Some of the Earliest Warnings of the Hitler Menace Came from New Jersey

One of our state’s greatest treasures can be found in its academic institutions, particularly in the two largest ones, Rutgers and Princeton. It’s a shame that more people in New Jersey do not take advantage of the numerous free lectures, seminars, exhibits and presentations that occur at these institutions on a frequent basis. Just a glance at their well-publicized calendars shows a wide variety of speakers, many authorities and trendsetters in their industries and disciplines. Every year, present and former governors, senators, scholars, teachers, businessmen and witnesses take to the lecterns of these schools to tell riveting stories, propose innovative ideas and sometimes, to warn.

This is where it gets interesting. Many of the greatest events in history, both famous and infamous, have been discussed, dissected, analyzed in our universities. But there have been times in the past, right here in the storied academic halls of New Jersey, which witnessed the most prophetic, dire warnings. Like a scene from a Spielberg movie, there have been times when the halls of Princeton and Rutgers have invited in voices from the political wilderness, to accurately inform of great peril.

Through my research, I found one of those moments. I wish I could have been there. The setting was right out of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The scene was Princeton’s stately, neo-gothic Mc Cosh Hall. There, inside, in a lecture hall that is perhaps one of the most architecturally impressive of its kind, a professor took to the lectern. It was a cold November day in 1931.

Mc Cosh's famous lecture hall, Princeton University

First, it should be stated that it wasn’t the only lecture that day, or week, on campus. According to The Daily Princetonian, other speakers were discussing the current political issues in the Hoover Administration. Another, Dean Wycks, gave a talk on “Mystical Appreciation.” Several professors were also to give a series of short talks on their most recent books. The Garden Theater was showing a play titled “Traveling Husbands,” which promised, in its half-page ad, to be told with “Speed and Sparkle…You’ll enjoy every minute of it!”

But this lecture was different, though we can only see that from our present point of view. The talk was given by one Professor William Starr Myers of Princeton’s Politics Department. The subject was one that was really yet to be addressed in higher academic circles, but Myers now felt that it deserved much wider attention. The title: Hitler of Germany As Menace to the World.

It was, to be honest, a rather audacious title for a lecture at the time. Germany in 1931 was still a functioning, troubled democracy and an economic mess. Whether the recently defeated state would hold together under the then-present circumstances was debatable. In earlier articles the university paper, when mentioning Hitler at all, described him inaccurately as a “prank” or a “monarchist” seeking to reestablish the Kaiser to power. But this was one of the first lectures that I’ve found where a speaker clearly says no, this man is dangerous, not in some abstract political way, but someone for Americans to be very, very aware of.

Myers opened his talk by comparing Hitler to “Scarlet Fever,” then a horrendous contagion universally feared. Hitler, like a tumor, was taking advantage of Germany’s chaotic economic situation to gain absolute power:

“Hitler has used many of his own pet prejudices in outlining his party’s declaration of principles, especially anti-Semitism and state control of all institutions. These ideas have gone far toward popularizing National Socialism in Germany…”

The professor went on to warn his audience that Hitler’s dictatorial aspirations included foreign conquest, or what Hitler would call "Lebensraum" as well:

“If however Hitler does gain control, he no doubt will try to expand to Russia…an attempt which might kill him off and bring a happy ending to National Socialism.”

Myers observations were dead on. Hitler did certainly come to power as part of a democratic coalition of right-wing political parties in 1933. And the dictator’s obsession with destroying Judaism and the Soviet Union would undeniably consume much of Nazi Germany’s energies. Hitler indeed killed himself in his Berlin bunker in April of 1945 as Soviet troops closed in.

In the coming months, Princeton welcomed several other speakers who discussed Nazism and its possible widespread effects on Europe and the rest of the world. But from my research it was only Myers' prophetical voice, speaking in the earliest days of the fascist crisis, who got it right. And it happened right here, in New Jersey.

The Darkness Rising (Again) in Europe

This past Memorial Day they were there for all to see, for everyone who attended the parades in New Jersey’s many towns and cities. They were old, to be sure, but still robust enough to put on the uniform and give the people a good show. They are our heroes, our World War II vets. They are defined by their monumental achievement. They personally, along with our Allies, destroyed Adolf Hitler’s murderous empire. Those men marching past Chase Bank, the local bagel place and Dunkin’ Donuts, them, those guys, they stormed the beaches of Normandy, liberated the Concentration Camps at Dachau, fought Nazis hand-to-hand past the Rhine River into the heart of the evil empire itself. Their best friends died beside them, some shot, some froze to death. They took the war to the heart of the Fascist enemy and won.

