Friends of New Germany

{{Infobox organization

| name = Friends of New Germany

| formation = July 1933

| founder = Heinz Spanknöbel

| membership = 5,000–10,000

| dissolved = December 1935

| headquarters = New York City, United States

| predecessor = Free Society of Teutonia

| successor = German American Bund

}}

Friends of New Germany (FONG; {{Langx|de|Die Freunde des Neuen Deutschland}}, FDND), sometimes called Friends of the New Germany, was an organization founded in the United States by German immigrants to support Nazism and the Third Reich.

History

Nazis outside of Germany made considerable efforts to establish an American counterpart organization. Recruiting commenced as early as 1924 with the formation of the Free Society of Teutonia.

In May 1933, the Deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess, gave German immigrant and German National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) member Heinz Spanknöbel authority to form an American Nazi organization.{{cite web |url=http://www.traces.org/americanbund.html |title=American Bund - The Failure of American Nazism: The German-American Bund's Attempt to Create an American "Fifth Column" |author=Jim Bredemus |publisher=TRACES |access-date=2 March 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110518142641/http://www.traces.org/americanbund.html |archive-date=18 May 2011 |url-status=dead }} The result was the creation of the Friends of New Germany in July 1933, although at least one newspaper article from April 1933 discusses their existence and also states that they held a lease which expired in May of that year, indicating that the group existed before the official date. An article from the time states that they were mostly German war veterans who supported the current republican government of Germany at the time of writing.The Jewish Telegraph Agency, April 30th 1933. https://www.jta.org/1933/04/30/archive/local-nazis-to-continue-propaganda-kiep-sails-after-talk-to-hitlerites Colonel Edwin Emerson acted as a spokesman for the group in April of that year, but later denied this in December. Colonel Emerson claimed that he had no connection to the German government, despite also being a correspondent for no less than 36 German government-controlled papers.The Jewish Telegraph Agency, December 3rd 1933 https://www.jta.org/1933/12/03/archive/colonel-edwin-emerson-denies-he-is-official-spokesman-for-the-nazi-party-in-america

Assistance was given to its formation by the German consul in the City of New York. The organization took over the membership of two older pro-Hitler organizations in the United States, the Free Society of Teutonia and Gau-USA.{{cite journal |last1=Diamond |first1=Sander A. |title=The Years of Waiting: National Socialism in the United States, 1922–1933 |journal=American Jewish Historical Quarterly |date=1970 |volume=59 |issue=3 |page=265 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/23877858 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press, American Jewish Historical Society |jstor=23877858 |quote=In one swift move that was to have an enormous implication for the infant Nazi movement in America, Nieland over looked Teutonia and designated the New York City cell as a Department (Gau) of the NSDAP. By June, local units of the New York Gau were opened in Seattle, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Chicago. By September the American section of the NSDAP claimed over 1,500 members and even had a Women's Division in Chicago. Nieland's decision threw the Teutonia Group into a state of complete dismay. Not only had he dismissed Teutonia as the potential base on which Gau-USA could have been built but he also engendered a situation that caused Party members in the organization to withdraw since they wanted to be part of a "real" Nazi movement. (The official name of Nieland's organization was the Auslands Abteilung der Reichs Leitung der NSDAP. On the formation of a Women's Division, Application to Kameradschaft-USA, Martha Schnieder, Leiterin der Frauenschaft der Ortsgruppen Chicago, 1932 1935. RUckwanderer Materials, 3/140/177983; on the development of Gau-XJSA, cf. Alfred Erinn to Gauleitung Hamburg, Feb. 2, 1931. 3/147/185886.)}}Nazi Party/Foreign Organization:de:NSDAP/AO{{cite news |last1=William |first1=Chris |title=The German American Bund: The Enemy Within |url=https://www.militarytrader.com/militaria-collectibles/the-german-american-bund-the-enemy-within |newspaper=Military Trader/Vehicles |access-date=3 October 2021 |language=en |quote=Gau USA was a domestic offshoot of the German Nazi party and took orders from its superiors in the old Fatherland. Because of internal issues and a lack of adequate organization, Gau USA was ordered dissolved in 1933 when Hitler came to power. In April 1933, the Gau USA Detroit leader, Heinz Spanknobel, traveled to Germany and was granted permission to reorganize a new group in the US. The following July, he formed Die Freunde des Neuen Deutschland (FDND — The Friends of the New Germany). Many of the old Teutonia Club and Gau USA leaders were brought in to help run the new organization under the strict guidance of Spanknobel. However, due to poor management skills, overbearing direction, and political wrangling, Spanknobel left the US and was later replaced by Teutonia founder, Fritz Gissibl.}}{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Arthur L. |title=Kurt Ludecke: The Man Who Knew Hitler |journal=German Studies Review |date=October 2003 |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=597–606 |doi=10.2307/1432749 |jstor=1432749 |url=https://www-jstor.org/stable/1432749 |access-date=3 October 2021 |quote=Reichsschatzmeister to the Auslands - Abteilung der NSDAP |postscript=GSR-26-3-Ludecke |url-access=subscription }}{{Dead link|date=October 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} The new entity was based in New York City, but had a strong presence in Chicago, Illinois.

The Friends of New Germany was led by Spanknöbel and was openly pro-Hitler, and engaged in activities such as storming the German language newspaper New Yorker Staats-Zeitung with the demand that Nazi-sympathetic articles be published, the infiltration of other German-American organizations, and the use of propaganda to counter the boycott of businesses in the heavily German neighborhood of Yorkville, Manhattan.{{Citation |last=Hawkins |first=Richard A. |title=The internal politics of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights, 1933–1939 |journal=Management & Organizational History |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=251–78 |doi=10.1177/1744935910361642|year=2010 |s2cid=145170586 }}{{Citation |last=Hawkins |first=Richard A. |title = The internal politics of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights, 1933–1939|journal = Management & Organizational History|volume=5 |issue = 2|pages=251–278 |doi=10.1177/1744935910361642|year = 2010|s2cid=145170586 }} Members wore a uniform, a white shirt and black trousers for men with a black hat festooned with a red symbol. Women members wore a white blouse and a black skirt.

