten officers of the Bund, including Klapprott and the organization's attorney, William V. Keegan, were indicted. Keegan ranted, "The real Fifth Column is Roosevelt and his Jewish bosses."25 The case was tried in Sussex County Court of Common Pleas before Judge John C. Losey, The defense in previous hearings argued that the constitutional guarantee of free speech was violated by New Jersey's hate law, and that the defendants opposed the Jews not on religious, but on racial grounds, racial separation being permitted by the United States Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson. Now, the ACLU filed a brief as a friend of the court asking for dismissal of the case for other reasons. The brief claimed that the United States was strong enough to withstand even the expression of "loathesome opinions" and that the language of the hate law was vague and sweeping. Judge Losey rejected the arguments of both the defense and the ACLU. The Judge stated that free speech was "never intended to constitute an absolute license to speak or publish anything one pleases." He continued that the police power of the state enables it to protect "the order, safety, health, morals and general welfare of society."'2 Keegan appealed to the federal courts, but was denied a hearing because he had not yet exhausted his remedies in the state courts. The ACLU remained in touch with Keegan and decided to draw up a new brief in the appeal. It experienced difficulty in finding a New Jersey attorney to do the necessary work. 25. New York Times, July 5, Sept. 14, Oct. 11, 1940; New York Herald-Tribune, Sept. 15, 1940; New York Daily News, Oct. 9, 1940. Ladislas Farago denies there is any evidence the Bund was res o sible for the explosion, and mentions the slight possibility the I.R.A. wasinvlve. ara o T se arne o tiejToiis ew York, 1971), 43-" " ~..~ 26. Defendant's brie, Sept. 1940, N.J. v. Klapprott et a;.ACLU, 2239; New York TImes, Dec. 1, 1940, Jan. 8, 1941.
Page 45 THE GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND IN NEW JERSEY 45 The brief was finally prepared mainly by New York lawyers, although it was signed by New Jersey attorneys.27 The defense of a group such as the Bund presented a problem to the ACLU. As far back as 1937 it had felt it necessary to issue a pamphlet entitled, Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis in America?, which explained that the ACLU must not defend progressive causes onl. Still, the defense of the Bund caused continued uneasiness. EancesMcKee,executive secretary of the New Jersey < Civil Liberties Union, wrote that while free speech must be defended, "it has seemed to me unfortunate that we could not take a stand against their [the Bund's] discrimination against Jews." She suggested that at the next Bund meeting the NJCLU carry placards reading, "The New Jersey Civil Liberties Union requests you NOT TO INTERFER (sic) with the CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES of free speech and assembly of these UN-AMERICAN NAZIS who wish to arouse persecution of our fine Jewish Citizens." She thus hoped to defend the Bund's civil liberties while at the same time airing her organization's distaste for Nazi views. Her suggestion was turned down.28 On December 5, 1941 the New Jersey Supreme Court found the Rafferty hate law in violation of Section 5, article 1 of the State Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This decision undoubtedly owed a great deal to the efforts of the ACLU, whose brief was closely followed in Chief Justice Brogan's opinion in this case. The Court found the Bund's ideas "revolting to any fairminded man" but not a danger to the state.29 Although both the Bund and the ACLU were successful in this instance, the Bund was already under attack from another quarter. On June 3, 1941 the State Legislature, by unanimous vote, repealed the charter of the GermanAmerican Bund Auxiliary, which owned Nordland, and ordered it to dispose of its property immediately. The Bund had been warned that its charter was in danger when David Wilentz, the Attorney General, requested the revocation some days before. Indeed, on May 30 at Wilentz's request, Sheriff Quick and a dozen local members of the American Legion raided and closed Nordland, as a place where the law was consistently violated. The Bund, in order to avoid losing the camp, transferred ownership to 217 individual Bund members only hours before the charter was revoked. Nevertheless, the property was seized 27. W. Keegan to ACLU, Jan. 10, 1940, ACLU, 2336; R. Baldwin to R. Green, Apr. 11, 1941, ACLU, 2336. 28. Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis in America? (New York, 1937), ACLU, 2043; F. McKee to R. Baldwin, Sept. 21, 1938, ACLU, 2039; R. Baldwin to F. McKee, Sept. 22, 1938, ACLU, 2039. 29. State of NJ. v. Klapprott et al., 127 N.J.L. (1941); J. Major to ACLU, Dec. 6, 1941, ACLU, 2336; New York Post, Dec. 5, 1941.
