Hitler's American Friends: The Third Reich's Supporters in the United States

by Bradley W. Hart

Nazism had tentacles that touched every American community to some extent. Thousands of people joined groups like the German American Bund and the Silver Legion, marching down American streets in Nazi-esque uniforms, sending their children to Nazi summer camps, and heiling their leaders. Supporters of celebrity radio host Father Coughlin’s Christian Front roughed up Jews on subway platforms and discouraged Americans from shopping at Jewish-owned stores. In the marbled corridors of Washington, DC, a German agent ran an ingenious operation to disseminate shocking quantities of isolationist and pro-German propaganda at taxpayer expense. This twentieth-century version of spam email showed up unsolicited in millions of mailboxes around the country. Business leaders found themselves courted by Nazi envoys who promised huge profits in the Reich if they could only convince Roosevelt to keep out of the war. Students at American universities were caught in the middle of academic freedom battles as anti-Nazi faculty were forced off campus and pro-Nazi groups spread hateful propaganda. Most sinisterly, some Americans were enticed by German military intelligence to offer their country’s secrets to the Reich. There was even a bold plot by Nazi agents and their American friends to meddle in the presidential election of 1940.