When 20,000 Americans Held a Pro-Nazi Rally in Madison Square Garden

in History | October 27th, 2024 8 Comments

Above, two-time Acad­e­my Award nom­i­nee Mar­shall Cur­ry presents A Night at The Gar­den, a film that revis­its a night in Feb­ru­ary 1939 when “20,000 Amer­i­cans ral­lied in New York’s Madi­son Square Gar­den to cel­e­brate the rise of Nazism — an event large­ly for­got­ten from U.S. his­to­ry.” As we described it back in 2017, the film doc­u­ments the fol­low­ing scene:

What you’re look­ing at is the 1939 “Pro-Amer­i­can Ral­ly” (aka Pro-Nazi Ral­ly) spon­sored by the Ger­man Amer­i­can Bund at Madi­son Square Gar­den on George Washington’s 207th Birth­day. Ban­ners embla­zoned with such slo­gans as “Stop Jew­ish Dom­i­na­tion of Chris­t­ian Amer­i­cans,” “Wake Up Amer­i­ca. Smash Jew­ish Com­mu­nism,” and “1,000,000 Bund Mem­bers by 1940” dec­o­rat­ed the great hall.

New York City May­or Fiorel­lo LaGuardia—an Epis­co­palian with a Jew­ish mother—considered can­cel­ing the event, but ulti­mate­ly he, along with the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Com­mit­tee and the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Com­mit­tee decreed that the Bund was exer­cis­ing its right to free speech and free assem­bly.

A crowd of 20,000 filled the famous sports venue in mid-town Man­hat­tan to capac­i­ty. 1,500 police offi­cers were present to ren­der the Gar­den “a fortress impreg­nable to anti-Nazis.” An esti­mat­ed 100,000 counter-demon­stra­tors were gath­er­ing out­side.…

The most dis­turb­ing moment in the short film comes at the 3:50 mark, when anoth­er secu­ri­ty force—the Bund’s Ord­nungs­di­enst or “Order Ser­vice” pile on Isidore Green­baum, a 26-year-old Jew­ish work­er who rushed the podi­um where bun­des­fĂĽhrer Fritz Julius Kuhn was fan­ning the flames of hatred. Valentine’s men even­tu­al­ly pulled them off, just bare­ly man­ag­ing to save the “anti-Nazi” from the vicious beat­ing he was under­go­ing.

Made entire­ly from archival footage filmed that night, A Night at The Gar­den “trans­ports audi­ences to this chill­ing gath­er­ing and shines a light on the pow­er of dem­a­goguery and anti-Semi­tism in the Unit­ed States.” You can learn more about the film and the 1939 ral­ly at Mar­shall Cur­ry’s web site.

Any sim­i­lar­i­ty to actu­al per­sons, liv­ing or dead, or oth­er xeno­pho­bic ral­lies being held this week­end in Madi­son Square Gar­den is pure­ly coin­ci­den­tal, of course.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Yale Pro­fes­sor Jason Stan­ley Iden­ti­fies 10 Tac­tics of Fas­cism: The “Cult of the Leader,” Law & Order, Vic­tim­hood and More

Toni Mor­ri­son Lists the 10 Steps That Lead Coun­tries to Fas­cism (1995)

Fas­cism!: The US Army Pub­lish­es a Pam­phlet in 1945 Explain­ing How to Spot Fas­cism at Home and Abroad

Rick Steves Tells the Sto­ry of Fascism’s Rise & Fall in Ger­many


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Comments (8)
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  • Chris Y says:
    October 28, 2024 at 11:28 am

    “Those who can­not remem­ber the past are con­demned to repeat it” — George San­tayana

    Reply
  • Aaron says:
    October 28, 2024 at 7:24 pm

    Iron­ic state­ment con­sid­er­ing the left wing’s con­tin­u­al label­ing of the most pro-Israel Pro-Jew­ish pres­i­dent as the sec­ond com­ing of Hitler while its own rad­i­cals call for the death of Israel and erad­i­ca­tion of the Jew­ish peo­ple! Imbe­cil­ic, and com­plete­ly igno­rant of the facts. It’s a piti­ful shame that there are still peo­ple so weak mind­ed that they can’t see through the pro­pa­gan­da that is being foist­ed upon them. The cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance is astound­ing!!

    Reply
  • Larry says:
    October 28, 2024 at 10:55 pm

    You’ll recall that Trump had Nick Fuentes and Kanye West over for din­ner at Mar A‑Lago. Think I’ll take the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date who does­n’t glad­ly dine with anti-semi­tes.

    Reply
  • Aaron says:
    October 29, 2024 at 3:21 am

    Is that the lit­mus test for whether a can­di­date is accept­able or not lol? You guys are nuts! I’ll take the can­di­date that isn’t sup­port­ed by wack­os who cel­e­brate baby mur­der, child gen­i­tal muti­la­tion, and the geno­cide of a whole group of peo­ple. You can have the cack­ling queen of the damned.

    Reply
  • Culture, not Ideology says:
    October 29, 2024 at 3:21 am

    It would be great loss for every­one if a site ded­i­cat­ed “open cul­ture” web­site should fall back into shrill, nar­row, and ide­o­log­i­cal par­ty pol­i­tics. Would it not be more inter­est­ing and thought­ful to bring our think­ing to a deep­er lev­el beyond the pro­pa­gan­da and manip­u­la­tion prac­ticed by the Nazi par­ty, the Repub­li­can par­ty, and just as much or more by the Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty (who indeed con­trols most of the news and sup­press­es thought­ful and rea­son­able cri­tique)? Would­n’t it be worth­while to use this small cor­ner of the web to pro­mote a cul­ture of reflec­tion and deep­er think­ing instead of get­ting sucked into the pan­ic-traps they set to con­trol us?

    Reply
  • Howard says:
    October 29, 2024 at 5:36 pm

    If the Madi­son Square Gar­dens was built in 1964 and was the site of a small rail sta­tion pri­or to it’s con­struc­tion how could there have been 20,000 peo­ple there for a pro Amer­i­can ral­ly at that site?

    Reply
    • OC says:
      October 29, 2024 at 9:46 pm

      1874 — The orig­i­nal Madi­son Square Gar­den was built in a con­vert­ed rail­road sta­tion at Madi­son Square. It opened on May 31, 1879 and closed in 1890.

      1891 — A sports are­na was built on the site of the orig­i­nal Madi­son Square Gar­den, designed by Stan­ford White. It was main­ly used for box­ing.

      1925 — A new Madi­son Square Gar­den was built at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street. It was used for bas­ket­ball, hock­ey, and oth­er sports, and was the site of the 1924 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion.

      1968 — The cur­rent Madi­son Square Gar­den opened on Feb­ru­ary 11, 1968. It’s a large com­plex that includes a 20,000-seat are­na, a bowl­ing cen­ter, a sports hall of fame, and more.

      Reply
  • Eric Pereira says:
    November 3, 2024 at 6:08 pm

    I’m not amer­i­can. But, while Trump is racist, Biden-Haris have been back­ing geno­cide and ille­gal occu­pa­tion with their false red lines. They have blood on their hands, as would Trump too. Blood of chil­dren, doc­tors, jour­nal­ists, and human­i­tar­i­an staff. Amer­i­can pol­i­tics is not wor­thy of admi­ra­tion.

    Reply

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