Fritz Julius Kuhn

Kuhn was born in Munich, Germany, on May 15, 1896, the son of Georg Kuhn and Julia Justyna Beuth. During World War I, Kuhn earned an Iron Cross as a German infantry lieutenant.{{cite book|author=Curt Riess|title=Total Espionage: Germany's Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-40|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yw-0DgAAQBAJ|date=20 April 2017|publisher=Fonthill Media|id=GGKEY:W0990A01E5Q}}{{page number needed|date=December 2022}} After the war, he joined the Freikorps and later graduated from the Technical University of Munich with a master's degree in chemical engineering.{{Cite web |last=Chan |first=Amy |date=2017-02-16 |title=Made in America: Americans in Support of the Nazi Cause |url=https://www.historynet.com/made-in-america-americans-in-support-of-the-nazi-cause/ |access-date=2024-06-21 |website=HistoryNet |language=en-US}}

In the 1920s, Kuhn moved to Mexico. In 1928, he moved to the United States, and after 6 years, in 1934, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.{{cite news |title=Fritz Kuhn, Former Bund Chief, Ordered Back to Germany |newspaper=The Evening Independent |date=September 7, 1945 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=L48LAAAAIBAJ&pg=5799,1832986&dq=fritz+kuhn&hl=en}} He worked at a Ford factory in Detroit before assuming control of the German American Bund in Buffalo, New York, in 1936.{{cite news|last1=O'Haire|first1=Hugh|title=When the Bund Strutted in Yaphankl|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/05/08/archives/when-the-bund-strutted-in-yaphank-40-years-ago-in-yaphank.html|access-date=28 May 2017|work=The New York Times|date=May 8, 1977}}

A Congressional committee headed by Samuel Dickstein concluded that the Friends of New Germany supported a branch of German dictator Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party in the United States,{{cite book|last1=U.S. Congress|first1=House Special Committee on Un-American Activities|title=Investigation of un-American propaganda activities in the United States|date=1938|publisher=United States Congress|page=1090|url=https://archive.org/stream/investigationofu193802unit#page/1090/mode/2up|access-date=11 October 2017}} and the Friends of New Germany disbanded. However, in March 1936, the German American Bund was established in Buffalo as a follow-up organization. The Bund elected the German-born American citizen Kuhn as its leader.{{cite book |author=Cyprian Blamires|author2=Paul Jackson |title=World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 1 |year=2006|publisher=ABC-CLIO|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nvD2rZSVau4C |isbn=0-8223-0772-3|page=270}}

Kuhn, while describing the Bund as "sympathetic to the Hitler government", denied that the organization received money or took orders from the government of Germany. Kuhn also denied that the Bund had any agenda of introducing fascism to the United States.[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Ym0zAAAAIBAJ&sjid=P-IFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4814,2402960&dq=fritz+kuhn+hitler&hl=en Says Hitler Group is 200,000 strong. Kuhn Denies Trying to Set Up Fascism in U.S.] Associated Press in Reading Eagle, March 12, 1937[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xFshAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CIgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2714,2638853&dq=friends+of+new+germany+kuhn&hl=en Kuhn Bares Bund Record Destruction.] "Kuhn steadfastly denied that the German government had any connection with his organization." Associated Press in Reading Eagle, August 16, 1939

Kuhn enlisted thousands of German Americans by using antisemitic, anticommunist, pro-German, and pro-American propaganda. One of his first tasks was planning a trip to Germany with 50 American followers. The purpose was to be in the presence of Hitler and to witness Nazism in practice personally.

At this time, Germany was preparing to host the 1936 Olympics. Kuhn anticipated a warm welcome from Adolf Hitler, but the encounter was disappointing.{{citation needed|date=August 2018}} This did not stop Kuhn from fabricating propaganda to his followers once he returned to the United States about how Hitler acknowledged him as the "American Führer".Nazi America: A Secret History (2000), History Channel (92 min)