Page 46 Opening day festivities at Camp Nordland, July, 1937. Courtesy of the Newark Public Library. Uniformed young girls marching in the ceremonies opening Camp Nordland's second year, June, 1938. Acme picture, courtesy of the Newark Public Library.
Page 47 THE GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND IN NEW JERSEY 47 on June 10 over the protests of the new owners, who were told the seizure was justified by the needs of national defense. Two months later the tax valuation on Nordland was raised to over $63,000, while the United States Collector of Internal Revenue filed liens of several hundred dollars each in Jersey City against the Bund and Klapprott. The Bund was now a poor, hounded hulU whose membership was a fraction of what it had been only three years before. ) Again taking up cudgels for the Bund, the ACLU wrote to Governor Charles Edison protesting the Legislature's revocation of the charter and the order to the Bund to dispose of its property. Governor Edison replied that while he agreed with the revocation, he did not agree in the matter of property disposal. "My point of view is that a state may properly take away the charter of an undesirable corporation of any type, but has no right to take away property except for such obvious crimes.., as making illicit liquor with a distilling plant." In spite of the Governor's opinion, however, New Jersey Vice-Chancellor James Fielder, in Court of Chancery, Jersey City, refused to allow the new owners of Nordland to use the property. During the Second World War both Bergwald and Nordland were sold for private use by the Alien Property Custodian.a' In reality Nordland was a minor issue in the Bund's survival. As war drew closer, fears of sabotage by Bundists in the armed forces and defense plants gained strength. The result was that the Selective Service Act of September, 1940 provided that Bund members could not be hired by any defense industry to fill vacancies caused by induction into the armed forces. Bund members, along with Communists, were barred by Congress from WPA employment; even before passage of the Selective Service Act many Bundists and sympathizers were dismissed from such places as the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, The Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Kearny, and Wright Aeronautical Corporation of Paterson. The concern of the Dies Committee with the Bund continued to be strong. Special hearings were held in Newark on October 1 and 2, shortly after the Hercules Powder Plant explosion, to look into the question of defense plant employment. The Committee also tried to discover if any ties existed between the Bund and the Ku Klux Klan, since the Klan had held a meeting at Nordland on August 18," By the outbreak of war, therefore, Bund members and sympathizers found 30. New Jersey, Laws of 1941, Ch. 185; New York Times, May 24, 31, June 11, July 22, Oct. 1, 1941, Mar. 24, 1943; New York Daily News, Aug. 14, 1941. 31. ACLU to Governor Charles Edison, June 4, 1941, ACLU, 2336; C. Edison to Rev. J. Holmes, Sept. 15, 1941, ACLU, 2336; Kosh v. Quick, Aug. 4, 1941, ACLU Bulletin 983, ACLU, 2336. 32. New York Journal and American, Sept. 11, 1940; Newark News, Oct. 2, 1940; New York Times, Oct. 1, 1940.
