Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 10

June 26, 2025: Sound in Film: Dialogue Dubbing

[100 yearsago this week, the brothersHarry and Sam Warner struck a deal with Bell Labs to use theirinnovative Vitaphonetechnology in the production of the first sound films for Warner Brothers.So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for talking pictures!]

On three characterswhose dialogue was dubbed by a different actor than the on-screen performer, reflectingone of cinema’s more hiddenhistories.

1)     Goldfinger: Dialogue dubbing was apparentlymore or less ubiquitous in the early (ie, Sean Connery’s 1960s) Bond films—for example,the same German actress, Monica “Nikki” vander Zyl, dubbed atleast 15 women across those early films, including Bond’s leading ladies inmost of them. But it still feels pretty strange when a Bond film’s principalvillain, a character who is on screen almost as much as Bond himself, is voicedby someone other than the actor we’re watching. And that was the case withAuric Goldfinger from the 1964 film of that name—he is played by German actor GertFröbe, but voiced by Englishman MichaelCollins. I can’t lie, when I found out that it wasn’t the actor onscreensaying “No Mr. Bond, I expectyou to die!,” I was both shaken and stirred.

2)     Darth Vader: This example of dialogue dubbing isobviously much, much more widely known than Goldfinger’s. But while of course GeorgeLucas was happy to have James Earl Jones’s iconic and booming voice for his firsttrilogy’s iconic villain (turnedsympathetic Dad), it also seems, from the behind-the-scenes footagethat has since been released, that the actor walking around in Vader’s outfit (DavidProwse) had a voice that quite simply would not have worked for the characterno matter what. Prowse still got to wear the black suit and visit all those setsand act opposite the films’ other main performers, but it’s fair to say that Jonesprovided the performance most fully associated with the character—which ofcourse reveals something about both the importance of dialogue and the complicatedsituation in play whenever dialogue is dubbed.

3)     Trish in Exit Wounds: And if thatsituation is always complicated to start with, I can only imagine how painful itfeels for an actor to only find out that they’ve been dubbed when they watchthe completed film for the first time. Apparently that was the case for EvaMendes in the 2001 Steven Seagal and DMX action film Exit Wounds—Mendesfilmed the entire role, producers were unhappy with her performance (believingshe didn’t sound “intelligentenough”), the part was dubbed by an unidentified actress, and Mendes onlydiscovered the change when she watched the film at the theater. Of coursesome toxic combination of sexism and racism had to be in play for them to feelthat way about Mendes but not, y’know, Steven Seagal—a reminder that dialogue dubbingis always connected to other issues as well as sound in cinema.

Last filmsound studying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Examples of sound in film you’d highlight?

June 25, 2025: Sound in Film: Mid-Century Evolutions

[100 yearsago this week, the brothersHarry and Sam Warner struck a deal with Bell Labs to use theirinnovative Vitaphonetechnology in the production of the first sound films for Warner Brothers.So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for talking pictures!]

On two specificfilms and one genre that reflect the changing mid-century landscape ofcinematic sounds.

1)     King Kong (1933): Just a half-dozen years afterthose first true “talkies” about which I wrote in yesterday’s post, pioneering percussionistand sound designer Murray Spivackwas faced with a more significant challenge: producingthe noises for the titular monster, along with his fellow prehistoriccreatures, in King Kong. As that second hyperlinked article traces, Spivackwent to great lengths to record various animal noises and other sound effects,and the results were truly groundbreaking; much of Kong looks and feels asdated as you’d expect nearly a century later, but the sound effects remain impressiveto this day. And when we remember that Warner Brothers had purchased Vitaphoneless than a decade before, Spivack’s successes become even more impressivestill.

2)     WorldWar II Newsreels: I’m not going to pretend I have a lot more to add to thatexcellent hyperlinked 2014 European Journal of Media Studies articlefrom (then-) PhD candidate Masha Shpolberg. Nor do I want to suggest (no morethan Shpolberg does) that we should emphasize a topic like film sounds when itcomes to the era and the horrors of the Second World War. But the question ofhow the evolving cultural medium of film brought those horrors to audiences farfrom combat is a really interesting one, and Shpolberg makes a great case thatnewsreels did so through a particularly striking set of sound elements.