In an internal battle for control of the Friends, Spanknöbel was soon ousted as leader, and in October 1933 he was deported because he had failed to register as a foreign agent. In December 1933, Spanknöbel's bodyguard, Walter Kauf, was sentenced to six months in jail in New Jersey on charges of carrying a concealed weapon.{{Cite web |date=2015-03-20 |title=Kauf, Spanknoebel Aide, Gets Six-month Sentence |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/kauf-spanknoebel-aide-gets-six-month-sentence |access-date=2024-01-03 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}} The same month, the Friends's treasurer, Engelberg Roell, was jailed for one day for contempt of court after refusing to hand over the organization's membership to a federal grand jury investigating Nazi activities in the United States. Following his release, Roell agreed to cooperate with federal authorities.{{Cite web |date=2015-03-20 |title=Night in Jail Chastens Defiant Nazi Witness Who Agrees to Testify |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/night-in-jail-chastens-defiant-nazi-witness-who-agrees-to-testify |access-date=2024-01-03 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}}

At the same time, Congressman Samuel Dickstein (D-NY) was Chairman of the Committee on Naturalization and Immigration, where he became aware of the substantial number of foreigners legally and illegally entering and residing in the country, and the growing anti-Semitism along with vast amounts of anti-Semitic literature being distributed in the country. This led him to investigate independently the activities of Nazis and other fascist groups. This led to the formation of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate National Socialist Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities. Throughout the rest of 1934, the Committee conducted hearings, bringing before it most of the major figures in the US fascist movement.{{cite book

| author = Chip Berlet, Matthew Nemiroff Lyons

| title = Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort

| url = https://archive.org/details/rightwingpopulis00berlrich

| url-access = registration

| year = 2000

| publisher = Guilford Press

| isbn = 978-1-57230-562-5

}} Dickstein's investigation concluded that the Friends represented a branch of German dictator Adolf Hitler's NSDAP in America.{{cite news |url=https://lihj.cc.stonybrook.edu/2010/articles/long-island-nazis-a-local-synthesis-of-transnational-politics/

|title=Long Island Nazis: A Local Synthesis of Transnational Politics

|publisher=Journal of Long Island History

|volume=21 |issue=2 |date=Spring 2010

|first=Ryan

|last=Shaffer

|access-date=2010-11-19}}[https://archive.org/stream/investigationofu193802unit#page/1090/mode/2up Investigation on un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States]

The organization existed into the mid-1930s with a membership of between 5,000 and 10,000, consisting mostly of German citizens living in America and German emigrants who only recently had become citizens. In December 1935, Rudolf Hess recalled the group's leaders to Germany and ordered all German citizens to leave the Friends of New Germany. By March 1936, Friends of New Germany was dissolved and its membership transferred to the newly-formed German American Bund, the new name being chosen to emphasise the group's American credentials after press criticism that the organisation was unpatriotic.{{cite book |first1=Erik V. |last1=Wolter |first2=Robert J. |last2=Masters |title=Loyalty On Trial: One American's Battle With The FBI |location=New York |publisher=iUniverse |year=2004 |isbn=9780595327034 |page=65}} The Bund was to consist only of American citizens of German descent.{{cite book |url=http://www.americainwwii.com/stories/americansforhitler.html |title=Americans for Hitler – The Bund |work=America in WWII |first1=Mark D. |last1=Van Ells |volume=3 |number=2 |date=August 2007 |pages=44–49|access-date=May 13, 2016}}

Planned uprising

In 1933, California National Guardsman Dietrich Gefken, a member of a secret paramilitary of the Friends, plotted a fascist uprising in southern California cities.{{Cite web |title=Spy vs. Spy: Anti-Nazi Undercover Work in L.A. |url=https://jewishcurrents.org/spy-vs-spy-anti-nazi-undercover-work-in-la |access-date=2024-12-21 |website=Jewish Currents |language=en}} Gefken, who'd bragged about killing communists during the Ruhr uprising, planned to raid armories in the region. Based on collected intelligence by Leon L. Lewis, U.S. Navy agents arrested two Marines who were selling rifles and 12,000 rounds of ammunition to local Nazis.{{Cite book |last=Rosenzweig |first=Laura B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hsSSDgAAQBAJ&dq=%22forced+to+take+action%22+%22james+davis%22+%22nazi%22&pg=PP43 |title=Hollywood's Spies: The Undercover Surveillance of Nazis in Los Angeles |date=2018-01-23 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-4798-8247-2 |pages=43 |language=en}}

References

External links

[https://archive.org/details/TheGermanNationalRevolution The German National Revolution a pamphlet issued by FNG]
[https://archive.org/details/FreundeDesNeuenDeutschland-OrtsgruppeBrooklynYearbook 1934 German language yearbook of the Brooklyn chapter]
Materials produced by FNG are found in the Florence Mendheim Collection of Anti-Semitic Propaganda [http://digital.cjh.org/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=1525697 (#AR 25441)]; Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

Category:German-American history

Category:German American Bund

Category:1930s coups d'état and coup attempts

Category:American collaborators with Nazi Germany

Category:Collaboration with Nazi Germany

Category:Coups d'état and coup attempts in the United States

Category:Fascist organizations in the United States

Category:Propaganda in the United States

Category:Nazi propaganda organizations

Category:Political history of the United States

Category:Germany friendship associations

Category:Organizations established in 1933