B. The Downfall of Fritz Kuhn and the German American Bund
The downfall of
Fritz Kuhn and the Bund began while Kuhn was basking in the glory of the MadisonSquareGarden
rally.As Kuhn was boasting about 20,000
Bund members operating out of forty seven American states, Martin Dies was
conducting his third HUAC investigation of the Bund in five years. But while dismantling
the Bund came about through a strong concerted effort between government
agencies, New York County District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey was at the forefront
of the effort.Dewey was riding the tide
of victory in a series of highly publicized trials and was aiming for a
gubernatorial or even presidential run.A victory against the Bund in another highly publicized trial was
exactly what he needed.On May 2, 1939, the New York
District Attorney’s office raided Bund headquarters at Third Avenueand Eighty-Fifth Street.After scrutinizing Bund records, they
presented to a grand jury facts warranting a trial against Kuhn on the charges
of grand larceny.In June 1939, Kuhn was
indicted for embezzling nearly $15,000 from the Bund.The money was allegedly used to pay for the
medical bills of Kuhn’s mistress, Virginia Cogswell, a former Miss America, and
to ship some of Cogswell’s furniture of from Los Angeles to New York and then
to Cleveland.
While leading Bund
detractors in the U.S.
government decried the organization as un-American, the methods they utilized
to destroy the Bund can be seen as dubious as best, if not un-American.Kuhn’s trial was besieged by questionable
legal practices and characterized by a marked lack of objectivity and
fairness.In the first of the rather
unusual court procedures, bail which was initially set at $5,000 was suddenly
raised to $50,000 without explanation.When the money was raised, it was then announced that the entire amount
would not be returned when Kuhn appeared in court because there was now a two
percent city tax on bail money.Thus,
win or lose, the Bund would be fined at least $1000.Moreover, after the trial began on November 9, 1939, the state
of New York
charged Kuhn with embezzling $5,641.24.The sum was later reduced to $4,424.22 and then reduced once again to a
mere $674.83.The presiding judge, Judge
James Garrett Wallace, also dismissed five of the ten counts of larceny as the
trial proceeded.Kuhn also faced “trial
by newspaper” as the press derided Kuhn and other Bund leaders in their
coverage of the trial.[1]
Kuhn’s defense
argued that the state not only erred on the amount allegedly taken, but there was
no evidence that any moneys were taken at all.Further, even if money had been taken, according to the Bund’s
constitution and by the organization’s interpretation, the Bundesfuhrer was
entitled to use Bund funds in any way he saw fit.Two of Kuhn’s top lieutenants had even
testified to the truth of this statement during the trial.In other words, there was no injured
party.Nevertheless, after eight and one
half hours of deliberation, the jury found Kuhn guilty on all the remaining
counts of larceny.On December 5, 1939, Kuhn was
sentenced to two and a half to five
years’ incarceration at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York.[2]The Bund cried out injustice, and while most
in America
were happy to see the last of Kuhn, there were others who questioned the lack
of objectivity in the trial.Wendell
Wilkie, the Republican candidate who ran against FDR in the 1940 presidential
election, wrote of the trial, “in the case of Kuhn…legal processes were abused
for political purposes.”[3]The American Civil Liberties Union
agreed.The ACLU declared that Kuhn’s
sentence was excessive and they expressed fears that this case could establish
the dangerous precedent of states utilizing criminal statutes for ulterior
political purposes.[4]
As Kuhn was carted
off to prison, he appointed Wilhelm Kunze as leader of the Bund and instructed
him to carry on Bund activities.However, the heyday of the Bund was over, and throughout the next two
years, the enemies of the Bund, utilizing every legal device available, attacked
the organization incessantly.[5]The group’s last hurrah came in August 1940
when the Bund held a massive joint Americanism rally at CampNordland
with the Ku Klux Klan.Although the New York Times reported that “Several
hundred sheeted Ku Klux Klan mingled with seven hundred Bund members,”[6]
the event was dominated by the Klan.No
Bund members were featured at the keynote speeches.The joint Klan rally was little more than a
pathetic attempt for the Bund to receive some “American” credibility by
associating with such a large and notorious white supremacist and extremist
group like the Klan.The Free American, as the Bund newspaper was
now officially called, cited the Klan rally as the start of a new cooperative
coalition between the Bund and other true white American groups.[7]It called for an alliance with other white
American groups to “maintain the reestablishment of the original American
institutions.”[8] In
reality however, most Bund members, including Kunze, disliked cooperation with
the Klan.Kunze’s opinions of
cooperation with the Klan mattered little for shortly after the event he and
other leaders were arrested for violating a 1935 hate law.Leaderless and practically bankrupt, the Bund
was all but extinguished as a political movement.
The Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor put an end to the Dies
investigation.It also marked the end of
the existence of the Bund as a functioning political movement.The official demise of the Bund came on December 11, 1941, three
days after Congress declared war on the Axis forces. The federal government seized
the Bund’s assets and arrested the remaining Bund leaders. From this point on
the German American Bund existed only in the American courts.With the outbreak of war, five million
Americans of German, Italian and Japanese descents were forced to register with
the State Department under the Alien Enemy Act.Federal agents arrested thousands of presumed “dangerous aliens.”Ten thousand German-Americans, of whom ten
percent were German American Bund members, were confined to internment camps
for the duration of the war.Of the more
than forty internment camps, the largest was in Crystal CityTexas.After serving his prison term, Kuhn was sent
to CrystalCity where he joined with hundreds of
other Bundists who continued their political activity behind prison walls.Unsure what to do with these radicalized
German-Americans, many were shipped to Ellis Island
and held in custody well into 1948.What
to do about Fritz Kuhn was another major dilemma faced by the American
government.Kuhn’s citizenship was
revoked and he became the first German internee to be deported to Germany
after the war.Kuhn died in poverty and
obscurity in Germany
in 1951.
[1]
Sokoll, “The German-American Bund as a Model for American Fascism,” 234.
[2] “Kuhn
is Sentenced to 2- 1/5 to 5
Years as a Common Thief,” New York Times,
6 December, 1939.
[3]
Wendell Wilkie, “Fair Trial,” The New
Republic, Vol. CII,18March, 1940, 371.
[4]
“Prosecutions Seen Sired by Politics,” New
York Times, 7 April, 1940.
[5] In
an attempt to close down the Bund camps, police in Newton, New Jersey
arrested Nordland camp leaders for violating a 1935 state law prohibiting
wearing foreign uniforms and spreading hate.All were found guilty and sentenced to twelve to fourteen months
imprisonment.The A.C.L.U. came to the
legal aid of the Bund.With the help of
A.C.L.U. attorney Arthur Garfield Hays, a Court of Appeals and Errors voided
the act as unconstitutional.HUAC
resumed its activities with more ludicrous charges.On the basis of their unfounded accusations,
Congress passed the Smith Act which required the Bund, the Communist Party and
a handful of other organizations to register as foreign agents.The law required the groups furnish the
federal government with membership lists and all financial records.Perhaps the most specific legal harassment
directed against the Bund came from the National Conscription Act of 1940, also
known as the “Draft Law.”The Draft Law
specifically prohibited Bund members to be employed in any defense related
industry.Legal fees drained Bund
coffers and by February 1940, the Bund was forced to foreclose on its camps in
the east with the exception CampNordland.Sokoll, “The German-American Bund as a Model
for American Fascism,” 253-259.
[6]
“Klan Has Americanism Rally at Bund Camp: Members of Both Orders Mingle in Jersey,” New York
Times, 19, August, 1940.
[7]Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter,Free American, 22 August, 1940.
[8]Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter, Free
American, 22 August,
1940.