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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that unmasks history one day at a time. I'm

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Speaker 1: Gabe Bluesia, and today we're talking about a largely forgotten

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Speaker 1: moment in the build up to World War II, the

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Speaker 1: night when tens of thousands of Americans gathered in New

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Speaker 1: York City to celebrate the rise of Nazism. As a warning,

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Speaker 1: today's episode includes examples of anti Semitic rhetoric which all

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Speaker 1: listeners will hopefully find disturbing. The day was February twentieth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine. A crowd of twenty thousand Nazi sympathizers

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Speaker 1: staged a rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City.

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Speaker 1: Event was sponsored by the German American Booned or Federation

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Speaker 1: in English. The anti Semitic group was headquartered in Manhattan

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Speaker 1: and had thousands of members spread all over the United States.

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Speaker 1: The boond was one of several organizations in the country

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Speaker 1: at the time that openly championed Adolf Hitler and the

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Speaker 1: rise of fascism in Europe. The group's goal was to

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Speaker 1: spread Nazi ideology in the US. In the hope of

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Speaker 1: creating an American counterpart to the German Nazi Party. To

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Speaker 1: achieve this, the Boond set up bookstores to distribute pro

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Speaker 1: Nazi propaganda, and it also founded more than a dozen

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Speaker 1: summer camps to indoctrinate German American children and their families.

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Speaker 1: The Boond reached its peak prominence in nineteen thirty nine

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Speaker 1: when its year's long effort came to a head at

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Speaker 1: the rally at Madison Square Garden. The event was billed

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Speaker 1: on the arena's marquee as a quote pro American Rally,

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Speaker 1: a name in keeping with the boons tactic of blending

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Speaker 1: patriotism with white supremacy and fascism. In fact, the date

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Speaker 1: of the rally was chosen in celebration of George Washington's

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Speaker 1: birthday two days later, and the centerpiece for the evening

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Speaker 1: was a thirty foot tall banner of Washington hung above

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Speaker 1: the stage and flanked on either side by American flags

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Speaker 1: and swastikas. Roughly twenty two thousand men, women, and children

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Speaker 1: flocked to Midtown Manhattan that night, Many dressed in uniforms

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Speaker 1: that mirrored the style of the Hitler youth and SS officers.

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Speaker 1: After taking their seats, the crowd rose to recite the

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Speaker 1: Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. The mood inside

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Speaker 1: was electric. Attendees waved American flags, gave Nazi salutes, and

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Speaker 1: proudly held up signs with slogans like stop Jewish Domination

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Speaker 1: of Christian America. The evening's main event was a series

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Speaker 1: of hate filled speeches meant to outline the Boone's vision

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Speaker 1: for a whites only America. One of the speakers, Gerhard Kuhns,

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Speaker 1: sought to justify that viewpoint by pointing out the country's

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Speaker 1: past racist legislation, including Jim Crow policies and the Chinese

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Speaker 1: Exclusion Act. Kuhns argued that it was the audience's patriotic

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Speaker 1: duty to uphold white supremacy because, as he put it, quote,

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Speaker 1: the spirit which opened the West and built our country

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Speaker 1: is the spirit of the militant white man. Those claims,

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Speaker 1: along with attacks on the so called job taking Jewish refugees,

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Speaker 1: were met with deafening applause. One by one, the speakers

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Speaker 1: whipped the audience into a frenzy until finally the leader

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Speaker 1: of the boond Fritz Kuhn, took the stage. Here's a

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Speaker 1: clip of what he told his adoring public that night,

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Speaker 1: and be sure to mark the commotion at the end

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Speaker 1: of the recording. We'll come back to that in a minute.

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Speaker 2: Wee with a maga. The men that our goloman, how

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Speaker 2: we returned to the American people who founded it. If

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Speaker 2: you ask what we are actively fighting for unto our Charadam, first,

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Speaker 2: a social just wite gentile for the United States. Second,

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Speaker 2: gentral control of Naylor Union free from Jewish mostow directed domination.

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Speaker 1: The disturbance you just heard was the handiwork of Isidore Greenbaum,

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Speaker 1: a twenty six year old Jewish American plumber from Brooklyn.

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Speaker 1: He had infiltrated the rally some three hours earlier and

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Speaker 1: had waited patiently fighting his tongue until it was Coon's

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Speaker 1: turned to speak. When the moment finally came, Greenbaum rushed

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Speaker 1: the stage, pushed his way through the guards up front,

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Speaker 1: and knocked over Kohn's microphone while shouting down with Hitler.