3)     Singing in the Rain (1952): Idon’t know exactly when the first films that we could call truly nostalgic forthe early days of Hollywood began to be released, but I like the symbolism ofthe very reflectiveand metatextual Singing in the Rain coming out exactly 25 yearsafter the release of The Jazz Singer. But while Singing representedHollywood’s earlier days in its content, I agree with thispost from film studies student Gordon Taylor that this early 1950s filmuses sound in “incredible” ways that reflect how far the industry had come inthat quarter-century since Al Jolson’s famous line. Indeed, while of coursethere have been further evolutions in the 75 years since Singing, Iwould venture to argue that much of the modern age of cinematic sound can befound by the 1950s.  

Next filmsound studying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Examples of sound in film you’d highlight?

June 24, 2025: Sound in Film: Al Jolson

[100 yearsago this week, the brothersHarry and Sam Warner struck a deal with Bell Labs to use theirinnovative Vitaphonetechnology in the production of the first sound films for Warner Brothers.So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for talking pictures!]

On twocontradictory yet interconnected AmericanStudies layers to an iconic “talkie.”

Aboutseventeen and a half minutes into The Jazz Singer (1927),the popular singer and vaudevillian Al Jolson, having just performed alive-recorded version of the song “Dirty Hands, Dirty Face,”speaks directly to the audience (the folks listening to him perform in the film’snightclub setting; but also, clearly, the audience watching the film intheaters) the first recordedwords of dialogue in an American film: “Wait a minute, wait a minute, youain’t heard nothin’ yet.” As yesterday’s post hopefully made clear, thedevelopment of sound technology in film was a multi-stage process, and it’simportant not to over-emphasize a single moment or film (at least not at the expenseof a nuanced sense of how such things evolve over time). But nonetheless, it’sdifficult to overstate how much of animpact this audible line of dialogue (part of about two minutes’ worth ofrecorded dialogue across The Jazz Singer) would have made on filmaudience used to reading dialogue on caption cards inserted amidst filmedscenes (a technique which Jazz Singer still uses for much of itsdialogue).

In this February2019 Saturday Evening Post Considering History column on the historyand influence of Blackface, I noted that for much of The Jazz Singer,including its triumphant finale, Jolson’s character Jack Robin (the stage nameof Jacob Rabinowitz) performsin Blackface. While he isn’t in Blackface for that iconic line of recorded dialogue,Blackface minstrelsy overall is a defining feature of the film and its legaciesin American culture and society. So I’d ask you to check out that column if youwould and then come on back for a second AmericanStudying layer.

Welcomeback! If as I argue in that column one significant feature of much of 20thcentury American popular culture (from Vaudeville to film to cartoons to TVvariety shows and more) was thus Blackface performance, another was the strikingnumber of JewishAmerican artists who helped shapethat culture. High on that list was Al Jolson, who had been born Asa Yoelson inLithuania and who would become one of the first openly Jewish performers to becomestars in the United States. And to my mind it's no coincidence that the film rolewhich truly cemented Jolson’s cultural significance was that of Jacob Rabinowitz,a character who is destined to take over his father’s role as cantor in a LowerEast Side synagogue before he rebels, runs away from home, and finds his wayinstead to the titular role of jazz singer. I love the fact that it’s a JewishAmerican performer who speaks the first recorded words of dialogue in anAmerican film—exactly as much as I loathe how much of that film said performerspends in Blackface.

Next filmsound studying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Examples of sound in film you’d highlight?

June 23, 2025: Sound in Film: Vitaphone’s Anniversary

[100 yearsago this week, the brothersHarry and Sam Warner struck a deal with Bell Labs to use theirinnovative Vitaphonetechnology in the production of the first sound films for Warner Brothers.So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for talking pictures!]

On three otherhistoric moments that help contextualize the one we’re commemorating this week.

1)     De Forest’s Alternative: I first learned aboutthe groundbreaking scientist and inventor Lee deForest when I made him the Memory DayNominee for August 26th (his birthday, in 1873). De Forest’sinventions (and one in particular, theaudion) helped shape virtually every significant 20th century communicationsand media technology, from the telephone to radio to television to, yes, sound films.But while the audion did play an important role in the development ofVitaphone, over those same years de Forest would also create his ownsound-on-film system, Phonofilm,which he debuted in April 1923. Unfortunately for him, its sound quality was apparentlynot the greatest, and so the brothers Warner decided to make their June 1925deal with Western Electric’s Bell Laboratories instead.

