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Out of the depths of the Great Depression, an array of
anti-Jewish forces emerged on the world scene and in the U.S. Hitler's rise to power in
Germany provided the impetus, and often the money, for a variety of American fascist
groups. Bundists paraded swastikas and Nazi flags and ardently peddled their message of
hate.
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| Bund rally. |
Anti-Semitic agitators included Fritz Kuhn of the German-American Bund and Father
Charles E. Coughlin, the progenitor of hate radio and leader of the pro-fascist Christian
Front. Throughout the decade, the League played a leading role in awakening Americans to a
realization of the danger represented by the groups whose anti-Semitism masked a virulent
hatred of democracy. ADL joined a coalition to produce a monograph which analyzed
Coughlin's propaganda line and contained a thorough refutation of his anti-Semitic
charges. Among other things, the monograph proved that one of Coughlin's articles was
lifted verbatim from an earlier speech by Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels. This evidence of
Coughlin's turning to Nazism helped discredit him in the eyes of many Americans.
During this decade, ADL began its major fact-finding operation
and began accumulating its famous storehouse of accurate, detailed, unassailable
information on extremist individuals and organizations. ADL expanded its staff and began
to monitor and investigate the rapidly multiplying fascist groups in the U.S.
Meanwhile, in Germany, Hitler exploited the miseries and the
frustrations of the German people, blaming the nation's ills on the
"Marxian-democratic-liberal-capitalistic" Jew. By mid-decade, the Nuremberg
Racial Laws were instituted, and in November 1938, the Nazis plundered Jewish shops,
chased Jews in the streets and torched synagogues in a night of terror that would come to
be known as Kristallnacht. But Kristallnacht was only the Nazi prelude to genocide. ADL
continues to teach the grim lessons of that terrible time.
Next: 1940-1950 |
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