"Who's side are you on?" Topic

When I first watched this I thought I was watching a Twilight Zone episode. Here were American icons but mixed with Nazi symbols. It was Madison Square garden but filled with people in strange uniforms and doing Nazi salutes. What was this? It is called A Night At The Garden. I was alternatively fascinated and horrified by what I saw here. And afterwards I spent hours reading about the American bund and the people here who looked up to and admired this evil.

"In 1939, 20,000 Americans rallied in New York's Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism – an event largely forgotten from American history. A NIGHT AT THE GARDEN, made entirely from archival footage filmed that night, transports audiences to this chilling gathering and shines a light on the power of demagoguery and anti-Semitism in the United States."

anightatthegarden.com

In 1939, these folks were probably unaware of how evil nazi-ism was. Look around today, you'll see people embracing evil. The trick is deciding who gets to decide what is evil.

And it wasn't without some pushback from U.S. veterans.

To a generation that had suffered through the Depression Hitler's turn around of Germany was quite impressive. Even Charles Lindbergh was impressed by it.

I hear the excuses given but remember that Hitler had built the concentration czmps, persecution of Jews and other minorities were front page news and very public. There were protests outsides.

Form The films director:

Q: What do you want the audience to take away from the film?
A: The film doesn't have narration or interviews to clearly underline the takeaways, but I think most audiences will find lots to chew on. To me, the most striking and upsetting part of the film is not the anti-Semitism of the main speaker or even the violence of his storm-troopers. What bothers me more is the reaction of the crowd. Twenty-thousand New Yorkers who loved their kids and were probably nice to their neighbors, came home from work that day, dressed up in suits and skirts, and went out to cheer and laugh and sing as a speaker dehumanized people who would be murdered by the millions in the next few years.

This point is less an indictment of bad things that Americans have done in the past than it is a cautionary tale about the bad things that we might do in the future. When the protester is being beaten up there's a little boy in the crowd who I zoomed on in the edit. You can see him rub his hands together, doing an excited little dance, unable to contain the giddy excitement that comes from being part of a mob. And when the protester is finally thrown off stage, there's a long slow pan across the crowd that is laughing, clapping, cheering, like they're at a World Wrestling Federation match.

We'd like to believe that there are sharp lines between good people and bad people. But I think most humans have dark passions inside us, waiting to be stirred up by a demagogue who is funny and mean, who can convince us that decency is for the weak, that democracy is naïve, and that kindness and respect for others are just ridiculous political correctness. Events like this should remind us not to be complacent – that the things we care about have to be nurtured and defended regularly – because even seemingly good people have the potential to do hideous things

Thanks for posting this. I was not aware of this. Rather shocking…

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing…

And what All-American organization stepped in to counter the American Bund? The Jewish Mafia, of course!

link

When will the film of CPUSA rallies from Stalin's day be released?

Fred Pohl describes himself and his friends as simultaneously celebrating the end of the death penalty in the USSR and the "liquidation" by the Soviet state of tens of thousands of "wreckers" and "bandits."

I suppose Ben Gitlow was just an outlier and all those American commies still really loved Stalin since those films are still being suppressed as implied. I think for the most part the American communists were pretty disillusioned with Russian Communisism, once the purges started, if not before. Even Reed got upset with the Comintern. Emma Goldman published anti Stalin books in 1923.

Rallies by the Communist Party in America probably did not have the nationalist aspect of the Bund. I think most of the Bund members were probably of German descent, but the American Communist party was not dominated by Russian descendants.

1939 was well after the period when nazi aggression was quite apparent. Bleikrystalnacht had occurred, the 36 Olympics, Mein Kampf was widely available (if not really read) and the Annexation of Austria and Czech invasion done. The Bund understood well what the Nazis were all about and welcomed it. Even Charlie Chaplin knew what the Nazis were up to.

"20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing…"

I am curious how this is hindsight?

Robert P., American Commies went enmass into the government/state department and Hollywood after the war, and apparently have stayed there ever since, lol!

If anyone wishes to read a proper investigation of Hitler's 'turn around of Germany' I recommend 'The Wages of Destruction'.