2)     DonJuan (1926): Just over a year after they signed that deal, Warner Brothersformally introduced the new technology with the August 5th, 1926premiere of their silentfilm Don Juan, starring John Barrymore as the Latin lothario. Therewas no spoken dialogue (that would come about a year later, with the famousmoment I’ll discuss in tomorrow’s post), but the film did feature both a symphonicscore and sound effects. Perhaps even more important as a demonstration of thetechnology were the seriesof shorts that preceded the film, most of which featured live-recordedmusic and one of which also qualified as a “talkie,” as it included an “Introduction of VitaphoneSound Pictures” from studio spokesperson Will Hays. Don Juan made asubstantial haul at the box office (nearly $1.7 million), yet not enough torecoup the new technology’s costs—both telling details, I’d say.

3)     CarnivalNight in Paris (1927): For the first year (and beyond), bothshorts and feature film scores utilizing Vitaphone were filmed in New YorkCity, where the technology had been invented and where a sizeable number of musiciansand recording studios could be found. But it was inevitable that the technology,like every aspect of the filmindustry in the 1920s, would migrate to Hollywood, and Vitaphone did sofirst with the 1927 short Carnival Night in Paris. Filmed in Hollywoodand featuring the HenryHalstead Orchestra and hundreds of background dancers, this short was onits own terms eminently inconsequential—yet, as with every significant momentin the development of this technology, it helped change everything for film andAmerica in the years to come.

Next filmsound studying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Examples of sound in film you’d highlight?

June 21-22, 2025: American Nazis: Project Paperclip and Hunters

[In the summerof 1945, Nazi scientists began arriving in the United States, recruited towork in the US government and eventuallyits space program as part of OperationPaperclip. But they weren’t the first nor the only American Nazis by anymeans, and this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of others, leading up to thisweekend post on an interesting and fraught recent cultural representation ofPaperclip.]

[NB.Serious SPOILERS for the first season of AmazonPrime’s Hunters in this post’sfinal paragraph; I haven’t seen season two.]

On a morehistorical and a more fictional side to a recent TV show’s depiction of Nazisin America.

Like allthe histories about which I’ve written in this week’s series, the USgovernment’s ProjectPaperclip program needs a great deal more of a place in ourcollective memories. The program’s very name reflects the idea that the Nazipasts of the scientists brought to the United States in the months after thewar’s end would be excised from their files, these personal and collectivehistories elided so that the US could advance its Cold War and (eventually) Space Racegoals and deny the Soviet Union the same opportunities. We can debatewhether bringing the scientists over and employing them was the right or wrongdecision (I’d side with “wrong,” but I understand the other arguments), but tomy mind the purposeful erasure of their Nazi histories was unequivocally wrong,and frankly an implicit recognition that there was a shameful side to thisprogram that was always intended to be withheld from the American people. Soany means by which we can better remember Paperclip and those fraught decisionsand questions is a very good thing indeed.

One suchmeans, and I’ll freely admit the one through which I initially learned aboutProject Paperclip (I had already written inthis space about von Braun, but I don’t think I had known about thatoverall/official frame for the operation until watching the show earlier thisyear), is Amazon Prime’s controversialalternate history show Hunters. Iunderstand and largely agree with that hyperlinked article’s critiques of theshow’s depiction of the Holocaust, but would say that when it comes to thehistories of Paperclip and Nazis in America, Hunters get a couple of seemingly contradictory, equally accurate thingsimpressively right. On the one hand, the show depicts the ways in which themajority of the ex-Nazis disappeared into everyday American life, many of them in Huntsville,Alabama (site of the U.S. Space& Rocket Center). And at the same time, the show recognizesthat some ex-Nazis (like von Braun) ended up instead in far more prominentpublic positions—while the show’s choice to make the first ex-Nazi we meet the USSecretary of State is as exaggerated as everything else about Hunters, I’d argue that exaggeration(and perhaps especially the fact that his Nazi past has been kept secret) isnot all that far from the truth of von Braun’s influence on the US governmentfor decades.

