American History Hit - Nazis in America: Fascism in the 1930s

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

In 1933, The Pittsburgh Courier published an editorial entitled 'Hitler Learns from America'. So how and why was fascism on the rise in the United States from the Great Depression to the Second World War?In this episode, Don speaks with Rachel Maddow, host of 'The Rachel Maddow Show' on MSNBC. Together, they explore the influence of propaganda, key figures of American Fascism, and the Great Sedition Trial of 1944.Rachel's latest book is 'Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism.'Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign here for up to 50% for 3 months using code AMERICANHISTORYYou can take part in our listener survey here.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries, with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. Just a note from me, before we get started, this conversation has been recorded before our recent presidential election. Here in Detroit, row upon row of shiny black vehicles exit the assembly line in steady succession.

Simple, affordable, and durable, with a lightweight body and uniform shape. In 1908, the Ford Model T, one of the first vehicles to be mass produced, comes to represent American engineering innovation, a landmark achievement and a cultural icon for the modern world. world. But this is not the only assembly line to be owned and operated by Henry Ford. A decade after the Model T came into being, in 1918, Ford buys his hometown newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. Then two years later, on May 22nd, 1920, he publishes a four-volume set of pamphlets and articles taken from the newspaper, entitled The International Jew, the World's Problem. The first edition flies off the presses in the hundreds of thousands.

It will later be translated into 16 languages. It blames the Jewish population for pretty much all of the world's problems. Labor unrest, Bolshevism, financial strife, and war. Ford distributes half a million copies to his network of dealerships and subscribers, spreading anti-Semitic hatred across the country. A message reflected and admired by the burgeoning National Socialist Movement in Germany, a movement which it is rumored, for it also bankrupt, This is not the start or the end of a deep relationship between the Nazi party and a willing swath of the American public.

Hello and welcome to this episode of American History Hip. I'm Don Wildman. Our guest for this episode is prime time in every regard, a prominent American journalist, bestselling author, and producer host a compelling podcast series that leave you wanting more. But it's her 16-year-long running eponymous program on MSNBC, the Rachel Mee, Maddow show that has made her a household name. And today we get to discuss her most recent book, Prequel, An American Fight Against Fascism. Welcome Rachel Maddow to American History Hit. It is a delight to have you here. Don, it is such an honor. I am a fan of yours and I am a devoted listener and I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you. Well, let's conclude the interview with that, please. Listen, prequel, a great book. I listened to it in one long drive. Oh, great. Wow. To your voice telling me the whole story. It tracks the extraordinary rise of American fascism out of the Great Depression

up to World War II. We should take a moment here for a definition. Fascism from Merriam-Webster's, a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and suppression of opposition. The word comes from the Latin fascis, or bundle of sticks, often wrapped around an axe, which was the symbol of strength and authority in ancient Rome. So

fascism is all about Mussolini and the fascists of 1920s Italy. Okay? Back to the interview. The subtitle reads, An American Fight Against Fascism. But boy, there were a whole bunch of Americans who wanted to bring it to these shores. Why so and why at that time? At that time, fascism, before World War II, fascism didn't have the same association that it does for us now. Before we saw what the fascist dictatorships left in their wake during World War II, I think a lot of Americans were legitimately fascist curious.

In 1940, when Charles Lindbergh's wife wrote a book about fascism being the wave of the future in the United States, it was the best-selling book in the country that year. One of the most prominent American public intellectuals at the time was a man named Lawrence Dennis, who was an overt supporter of fascism and thought that that would be America's next chapter. It was seen as being modern and efficient and something maybe worth trying. That said, once we knew more about what it was about, there were Americans who, as late as the day that Japan attacked us in Pearl Harbor believed that we should be trying to do something more along the lines of Hitler's government in Germany. It's a really important parallel because at the same time, the Great Depression is everywhere in the world. And it's hit us hard. It's hit Germany very, very hard. And a lot of Americans are seeing fascism and Hitler and everything is happening in the early 30s as a solution to that, a fast track out of that economically. So yeah, it's a it's favorably viewed by many Americans. Sort of the flip side of the greatest generation. You know, the tradition is we save the world from fascism, but we almost brought it on. It's really about storytelling, isn't it? Prequel, your book really tracks how much. propaganda played a role in all of this time and really got refined under the Nazis. A central figure in the book is a German American, George Sylvester Vyrrhic. He figures prominently in the beginning of the story and throughout. Tell us about him. George Sylvester Vyrrach was a literary celebrity at the time.

