Merrimac Park: The Site of a Neo-Nazi Rally

On June 18^th, 1939 in current-day Merrimac Park, a group of neo-Nazis held a fascist rally that thousands of people attended. During this rally, which supported the German-American Bund, the American and Nazi flags flew together. This came at a time just before the start of World War I, but the Jewish community in Europe was already being persecuted by the Nazis and there was a growing sense of antisemitism. Men and boys dressed in similar uniforms to Nazis and vendors sold drinks, food, and antisemitic literature. The next day, the Chicago Tribune reported on the rally and noted that many of Bund members had to be disarmed by police at the gate. A man named Frtiz Kuhn, the leader of the Bund, praised Hitler and encouraged the crowd to “free America” and to support the Bund organization. The article estimated about four thousand people attended the event. This goes to show that even in a very diverse city like Chicago, racism and things like antisemitism can still arise in great numbers.

There has always been a large Jewish presence in Chicago and they were among Chicago’s first settlers. From the 1800s on, the Jews were a part of much economic activity in the city. Throughout the years they were a part of small business ownership, banking, medical and legal fields, factories, peddlers, etc. Their jobs varied throughout the different years. Many great Jewish figures came to or were from Chicago. One man named Julius Rosenwald oversaw the growth of the department store Sears. He was also a philanthropist for the establishment of the Museum of Science and Industry. And his brother-in-law, Max Adler, founded the Adler Planetarium. These two Jewish men contributed a lot to Chicago, especially considering these are two major attractions in the city today.

In the 1930s as the Nazi party was rising, Chicago had the second-largest American- Jewish community, so seeing a neo-Nazi rally in Chicago at this time is very disturbing. Jews in Europe were placed under hundreds of strict laws; like having to self-identify themselves by wearing the Star of David, having a curfew, and shutting down Jewish-owned businesses, among many other things. Just a year before the Merrimac Park rally occurred, hundreds of Jewish villages were raided simultaneously throughout Germany and Austria on November 9-10^th, 1938. Over 1200 synagogues were destroyed, and thousands of Jewish homes and businesses were also destroyed and looted. Over 90 Jewish people were killed while tens of thousands of Jewish men were deported to concentration camps. 

By 1939, all Jewish people in Europe were gravely affected by Hitler’s rule, and it would only get worse. As all of this is going on in Europe, America sees small amounts of antisemitism. One group, the German American Bund was located throughout large cities across the US, like Chicago, and included men, women, and children. They were not explicitly antisemitic, but their support of Hitler and the Nazis demonstrate otherwise. They would be shown in pictures giving the Hitler salute and with swastikas. They eventually fell in 1941.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Antisemitic Legislation: 1933-1939, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Accessed November 10th, 2022. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitic-legislation-1933-1939.

Bell, Leland V. “The Failure of Nazism in America: The German American Bund, 1936-1941.” Political Science Quarterly 85, no. 4 (1970): 585–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/2147597.

Nicholas, Jeff. “In 1939 Nazis Rallied in Chicago to Make Germany Great Again.” Chicago Reader, October 25, 2021. https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/in-1939-nazis-rallied-in-chicago-to-make-germany-great-again/.

“Virtual Jewish World: Chicago, Illinois.” Jewish Virtual Library. Accessed October 29, 2022. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/chicago-2.