I thought this an appropriate time to post this here, with all the ongoing changes in America. As with any place in time, people appear to be so gullible, especially if they are down on their luck or just plain angry or disappointed in their government. At such times like these, many are willing to put blinders on and be suckered into giving their loyalty to just about anyone of anything as long as it "sounds good and hopeful"!
This article was featured in one of my new and favorite magazines, America in WWII, August 2007.
By Mark D Van Ellis
Read it and think again...
Americans For Hitler
It's not really that surprising to me that this movement got the following it did. Institutional racism had flourished in our country (sad to say) since the end of the Civil War. Anti-Semitism was also by no means restricted to Germany. I don't think (although I admit I don't know) there was as big an anti-emetic feeling in the US as there was in many other European countries, but I'm sure there many who either didn't care or had sympathetic leanings. It is also hard to imagine what the perception of the NAZI party was in the world in 1938 without imposing our modern understanding of what the NAZI party was and what it did. I don't believe anyone in that day and age thought it was up to any good but the extent of its evil wasn't common knowledge either. Still, on the grand scheme of things there wasn't a huge following. The size of the group as documented in the article was perhaps up to 25,000 compared to the Nazi movement in Netherland which had a membership of 52,000 in 1936 (according to the knower of all things-sort of, Wikipedia. And the netherlands is a much smaller contry. Still, with what the NAZI party stood for (all one has to do is read Mein Kampf to see what NAZIism was all about) one in the party was too much!
Thinking about this made me think about the story I had once heard a black veteran tell. He was traveling on Army business and was in uniform when he stopped for something to eat. The eatery where he stopped made him eat in the kitchen. Though the door he could see two MP's escorting a couple of German POWs who had stopped to get something as well. He recalled thinking how screwed up that was that here he was, an American soldier, being made a second class citizen while a couple of the enemy sat and shot the breeze with their captors out in the dinning room. How screwed up is that?
I will see if I can get the source for that but I seem to recall seeing it on a History Channel special.
Dear Capt'
It is really hard for any of us to grasp. Unfathomable is a word that quickly comes to mind. While many back in the 30's and early 40's here in the states, certainly didn't prescribe to Hitler's mindset, they nonetheless were certainly oblivious to it.
My bedside book is Reporting WWII - Part One: American Journalism 1938-1944. Within this book are so many fascinating articles by a number of top-notch reporters/writers. Many of them touch on the fanaticism of Europe in those days. Several of them lament on the "goings-on", and report it back to the American people. But, the fact is, it was so difficult for the average person to understand and GET what true Nazism was all about.
So many poo-pooed the reports and were basically in disbelief. How can one fathom such events? How could you imagine those things? Many just thought that Hitler was an ego-maniac and a little land would appease him. It's too bizarre and too deranged to comprehend. If your heart doesn't feel that kind of evil, then it's too incredible to think that someone could actually BE this way.
Unfortunately, when they stood by and said, it will be okay, and it can't be true, we were simply allowing it to occur. How many times has this repeated itself? Far too often! That is why it is so important that people DO NOT forget WWII. Many scoff that it couldn't happen again, but they are just as guilty if they turn a blind-eye. Many people here in America right now think we are being too obsessed with homeland security. Oh dear, nothing could happen here, they cry. They have ALREADY forgotten about 9-11! But if something were to occur tomorrow, they would be the first to say, "Why didn't our government DO something?"
I would love to sit a group of "the naive" in a room, then burst in and start grabbing a few at random and taking them away. What, what is going on? Wouldn't that FREAK them out? Just declare that white Episcopalians were under scrutiny, and that it was for the good of the country and the government. What the hell would happen? How would people feel about this violation today? Well it's the same thing that happened to the Jews in Europe several decades ago.
How would each of us feel this evening if five men in black coats burst into our homes at dinner and took us away. No warning, and no logical reason? It is haunting to think about!!! 
Well it did happen and it can happen again. God help us if we didn't learn anything the first time around...
Here is a book I found on amazon about the black experience. One of the commentors mentions the story I talked about.
As demented and perverse as the REAL NAZIS were, I think that even they would be ashamed to claim these skinhead Neos that are floating around parts of Idaho and elsewhere with swastikas tatooed on their foreheads...what Idiots! I watch some of the TV programs on A&E about prisons and that's another place that is full of them too, Thank God! I saw the History Channel program about CaptO was referring to about Black GI's in WWII and it made me very sad to hear them say that German POWS were treated more as equals than these Black soldiers were. Just shameful...
Jim
I will say this just once and then forgotten.......People will never know what
it is to be discriminated against. It happened to me Before WW 11 in
WW11 and after I left the service. It's all history now and at my age I
am now being recognized. With Black Americans I AM SORRY TO SAY, it
will all ways be that way. White and Golden Brown is OK but
white and black just like day and night. Roque
Yes, the current batch of neo-Nazis are a pretty weak group of folks. All the better - when people see these morons on TV for what they are they will continue to be relegated to their backwoods compounds and websites. I always laugh when I see Goering sized idiots on talk shows in their SS uniforms. I have a book on the SS that details the recruiting standards for the Waffen SS and they were very high. Just goes to illustrate yet another level of ignorance of the thing to which they profess allegiance.
My own thought on the NAZI party's (the real ones in the 1920-40's) prospects on longevity is that they never could have lasted past the death of Hitler anyway. That whole organization was an enormous cult of personality; solidified after the night of the long knives. When you have an organization that is sworn to and organized around one individual, it cannot survive (and I think sometimes it isn't supposed to due to the megalomania of the individual at the center) without that center personality. You can see that in the way Hitler pitted his organizations and their leaders against each other. This made everyone dependant on him and kept his lieutenants from ever gaining more power than he. The Soviet Union of Stalin may be one of the few that outlived its ego-maniacal leader. It will interesting to see what happens in Cuba when Castro kicks the bucket (will that guy never die?)
In American politics you had sort of the same phenomenon with the Reform party. I don't believe that was supposed to continue (and it didn't very successfully) when Ross Perot was not at its celestial center. No - I'm not comparing the NAZI's to the Reform Party. Thus the new paragraph just to emphasize the point.
I would love to get a group of these neo nazis (nutsies is a better term) in a room and have them stand up. My first question would be , if you are not "racially pure arian" sit down. Lets see how many are left. The last question, would be "Is your favorite music Wagnerian operas or Marches". Then show them a documentary about "The Swing Kids". Virtually none of them would have survived the second world war.
Most of these people could easily be diagnosed with "Oppositial Defiance Disorder" and enjoy the attention they draw.....
A week or so ago I happened to be watching a show about prisons and one of the inmates had a shaved head and swastikas tatooed every which where, that he was very proud of. He pointed to his neck and said "See I even got them Gestapo lightnin' bolts on ma neck!" guess he was unaware that "them lightnin' bolts" are called runes,and they were worn by the SS, not the Gestapo. It's not surprising that so many of these modern day nazis are failures and misfits, just like the man they worship...Adolph Hitler.
Dogdaddy