As his profile grew, so did the tension against him. Not only Jewish-Americans, but also German-Americans who did not want to be associated with Nazis protested against the Bund.{{cite web|title=The Day The German-American Bund Marched In Grafton|url=https://www.wuwm.com/post/day-german-american-bund-marched-grafton#stream/0|publisher=WUWM|access-date=January 10, 2020}}{{cite web|title=Nazis among the Cedars: The Inability of the German American Bund to Find Acceptance in Pre-War Milwaukee|url=https://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/72649/Petrie_Stephen_2015.pdf?sequence=1|publisher=University of Wisconsin|access-date=January 3, 2020}} These protests were occasionally violent, making the Bund front page news in the United States. In response to the outrage of Jewish war veterans,{{citation needed|date=August 2018}} Congress in 1938 passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act requiring foreign agents to register with the State Department. The negative attention to the American Nazis was not to Hitler's liking{{citation needed|date=August 2018}} because he wanted the Nazi Party in the United States to be strong but stealthy.{{citation needed|date=January 2011}} Hitler needed to keep the U.S. neutral throughout the coming war and sought to avoid provoking Americans. In contrast, Kuhn was eager to stir media attention. On March 1, 1938, the Nazi government decreed that no German national ({{lang|de|Reichsdeutsche}}) could be a member of the Bund and that no Nazi emblems were to be used by the 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

|df = dmy-all

}}

Undaunted, on September 3, 1938, the Bund reelected Kuhn,{{Cite web |last=Taylor |first=Alan |date=5 June 2017 |title=American Nazis in the 1930s – The German American Bund |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/06/american-nazis-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/ |access-date=2023-05-06 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}} and on February 20, 1939, Kuhn held the largest and most publicized rally in the Bund's history at Madison Square Garden in New York City.[https://archive.today/20110815055225/http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1998/05/31/1998-05-31_ratzis_fritz_kuhn_and_the_bu.html Ratzis Fritz Kuhn and the Bund, 1939 by Jay Maeder Sunday, May 31, 1998] Some 20,000 people attended and heard Kuhn mock President Franklin D. Roosevelt as "Frank D. Rosenfeld", calling his New Deal the "Jew Deal" and denouncing what he called Bolshevik-Jewish American leadership. Kuhn also stated: "The Bund is fighting shoulder to shoulder with patriotic Americans to protect America from a race that is not the American race, that is not even a white race... The Jews are controlling everything and the white man is thrown out of his job.... The Jews are enemies of the United States.... All Jews are Communists.... Christ was not a Jew..."{{cite web|title=How Fritz Kuhn and American Nazis brought anti-Semitic fervor to New York City before WWII |url=https://www.nydailynews.com/2017/08/14/how-fritz-kuhn-and-american-nazis-brought-anti-semitic-fervor-to-new-york-city-before-wwii/ |work=New York Daily News|date=14 August 2017 |access-date=November 17, 2023}} There was an outbreak of violence between Bund storm troopers and thousands of angry protesters in the streets. During Kuhn's speech, a Jewish protester, Isadore Greenbaum, rushed the stage and had to be rescued by police after he was beaten and stripped by stormtroopers.{{cite news|title=Fight Nazis in Big N.Y. Rally|url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1939/02/21/page/1/article/fight-nazis-in-big-n-y-rally|access-date=28 May 2017|agency=Chicago Tribune News Service|issue=February 21, 1939|publisher=Chicago Tribune Archive}}{{cite news|last=Philpot|first=Robert|url=https://www.thejc.com/news/us-news/eighty-years-ago-this-week-the-night-the-nazis-played-madison-square-garden-1.480513|title=Eighty years ago this week: the night the Nazis played Madison Square Garden|work=The Jewish Chronicle|location=London|date=February 22, 2019|access-date=March 23, 2019}}Philip Bump, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/17/when-american-nazis-rallied-in-manhattan-one-working-class-jewish-man-from-brooklyn-took-them-on/?noredirect=on When Nazis rallied in Manhattan, one working-class Jewish man from Brooklyn took them on], 20 February 2017, The Washington Post

