Military Role in Fascism ‘Prequel’

Review by Bill Doughty––

It wasn’t until Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on the United States in December 1945, that the burning embers of fascism dimmed and hot coals of active antisemitism, Christian nationalism, and Nazi support –– even in the U.S. Congress –– lost their glow.

But the fire never completely went cold.

Prior to World War II and even after, brave Americans sought to root out the supporters of fascism who went so far as to try to recruit members of the military as well as military veterans to their cause. One fighter of domestic fascism was a WWI veteran named Leon Lewis. 

Lewis sought to uncover a conspiracy of violent extremism targeting Jewish Americans and institutions. It’s one of the stories recounted in “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism” by Rachel Maddow (Crow, Penguin Random House, 2023).

“What Leon Lewis decided to do was something incredible. And incredibly dangerous. He went out and recruited a small group of men, picked from the exact same pool the Nazis were after –– disgruntled non-Jewish American veterans of the recent war [World War I],” Maddow writes.

“But the Lewis operation did more than simply investigate and report. Before long, Lewis and his team scuttled a plot by U.S. Marines to sell guns and ammunition to the American fascists. Lewis and his underground team could not be credited in public for their part in this operation, but it did earn them the enduring and crucial admiration of high-ranking naval intelligence officers. They also exposed an elaborate inside-job scheme to take control of U.S. military armories on the West Coast. That plan was run by Dietrich Gefken, a German national who had been one of the early organizers of Hitler’s Brownshirts in Munich. After joining the California National Guard and inventorying the cache of rifles, machine guns, and coastal artillery pieces on hand at the San Francisco armory, Gefken had drawn up ‘the Armory plans, floor plans, location of ammunition and lockers and rifles, the list of addresses of the officers and all that was needed to take over the Armory on a given notice.’ Lewis’s spies handed over their evidence of Gefken’s plot to military intelligence officials, who shut it down.”

How Naval intelligence officers at the Navy base in San Diego helped bring the wider plot to light is almost an aside, but the story should be of great interest to military readers.

On the East Coast, more than 20,000 people attended an antisemitic pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939. One of the banners visible in the above photo reads, "Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America." The rally was dubbed a patriotic pro-American event tied, without irony, to George Washington’s birthday. [General/President Washington rejected calls from supporters to become dictator of the young United States.]

How could the rising flames of fascism in the United States in the 1930s be forgotten in time? In interviews promoting “Prequel,” Maddow notes how the bigger story of the war in Europe (and the Pacific) eclipsed the story of homegrown fascism and Nazism and the quiet patriots who battled the threat to democracy here.

Brave and truly patriotic men such as Lewis, O. John Rogge, Dillard Stokes, Henry Hoke, Eric Sevareid, Drew Pearson, and William Power Maloney stood up and spoke out against antisemitism and against indifference and obstruction by the Truman Administration, as demonstrated by Attorney General Francis Biddle and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

Federal prosecutor Rogge

“The plain truth is that the FBI was missing in action as fascism and Nazism took root and grew  in the United States in the mid-1930s,” Maddow notes.

Despite having the rug pulled out from under them in their prosecution of the fascists, both Maloney and Rogge continued with honor, courage, and commitment to uncover and report domestic enemies and violent extremists.

“Maloney and his investigators had discovered the double helix of the violent, Nazi-supporting, and Nazi-supported threat in the United States; it was part foreign and part domestic, part propaganda and part armed paramilitary movement.” He had led the investigation into Nazi propagandists using frank privileges at taxpayers’ expense. After federal service, he continued a career as a colorful and successful prosecutor.

“Rogge’s new charging document, like Maloney’s, alleged violations of the Smith Act –– an effort to demoralize America’s armed forces. But Rogge had sharpened the case, alleging targeted effort by the defendants to recruit National Guardsmen, reservists, and even active-duty U.S. troops into these ultra-right groups, where they could use their military skills, connections, and access to weapons to help arm and train paramilitary fascists for the overthrow of the U.S. government.”

Rogge uncovered evidence against American fascists and Nazi-supporters when he provided support to the Nuremberg trials after the war.

Men of character like Lewis, Rogge, Stokes, Hoke and others were seemingly outnumbered by questionable characters –– men (and some women) who placed greed, power, and religion above the Constitution, people like:

• George Deatherage: “He saw himself a red-blooded, real-American patriot, a dedicated Christian, a fierce protector of (white) Western civilization.”
• Huey Long: This Louisiana politician was an early version of the charismatic narcissistic populist and would-be dictator who formed his own militia and embraced violence against his detractors.
• Father Charles Coughlin: The Rush Limbaugh or Alex Jones of his generation, he was a Catholic priest with a wildly popular radio show who called for violence against “tyrants” after naming FDR and jews as tyrants.
• John Cassidy: He was a self-described "Christian martyr" who wanted to become the "American Fuhrer."
• Senator Ernest Lundeen (R) of Minnesota: Was as corrupt as they come, even taking payroll kickbacks from his own staff, instrumental in promoting support for Hitler in America. Maddow’s description of his death in a suspicious plane crash is as graphic and horrible as can be imagined. Readers may want to look away.
• George Sylvester Viereck: The Nazi agent. He was convicted in June 1943 for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. While he was in jail, Viereck's eldest son and namesake, a corporal in the U.S. Army, fought and died for the Allies in Italy.
• Major General George Van Horn Moseley: He was pro-gun but against FDR and anti-redistribution of wealth; he called for the sterilization of any jews who immigrated to the United States.
• Senator Robert Rice Reynolds (D) of North Carolina: He wanted to build a wall around the entire United States, in part to keep out Jews.
• Representative Hamilton Fish (R) of New York: He supported Hitler’s Germany and “was hopeful that tensions over Germany’s designs on Poland could be resolved peacefully, and that Germany’s claims were ‘just.’” His calls: “AWAKE CHRISTIAN AMERICA” and “LET’S SAVE U.S. FOR US.”
• Senator William “Wild Bill” Langer (R) of North Dakota: As governor he was charged, convicted, and sentenced to 18 months in prison, but who declared martial law and tried to declare North Dakota’s independence from the United States. As senator, he sabotaged the investigation of rising fascism.
• Senator Burton K. Wheeler (D) of Montana: an isolationist and propagandist for Germany who was eventually accused of treason. He attempted to use his position in Congress to influence the military, especially the Lend-Lease Act, and prevent America’s support to Britain in WWII.
• Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh: Both were champions of Adolf Hitler and vice versa. Lindbergh zeig heiled at an America First rally with Wheeler. Ford was lauded by Adolf Hitler, who kept a photo of the white Christian nationalist CEO in his office.