He was, oddly, he was the pioneer of gay vampire fiction, which has become a thing in our modern life. But he was, I think, the first person in the English language to ever try. something like that. He was an accomplished poet. He made a name for himself doing interviews with famous men. He was a, it was a Kardashian of the literary set at the time. He also had been an agent for the Kaiser during World War I operating in the United States, trying to turn America more toward the Kaiser's point of view. And in World War II, he was the highest paid German agent in the United States. And he headed a multi-million dollar, actually massive, very slick, very sophisticated propaganda effort that targeted Americans directly through a number of front groups

and intermediaries. And most controversially, it targeted Americans through members of Congress. He infiltrated Congress in a way that used congressional offices to send millions of pieces of German authored and pro-Nazi propaganda to the American public. There's a lot about this time that America is having a big role in. I mean, the psychology of advertising has really set in culturally in this world. world, how to manipulate people's minds. Propaganda, of course, had been part of the world before this, but now in the 20th century it's become this sort of refined technique, and they are understanding how to use it in all regards, especially politically. One of the heroes of prequel is a man named

Henry Hoke, who is H-O-K-E. And he's not a famous person at all. He wasn't even a famous person at the time he died. His obituary had no reference to any of the heroic work that he did in this field. But he was a direct mail advertising expert. He, in fact, had like, a trade publication. That was about direct mail advertising. And when his son went off to college, he went to UPenn. He told his dad he was unhappy at school. And one of the reasons he was unhappy is that he was unsettled by how much pro-German anti-Semitic propaganda he was getting as a college student.

And his dad looked into it with this very specific area of expertise that he brought to bear. And he realized that what his son was seeing was the tip of an iceberg where not just college students, but ministers and insurance agents and captains of finance and all sorts of different professions were being targeted by a big, seemingly, centrally organized German propaganda operation with incredibly sophisticated tactics. And he, as a citizen, unraveled it and ultimately followed the trail of it to the U.S. Congress. Just as a citizen, just as somebody who understood persuasion and the modern arts of it in that time, he had no military background, no foreign policy background, but he, more than anyone, more than any other American, exposed

what the Germans were doing. Well, every story has a protagonist and antagonist, and that's what we find throughout your book is these amazing people who are heroes and villains, but no story survives without them. Another story, Hitler's Mein Kampf, written in 1933 when he was jailed, he cites in that story of his American advancements in eugenics as central to creating a people's state, in quotation mark. The racist laws, Jim Crow in America, very inspiring him.

Hi, it's me again. We have not yet done an episode on the Jim Crow laws. It's on the list. But for now, let me just explain and refresh. Jim Crow is a term for the segregation laws,

rules, and customs, which arose after reconstruction ended in 1877. These laws, rules and customs, some of which lasted all the way into the 1960s, removed the rights granted to African Americans by the Reconstruction Amendments, the 13th, 14th, and 15th,

instated to establish and protect the rights of formerly enslaved people and promote equality in the United States ever after. Basically, these Jim Crow policies in southern states usurped the constitutional protections granted black people by the federal government. All right? Back to Rachel. For Hitler, America was primed for fascism, wasn't it? For many people. Hitler said, that America was permanently on the brink of revolution. He thought that there is impossible to have

a stable pluralist country where lots of different types of people all got to say and how things were governed. But he also was very inspired by American racism. And James Q. Whitman wrote a seminal book about this, a short and beautifully written recent book called Hitler's American Model, which is about one specific slice of that. The Nazis sent a bright German law student to the University of Arkansas Law School to do a comprehensive study of Jim Crow and about how black Americans could be technically citizens under the 14th Amendment, but also subjugated and exploited and dominated by the white majority. And that pseudo-legalistic justification for the type of second-class citizenship that Hitler wanted to impose on Jews and other non-Arians

or other sub-citizens in his mind, was part of the way that the Germans justified the Nuremberg laws. It's part of the way that they thought that they could be seen not as an outlaw regime, but as a regime that much like America, had a legalistic framework that justified what they were doing internally. It's a fascinating chapter that you tell about the emergence of the protocols of the elders of Zion, which you can still find all over the web. It's incredible. But it all really gets publicized through Henry Ford's newspaper. Yeah, and I did not know this about Henry Ford before I got deep into this research. I knew that he was an anti-Semite, but I sort of thought that it was a private thing.

I thought it was his private prejudice, a peccadillo. He was, I think, inarguably, the most effective and most prolific anti-Semitic propagandist in the English language ever. You mentioned Mind Komp earlier in the initial, in the first edition of Mind Komp, Hitler singles out Henry Ford by name. Right. as the American to look up to. Hitler kept a portrait of Henry Ford in his office because he admired his anti-Semitism. As the proprietor of the Dearborn Independent, Ford serialized the protocols of the Elders of Zion even after they were exposed contemporaneously as a hoax and a forgery. He serialized them. He promoted them. He gathered his essays about the protocols of the Elders of Zion into a four-volume book that he had printed in multiple languages. It sold very well in Germany, in Germany.

