When 20,000 American Nazis Descended Upon New York City
(Photo: May 17, 1934 A mass meeting of members of the Friends of New Germany. BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES)
In 1939, the German American Bund organized a rally of 20,000 Nazi supporters at Madison Square Garden in New York City. When Academy Award-nominated documentarian Marshall Curry stumbled upon footage of the event in historical archives, he was flabbergasted. Together with Field of Vision, he decided to present the footage as a cautionary tale to Americans. The short film, A Night at the Garden, premieres on The Atlantic today.
“The first thing that struck me was that an event like this could happen in the heart of New York City,” Curry told The Atlantic . “Watching it felt like an episode of The Twilight Zone where history has taken a different path. But it wasn’t science fiction – it was real, historical footage. It all felt eerily familiar, given today’s political situation.”
Rather than edit the footage into a standard historical documentary with narration, Curry decided to “keep it pure, cinematic, and unmediated, as if you are there, watching, and wrestling with what you are seeing. I wanted it to be more provocative than didactic – a small history-grenade tossed into the discussion we are having about White Supremacy right now.
” “The footage is so powerful,” continued Curry, “it seems amazing that it isn’t a stock part of every high school history class. This story was likely nudged out of the canon, in part because it’s scary and embarrassing. It tells a story about our country that we’d prefer to forget.”
The reason it was held in NYC was the same reason Trump's daddy marched in a KKK rally in NYC, because NYC has a large Jewish and immigrant population.
It's interesting too that the Trump GOP has come full circle to the GOP's historic support of Nazis.
Typical liberal Bullshit.
Actually it isn't Cerenkov. You should read the book, ''Moroni and the Swastika'' by David Nelson.
Spells it out quite clearly regarding the Mormons and the Nazi's.
I think you misread the threading. I understand the Mormon/Nazi connection.
It was disturbing to see all those children on the stage, especially the ones that were clearly enthralled to witness the beating of that one guy.
Things here are slowly starting to moved in that direction-- here's what happened at the NeoNazi/KKK rally in Charlottesville:
Let me tell you something good sister...
I grew up with the children of those children in Wantagh, which was the headquarters of the Bund on Long Island.
They were no different than their parents.
And three of our current Nazi's are in jail facing attempted homicide charges in Florida.