The lastex-Nazi we meet in Season 1 of Huntersis also a prominent figure who has been hiding his Nazi past—but in this case,I would argue that in service of a “twist” the show does a significantinjustice to its historical subjects. [Again, SPOILERS from here on out.] Throughoutthe show’s arc, AlPacino’s Meyer Offerman serves as a mentor and father-figure to LoganLerman’s Jonah Heidelbaum, bringing Jonah into the team of Nazi hunters who aretracking down these hidden figures and delivering vigilante justice to them. Butin the finalepisode’s final minutes, Jonah learns that Meyer is himself anex-Nazi, none other than “The Wolf” who terrorized Jonah’s grandparents duringtheir time in a concentration camp. The revelation allows Jonah the chance tomake his own final decision about vigilante justice and murder (something he’sbeen struggling with throughout the show), but it doesn’t quite work within theshow’s plot—and much more importantly, to my mind it doesn’t work at all withinthe show’s historical and cultural themes. After all, this twist literally collapsesthe distinctions between Nazis and Jews, Holocaust perpetrators andvictims/survivors—and that’s an injustice not only to the Holocaust itself, butalso to better remembering the histories of those Nazis who found their way tothe United States in the decades after committing those horrors.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other histories or stories you’d highlight?

June 20, 2025: American Nazis: Neo-Nazis and Charlottesville

[In the summerof 1945, Nazi scientists began arriving in the United States, recruited towork in the US government and eventuallyits space program as part of OperationPaperclip. But they weren’t the first nor the only American Nazis by anymeans, and this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of others, leading up to a weekendpost on an interesting and fraught recent cultural representation of Paperclip.]

On how torespond to a resurgent neo-Nazi movement. [NOTE: I originally shared this posta few years back; let’s just it hasn’t becomeless relevant since.]

TheAmerican neo-Nazi movement has been present for more than half a century—in thesame mid-1960s years that Tom Lehrer was releasing “Wernher von Braun,” adishonorably discharged Navy veteran named GeorgeLincoln Rockwell founded the AmericanNazi Party (ANP), and the organization has been active in American politicsever since (despite Rockwell’s August1967 murder by disgruntled former ANP member John Patler). Over those decadesit has also spawned competing organizations such as MatthiasKoehl’s New Order, a monthly magazine (The Stormtrooper), and abriefly active 1970s youth organization (the NationalSocialist Liberation Front, or NSLF). Reading all the info in thosehyperlinked posts (none of which, to be clear, are from the organizationsthemselves) makes me want to take a shower, but it’s important not to look awayfrom the fact that American Nazis have been a vocal political force (if ofcourse a minority one) for more than 50 years.

In August2017, however, almost exactly 50 years after Rockwell’s murder, neo-Nazisenjoyed their moment of greatest national visibility: the August11-12 white supremacist “Unite the Right” rallies in myhometown of Charlottesville. The single most famous neo-Nazi participant inthose hateful rallies was James Fields, thedomestic terrorist who drove his car into a crowd of protesters, killing HeatherHeyer. But while neo-Nazis might want to disavow Fields’ blatantlyillegal action, I’m sure they were much happier with the Friday evening marchand rally on the University of Virginia grounds, at which neo-Nazis sportingswastikas and offering Hitler salutes chanted slogans such as “Blood and soil”and “Jews willnot replace us!” By emphasizing the presence of neo-Nazis at the rallies, I don’tmean to downplay the many other white supremacist forces there, nor quitefrankly the centrality of these communities to mainstream 2010s right-wingAmerican politics (there’s a reason why President Trump argued for “very finepeople on both sides” in Charlottesville). But while white supremacist rhetoricand violence has been a common thread in Charlottesvilleand American history, the overt embrace of Nazism in this momentfelt distinctly new and even more threatening still.

So how dowe respond to that resurgent neo-Nazi movement (other than by punching Nazis, whichI’m fine with but isn’t sufficient by itself as a collective response)? It willcome as something less than a surprise to know that a main answer of mine isthat we need to better engage with our histories, including those about whichI’ve written in this week’s series. But we really do, for lots of reasons butespecially this one: despite our understandable desire to define it assomething entirely outside of and opposed to our national identity, Nazism isindeed as American as, well, the Ford Mustang. Or,y’know, the moon landing. But sotoo is fighting Nazis, not just on the battlefields of Europe but incommunities and conversations here at home. Which is to say, the originalAntifa wasn’t just all those WWIIsoldiers—it was also, and I would argue especially, someone like IsadoreGreenbaum. As always, learning the horrific histories of American Nazismalso means learning the inspiring histories of figures like Greenbaum (and the100K New York protesters with whom he shared that 1939 activism). There are nomore important lessons than those for our renewed fight here in 2020.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other histories or stories you’d highlight?

June 19, 2025: American Nazis: Wernher von Braun

[In the summerof 1945, Nazi scientists began arriving in the United States, recruited towork in the US government and eventuallyits space program as part of OperationPaperclip. But they weren’t the first American Nazis by any means, and thisweek I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of others, leading up to a weekend post on aninteresting and fraught recent cultural representation of Paperclip.]