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Speaker 1: He was tackled immediately by the Boonez security team and

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Speaker 1: was brutally beaten in front of the cheering crowd until

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Speaker 1: the NYPD managed to pull him too safety. After the rally,

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Speaker 1: Greenbaum was arrested for disorderly conduct and fined twenty five

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Speaker 1: dollars the equivalent of about five hundred dollars in today's money.

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Speaker 1: Despite the injustice and the injuries he faced that night,

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Speaker 1: Greenbaum said he had no regrets and that he'd do

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Speaker 1: it again if given the opportunity. He proved as much

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Speaker 1: two years later, when the US entered World War II

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Speaker 1: and he joined the Navy to fight overseas. Greenbaum was

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Speaker 1: one of just a handful of anti Nazi New Yorkers

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Speaker 1: who snuck their way into the rally, But outside the garden,

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of protesters had gathered in the They

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Speaker 1: carried signs with phrases like drive the Nazis out of

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Speaker 1: New York and give me a gas mask. I can't

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Speaker 1: stand the smell of Nazis. The protesters clashed with any

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Speaker 1: booned members who dared venture outside, as well as with

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Speaker 1: the thousand police officers who'd been dispatched in anticipation of

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Speaker 1: the protest. That said, the anti Nazi crowd still received

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Speaker 1: plenty of support from their fellow New Yorkers. According to

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Speaker 1: the New York Times, there was even one point when

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Speaker 1: the orchestra from a nearby Broadway Musical gave the protesters

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Speaker 1: an impromptu concert, serenading them with the Star spangled banner.

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Speaker 1: Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia took a lot of heat for allowing

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Speaker 1: a Nazi rally in the heart of New York City,

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Speaker 1: but both he and the American Jewish Committee supported the

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Speaker 1: Boon's right to hold the event on First Amendment grounds.

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Speaker 1: If we are for free speech, he said, we have

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Speaker 1: to be for free speech for everybody, and that includes Nazis.

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Speaker 1: Not everyone agreed with the Mayor's sentiment at the time,

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Speaker 1: and many still wouldn't to day. However, Sunlight is said

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Speaker 1: to be the best of disinfectants, and the resulting coverage

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Speaker 1: of the Boon's rally seemed to bear that out. Within

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Speaker 1: a year, the organization and its public backing had crumbled.

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Speaker 1: Hitler's invasion of Poland in September of nineteen thirty nine

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Speaker 1: and the ensuing declarations of war from France and England

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Speaker 1: had destroyed support for the American Nazi movement. Soon after,

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Speaker 1: Fritz Kuhn was convicted of embezzling from his own group

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Speaker 1: and was sentenced to prison at New York's sing Sing

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Speaker 1: Correctional facility. He would later have his American citizenship revoked,

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Speaker 1: and in nineteen forty five he was deported to West

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Speaker 1: Germany during the Allied occupation. The other leaders of the

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Speaker 1: boond were either interned or jailed as dangerous aliens, and

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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty two their organization was outlawed by the U. S. Government.

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Speaker 1: All of the pro Nazi groups that had thrived in

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Speaker 1: the lead up to World War II had been discredited

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Speaker 1: and disbanded by the close of the war, but that

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean that the pro Nazi movement came to an

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Speaker 1: end in the United States. It just went underground, biding

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Speaker 1: its time for the moment when a white supremacist message

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Speaker 1: could once again gain traction in mainstream American culture. In

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Speaker 1: recent years, Nazi ideology has taken center stage on several occasions,

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Speaker 1: including at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia,

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Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen and at the January sixth attack on

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Speaker 1: the Capitol in twenty twenty one. Nazi flags and anti

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Speaker 1: Semitic slogans and imagery were prominently displayed by participants at

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Speaker 1: both events, showing that the spirit of the German American

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Speaker 1: booned is still alive in some citizens today. Let's hope

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Speaker 1: that this time it doesn't take a world war to

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Speaker 1: shake them out of it. I'm Gabe Lusier and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep up with

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Speaker 1: the show, consider following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

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Speaker 1: at TDI HC Show, and if you have any comments

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Speaker 1: or suggestions, feel free to write to me anytime at

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Speaker 1: This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Lastly, if you're interested

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Speaker 1: in seeing archival footage of the German American boond Rally,

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Speaker 1: check out Marshall Curry's OSCAR nominated short film, A Night

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Speaker 1: at the Garden. You can find it on YouTube or

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Speaker 1: at a Night at Thegarden dot com. Thanks to Chandler

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Speaker 1: Mays for producing the show, and thanks to you for listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another Day

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Speaker 1: in History Class