We take that victory over fascism, over Nazism, for granted today, and we pretty much always had. Wars are fought for different reasons, sometimes the wrong reason. This was not one of them. There was no way that Hitler’s hateful, genocidal legions were to be allowed to march across the globe. They knew it in 1941. We know it now. There was only one way to deal with Fascism, and that was to obliterate it. Decent people all over America, people who hated violence, knew this and acknowledge it now. Pacifism and tolerance are wonderful, but you can’t work with Nazis. No way. So that part of history has faded into legend, to be woven into Indiana Jones movies and exciting TV miniseries. But there’s one problem.

They’re back.

Yes, you read that correctly. Neo-Nazism has been around since the 1950s. Illegal in Germany, it is acknowledged as silly and heinous here. The idea of bringing out the anit-semitic ideas of Adolf Hilter and his genocidal concept of White, Aryan supremacy was long considered absurd. Sure, criminals and Klansman believed that crap, but not decent people. Not voters. Not anyone with a well-functioning brain in their head.

But they have returned.

Hitler’s intense, murderous hatred has returned to Europe, and in a big, big way. It’s crept up on us, much like the original movement of Nazism in the late 1920s did when it gravitated from a zany German fringe movement to the elected heart of the then-German Weimar democracy.

Whoever thought stormtrooping thugs led by anti-semitic politicians was in the past needs to look in two places. Hungary, our NATO ally in central Europe, and Greece, the birthplace of democracy.

Over the past two years, and you can’t make this stuff up, Fascism has been reborn as a viable political movement in Hungary. And when I say “viable,” I mean a political movement with almost 50 members in the democratically-elected Hungarian Parliament. They call themselves the Jobbiks, or those who seek to “bring about a better Hungary.” But they’re Fascists and Neo-Nazis and make no secret about it. While their suited politicians win elective office, their organized army, the so-called “Hungarian Guard,” grows daily. The Guard is, of course, modeled after the Nazi’s S.A. militia. The colors of the shirts are different, the symbols on the armband are a bit varied, but the message is the same. If you’re Jewish, or if you’re an immigrant, or gay or non-conformist in any way, then die…before we kill you first.

To bring attention to this rising movement, Worldwide Jewish organizations have been holding meetings in the Hungarian capital, and Jobbik has responded. This month, thousands of Jobbik members and their sympathizers protested these gatherings, marching with their own symbols, but with swastikas too. Jobbik members openly taunted conference participants with anti-semitic slurs and threw debris, much like their pre-War brethren did to Jews on Kristallnacht. Just last week, several Jobbik members of Parliament informed the legislative body that the museum at Auschwitz contained many “inaccuracies.” Holocaust denial for sure, but prepping for the future.  

Now Hungary is a relatively small country in the heart of modern, connected Europe. It has none of the attributes or military potential, say, of a defeated but infuriated post-World War I Germany. But that’s not the point. Jobbik is reaching out, making efforts to network with other far right, Neo-Nazi, Fascist groups throughout Europe who share their regressive ideals. One of these groups is situated in the birthplace of democracy itself, in Greece.

Golden Dawn’s main symbol is unmistakably designed after the Swastika. This movement, like Jobbik in nearby Hungary, is filled with thugs and street brawlers who preach hatred for immigrants and diversity. And like Jobbik, Golden Dawn has been experiencing a lot of success on the national electoral front. At this moment 18 members of the Greek Parliament are Golden Dawn members. Not one, not a pathetic three. Eighteen, and their influence is growing.

Golden Dawn, like a parasite, has attached itself to the Greek body politic by preaching the values of hate, particularly ethnocentrism. Its youth organization, like the Hitler Youth it is modeled on, is growing rapidly as well. Its ranks are filled with the sons and daughters of the unemployed, the bitter and the downright irrational. Like the Hitler Youth before it, it indoctrinates and militarizes children with genocidal ideas while going on camping trips, hikes and visits to National Monuments like the Acropolis in Athens. These trips are filled with marches and songs and stories about the greatness of Greece, with the democratic part conveniently skipped over, of course.

Again like Jobbik, Golden Dawn is reaching out. Its tentacles are spreading throughout the Greek diaspora, not only through Internet sites but with direct visits from Golden Dawn members to places like the United States and Australia. Overseas Greeks (for the most part) aren’t fooled though; they’re well educated in the democratic principles of their ancestors. But Golden Dawn is making more inroads in its efforts to establish links with politicians and parties in Europe.

Europe’s economy is taking a beating right now. It’s not the 1930’s, exactly, as Europeans enjoy a far more comprehensive welfare state than in those years, but they’re suffering nevertheless. And there is a real possibility in the near future that one of these radical, Fascist parties could gain real power. It is important to remember that Hitler and the Nazis came to power as a minority party, as part of a parliamentary coalition of nationalist groups.

It’s amazing how the world is connected, how history interweaves all. Again, though in a somewhat different era, we grow blind by a rising menace overseas. We don’t know what these people are ultimately capable of, because so many of us think that history can no longer produce such horrors from Europe. But those old Vets…they know what we could be up against. If you don’t believe me, ask them.