On this day, February, 20, 1939, the largest ever pro-Nazi rally in US history was convened in Madison Square Garden.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_20

• 1939 – Madison Square Garden Nazi rally: The largest ever pro-Nazi rally in United States history is convened in Madison Square Garden, New York City, with 20,000 members and sympathizers of the German American Bund present.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. American Fuhrer arrested in Lehigh Valley 76 years ago

https://www.wfmz.com/features/historys-headlines/american-fuhrer-arrested-in-lehigh-valley-76-years-ago/article_6ed48875-18f5-5195-93d7-d198480c7aae.html

Perhaps the high point of Kuhn's role in the Bund movement occurred on February 23, 1939. That evening a huge Bund rally was held in New York's Madison Square Garden. It was decorated with large, full-length portraits of George Washington in a military uniform of the Revolutionary period.

But uniformed members of the organization marching around the hall created an image for the newsreel cameras that reminded many Americans of a small scale copy of Nuremberg rallies Hitler held in Germany. And with the Third Reich apparently on a roll in Europe, with headlines suggesting it had its eye Poland, it made the Bund a subject of suspicion.

It was Kuhn's over-enjoyment of the good life that eventually got him into trouble. He liked night clubbing and "fast" women. And so when word got out that he had embezzled $15,000 of the Bund's funds to pay off a blackmailing former girlfriend, it raised the sights of New York's crusading District Attorney Tom Dewey. And an indictment issued by a grand jury on the charge made Kuhn a target when he attempted to leave town.

Kuhn was later to state he knew he was being followed as soon as he got out of New York's Holland Tunnel.

As they dodged and weaved across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania, Kuhn tried to shake the detectives off his tail but they maintained a steady pace. "Kuhn went over Union Blvd. in Bethlehem into Tilghman Street in this city and turned west toward Hamburg," the press reported the next day.

For historians who like to dig very deeply:

https://vault.fbi.gov/fritz-julius-kuhn/fritz-julius-kuhn-part-04-of-10

[Wonder Why]

2. If you haven't already, watch the American Experience episode on PBS that

does an excellent job of documenting the Bund.