And he did more than anyone to spread toxic, murderous, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, not just in the United States, but worldwide. And Henry Ford has a lot of different legacies, but that I think is maybe foremost among them. The rise of fascism, and this version of it does not work without anti-Semitism. That is the central antagonist for them. It creeps up everywhere. And yet it's so kind of normal for that in that conversation. that you kind of forget until he realizes, oh, gosh, it's anti-Semitism again. They need this villain in their world.

Fascism requires a scapegoat. Yeah. Right? Fascism is about, you know, an nation that used to be great, but is now in decline. And why is it in decline? Because there's an insidious, powerful, secret other, an enemy within that has attacked and weakened and captured what is supposed to be our government. And we have to take it back from them.

And it can be a different minority group. You can pick a different scapegoat, but the Jews have been top of the pyramid in terms of the go-to scapegoating group that fascism and authoritarian movements just require. You can't get people to give up on the idea of democratic governance. You can't get people to give up on the idea that they as citizens should all have an equal say in what's going to happen in our country, unless you can create the impression that democracy, that that sort of decision-making will never be able to defeat the enemy within because we can't let that. those people continue to have a say because they're so powerful. They're so secretly in charge of everything. They're so pulling, you know, operating the strings. They're the puppet masters. You can't get people to give up on democracy unless you can convince people that there is an

entity that can't be controlled by democratic means that has to be destroyed by force. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. This book has momentum. It pushes forward, just like your podcasts do, in a very skillful story way. So there are many ideas discussed as we are doing here, but it really pushes through with these great characters who are really fighting the good fight and the bad fight in other regards. How did they see this happening? Like, how was it going to happen? Was there going to be a bloody revolution in the streets? Or would this be politically manipulated, like Hitler, in becoming chancellor, etc.?

There were different plots. And they all look completely improbable in retrospect, as does every failed plot ever. Once it doesn't work, it looks like it never was going to work. But, for example, one of the plots that I discuss in the book that was exposed by some of the citizen activists who infiltrated these groups was that after the 1940 election, which FDR, they fully expected to win that he was going to get reelected, they wanted people who were against FDR, that wanted people who opposed that almost inevitable political outcome to rise up in multiple states all at the same time at a prearranged time and to, start fires, to shoot up buildings, to commit murders, to commit kidnappings in a way that created a national sense of emergency. The reason they wanted to do it all at once is because they believed if you could create a sense of national emergency, it would result in National Guard being called out everywhere. They believed they had enough sympathy, pro-fashist sympathy

among National Guardsmen and local law enforcement, that it would eventually become a situation where a state of emergency was declared nationwide. And they, as the sort of anti-competes, communist, you know, vanguard, would be invited to form a new government. And that was the contours of the national plot for the post-1940 election period. It was also the theory behind the Christian front plot in 1940 in New York, where the FBI believed they were seven days away from enacting a plot that would involve the kidnapping of multiple members of Congress and setting off bombs all over New York City, which again they thought would set off an emergency and they'd be invited to join with the junta, essentially.

Bit of anarchy in there always helps stir the pot, doesn't it? There's so many of these iconic figures. I was so surprised by Philip Johnson's story. He was in my childhood and growing up such an iconic architect, the AT&T building on Madison Avenue. I mean, but he's one of those many who are just drawn into this fold. It's incredible how active he was. Yeah, and Philip Johnson, very, very celebrated American architect, among the most celebrated architects. And I feel like he's the antidote to me to the, I think the canard that the only people

to whom fascism appeals are people who are economically dislocated or alienated or don't have any social power. Philip Johnson had all the money and all the power in the world. He was born to an incredibly wealthy family. He was an Ivy League and incredibly well connected and fascist to the core. He founded a group called the gray shirts, which was meant to be like a black, like the black shirts in Italy, he journeyed to Louisiana to try to attach himself to Huey Long, who he saw has the best candidate for America's Hitler until Long was assassinated. Then he attached himself to Charles Coglin, who was the famous radio priest, who had a quarter of the country listening to him at the height of his powers, who was overtly fascist.

Johnson's writings from the time are astonishing. He wrote explicitly about needing to racially cleanse the United States of black people and immigrants and Jews. And it's just astonishing that we remember him mostly as an architect. But he cleansed himself, that man, cleansed. He did build buildings, and you can see him, and they are a thing. That's amazing. Lincoln Kirstein had everything to do with it. Yeah. Yeah. He was a, and I feel like the modern history of Philip Johnson is sort of bringing this back into the story, but he wasn't exactly repentant. Front and center of all of this, I'm going to cross tons of chapters of your book here,

but is the collaboration of certain congressmen and senators who are part of the propaganda campaign because they had this ability to spread the word very efficiently. They have a special thing called franking. It's discussed in the book, which is fascinating. Free mail. And this was infiltrated by these German agents, some of whom we talked about, and thus begins this enormous amount of propaganda in America vis-a-vis the mail of the U.S. Congress, which is incredible.

