When Nazis ‘Played’ in Madison Square Garden: A Dark Chapter in American History
Updated: Oct 27
Six and a half months before Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland, an unsettling event took place in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on 20 February 1939. More than 20,000 attendees gathered inside the famed arena, raising Nazi salutes toward a 30-foot-tall portrait of George Washington flanked by swastikas. The rally was organised by the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi group that sought to propagate anti-Semitic, fascist ideas under the guise of patriotism. The event, advertised as a “Pro American Rally,” was met with fervent protests from over 100,000 people outside the venue, signalling the deep divisions in the United States on the eve of World War II.
The German American Bund and Nazi Ideology in the United States
The German American Bund, which means “federation” in German, was an anti-Semitic, fascist organisation that aimed to promote Nazi ideology in the United States. During the 1930s, the Bund operated Nazi summer camps for youth and their families, attempting to instil the values of Hitler’s regime in a new generation of Americans. The youth of the Bund were present that night in Madison Square Garden, along with the Ordnungsdienst (OD), the group’s own vigilante police force. Dressed in black uniforms styled after Hitler’s SS officers, they symbolised the Bund’s vision for the future of America.
Banners hung throughout the rally carried chilling messages such as “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans” and “Wake Up America. Smash Jewish Communism.” The Bund’s national leader, Fritz Kuhn, who presided over the event, took to the stage to deliver a scathing speech, referring to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as “Rosenfield” and Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey as “Thomas Jewey.” His words were laced with hate: “We, with American ideals, demand that our government shall be returned to the American people who founded it,” declared Kuhn. “If you ask what we are actively fighting for under our charter: First, a socially just, white, Gentile-ruled United States. Second, Gentile-controlled labour unions, free from Jewish Moscow-directed domination.”
A Protest in the Heart of New York
While 20,000 Bund members celebrated Nazism inside, the streets of midtown Manhattan overflowed with opposition. The protest outside Madison Square Garden drew thousands of people, including Jewish Americans, veterans, housewives, and members of the Socialist Workers Party. Many protesters carried signs warning of the horrors unfolding in Nazi Germany. One flyer proclaimed, “Don’t wait for the concentration camps—Act now!”
The New York Times reported that the streets were so packed that, at one point, the orchestra from a nearby Broadway musical performed a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” for the crowd. A mysterious individual had set up a loudspeaker in a nearby rooming house and blasted a denunciation of the Nazis to the masses: “Be American, Stay at Home.”
The New York Police Department, anticipating violence, had deployed 1,700 officers around Madison Square Garden. The police commissioner commented that it was enough “to stop a revolution.” Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, though heavily criticised for allowing the rally to proceed, defended the Bund’s right to free speech, as did the American Jewish Committee. “If we are for free speech, we have to be for free speech for everybody, and that includes Nazis,” LaGuardia declared.
Isadore Greenbaum’s Daring Defiance
Despite the heavy police presence, one man managed to breach the walls of the Bund’s rally. Isadore Greenbaum, a 26-year-old plumber from Brooklyn, sat through three hours of Nazi rhetoric before deciding to act. Kuhn was in the midst of rallying the crowd when Greenbaum began making his way to the front of the stage. As Kuhn railed against the “Jewish-controlled press” and shouted, “Wake up! You, Aryan, Nordic and Christians,” Greenbaum leapt onto the stage, tore down Kuhn’s microphone, and yelled, “Down with Hitler!”
Greenbaum was immediately tackled by the Bund’s security, who beat him viciously before he was rescued by the police. His grandson, Brett Siciliano, later recalled, “He had a black eye and a broken nose, but he said he would have done it again.” Greenbaum was arrested for disorderly conduct and fined $25 for disrupting the rally. When World War II began, Greenbaum enlisted in the Navy and went on to fight the Nazis he had bravely opposed in Madison Square Garden.
The Fall of the German American Bund
The February 1939 rally marked the high point for the German American Bund. Later that year, Kuhn was indicted on embezzlement charges for stealing from the organisation, and by the time the United States entered World War II, the Bund had been discredited and disbanded. Kuhn was stripped of his citizenship and deported to Germany in 1945. As historian Sarah Churchwell put it, “As soon as the United States entered the war, all of these fascist groups were discredited and disbanded.”
However, the underlying white supremacist ideology championed by the Bund did not disappear. According to historian Arnie Bernstein, “There’s something they tapped into that is part of America.” Bernstein highlighted other instances of far-right extremism in the U.S., such as the 1978 Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights movement, and the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Eighty years later, the philosophy is still there,” Bernstein said. “All these groups maintain that they are patriotic Americans—and this is the America that they see.”
The 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden stands as a stark reminder of the dangers of fascism, even in a country built on the principles of democracy and freedom. The German American Bund’s message may have been discredited by the horrors of World War II, but the ideology of hate they espoused continues to echo in far-right movements today. As Bernstein suggests, understanding these historical events is crucial in recognising the persistence of such ideologies in American society.
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