JF Ptak Science Books Post 2313
I found this ad in the April 24, 1943 issue of The Nation, a great magazine already in its 70th year of publication. I can't say that I've seen a mention of the European invasion like this before, in an ad--certainly everyone was thinking of it, and the issue of where the invasion would take place had been decided (over Mr. Churchill's desire for the thing to take place in southern Italy), but to see it in a advert like this was surprising. (It turns out the Paul Robson sang at the event, urging the crowd of 54,000 to fight Fascism "abroad andf at home" (see http://www.bayarearobeson.org/Chronology_3.htm#May%202,%201943)).
In searching for images of this event I found something for Madison Square Garden, featuring a packed house for an anti-Nazi even in 1937. MSG played no particular overt political favorite in the game of renting the facility (free speech and all that), because a year later there was a large meeting of the German American Bund that took places there, with reportedly 20,000 in attendance. There's a very unsettling video that I found for this event:
[Source: http://youtu.be/KPGT7EaCiIY]
They listened to a lot, not the least of which was the Bund's leader, Fritz Kuhn, a naturalized American from Germany with a troubled relationship with the Nazi Party, and also with sticky fingers. What brought him to his knees was Fiorello La Gaurdia going after him and with Thomas Dewey prosecuting him for embezzling $14k from the groups general funds to pay for his happy times. He went to prison in '43, deported in '45, and was dead in Germany in '51.
The Bund paraded down 5th Avenue, too, in October 1939, right after the beginning of the war. From the looks of it the Nazis didn't come close to even a small fraction of the curious and concerned onlookers.
[Source--Wiki images, here]
For many pro-Nazi groups--including Charles Lindbergh and the America Firsters--the bullshit parade didn't end until Pearl Harbor, when the U.S. went to war with Germany, and at which point the Hitler admirers had a huge change of heart. Or at least became very quiet and still.
Here's an earlier anti-Nazi meeting, which seems to me to have had a much bigger crowd:
I have my doubts about the 20k mentioned for the 1938 meeting--from what I can tell there were a lot of dark sections and empty chairs...
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