And this eventually leads to Department of Justice. figures, incredible people, who take this on. And this results finally in what's called the Great Sedition Trial of 1941, which is a story unto itself amazing. On January 3, 1944, 30 people were brought to trial for violating the Smith Act of 1940. This Congressional Act named for its foremost advocate, Howard W. Smith of Virginia, and more officially known as the Alien Registration Act of 1940, made it illegal for any resident. or citizen of the United States to teach or advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, as well as forcing non-citizens to register with the government so that they and their supposedly

un-American ideas could be tracked. The defendants in the sedition trial of 1944 were brought to the attention of the court under the suspicion of Nazi sympathies, each being archly opposed to American involvement in the Second World War on the Allied side. So how do we get to the great sedition trial, and what is that like? The great sedition trial, it takes a while to get into court. There's a number of different indictments. The initial prosecutor who brings the case implicates a number of members of Congress as having been part of this plot. And for his efforts, he gets fired. One of the members of Congress, one of the senators, who he implicates, goes to the attorney general and threatens

that he's going to lead investigations of the attorney general and the Justice Department in the Senate unless that prosecutor gets fired. And indeed, that prosecutor gets fired. which I think is a real black eye for the Justice Department. Eventually another prosecutor is appointed and brings the case in 1944. And when it happens, it's national news. There's almost 30 defendants, among them a lot of very famous people, among them this now very famous convicted Nazi agent, George Sylvester Vierke, who we were talking about.

And the case is very heavily covered at the beginning. And then it devolves very quickly into an ungovernable circus. And it stretches on and on and on. After seven months, the prosecution is only like 30% of the way into presenting their case. The judge dies. And the Justice Department decides not to pursue it. And all of the people who were brought up on these charges, their charges are dropped and they're all let go. And it's fascinating to follow them and see what happens to them on the American far right in the decades to come. It's not a happy story. But it was a very dramatic prosecution that failed, but that did expose to the American. in public a lot of what these members of Congress were involved in. Yeah, there's a very interesting theme here where you draw a line between certain U.S. presidents Truman onto, you know, all the way to Gerald Ford of presidents who've had to make the choice to sort of suppress stories and move the nation onward for better or worse. And this was part of this as well. Truman makes that call when he's confronted by Burton Wheeler

from Montana. And that becomes part of this story, how this America has to always take, or I don't know they have to, but takes this higher road, in quotation. marks. I think it's one of the great sort of moral threads through so many of the most difficult pieces of American history, which is, do you punish or do you forgive? And I'm, you know, I have, I'm a person of faith and I believe in forgiveness and I think it's a spiritually valuable thing. And I think in real political terms, when you choose not to prosecute criminal behavior, particularly among the powerful, you create a de facto permission structure for them to do it again. And so, you know, people who were involved with members of Congress and this Nazi propaganda scheme went to prison, but none of the members of Congress did.

And that sets a precedent for people who have power. And we should reckon more, I think, as a country with the way that people who have a lot of political power have been able to wriggle out of criminal accountability. Yeah. At some of the worst times in our history. We should reckon with the 1930s is what we have to reckon with. Yeah. That's the hotbed of everything. World War II is a high point of American history.

Our greatest moment for many, greatest generation, so many ways, really true. Those raised in its aftermath, I include myself, figured, done deal, fascism defeated, anti-Semitism proven wrong, dragged out into the open, liberal of democracy thrives. Reality is different. And you titled this book intentionally prequel. Why is that? I believe that the United States system of government is exceptional, and I think it's worth fighting for. But I don't think there's anything about us as people that renders us. all of that renders us immune to the charms and to the purported values that strong men and

authoritarian are selling. I think that we are just as susceptible to the cult of personality. We are just as susceptible to the myth of a nation in decline and an all-powerful scapegoat and the nobility of violence and the need to, you know, suspend our disbelief and just put our faith in the leader. I think we're just as susceptible to that sort of thing as the Germans were or the Italians were or the Spanish were or any of the other people who we've seen go through these kinds of transitions in the world. But when our previous generations have faced rising

authoritarian movements and ascendant fascist movements in this country, they've beaten them with some incredibly heroic civilian activism, with good work by people in the criminal justice system, by some heroic journalism. And I just, I want people to know those stories because I they're constructive and instructive and helpful. Interesting. I look forward to the sequel of Prequel. One day to come. Rachel Maddow is the author of Prequel, the American Fight Against Fascism for years. She has hosted the Emmy Award-winning Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC.

She is the number one New York Times bestselling author of Drift and Blowout and the co-author of Bagman. Do yourself a favor and listen to her podcast series. They are remarkable. Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the pod. Don, thank you so much for having me. This is a lot of fun. I really appreciate it. Hey, thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, all kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries.

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