America Firsters Wheeler and Lindbergh

There were many more who sought to weaken the Constitution and democracy in favor of autocracy and theocracy.

Expressions of outright antisemitism and fascism by elected officials led to plots of violence on the home front.

Groups such as the “Christian Front” and “Country Gentlemen” planned an armed insurrection, including bombings of Jewish and Leftist establishments as well as newspaper offices. Their hope was similar to Timothy McVeigh’s goal –– to start a race war that would bring down the federal government.

“It was what we’d call today an ‘accelerationist’ strategy,” Maddow explains.

“Much as white supremacists hope terroristic, spectacular, cruel acts toward racial minorities will provoke retaliation and reprisal to touch off a wholesale race war that they are sure they will win, the Christian Fronters believed American could easily be tipped into a war against Jews and communists in which they themselves not only would end up on the winning side, but would be hailed as a heroic vanguard.

“George Van Horn Moseley’s name kept coming up in planning meetings for the attack, because they were still counting on the general to take the reins as America’s new military dictator after the coup was complete.”

There are numerous parallels from the 1930s and ‘40s that continue to smolder: the coup attempt of January 6, other acts of violent extremism in the name of the former President (who calls opponents “vermin” that poison the “blood” of America), and Trump’s desire to call for the Insurrection Act in order to use the military against U.S. citizens in violation of posse comitatus.

Germany justified war in Europe based on grievances and a Big Lie about Jews. Putin did the same thing. And Trump builds his power and funding on perceived grievances and the Big Lie of a stolen election. It is no accident that Trump launched his current presidential campaign at Waco, Texas, on the 30th anniversary of the Branch Davidian tragedy, which was the basis for Timothy McVeigh's grievances.

There are other parallels and similarities linking past and present. Accusers and their two dozen or more sympathizers in Congress chose to investigate the investigators. They called for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s impeachment based on conspiracies and conjecture without evidence. They used various tactics to disrupt and delay justice in the courts. And they attacked the free press.

The propagandists supported Germany’s efforts to divide American citizens: “A partisan, bickering, demoralized America, the Nazis believed, would be incapable of mounting a successful war effort in Europe.”

Fascists and fundamentalists –– past and present –– tried to recruit military service members and veterans. Eighty and ninety years ago a disproportionate number of law enforcement (“law and ORDER”) personnel supported fascists. Meanwhile, Hollywood –– led by MGM –– and the mainstream media –– led by the Washington Post –– shined a light on the lawbreakers and seditionists. When caught up in the scandal, perpetrators tried to burn evidence, (albeit not in a White House fireplace).

In 1942, federal prosecutors indicted 28 people and charged them (almost RICO-style) with sedition with “intent to interfere with, impair, and influence the loyalty, morale, and discipline of the military and naval forces of the United States.” Prosecutors received hate mail and death threats.

Greedy and self-serving politicians stoked conspiracies and fears to hold on to power, especially fear of immigrants, communists, socialists, and Jewish people. Father Coughlin and others attempted to form a third party of Christian nationalists to compete against President Roosevelt, claiming FDR was a Jew.

But there could be signs of hope: The election of Nov. 7, 1944 proved the strength of democracy over the glowing coals of fascism, when FDR won a landslide victory. “The president who had been leading the country in the war against the Nazis, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, won an unprecedented fourth term, with 432 electoral votes to Thomas E. Dewey’s 99,” Maddow writes. “Roosevelt’s Democrats gained twenty-two seats in the House and protected their whopping nineteen-vote cushion in the Senate.”

Rachel Maddow speaks with Lt. Col. Andy Gerlach of the South Dakota Army National Guard in Afghanistan in July 2010. (Sgt. Rebecca Linder)

Maddow is also author of “Bagman” and “Drift.” She is a big supporter of military service members, veterans, and the Constitution. She bemoans the gap between civilians and their military, and she calls for accountability, transparency, and maximal diplomacy before American men and women are sent into war.

Both the Prequel book and preceding Ultra podcast feature Maddow’s storytelling at its best, but the book may better. While the serialized Prequel podcast broke ground on the compelling story of the threat to democracy from within, the book really fleshes out the story as only a book can, complete with extensive notes, a helpful index, compelling photos, and detail we can read and will want to re-read. This is a book that can help every American understand the threat of the fires of antisemitism, fascism, and authoritarianism.

In 2023 and 2024 the embers are glowing brighter.