On threestriking lines from TomLehrer’s satirical song about the Nazi-turned-Americanscientist.

1)     “Call him a Nazi, he won’t even frown/‘Ha,Nazi, Schmazi,’ says Wernher von Braun”: As I’ll discuss at greater length inthe weekend post, what was perhaps most striking about Operation Paperclipwasn’t that it brought Nazi scientists to America, but that it did so soquickly and openly. Von Braun, the scientist single-handedly responsible forthe V2 rocket thatkilled a great many Londoners in the final year of the Blitz (among other workhe did for Hitler’s Nazi regime), was among those initial arrivals in theUnited States in late September 1945, less than 5 months after V-E Day. He wouldgo on to be a prominent public spokesperson as wellas scientist for NASA and the Space Program, appearing for example on three Walt Disney Man in Space TV shows. Clearly von Braun was able to immediatelyand consistently laugh away his service to Nazi Germany, and so, it seems wasthe US government.

2)     “Like the widows and cripples in old Londontown/Who owe their large pension to Wernher von Braun”: But not all Americanswere as willing or able to laugh that history away, as Lehrer’s early 1960ssong illustrates. There’s no shortage of contenders for the song’s most bitingcouplet, but I would have to go with this one, especially as it follows “Butsome think our attitude/Should be one of gratitude.” Obviously those who havebeen permanently and fatally affected by von Braun’s rockets would show him nogratitude—and Lehrer here links “us” and “our attitude” to those Londoncasualties. The first line in this verse, “Some have harsh words for this manof renown,” really drives home the point—after all, in 1945 what von Braun wasrenowned for was designing killing machines, and it was then that the USdecided to not just spare him from post-war trials and punishments, but tobring him to America and make him an integral, acclaimed part of our own ColdWar efforts.

3)     “Good old Americans like Dr. Wernher vonBraun!”: All of this adds a great deal more to Lehrer’s spoken introduction tothe song, which asks “what is it” that helped America advanced in both thenuclear and space races. “Well,” Lehrer replies, “it was good old American knowhow, that’s what, as provided by good old Americans like” von Braun. While ofcourse immigrants to the US are indeed American, von Braun’s immigration tookplace, again, just a few months after he was employed by and making weapons forthe US’s wartime adversary. Yet while on that level Lehrer’s description of himas a “good old American” could be read as ridiculous, I would say that the truesatire lies deeper—that our willingness to abandon morality or ethics inpursuit of scientific and Cold War “victories” was and is, indeed, all toodefining and foundational of an American trait.

LastNaziStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other histories or stories you’d highlight?

June 18, 2025: American Nazis: The Plot Against America

[In the summerof 1945, Nazi scientists began arriving in the United States, recruited towork in the US government and eventuallyits space program as part of OperationPaperclip. But they weren’t the first American Nazis by any means, and thisweek I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of others, leading up to a weekend post on aninteresting and fraught recent cultural representation of Paperclip.]

[NB. As ofmy drafting of this post, I haven’t had a chance to watch David Simon and Ed Burns’ HBOminiseries adaptation of Roth’s novel, so my thoughts here will focus on thebook. I hope to get to that at some point and will add an update here if and whenI do!]

On threetelling & compelling layers to PhilipRoth’s 2004 alternate historical fiction.

One of theconsistent pleasures of reading alternatehistories (as with historical fiction in general, of course) is seeing howthey incorporate actual historical figures into (and refigure them within) theirimagined histories. Roth’s novel includes dozens of such figures in both importantand minor roles, but three of the most central are ones I’ve featured orreferenced in prior posts this week: in Roth’s central premise, CharlesLindbergh is elected president in 1940 and aligns the US with Nazi Germany; heappoints Henry Ford as his Secretary of the Interior; and one of Lindbergh’smost consistent adversaries in the novel is New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia(who in real life pushed back on the 1939 Madison Square Garden Nazi rally,among many other anti-Naziand pro-Jewish efforts during his tenure as mayor). These historicalfigures make Roth’s novel a juicier read for any student of American history,but they also reflect a profound understanding of how the actual course of1930s and 40s American history already intersected with Nazi Germany in manydifferent ways. That is, this may be an alternate history, but it’s a potentlyrealistic one.