Actually, Aethelflaeda, the pre-WWII CPUSA was so heavily dominated by eastern European immigrants and their children that they used to designate English-speaking branches. But I would agree they weren't nationalist--just totalitarian. And almost embarrassingly pro-Soviet. Read Howard Fast still pleading ignorance of the purges right down to Khrushchev's time.

mjkerner, the migration was largely pre-war. Look at Hiss and his buddies, and at the bitter opposition to shooting Darkness at Noon.

I'm honestly surprised people aren't aware of this. I was taught this in school. History teaching really seems to be lagging.

I seldom defend K-12 history, TGerritsen, but some poor high school wrestling coach has five hours a week for nine months to cover everything from Plymouth Rock to 9-11, and every shift in political emphasis means something else gets less time. Not a job I'd care for. Once or twice long ago, I taught US I at a college level, and I hate to think what I left out.

23Fusilier, well said, especially that last paragraph.

MH

It is hard to believe that this is new to people. I have seen documentaries about this for years.

I have been dismayed as to the state of history and civics education in the U.S. Not the teachers fault. School districts hire only part time history teachers and some districts not teaching civics at all. Which explains in part the 2016 election.

The German American Bund sought to wrap themselves in American icons to lend legitimacy to itself. The German American Bund remained relatively small in numbers. Back then the public education system taught history and government.

Imagine this happening today with social media. A President who is obligated to a Hitler for his election. Not to mention an American First movement, which seeks to isolate America from Europe and prevent alliances with the democratic countries of Europe. All in the name of Nationalism. I thought I would never see something like this in America again. But yet here it is.

link

One, but not the only undercurrent of Modernism was the idea that man could be "improved"

Enlightenment took a look at the nature of man, and what was his core nature and once we understood this we could guide the people towards a better future.

Modernism built upon this by adding new ideas that people were like all things in nature, they could be converted into new things, since everything was being changed, agriculture begat industry, coaches begat trains, horse and cart begat cars etc. Therefore man could be made to rise higher if they figure out the right way to do it. Technically Communism wasn't that much of a Modernist idea in itself, but it attracted many people who did add many modernist ideas.

Improvement came in many forms, anything from eugenics to radical new political systems to a "return to nature", but the idea of progress was a central tenet of belief.

One major factor that we have seen many times before and since is the rise of autoritarian figures within these movements.

Eugenics makes nominal sense if you consider that things like inbreeding or people with certain genes might result in defects like hemophilia. The other side being things like systematic sterilization of say "the poor" or forcing people which certain "advantageous traits" to breed etc, all this usually dictated by people who wanted to push a more radical worldview.

A classic example of authoritarian rise to power is the staple of 1960's social engineering : the commune, some basic problems aside, many disintegrated because in an attempt to create total egality, many failed to notice that some of the more assertive and aggressive personalities took to the front and manipulated people into "let's adopt the common sense ideas" and used psychology to silence any form of dissenting, people started to leave and some lasted for a while, but most collapsed under their own weight and because quitting was a relatively simple option.

The problem is that people always tried to find an ideological answer to the problems of such things. Which gets us the classic "Socialism doesn't work." statements because they combine an ideology with the worst examples, cut out anything that might clash with the proposition and blames the ideology and politics, rather than the much simpler answer that if your system is managed by people who can be held accountable to others and people strive to have a modicum of sense in the system, you won't avoid many problems, but you can avoid some of the worst ones, like an authoritarian personality becoming an autocratic despot.

Fascism and Communism embrace a number of similar concepts, foremost is the idea of the collective, be it expressed as a national or racial identity or a social identity. They both sought to elevate the collective (here's our modernist thinking) to a new level, not just ensuring prosperity, but to transform society, create a better proletarian/Aryan/whatever. Both movements started with a pluralistic base on the political spectrum, but quite often the authoritarian ones who favoured a hard line approach (some of it being purely practical) of militarism, antagonism versus other groups or social strata, nationalism was heavily encouraged, they flirted with eugenics, indoctrination, a form of women's liberation though this usually clashed with their more appealing function as "baby machines".

