HC Time Machine - Nazi America A Secret History (2000)
In a feature length survey of Nazism in the USA, we trace the history from the fairly benign organizations that gave structure to newly arrived German immigrants to many Neo-Nazi parties still active today. Although Nazism has never found much appeal in the United States, it has managed to infect small groups and impressionable individuals in the decades since it first appeared on America. A two-hour History Channel special, Nazi America A Secret History, traces the movement's path from the 1930's, when German-American Bund members goose-stepped through the Yorkville streets of Manhattan, to the 1990's, when Aryan Nation is preaching their doctrine of racial purity prowling in camouflage outfits. Inspired by the early successes of Hitler, Nazis in America reached their peak in the years before World War II. The German-American Bund's doctrines, borrowed from the group's German model, combined ethnic fellowship, anti-Semitism and strutting by torchlight. At camps around the country children were taught to say Heil Hitler! A rally captured by newsreels brought 20,000 Nazis and their sympathizers to Madison Square Garden; on the way home they were protected from anti-Nazi protesters by New York police officers. The Bund was finished off by Pearl Harbor, and 10,000 German nationals, most of whom seem to have been loyal to the United States, were interned in camps. But even after the war Hitler's messages found an audience. In the 1950's George Lincoln Rockwell exhorted sympathizers of his American Nazi Party that they should have been on Hitler's side. Rockwell was a pioneer in denying that there had been a Holocaust. As the civil rights battle expanded, he attracted supporters by promising, I will kill every Jew, Catholic and Negro. During eruptions of white-power excrescences, law enforcement officials were caught between First Amendment rights and pressure to crack down on widely detested groups. In 1978 the American Civil Liberties Union lost some members by coming to the aid of Nazis who planned to march in Skokie, Ill., where many Holocaust survivors lived. Nazi America discusses the continuing influence of The Turner Diaries, a 1978 novel by William L. Pierce written under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald that celebrated a racist uprising and seems to have inspired violence a Jewish talk-show personality in Denver, Alan Berg, was assassinated. In California white supremacists robbed millions of dollars from a Brink's truck. In confrontations at Ruby Ridge in Idaho and at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex., the authorities reacted in disputed ways with dire consequences. Then came Timothy McVeigh and the bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City. Estimation is that some 500 vigilante groups are at work, with racial segregation as their objective. Hitler's legacy persists. Trace the history of the American Nazi Party and the many Neo-Nazi parties active today. In-depth interviews with party members reveal why they embrace a cause universally reviled and rejected, while law enforcement officers discuss the challenges involved in fighting the spread of racially motivated crime in America. Filled with startling footage and candid commentary, NAZI AMERICA A SECRET HISTORY offers astonishing insight into Nazi sentiment that continues to exist in the U.S.
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