Later in 1939, seeking to cripple the Bund, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia ordered the city to investigate the Bund's taxes.{{cite book |title=Double Agent: The First Hero of World War II and How the FBI Outwitted and Destroyed a Nazi Spy Ring |last=Duffy |first=Peter |year=2015 |publisher=Scribner |isbn=978-1-45166-796-7 |page=95|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XXIHBAAAQBAJ |access-date=November 23, 2019}} It alleged that Kuhn had embezzled $14,548 from the organization, spending part of the money on a mistress.{{Cite web |last=Geels |first=James E. |date=August 1975 |title=The German-American Bund: Fifth Column or Deutschtum? |url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc663312/ |access-date=2023-07-31 |website=UNT Digital Library |language=English}} District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey issued an indictment on May 25, 1939, and won a conviction against Kuhn. On December 5, 1939, Kuhn was sentenced to two and a half to five years in prison for larceny and forgery.{{cite book |title=Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History: A MultiDisciplinary Encyclopedia. G–N, volume 2 |last=Adams |first=Thomas |year=2005 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=1-85109-628-0 |page=631|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8uxfTF4Lm-kC&q=denaturalized+americans&pg=PA631 |access-date=January 11, 2011}}{{Cite news |date=1939-12-05 |title=Article clipped from Journal Gazette |pages=1 |work=Journal Gazette |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/journal-gazette/58701429/ |access-date=2023-09-15}} The next day, he was sent to Sing Sing.{{Cite web |last=Taylor |first=Alan |date=5 June 2017 |title=American Nazis in the 1930s – The German American Bund |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/06/american-nazis-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/ |access-date=6 May 2023 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}} Despite his convictions for embezzlement, followers of the Bund continued to hold Kuhn in high regard, in line with the Nazi Führerprinzip, which gives the leader absolute power.{{Cite web |last=Sander |first=Gordon F. |date=2017-08-23 |title=When Nazis Filled Madison Square Garden |url=https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/23/nazi-german-american-bund-rally-madison-square-garden-215522 |access-date=2023-11-06 |website=Politico Magazine |language=en}}

In 1940, James Wheeler-Hill, the Secretary of the Bund, was sentenced to one to three years in prison after pleading guilty to perjury for falsely testifying that he was an American citizen at Kuhn's trial. Wheeler-Hill had been born in Latvia, and was never naturalized.{{Cite web |title=The Mid-Island Mail 28 February 1940 – The NYS Historic Newspapers |url=https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=tmm19400228-01.1.3&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN---------- |access-date=2023-11-06 |website=nyshistoricnewspapers.org}}

Kuhn's citizenship was revoked on June 1, 1943, while he was in Sing Sing prison, on the grounds of it having been obtained fraudulently as shown by his ongoing activity as a foreign agent of, and a person with loyalty including oaths of military service towards, Germany and the Nazi Party. Upon his release after 43 months in prison, Kuhn was re-arrested on June 21, 1943, as an enemy agent and interned by the federal government at a camp in Crystal City, Texas. Interned with Kuhn were his wife and 16-year-old son, who were deemed "enemy aliens". Kuhn's family had returned to Germany in 1938, but came back to support him for the trial. They were repatriated to Germany in an exchange in February 1944.{{Cite web |date=1943-02-13 |title=The Minneapolis Star from Minneapolis, Minnesota |url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/187366418/ |access-date=2023-12-21 |website=Newspapers.com |language=en-US}}

After the war, Kuhn, along with 714 other "unteachable Germans" was sent to Ellis Island and deported to Germany on September 15, 1945.Kuhn Departs Today, On Way To Germany. In: New York Times. 15. September 1945; Deportees, POW's Head For Germany; Fritz Kuhn Is Deportet. In: New York Times. 16. September 1945. Upon his return, he was interned at Hohenasperg Fortress. A CIC agent who interrogated Kuhn in January 1946 recommended his release, saying he was "discredited and spiritually broken."{{Cite news |date=1946-04-25 |title=2_Leader of German-American Bund held at Crystal City, Texas |pages=3 |work=Intelligencer Journal |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/intelligencer-journal-2leader-of-german/67183274/ |access-date=2023-11-19}} Kuhn wanted to return to the United States, but worked as an industrial chemist in a small chemical factory in Munich.{{cite news |url=http://www.stonybrook.edu/lihj/IssueFiles/V21_2/Articles/Shaffer/shaffer.html |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 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100621060808/http://www.stonybrook.edu/lihj/IssueFiles/V21_2/Articles/Shaffer/shaffer.html |archive-date=2010-06-21 }} The German authorities then decided that he could be tried under Germany's denazification laws, and he was imprisoned in July 1947.Associated Press, "Former Bund Leader Convicted In Absentia by German Court," The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Wednesday 21 April 1948, Volume LIV, Number 201, page 1.

