It happened on a Monday. February 20, 1939. Imagine walking down 8th Avenue in Manhattan and seeing a giant, twenty-foot tall portrait of George Washington flanked by massive swastikas. It sounds like some weird, "Man in the High Castle" alternate history, right? But it wasn't. The nazi conference at Madison Square Garden actually happened, and it drew 20,000 people inside while 100,000 protesters screamed for blood on the streets outside.
History is messy.
Most people think of the US in the 1930s as this unified front against fascism, but the reality was way more complicated. This wasn't a secret meeting in a basement. It was a permit-holding, high-production event organized by the German American Bund. They called it a "Pro-American Rally." They literally tried to claim that George Washington was the "first fascist" because he supposedly "knew democracy wouldn't work."
Honestly, the sheer audacity of it is what sticks with you.
Fritz Kuhn and the Rise of the German American Bund
The guy behind all this was Fritz Kuhn. He was a German-born chemist who worked for Ford Motor Company before becoming the "Bundesführer." Kuhn was obsessed with the idea of a "United Front" of German-Americans. He wasn't just some fringe weirdo; he had a following. The Bund ran summer camps like Camp Siegfried in Long Island where kids wore uniforms that looked suspiciously like the Hitler Youth.
They weren't just fans of Hitler. They wanted to "reclaim" America.
Kuhn’s vision for the nazi conference at Madison Square Garden was all about optics. He wanted to show that "True Americanism" and National Socialism were basically the same thing. To do that, he utilized the iconography of the American Revolution. It’s a classic tactic: take something the public already loves and wrap your own toxic ideology inside it.
The Scene Inside the Garden
The atmosphere was electric, but in a terrifying way. There were thousands of "Ordungsdienst"—the Bund’s private police force—dressed in gray shirts and black trousers. They looked like stormtroopers. They acted like them, too.
The stage was a nightmare of graphic design.
💡 You might also like: 39 Carl St and Kevin Lau: What Actually Happened at the Cole Valley Property
You had the American flag on one side and the swastika on the other. Banners hung from the rafters with slogans like "Wake Up America! Smash Jewish Communism!" It was a full-on propaganda machine in the heart of NYC. When Kuhn took the podium, he didn't hold back. He attacked President Roosevelt, calling him "Frank D. Rosenfeld" and mocking the New Deal as the "Jew Deal."
It’s hard to wrap your head around the fact that this was legal. But Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who absolutely hated the Nazis, allowed it to happen on Free Speech grounds. He basically said that the best way to handle them was to let them show the world how ridiculous they were.
Plus, he knew the police could handle the fallout.
The Isadore Greenbaum Incident
Things got real when a 26-year-old Jewish plumber’s helper from Brooklyn named Isadore Greenbaum decided he’d heard enough. In the middle of Kuhn’s speech, Greenbaum sprinted onto the stage. He shouted "Down with Hitler!" before being swarmed by the Bund’s security.
It was brutal.
The "stormtroopers" beat him, kicked him, and literally ripped his pants off. The crowd was cheering. This wasn't some polite debate; it was a mob. New York City police eventually stepped in to pull Greenbaum out of the pile, but he was the one who ended up getting arrested for disturbing the peace. He later said he didn't go there to start a fight, but once he heard the garbage coming out of Kuhn's mouth, his "blood boiled."
Greenbaum became a bit of a local hero, but the incident also highlighted how violent the pro-Nazi sentiment was becoming on American soil.
What Was Happening Outside?
If the inside was a rally, the outside was a riot.
📖 Related: Effingham County Jail Bookings 72 Hours: What Really Happened
The NYPD had one of the largest police presences in city history that night. Over 1,700 officers were stationed around the Garden. There were World War I veterans, Jewish activists, and socialist groups all clashing with police as they tried to storm the building. You had people on horseback charging into crowds of protesters. It was chaos.
The sheer scale of the opposition is often forgotten.
While 20,000 people were inside cheering for Kuhn, five times that many were outside trying to tear the place down. This wasn't a silent era. It was loud, angry, and incredibly divided.
Why the Nazi Conference at Madison Square Garden Fizzled Out
You’d think a rally this big would be the start of something huge, but it was actually the beginning of the end for the Bund.
First off, the optics were terrible. Even for people who were isolationist or anti-Roosevelt, seeing "stormtroopers" beat up a guy on stage in New York didn't sit well. It looked "un-American."
Secondly, Fritz Kuhn was his own worst enemy.
The guy wasn't just a zealot; he was a thief. Shortly after the nazi conference at Madison Square Garden, Thomas Dewey (the District Attorney) started digging into the Bund's finances. It turns out Kuhn had been embezzling money from the organization to fund his own lifestyle and his mistresses. He’d stolen about $14,000—which was a lot of money back then—from the very people he was supposed to be leading.
He ended up in Sing Sing prison for grand larceny.
👉 See also: Joseph Stalin Political Party: What Most People Get Wrong
When the war actually broke out and Pearl Harbor happened, the Bund was basically finished. Members burned their uniforms and tried to pretend they were never part of it. Kuhn was eventually deported back to Germany after the war, where he died in obscurity.
The Lingering Impact
We talk about this event today because it serves as a reminder that "it can happen here."
The Bund didn't try to invade America from the outside. They tried to use American symbols and American laws to subvert the country from the inside. They didn't call themselves "anti-American"; they called themselves the "only true Americans."
That’s a nuance that gets lost in history books.
Correcting the Myths
One big misconception is that the crowd was all German immigrants. That's not true. A lot of them were native-born Americans who were just fed up with the Great Depression and looking for a scapegoat. Another myth is that the US government was "in on it." While there were some isolationist politicians who were slow to condemn the Bund, the FBI had already been monitoring Kuhn for years.
Actionable Insights for History Enthusiasts
If you're looking to understand this period better, don't just look at the headlines. History is about the margins.
- Visit the Archives: The New York Public Library and the Center for Jewish History have incredible primary source documents, including original Bund pamphlets from that night.
- Watch the Footage: There is a short documentary titled "A Night at the Garden" by Marshall Curry. It’s about 7 minutes long and consists entirely of archival footage from the rally. It’s chilling because there’s no narration—just the raw sights and sounds.
- Trace the Geography: If you're in NYC, go to the site. The current Madison Square Garden isn't where the 1939 rally happened. That was the "third" Garden, located on 8th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets. Today, it’s a generic office space and a parking garage.
- Check the Legal Precedent: Research Terminiello v. Chicago (1949). While not directly about the Garden rally, it’s the Supreme Court case that deals with the "heckler’s veto" and the limits of free speech during riots, which was the same legal tightrope La Guardia was walking in 1939.
Understanding the nazi conference at Madison Square Garden isn't just about memorizing a date. It's about recognizing how fragile social order is. It’s about seeing how easily symbols like George Washington can be twisted. Most of all, it's a reminder that history isn't something that happens "to" us—it's made by the choices of people like Isadore Greenbaum and the 1,700 cops who had to stand between two groups of people who wanted to kill each other.
The 1939 rally serves as a permanent scar on the history of New York City, a reminder of a time when the swastika and the stars and stripes shared the same stage.