While they shared much common ground, they also had very distinctive features. Fascism ended up wedding itself to the capitalist system, either claiming some mysterious "third way" or saying that the fat cats turned out to be proud patriots and therefore exempt of oversight. They favoured things like nationalism, patriotism, militarism, obedience to the state and many values often shared by people who lean towards conservatism, while the ideas of social revolution, aggression towards the enemies of the state, appealed to the more violent natured people with a propensity to thrive in authoritarian environments.

The revolutionary nature of Communism, combined with the goals of brotherhood, peace among nations, equality and social progress created immediate appeal to those of more liberal leanings, though some might be equally ready to set the world on fire for the great revolution than anyone else. Communism removed the capitalists, making that part a moot point.

The founders of Italian fascism came from all over the political spectrum, but the hardliners were the ones who ended up in control. Same for the national socialists, who were a far cry from what the surviving leadership ended up believing in. Their use of socialism had a radically different interpretation than that of the socialism we see in contemporary European social democracies.

Same thing with Soviet communism, the great social uplifting promise of the early days was hijacked by Stalin, who was one of the most efficient authoritarian autocrats in history, exercising total control of the people by an oppressive state apparatus, while at the same time using the mirage of the prestige connected to the original mission statement of not only taking the lowly proletarian to the center stage of the system, but also better them, through the system into the kind of demi-god figure you see in so much Soviet art. Al of which to promote it to the outside world and create a world of like-minded allied states against the recalcitrant bourgeois conservatives doomed to be kicked from the pages of history.

In an age where the tradition of the monarch as the enlightened ruler of the nation was no longer the self-evident business model for a country, a major world war, and an economic depression, people began to question the way forward and many began to drift towards the radical new political movements derived from the big two described above (though they came in many variations, many of which claimed to be the one true form, or offered a different take on the same basic concept (cf Anarchism, the Porfiriato, syndicalism, etc)

People simply picked the elements that appealed to their nature often seeing only the benefits and glossing over the problems as mere "Der Fuhrer darf das gar nicht wissen." AKA the leader doesn't know of this problem and has yet to address it, but they will fix it when the time is ripe type apologism that allows people to explain away the various problems endemic to the system. And if you heard about some people being put into camps or some being targeted that's because they probably deserved it and were indeed enemies of the people, and if it seemed excessive, it was due to overly zealous underlings which the great leader had to address at some point, no matter because the system would fix itself. "Of course you will not be targeted mr Goldstein, you're a good man with nothing to reproach yourself, Hitler will only target the corrupt fat bankers, not the decent and honest people …"

The American nazis were appealing to those who preferred a hard line answer to the social, political and economic problems of the time. It was an appealing package to promised not only a return of the good old days, but a definite step forward, bigger than what was previously achieved, free of all the inefficiency of the old system.

Ditto for the communists, who dreamed of equality, economic progress, a better and fairer world where the corrupt politicians and bosses would be replaced by a better system.

The mistakes of the regime are always either honest mistakes or in the end the others deserved it …

Not much in disagreement, Patrick R, and none of this is putting toy soldiers on the table, but I would like to strongly dissent from the notion that "the great uplifting promise of the early days was hijacked by Stalin." The camps, the censors, the secret police, the confiscations, the massacres and the exilings were all in place under Lenin, and Trotsky never dissented. Lenin backtracked somewhat to win the civil war, but that was about timing, not the desired end state.

The problem with totalitarian states is not who is in charge this week, or even which earthly paradise they will never achieve. The problem is the nature of the state itself--its contempt for the family and individual, its lack of accountability, and its willingness to destroy anything and any one in an effort to achieve its imaginary goal.

Everyone who believes a perfect world and perfect people can be achieved by a sufficiently powerful and ruthless state is headed for the same destination, and it's not a place I would care to visit.

I think for the most part the American communists were pretty disillusioned with Russian Communisism, once the purges started

Yes, that's why Solzhenitsyn was violently hounded from platform after platform in the US when trying to speak after writing Gulag Archipleago. Don't kid yourself, CPUSA is still Stalinist-dominated.

This hijacking exercise in whataboutism is all about discrediting the modern left. I doubt seriously you have any thing to base the opinion Stalinist domination of the CPUSA today.

You know, Aethelflaeda, insisting that anyone who questions the good intentions of The Party is a Fascist, Trotskyite or Wrecker is probably not the best way to convince people the Communists have changed.

