One thing is sure. Democracy is doomed. This is our last election. It is fascism or communism.
We are at the crossroads; I take the road to fascism. – Father Charles Coughlin
The German-American Bund was an even more formidable grouping than the Silver Shirts, reaching a height of 25,000 members. The Bund’s leader, Fritz Kuhn, decided to roll the dice and turn his group into a household name.
Kuhn’s plan was to hold a giant rally in New York’s iconic Madison Square Garden. The date was set for February 20, 1939, just months after the horrific Kristallnacht. The message being sent was a clear and direct challenge to New York’s large Jewish population.
While most of the official Jewish and left organizations, including the Communist Party, decided to ignore Kuhn’s challenge, the relatively tiny Socialist Workers Party (SWP) mobilized to confront the fascists head-on.
The SWP printed and passed out over 200,000 flyers and brought out over 50,000 anti-fascists to surround the Garden. The ensuing street skirmishes and the large numbers were a clear defeat for the Bund, and marked the beginning of the end of their success.
The closest thing to a mass following for fascism in the U.S. came from the curious career of Father Charles Coughlin, the radio priest. By the early 1930s, Coughlin’s radio show had 40 million listeners. Starting out as a New Deal supporter in 1932, Coughlin steadily moved to the right over the next several years.
In classic fascist form, Coughlin called for labor and management to unite in a “corporate state.” What started out as a critique of bankers soon became a condemnation of “international finance,” a code for Jewish bankers. The tentacles of Coughlin’s Christian Front reached into the New York Police Department with over 400 cop members.
