| Predecessor | Free Society of Teutonia |
|---|---|
| Successor | German American Bund |
| Formation | July 1933 |
| Founder | Heinz Spanknöbel |
| Dissolved | December 1935 |
| Headquarters | New York City,United States |
| Membership | 5,000–10,000 |
Friends of New Germany (FONG;German:Die Freunde des Neuen Deutschland,[1]FDND), sometimes calledFriends of the New Germany, was an organization founded in theUnited States by German immigrants to supportNazism and theThird Reich.
Nazis outside of Germany made considerable efforts to establish an American counterpart organization. Recruiting commenced as early as 1924 with the formation of theFree Society of Teutonia.
In May 1933, theDeputy Führer,Rudolf Hess, gaveGerman immigrant and GermanNational Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) memberHeinz Spanknöbel authority to form an American Nazi organization.[2] The result was the creation of the Friends of New Germany in July 1933, although at least one newspaper article from April 1933 discusses their existence and also states that they held a lease which expired in May of that year, indicating that the group existed before the official date. An article from the time states that they were mostly German war veterans who supported the current republican government of Germany at the time of writing.[3] Colonel Edwin Emerson acted as a spokesman for the group in April of that year, but later denied this in December. Colonel Emerson claimed that he had no connection to the German government, despite also being a correspondent for no less than 36 German government-controlled papers.[4]
Assistance was given to its formation by the German consul in theCity of New York.[2] The organization took over the membership of two older pro-Hitler organizations in the United States, theFree Society of Teutonia andGau-USA.[5][6][7][1][8] The new entity was based inNew York City, but had a strong presence inChicago, Illinois.[2]
The Friends of New Germany was led by Spanknöbel and was openly pro-Hitler, and engaged in activities such as storming the German language newspaperNew Yorker Staats-Zeitung with the demand that Nazi-sympathetic articles be published, the infiltration of other German-American organizations, and the use ofpropaganda to counter theboycott of businesses in the heavily German neighborhood ofYorkville, Manhattan.[9] Members wore a uniform, a white shirt and black trousers for men with a black hat festooned with a red symbol. Women members wore a white blouse and a black skirt.
In an internal battle for control of the Friends, Spanknöbel was soon ousted as leader, and in October 1933 he wasdeported because he had failed toregister as a foreign agent. In December 1933, Spanknöbel's bodyguard, Walter Kauf, was sentenced to six months in jail inNew Jersey on charges of carrying a concealed weapon.[2][10] The same month, the Friends's treasurer, Engelberg Roell, was jailed for one day forcontempt of court after refusing to hand over the organization's membership to a federal grand jury investigating Nazi activities in the United States. Following his release, Roell agreed to cooperate with federal authorities.[11]
At the same time, CongressmanSamuel Dickstein (D-NY) was Chairman of the Committee on Naturalization and Immigration, where he became aware of the substantial number of foreigners legally and illegally entering and residing in the country, and the growinganti-Semitism along with vast amounts of anti-Semitic literature being distributed in the country. This led him to investigate independently the activities of Nazis and otherfascist groups. This led to the formation of theSpecial Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate National Socialist Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities. Throughout the rest of 1934, the Committee conducted hearings, bringing before it most of the major figures in the US fascist movement.[12] Dickstein's investigation concluded that the Friends represented a branch of German dictatorAdolf Hitler's NSDAP in America.[13][14]
The organization existed into the mid-1930s with a membership of between 5,000-10,000, consisting mostly of German citizens living in America and German emigrants who only recently had become citizens.[2] In December 1935, Rudolf Hess recalled the group's leaders to Germany and ordered all German citizens to leave the Friends of New Germany.[2] By March 1936, Friends of New Germany was dissolved and its membership transferred to the newly-formedGerman American Bund, the new name being chosen to emphasise the group's American credentials after press criticism that the organisation was unpatriotic.[15] The Bund was to consist only of American citizens of German descent.[16]
In 1933, California National Guardsman Dietrich Gefken, a member of a secret paramilitary of the Friends, plotted a fascist uprising in southern California cities.[17] Gefken, who'd bragged about killing communists during theRuhr uprising, planned to raid armories in the region. Based on collected intelligence byLeon L. Lewis, U.S. Navy agents arrested two Marines who were selling rifles and 12,000 rounds of ammunition to local Nazis.[18]
Gau USA was a domestic offshoot of the German Nazi party and took orders from its superiors in the old Fatherland. Because of internal issues and a lack of adequate organization, Gau USA was ordered dissolved in 1933 when Hitler came to power. In April 1933, the Gau USA Detroit leader, Heinz Spanknobel, traveled to Germany and was granted permission to reorganize a new group in the US. The following July, he formed Die Freunde des Neuen Deutschland (FDND — The Friends of the New Germany). Many of the old Teutonia Club and Gau USA leaders were brought in to help run the new organization under the strict guidance of Spanknobel. However, due to poor management skills, overbearing direction, and political wrangling, Spanknobel left the US and was later replaced by Teutonia founder, Fritz Gissibl.
In one swift move that was to have an enormous implication for the infant Nazi movement in America, Nieland over looked Teutonia and designated the New York City cell as a Department (Gau) of the NSDAP. By June, local units of the New York Gau were opened in Seattle, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Chicago. By September the American section of the NSDAP claimed over 1,500 members and even had a Women's Division in Chicago. Nieland's decision threw the Teutonia Group into a state of complete dismay. Not only had he dismissed Teutonia as the potential base on which Gau-USA could have been built but he also engendered a situation that caused Party members in the organization to withdraw since they wanted to be part of a "real" Nazi movement. (The official name of Nieland's organization was the Auslands Abteilung der Reichs Leitung der NSDAP. On the formation of a Women's Division, Application to Kameradschaft-USA, Martha Schnieder, Leiterin der Frauenschaft der Ortsgruppen Chicago, 1932 1935. RUckwanderer Materials, 3/140/177983; on the development of Gau-XJSA, cf. Alfred Erinn to Gauleitung Hamburg, Feb. 2, 1931. 3/147/185886.)
Reichsschatzmeister to the Auslands - Abteilung der NSDAP[permanent dead link]
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