Date of Award
2010
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Abstract
It is not generally known that a pro-Nazi organization, the German-American Bund, held sway among certain segments of American society during the 1920s and 1930s. The organization achieved its greatest successes after the self-proclaimed "American Fuehrer," Fritz Julius Kuhn, took up the reigns of leadership in 1936. Under Kuhn's leadership, the Bund saw a dramatic increase in its membership rolls; it is estimated that over 25,000 dues-paying members belonged to this first-ever National Socialist organization created outside the environs of Nazi Germany. This thesis explores reasons why this blatantly pro-Nazi organization thrived in the bastion of democracy. While most historians attribute other reasons for the Bund's success, this thesis argues that it was the outstanding organizational skills of Kuhn that kept the movement alive in the years prior to World War II.
Extent
v, 115 p. : ill.
Recommended Citation
Kopp, Eliot A., "Fritz Kuhn, the American Fuehrer and the rise and fall of the German-American Bund" (2010). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019. 95.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_6/95
Identifier
FADT1927303
Comments
by Eliot A. Kopp.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010.|Includes bibliography.|Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.|by Eliot A. Kopp.