1250056012 (N) by Arnie Bernstein

Author:Arnie Bernstein
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2013-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

PART VI

George Washington’s Birthday

“What would George Washington think … and DO, were he alive today?”

—JAMES WHEELER-HILL, NATIONAL SECRETARY OF THE GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND, MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, FEBRUARY 20, 19391

21

Madison Square Garden

ON FEBRUARY 10, 1939, Winchell’s column contained this item of note: “The Ratzis are going to celebrate George Washington’s Birthday at Madison Square Garden—claiming G.W. to be the nation’s Fritz Kuhn. There must be some mistake. Don’t they mean Benedict Arnold?”1

The German-American Bund George Washington’s Birthday rally on February 20 was ostensibly designed to honor the country’s founding father, a man Kuhn declared was America’s “first fascist” and believed democracy was an unsound form of government.2 The rally was to be Kuhn’s shining moment, an elaborate pageant and vivid showcase of all he had built in just three years. There would be food, music, and speeches representing Bundists from coast to coast. A capacity crowd of twenty thousand would be packed into the arena. Three thousand OD men would be a mighty show of force. The Youth Movement members would be a vision of the future. Kuhn’s dream of a Swastika Nation would be on display for the whole world, right in the heart of what the Berlin press called the “Semitized metropolis of New York.”3

As part of their agreement to rent Madison Square Garden, which in 1939 was the third incarnation of the famed arena, located at Eighth Avenue between Forty-Ninth and Fiftieth streets, Kuhn accepted demands by booking manager Major Harold Dibbles that no signs bearing anti-Semitic sentiments be displayed. Similarly, no anti-Semitic speeches were to be delivered. Once the papers were signed, all promises were sent packing. Enormous American flags and the swastika-emblazoned banner of the German-American Bund hung behind the speaker’s podium, flanking a thirty-foot picture of the presumed honoree of the evening. Other signs ringed the hall beneath its balconies. “Wake Up America—Smash Jewish Communism.” “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America.” “1,000,000 Bund Members by 1940.”4 Interspersed between these banners were standard arena signs advertising shaving products and an upcoming boxing match.5 Madison Square Garden officials decided to avoid confrontation and let the propaganda stay in place. It was safe to assume that speeches for the evening would have similar anti-Jewish and pro-Nazi themes as well.6

Before anyone could enter the Garden, the police bomb squad combed the arena from top to bottom, under every seat, between every rafter, inside every pipe. A letter delivered to the mayor’s office the previous Wednesday promised that a trio of time-activated devices would explode during the event if the city didn’t put an end to the Bund’s plans. LaGuardia refused to let any threat stop the rally, no matter how noxious the Bundists were. “… [I]f we are for free speech we have to be for free speech for everybody and that includes Nazis,” he declared. Anonymous bomb threats didn’t bother him. “If they bomb it,” LaGuardia said, “we’ll catch the bombers.”7

Protestors and lots of them were guaranteed for the eight o’clock rally. Police Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine understood this and was taking no chances.

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