Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Children were an important part of the Bund. Members sent their children to places such as
Camp Hindenburg in Wisconsin each summer to participate in a youth program the Bund
compared to boy and girl scouting. The camps were also gathering places for adult activities
everything from picnics to rallies. At these camps, children dressed in Nazi uniforms and drilled
military-style, with marching, inspections, and flag-raising ceremonies. Although the Bund
denied it, children were taught Nazi ideology.
The rise of the Bund stimulated considerable discussion in America. A few homegrown racist
groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Christian Enforcers, and the Silver Shirts (who sniped that
democracy was strictly kosher) found common ground with the anti-Semitic, whitesupremacist Bund. Most Americans, however, objected to the Bunds racist and undemocratic
ideology, and the fact that the Bund rose to prominence just as Hitler began expanding German
control in Europe raised other concerns. The Bund seemed to most Americans like a dangerous
foreign element, perhaps a secret Nazi fifth column in the United States. By 1938, the anti-fascist
movement broadened to encompass a diverse coalition ranging from communists to veterans
groups.
German Americans were torn. Some German clubs had spoken out against the Bund early on, but
others resisted public criticism of the organization, fearing that a divided German community
would be subject to further cultural erosion. But by 1938, anti-Bund sentiment had grown so
strong that German-American leaders concluded they either had to dissociate themselves
completely from the Bund or run the risk of being branded Nazis themselves. In 1938, the
Wisconsin Federation of German-American Societies issued a statement declaring it had
nothing whatsoever to do with the propaganda of racial hatred and religious intolerance fostered
by the Volksbund [literally, the peoples alliancethe German American Bund]. The federation
claimed that the average German American was strongly opposed to the Nazi doctrines of hate
and pleaded America, please take notice!
The Wisconsin federation backed up its words with action. In 1939, with the help of some in the
business community, it acquired the lease to Camp Hindenburg, renaming it Camp Carl Schurz
in honor of the 19th-century German-American political leader and turning it into its own youth
camp. Federation president Bernhard Hofmann stated that children would be instructed there in
Americanism and that there would be no flag but the stars and stripes. Froboese claimed the
site had been stolen, stating I am glad they had the decency to abandon the name Camp
Hindenburg. The Bund meanwhile obtained another site, just a mile to the south. These and
other rival German-American camps operated around Milwaukee for several years.
As the 1930s came to a close, various problems had begun to take a serious toll on the Bund. The
Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939 took the fire from the Bunds anti-communist rhetoric. By the
end of the year, Kuhn had been jailed for illegal use of organizational funds. Protests against the
Bund continued as well, including the bombing of its Chicago offices in July 1940. The Bund
developed a bunker mentality, holding its 1940 national convention secretly among three
Midwestern camps. Although the Bund continued to speak out against the Jewish boycott and the
tories and internationalists trying to provoke war with Germany, press coverage of the Bund
tapered off as the group declined and public fear of domestic Nazism waned. Hundreds of
dispirited Bund members returned to Germany.
When Hitler declared war against the United States four days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1941, Bund members found themselves stranded in enemy territory. Federal
agents seized Bund records. Many of its members faced denaturalization proceedings and
imprisonment. In a letter to the Bunds lawyer, Froboese, who had risen from Midwestern
regional leader to become the Bunds national leader just weeks earlier, offered his assessment of
the organizations brief but tumultuous existence:
True it is that we made mistakes especially in the field of what you call mental psychology.
Still, I would like to again emphasize, that I never looked upon the [Bund] as an offensive
organisation. From the beginning it was a defensive movement. We have never been a cause, but
instead have always been a reaction to a cause. We always stood with both feet on American
soil and in the final analysis of all of our doings, had only the very interests of this our America
at heart.
In 1942 Froboese was issued a subpoena to testify before a New York grand jury concerning
Bund activities. En route to New York, he got off the train in Waterloo, Indiana, and committed
suicide by laying his head on the tracks in front of an oncoming train.
German Americans continued to emphasize their American-ism after the Pearl Harbor raid. We
appeal to the public not to think that everything German must be Nazi, declared the Wisconsin
Federation of German-American Societies. We are not covering any aliens[and] will not
stand for anything that is against this country. In New York the Loyal Americans of German
Descent claimed that World War II throws a searchlight on German Americans and that
failure to distinguish between loyal Americans and Nazi sympathizers can create disaster. In
1942 American Legion magazine featured the article I Killed Americans in 1918, but Now I
Fight for America. The author called his US citizenship oath sacred and stated that
immigrants such as he must rally in defense of honor, family, and German-America. Indeed,
many German Americans served, fought, and died in defense of the United States during the war.
The emphasis on Americanism paid off, and a revival of anti-German hysteria did not occur.
There were some unfortunate incidents of violence and prejudice against Germans during World
War II, but they were not widespread. The extent of the governments internment of German
Americans during the war is hotly debated among scholars, but it was indisputably small in
comparison to the internment of Japanese Americans. Most Americans seemed to make a
distinction between what they believed were good Germans and bad Germans, and America
became a refuge for many German intellectuals fleeing Nazi rule. In the Pacific, one of the
troops favorite generals was German-born Walter Krueger, commander of the US Sixth Army.
Actress and USO entertainer Marlene Dietrich, also born in Germany, was even more popular
with the average GI than Krueger.
For all its prominence and bluster, the Bund involved only a small portion of the GermanAmerican community. Precise membership figures are not known. Estimates range from as high
as 25,000 to as low as 6,000. Historians agree that about 90 percent of Bund members were
immigrants who arrived in America after 1919. In Wisconsin, the most heavily German state, the
Bund seems to have mustered barely 500 members, which would rule out the possibility of
anywhere near 25,000 members nationwide.
Ironically, the Bunds goal of awakening Germans in America actually weakened German culture
where it had once thrived. The Holocaust, the lack of new immigrants after the war, and
suburbanization hurt, but the mere existence of the Bund had forced many German Americans to
emphasize the American part of their identities and sacrifice the German.