And someday, when the "good people who cannot be corrupted
adopt a good system that can not be corrupted" are in charge we will all be happy ???? That has always worked out???

Did I call you any of those terms? Lots of ad hominem attacks and false equivalencies again. Do carry on.

When I posted this I did so because of my shock and dismay. Shock at the hijacking of so many American symbols which are near and dear to me. Dismay over, to quote the director "What bothers me more is the reaction of the crowd. Twenty-thousand New Yorkers who loved their kids and were probably nice to their neighbors, came home from work that day, dressed up in suits and skirts, and went out to cheer and laugh and sing as a speaker dehumanized people who would be murdered by the millions in the next few years." The glee of the crowd over the beating of the man who rushed the stage . "This point is less an indictment of bad things that Americans have done in the past than it is a cautionary tale about the bad things that we might do in the future. When the protester is being beaten up there's a little boy in the crowd who I zoomed on in the edit. You can see him rub his hands together, doing an excited little dance, unable to contain the giddy excitement that comes from being part of a mob. And when the protester is finally thrown off stage, there's a long slow pan across the crowd that is laughing, clapping, cheering, like they're at a World Wrestling Federation match.". These are some of the things which disturbed me and still bother me.

And I am curious about the reaction here. One poster says "20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing…". How is this hindsight ? We knew what was happening in Germany. Again to quote one individual here who said it better them I did, "1939 was well after the period when nazi aggression was quite apparent. Bleikrystalnacht had occurred, the 36 Olympics, Mein Kampf was widely available (if not really read) and the Annexation of Austria and Czech invasion done. The Bund understood well what the Nazis were all about and welcomed it. Even Charlie Chaplin knew what the Nazis were up to."

But the posting has been turned on its head and is now an attack on the American left and it's embrace (so we are told)of Stalinism. We are told these people had good intentions. Really? Please watch the glee with which they applaud the violence; again these are not good people and are not filled with good intentions. It is really sad and reminds me of the individual at Cold Wars who wears the Joachim Peiper world tour shirt. That he would wear the shirt glorifying a war criminal, and a man responsible for the execution and murder of American soldiers says a lot.

In early 1939 the evils Nazism were not nearly as well known as stated here.

The Anschluss and Czech Occupation were seen by many not as aggression but as reuniting German populations under one government.

Nazi propaganda covered up the true nature of the camps for several years after.

As to the CPUSA –

Unlike open mass organizations like the Socialist Party or the NAACP, the Communist Party was a disciplined organization that demanded strenuous commitments and frequently expelled members. Membership levels remained below 20,000 until 1933 and then surged upward in the late 1930s, reaching 66,000 in 1939.

Of course the purges weren't that well known then.

Still –

From 1959 until 1989, when Gus Hall attacked the initiatives taken by Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, the Communist Party received a substantial subsidy from the Soviets. There is at least one receipt signed by Gus Hall in the KGB archives.[39] Starting with $75,000 USD in 1959, this was increased gradually to $3 USD million in 1987.

Rather a lot of support for a non-existent entity.

Considering the fact the statement made at the end of the movie 'The Killing Fields' that perhaps what caused Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to massacre their fellow countrymen was a reaction to the American bombing of Cambodia rather than their ideology, there were those on the left still excusing Marxism.

Goragrad, only the willfully myopic would be under any delusion that the Nazis in 39 were anything but aggressive anti-semites bent on hegemony and Lebensraum. What you say might have had validity in 33 but even then only with those who were willing to overlook very overt nastiness. The Bund itself was not popular with the German ambassador in the USA because it was even more vehement. The bund were violently anti Semitic from its inception. But I am sure there were must of been some fine people on both sides.

While well done and very powerful there is one thing missing which does give one a bit of hope. The documentary opens with the police controlling the protesters outside the event. According to most reliable estimates this group, protesting the Nazi's, was estimated at in excess of 100,000. So 20,000 at the event outnumbered by over 5 to 1 by those protesting them. Too bad a line wasnt added to the end, or even in the discussion on the link site, explaining this.

Thanks for sharing this!

Fascinating… thanks for sharing