Page 48 48 NEW JERSEY HISTORY their obs in eo ard, and the Bund was shorn of its corporate existence and property in New Tersey. Shortly after Pearl Harbor the offices of the Bund and its subsidiaries in New York were closed by the United States Treasury Department. In the following months, the FBI raided the homes of suspected enemy sympathizers, a category which included former Bunm ~s. One of these raids was at City Hall Tavern in Un itweeKapprottand about thirty other persons were in the midst of celebrating Hitler's birthday. Firearms, German money, and shortwave radio sets were seized.8 The main threat to Bund members did not arise from the seizure of contraband equipment, but from the expectation that the United States Department of Justice would try to revoke the citizenship of all naturalized Bund members on a wholesale basis. If successful, this step would have exposed all these persons to internment as enemy aliens and to deportation when the war ended. The ACLU continued to manifest concern for the rights of the-by-now defunct Bund. In the spring of 1942 counsel for the ACLU wrote to the Justice Department asking under what law it intended to try to revoke the citizenship of the Bundists. Later that year the ACLU was assured that while the Department intended to proceed with denaturalization cases, they would be tried one at a time. Evidence on the general nature of the Bund would be presented to prove each case individually.4 The federal government instituted proceedings against many members, including Klapprott; Ernst Christoph, leader of the Bund in Essex, Morris and Union Counties; Wilhelm Luedtke, leader of the Passaic Bund and former national secretary; the Reverend John Fitting, Hudson County leader who had once been the spiritual advisor to Gerhardt Hauptmann, and Keegan. By January, 1943, twenty-two other New Jersey Bund members were faced with denaturalization, the government claiming, with an indirect bow to Judge Leyden, that "the principles and practices of these organizations [the Bund and The Friends] are inimical to and in conflict with the oath to the petition for naturalization and the oath of allegiance to the United States of America." Six of the New Jersey defendants did not answer the charges. The fears of the ACLU that Bund membershipinnd itself would be consider groundsfor los. sitJzen k fin,laid to rest when Tlnited States District Judge William Smith ruled in Newark that Bund mem ersTip did not automatically mean revocation of citizenship.5 New York Journal and American, Apr. 15, 1942; New York World-Telegram, Apr. 21,T-42; The Sun (New York), Apr. 20, 1942. 34. C. Forster to J. Finerty, Apr. 1, 1942, ACLU, 2443; R. Baldwin memo, Dec. 11, 1942, ACLU, 2443. 35. Newark Star Ledger, July 8, 1942, Jan. 20, 1943; New York World-Telegram, Feb. 25, 1944. Kunze, born in Camden, N.J., was not subject to denaturalization proceedings. s
Page 49 THE GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND IN NEW JERSEY 49 SThe fate of the Bund and its members henceforth had little to do with New Jersey. The federal government undertook to prosecute Klapprott, Kunze, Luedtke, Fitting and others on charges of violation of the Alien Registration and Selective Service Acts. Convictions were obtained in 1942, upheld by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals in 1944, but finally reversed by the United States Supreme Court in Keegan v. United States, 325 U.S. 478 (1945). Kunze fled to Mexico after war broke out, and was returned here, where he pleaded guilty to espionage and sabotage. The goal of the German-American Bund was to organize the millions of Americans of German extraction into a pro-Nazi bloc. This goal was never attained. Although the German element leaned disproportionately toward isolationism, at least 90 per cent of German-Americans were opposed or indifferent to Nazism. O1 per cent at ost we i it1 o-INazi. Norcoudthe ~in find much support from other elements of American socity. True, it had connections with some extreme rightist groups on the fringes, but large, right-leaning organizations rejected the Bund. When Alton M. Young, a New Jersey Ku Klux Klan officer, was questioned about his promotion of the joint Klan-Bund meeting at Nordland, he confessed to the Dies Committee that he had made an awful fool of himself. The more respectable and higher class America First Committee was attractive to Bund members because it campaigned for an isolationist foreign policy, but the Committee refused any support from, or association with, the Bund.30 The German-American Bund remained an isolated, foreign group, vulnerable to the various pressures created by popular antipathy. Given its lack of roots in American society, protection of the organization and its members could derive solely from the principled determination to guarantee to all persons their constitutional rights. This determination the ACLU and the higher courts had. However, the decisions of the Supreme Courts of New Jersey and the United States, which might have shielded the Bund from crippling restrictions and prosecutions, came too late to benefit the organization. For years state and federal officials at many levels displayed unrelenting resourcefulness in ing new stratagems with whichtoundermine the Bund. 36. O'Connor, 439; Rogge, 86-87, 139-53, 166-69; New York lournal and American, Oct. 2, 1940; Wayne S. Cole, America First, The Battle Against Intervention, 1940-1941 (Madison, 1953), 116-17, 119, 124-26; Gerson, 111. Isolationism among various ethnic groups should not be confused with pro-Nazi or pro-Fascist sentiment. For a discussion of the connection between the German element and isolationism, see Samuel Lubell, The Future of American Politics (New York, 1951), 131-32, 136. Gerson, 120, gives information on this subject in New Jersey.