Roth’snovel does also include Father Coughlin, but in a briefer and more minor role,perhaps because one of Roth’s central fictional characters is a religiousleader in his own right: Newark’s Conservative Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, whobecomes a prominent Lindbergh supporter and who later marries the narratorPhilip’s Aunt Evelyn. As far as I’ve been able to learn, no prominent JewishAmerican figures or leaders supported movements like the German American Bundor the America First Committee (which I wrote about in Monday and Tuesday’sposts, respectively), which makes sense given their overt and definingantisemitism. But it’s also the case that no one linked to those movements ranfor president, nor gained the widespread popular support of a frontrunner forthat highest office; both of which are true of Roth’s Lindbergh by the timethat Bengelsdorf endorses him. So it certainly seems plausible that aconservative Jewish figure like Bengelsdorf would under those circumstanceshitch his wagon to Lindbergh’s star—but it is even more plausible that doing sodoes not spare Bengelsdorf from the rising tide of Nazism and antisemitism, ashe is later arrested when widespread white supremacist riots target JewishAmericans throughout the nation.

To my mindthe novel’s most compelling characters are its younger generation JewishAmericans, however, a group that includes not only the narrator Philip, butalso and most complicatedly his older brother Sandy (among others). Sandy isselected by the Office of American Absorption (OAA) for its “Just Folks”program, which places Jewish boys with Southern and Midwestern families inorder to “Americanize” them; Sandy is sent to a farm in Kentucky and returnshome highly critical of his family (calling them “ghetto Jews”). This complexand fraught plotline echoes the experiences of young NativeAmericans sent to the late 19th and early 20thcentury boardingschools, as well as the broader “Americanization”movement of that same period. But it also allows Roth to explore anuncomfortable truth likewise revealed by the Washington’s birthday 1939 NewYork rally—that American Nazis could, and did, make the case that their beliefsand movement aligned with foundational elements of American identity. One morehistorical echo of this profoundly, painfully historical (and, yes, frustratinglysalient) alternate history novel.

NextNaziStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other histories or stories you’d highlight?

June 17, 2025: American Nazis: Ford, Lindbergh, and Coughlin

[In the summerof 1945, Nazi scientists began arriving in the United States, recruited towork in the US government and eventuallyits space program as part of OperationPaperclip. But they weren’t the first nor the only American Nazis by anymeans, and this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of others, leading up to a weekendpost on an interesting and fraught recent cultural representation of Paperclip.]

On threefamous figures who reflect the breadth and depth of American support for Nazis.

1)     Henry Ford: The automobile inventor andentrepreneur wasn’t just an American Nazi supporter—he was apparently aninfluence on Adolf Hitler himself. Between 1920 and 1927, Ford and his aideErnest G. Liebold published The Dearborn Independent, anewspaper that they used principally to expound antisemitic views and conspiracy theories; many ofFord’s writings in that paper were published in Germany as a four-volumecollection entitled The International Jew, the World’s ForemostProblem (1920-1922). Heinrich Himmler wrote in 1924 that Ford was “one ofour most valuable, important, and witty fighters,” and Hitlerwent further: in Mein Kampf (1925)he called Ford “a single great man” who “maintains full independence” fromAmerica’s Jewish “masters”; and in a 1931 DetroitNews interview, Hitler called Ford an “inspiration.” In 1938, Ford received the GrandCross of the German Eagle, one of Nazi Germany’s highest civilian honors.

2)     Charles Lindbergh: As I mentioned in this poston Lindbergh, the aviation pioneer likewise received a Cross of the GermanEagle in 1938, this one from Germanair chief Hermann Goering himself. Over the next two years, Lindbergh’spublic opposition to American conflict with Nazi Germany deepened, and despitesubsequent attempts to recuperate that opposition as fear over Soviet Russia’sinfluence, Lindbergh’s views depended entirely on antisemitic conspiracytheories that equaled Ford’s. In a September 1939 nationwide radioaddress, for example, Lindbergh argued, “We must ask who owns andinfluences the newspaper, the news picture, and the radio station, ... If ourpeople know the truth, our country is not likely to enter the war.” Seen inthis light, Lindbergh’srole as spokesman for the America FirstCommittee makes clear that that organization’s non-interventionistphilosophies could not and cannot be separated from the antisemitism and Nazisympathies of Lindbergh, Ford, and all those who took part in the 1939 MadisonSquare Garden rally.

