Adolf to Azov

Just like all other groups of immigrants in America, the Americans Germans liked to stay together in their own community. In 1937 enough German immigrants were able to pull their money together and buy themselves their own recreation area in Andover New Jersey. The Germans built a meeting hall, and that same year Camp Nordland was open. Opening day was July 18, 1937. On opening day there were 10,000 attendants. Some Germans came by car, and others by railroad. Some Germans even paid to have buses charter people there. They had many events the first day included a car raffle and a parade, with Germans wearing Germanic uniforms. They even had a group of Italian Americans in the parade who dressed up like Mussolini’s black shirts for the event.

The town of Andover was very happy, even the non-German residents. German immigrants were coming from all over northern New Jersy, with many of them stopping in at local businesses and spending money, during the great depression.

The New Jersey Herald, covered the event and was very staunched against the group, stating that “they need to be put into check.” After the opening they even had people sending telegrams to congress trying to close this new venture. The problem was, know one outside of the community knew what the German movement was about since everything was spoken and written in German. The only way they were able to find anything antisemitic about the place was due to a joke that was overheard in English, calling Roosevelt’s New Deal the “Jew Deal”. The joke didn’t work in German, so that’s why it was said in English. These insults did nothing to diminish the Bunds reputation.

Camp Nordland’s May Day celebration was just as big as the opening ceremony, thanks to the New Jersey Herald. This time the Camp even paid for their own advertisement in the same newspapers which tried to slander them for being German. Everything was going well. However, a number of seventeen-year-olds girls were sent in to see if they would be served alcohol and talk to guys under false pretenses, to get them in trouble. The camp mistakenly served the seventeen-year-olds alcohol, while the legal drinking age in New Jersey was 21. There was also a sexual misconduct report filed against one of the camp’s leaders the following year.

The camp was denied their liquor license, and soon enough the defamation took it tole. Many of the leaders of the Bunds camp had to be replaced due to attacks on their character.

A new Sherrif became the sheriff in Sussex County, by the man of Dent Quick. He was determined to have the camp shut down. Originally, he would go to the meeting and collect license plate numbers, as to put together a list of people to investigate later. After they had collected as much information on the group, in October 1939, the Sussex County Grand Jury under Prosecutor Carles Downing. The only person who ended up being caught in a crime was Gerhard Kunze, who was caught stealing money from the camp fund. The rest of the leadership Gerhard Kunze, Wilburn Keegan, and others were arrested and investigated, but nothing came of the investigation.

During the World’s Fair in New York in 1940, an anonymous bomb threat was called in. At the time, no one took it seriously, or at least didn’t act upon in, similar to how Secret Service reacted during Trumps assassination attempt. On July 3rd, 1940, an electrician working at the event noticed a small canvas satchel had been found in the British pavilion, and thought it was left behind by another worker. The next day he heard a ticking sound from the bag and reported it to the police. Originally curious to what it was, the police wanted to investigate it. One of the detectives cut the side of the bag open, which a stick of dynamite fell out, and the suddenly exploded, killing two detectives and injuring five others. The Bunds were investigated, and the FBI requested to get information from Sherrif Dent, on who was attending the meetings.

In August of 1940 the KKK agreed to help them. They planned to do an “Americanism” event with the KKK. They were expecting a larger group of attendees, for this gathering, with hope of 50,000 people, but only 3,000 showed up. Alton Milford Young and Arthur Hornbui Bell were Klan leaders who were trying to work with the Bunds. It was discovered that the Klan, and the fascist had two separate sets of goals. One group of people were nationalist and cared about their people, while the other was just a revitalized version of a racial group that originally faded away after 1870s. The Klan was only revitalized in 1915, in Georgia under new leadership.

After not agreeing to work with the KKK, sheriff Denton Quick organized his own raid of Camp Nordland, and to add insult to injury, the raid was organized for April 30th, just two days before Camp Nordlands big May Day celebration. After the raid Sheriff Denton became the man of the hour, with his story, posted to look heroically in newspapers all throughout the country, in order to drive the anti-German sentiment. For about a month the camp was under investigation, until it was formally closed. On June 1st, there was a fire in the ports in central New Jersey, that the Bunds was blamed for, as an act of revenge. Even the KKK help a special ceremony to celebrate the closing of the Bunds camp.

While the Bunds camp might have had it problems, it shows how far America was willing to go to defame destroy their rivals. World War Two wouldn’t start for another few years for America, but since the Jews had already declared war on Germany in 1933, the Jews were determined to stop fascist movements in America from forming as well. Even the new KKK had kosher ties, even though they claimed to be anti-Semitic. This would be the first time America had used infiltrators and slander to take down self-forming fascist movements, but this wouldn’t be the last time.