Kuhn was held in an internment camp at Dachau, awaiting trial before a Bavarian German de-Nazification court. He escaped on February 4, 1948, by promising a 32-year-old German civilian employee of the US armed forces that he would marry her. Nonetheless, Kuhn was tried in absentia in April 1948, and a jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to ten years in prison.{{cite book |last1=Ridley |first1=Norman |title=Hitler's U.S. Allies: Americans Who Supported the Nazis |date=30 August 2024 |publisher=Frontline Books |isbn=978-1-0361-1097-0 |page=182 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_oMKEQAAQBAJ&pg=PT182 |access-date=28 November 2024 |language=en}} The Associated Press reported that the trial was carried out entirely by the presentation of documents demonstrating Kuhn's close ties with Hitler's Third Reich and his attempts to transplant its ideology into the United States.Associated Press, "Former Bund Leader Convicted In Absentia by German Court," The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Wednesday 21 April 1948, Volume LIV, Number 201, page 1.

Kuhn was recaptured on June 15 in the French zone town of Bernkastel, near Trier.Associated Press, "Kuhn Captured In French Zone," The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Friday 18 June 1948, Volume LIV, Number 251, page 3. After an investigation into how he had escaped, the camp director, Anton Zirngibl, was fired. Kuhn told reporters, "The door was open so I went through."Associated Press, "Kuhn Captured In French Zone," The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Friday 18 June 1948, Volume LIV, Number 251, page 3. Kuhn said on June 17 that he considered the ten-year sentence as a "major Nazi offender" unfair and that he intended to appeal.Associated Press, "Kuhn Captured In French Zone," The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Friday 18 June 1948, Volume LIV, Number 251, page 3.

In 1949, an appellate court reduced Kuhn's sentence to two years of hard labor. He was released on February 22, 1949.[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0474096/bio IMDb Biography] While in prison, Kuhn reportedly sent a message to columnist Walter Winchell, who had helped lead media counterattacks against the Bund back in New York City. It read: "Tell Herr Vinchell, I will lift to piss on his grafe [sic]."{{cite journal|last1=Bernstein|first1=Arnie|title=Walter Winchell, Nazi Fighter|journal=The New York Times Book Review|date=May 28, 2017|page=6|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/books/review/letters-to-the-editor.html|access-date=27 May 2017}} Winchell died in 1972, outliving the Nazi activist by 21 years.

Kuhn died of unknown causes on December 14, 1951, in Munich, Germany. The New York Times obituary said that he died "a poor and obscure chemist, unheralded and unsung." Shortly before his death, Kuhn was asked why he'd followed Hitler. Disillusioned by the collapse of Nazi Germany, he replied, "Who would have known it would end like this?"{{cite news |title=Fritz Kuhn Death in 1951 Revealed. Lawyer Says Former Leader of German-American Bund Succumbed in Munich. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1953/02/02/archives/fritz-kuhn-death-in-1951-revealed-lawyer-says-former-leader-of.html |agency=Associated Press |work= The New York Times |date=February 2, 1953 |access-date=2008-07-20 }}

• A Night at the Garden - documentary short of February 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category|Fritz Julius Kuhn}}

• [http://www.albany.edu/talkinghistory/arch2004july-december.html Talking History Archive] – Recording of Fritz Kuhn's speech at the German-American Bund Rally, New York City, Feb. 20, 1939, at the University of Albany
• [http://vault.fbi.gov/fritz-julius-kuhn Fritz Julius Kuhn] – Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110518142641/http://www.traces.org/americanbund.html "American Bund: The Failure of American Nazism; The German-American Bund's Attempt to Create an American 'Fifth Column'"] Article by Jim Bredemus on Traces.org
• {{imdb name|474096}}
• {{PM20|FID=pe/010658}}
• [https://www.pbsamerica.co.uk/series/the-american-fhrer/ Fritz Kuhn: "The American Führer"] – PBS documentary

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