3)     Father Coughlin: As the tens of thousands ofattendees at that rally illustrate, American Nazism was much more than just aperspective held by elite anti-Semites—it was very much a movement. And like somany problematic social movements, it featured a demagogic voice to help spreadits alternative realities—in this case, the Catholic priest turned radio host CharlesEdward Coughlin. Like any media figure who worked for many years, Coughlin saiddifferent things at different times; after the 1939 rally, for example, hesought to distance himself, arguing in his weekly address, “Nothing can begained by linking ourselves with any organization which is engaged in agitatingracial animosities or propagating racial hatreds.” But by that time, Coughlinhad been publicly supporting both NaziGermany and antisemitic conspiracy theories for years; his weeklymagazine, Social Justice, ran formuch of 1938 excerpts from the deeply antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion (as that link illustrates, a text thatcontributed directly to the Holocaust). Both Social Justice and Coughlin’s radio show were hugely popular,illustrating that American Nazism and antisemitism were in the 1930s (as theyfrustratingly seem to be today) widespread views.

NextNaziStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other histories or stories you’d highlight?

June 16, 2025: American Nazis: Madison Square Garden

[In the summerof 1945, Nazi scientists began arriving in the United States, recruited towork in the US government and eventuallyits space program as part of OperationPaperclip. But they weren’t the first nor the only American Nazis by anymeans, and this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of others, leading up to a weekendpost on an interesting and fraught recent cultural representation of Paperclip.]

On threetelling sides to a February1939 Nazi rally in New York City.

1)     Organizers: Thanks to prominent individual figureslike the three on whom I’ll focus tomorrow (Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, andFather Coughlin), I think Americans have a general sense that there was supportfor Nazis in 1930s America. But that support was also organized, and oneof the chief such national organizations, the German AmericanBund, was the force behind the Madison Square Garden rally. While theBund was paralleled by other pro-Hitler organizations in the period like the Free Societyof Teutonia and the Friends ofthe New Germany, it seems to me that the Bund were also singular in their desireto wed these pro-Nazi Germany sentiments with direct appeals to mythic imagesof American identity and patriotism (on which more in item 2). And the rally’stwo keynote speakers reflect the Bund’s own multi-national, immigrant origins(not unlike America’s, if far more fully European): Bund leader Fritz Julius Kuhn was aGerman immigrant who had become a naturalized American citizen in 1934; whileBund secretary and Kuhn’s right-hand man James Wheeler-Hill was aRussian (Latvian) national and recent immigrant known as “the boy orator of theBund.”

2)     George Washington: The rally’s February 20thdate was chosen very specifically—it was George Washington’s birthday, and the stage featured aportrait of Washington flanked by both American flags and Nazi flags/swastikas.After the rally opened with a performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner,”Wheeler-Hill’s introductoryspeech proclaimed that “If George Washington were alive today, he wouldbe friends with Adolf Hitler.” In my book Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History ofAmerican Patriotism, I argue that celebratory patriotism (likethe communal ritual of standing for and singing the anthem) has throughoutAmerican history too often turned into mythic patriotism, the creation of mythsabout our history and identity that are generally used to exclude particulargroups from the America being embraced (and to define those groups as un- andeven anti-American). So it’s no coincidence that in Kuhn’s concluding speech,he argued that “The Bund is open to you, provided you are sincere, of goodcharacter, of white gentile stock, and an American citizen imbued withpatriotic zeal.”

3)     Protesters: That speech of Kuhn’s did not gooff smoothly, however—it was interrupted when IsadoreGreenbaum, a 26-year-old Jewish American US Navy veteran from Brooklyn,charged the stage; Greenbaum was attacked by Nazi guards, pulled away bypolice, and charged with disorderly conduct (for which he paid a $25 fine toavoid a 10-day jail sentence). He wasn’t the least bit apologetic, later stating, “Gee,what would you have done if you were in my place listening to that s.o.b.hollering against the government and publicly kissing Hitler's behind whilethousands cheered? Well, I did it.” Nor was he alone, as an estimated 100,000anti-Nazi protesters gathered outsidethe Garden, dwarfing the 20,000 or so Nazi sympathizers inside. Theprotesters featured World War I veterans, members of the Socialist WorkersParty, and countless other organizations and communities. This inspiring groupin no way mitigates the troubling realities of the rally and its reflection ofwidespread American support for Hitler and the Nazis; but it does remind usthat 1930s American patriotism, like every other element of our society and history,was deeply contested.

NextNaziStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other histories or stories you’d highlight?