The 1942 German-American Bund rally at Madison Square Garden

The 1942 German-American Bund rally at Madison Square Garden drew a near-capacity crowd of about 25,000 to support Charles A. Lindbergh’s invitation to Joachim von Ribbentrop and to denounce the Democratic Party as warmongering. Its significance lay in the contrast between the Bund’s renewed public legitimacy under Lindbergh and the antisemitism it continued to promote: the rally presented the organization as patriotic and anti-Communist, while its rhetoric still cast Jews as enemies of the nation.

Political Setting

During Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second term, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional committees investigating the German-American Bund had curtailed its activity, designated it a Nazi front, and brought criminal charges against leaders. Under Charles A. Lindbergh, government efforts to harass or intimidate Bund members ceased, enabling the organization to regain strength and take a more visible role in public politics.

The Bund framed itself as an association of Americans of German descent opposed to intervention in foreign wars and as a staunch opponent of the Soviet Union. Its rally against the Democratic Party’s alleged warmongering drew on the administration’s isolationist stance, making the Bund’s politics easier to present as patriotic opposition rather than open support for Nazism.

Public Image and Antisemitism

The rally’s presentation differed conspicuously from the Bund’s 1939 gathering at Madison Square Garden. The Nazi flags, swastika armbands, straight-armed salute, storm-trooper uniforms, and large portrait of Adolf Hitler that had marked the earlier rally were absent. So too were its explicitly antisemitic banners, buttons, and insults directed at Franklin D. Roosevelt. The omissions changed the appearance of the event without changing the organization’s underlying hostility toward Jews.

At the 1942 rally, the Bund’s anti-Communist message continued to equate Bolshevism with Judaism. Its propaganda emphasized the Jewish identity of figures associated with Roosevelt, including Henry Morgenthau Jr. and Bernard Baruch, and reiterated the organization’s commitment to a United States ruled by non-Jews. Anti-Communism thus served as a public frame for an antisemitism the rally did not abandon.

Opposition and Political Fallout

Walter Winchell continued to call Bund members “Bundits.” Dorothy Thompson, who had been expelled from the 1939 rally after laughing at statements made there, kept denouncing the Bund’s propaganda. Their responses linked the 1942 gathering to the earlier event even as the Bund’s public display had been altered.

On his Sunday-night broadcast after the rally, Walter Winchell argued that growing opposition to the state dinner for Joachim von Ribbentrop marked the end of the country’s political honeymoon with Charles A. Lindbergh. He predicted that the president’s Republican allies would pay at the November elections. The White House appeared caught off guard by the strength of the opposition; although the administration sought to distance itself from the Bund’s gathering, the Democratic Party held a counter-rally at Madison Square Garden, where Franklin D. Roosevelt’s appearance drew a prolonged ovation. The two rallies made the Garden a public arena for competing claims about patriotism, political dissent, and the government’s association with the Bund.