In his career in Congress, Hamilton Fish III (1888-1991) made many enemies. He launched the first House investigation into Communism in 1930, opposed FDR’s recognition of the USSR, opposed most of the New Deal, and strongly opposed FDR’s foreign policy. This resulted in opposition on the strongest terms from the Roosevelt Administration, the USSR, as well as the British. It is now known that the latter, through British Security Coordination, engaged in a five-year campaign to discredit Fish. This included allegations that he was anti-Semitic despite sponsoring the resolution declaring the US’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and seeking ways to rescue Jews from Germany, Fish hurt his own cause given that he was insufficiently careful with who he associated with. One particular story revolves around the allegation that Fish spoke on a stage “decorated with swastikas”. Philip Lentz wrote in his September 13, 1987 article for the Chicago Tribune that “He spoke at right-wing rallies on swastika-bedecked platforms and pro-Hitler literature bearing his frank was discovered in his office” (Lentz). I have in the past covered the story about the frank,
The Washington Post’s obituary of Fish repeats this story but a more limited version, “Mr. Fish once spoke at a 1938 German Day rally at Madison Square Garden from a stage decorated with swastikas…” (Pearson). This is the basis for the inclusion of this “fact” in Fish’s Wikipedia page. Let’s examine the context of the 1938 German Day rally.
The 1938 German Day rally at Madison Square Garden occurred on October 2nd, so I reviewed press reports on the event in the subsequent days. The Kearney Daily of October 3rd, 1938, noted of German Day in Madison Square Garden, held the previous day, “German day was celebrated in Madison Square Garden by 10,000 German-Americans last night, but there were no swastikas, no heiling of Adolf Hitler, no direct mention of affairs in the third reich. The conservative element of the German societies which regards persons of German descent as Americans and not Germans were in charge, and Rep. Hamilton Fish was the chief speaker. He attacked President Roosevelt, saying that he had no part in the peaceful solution of the Czechoslovak crisis”. Other newspapers I found contained the same wording on the account of this event. Indeed, the German Day rally that Fish spoke at was one that explicitly cut ties with Nazis. As the Daily News of New York City reported on October 3rd, “The German Day organizers recently barred Fritz Kuhn and his German-American Bund from participating in the exercises”. The Lincoln Star further reported on October 3rd on the nature of this event, “Kuhn [Fritz Kuhn of the German-American Bund] asserted that the rally was one of several in the New York metropolitan area to offset yesterday’s German day celebration in Madison Square Garden, New York City, at which the bund was not represented. In past years the bund has played a leading part in the German day rally at which Rep. Hamilton Fish asserted Germany’s annexation of Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia was justified. The Sudeten Germans were entitled to join Germany if they desired and President Roosevelt’s appeals for peace in Europe were futile, he said”. However, there is one source that may give some credence, and that is one of the trustees of the Desmond-Fish Public Library, which recently investigated him over calls of removing his name. Although thankfully they voted to retain the name after not finding evidence that he was anti-Semitic, one of the trustees who voted to retain, Anita Prentice, claimed that the rally had a swastika on display (Germany’s national flag in 1938 was the swastika flag, so this is a possibility) and the Nazi salute was given (Sparks). She might be referring to this picture on the lower right quadrant, which Dan Evon from Snopes reported as being from a 1938 rally:
However, what is strange about the picture in the lower right quadrant is that there are two men in Bundist uniforms visible. Bundists were not represented at the 1938 German Day rally, and its leader, Fritz Kuhn, was holding several rallies in the New York metropolitan area the next day, with him being present at the one in Union City, New Jersey, so this may be a picture of one of those events. I haven’t seen a picture that counters the account reported in The Kearney Daily and published in other papers. Surely the reporter who wrote the account that appeared in these publications would have seen a swastika and heiling if present, right?
To be clear, there isn’t nothing to criticize about Fish here. A report of the time condemns Fish for criticizing what its author regards as FDR’s sincere and not for show last-ditch effort at mediation in the Sudeten crisis, asking “Can the same be said for [Fish], who seized this particular time and occasion to please his German-American audience, to decry the President of the United States for an effort for peace, and before them to assert that Hitler was justified in what he did to Czechoslovakia, who owned the Sudetenland, the Polish and Hungarian and Slovak territories by virtue of a war in which lands assigned to the new Czechoslovak State were spoils or territory taken by the victors, which lands were wrested away from those who lost that war?” (Sun Herald) Even this report, however, doesn’t indicate the presence of swastikas or heiling at the event. While it is true that the Sudetenland was made up mostly of Germans, the idea that Hitler would stop at just lands with majority German populations is, in historical retrospect, naïve. Indeed, it reminds me much of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014 on the grounds that many of its residents were Russian and had voted for independence (in an illegal vote per Ukraine’s Constitution). The event such reports tie Fish to, however, may make people think of the Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden, which was organized by the German-American Bund and occurred on February 20, 1939, an event he did not attend.
Fish himself addressed Lentz’s claim in 1987, stating, “It is an absolute falsehood to state that I spoke at right-wing rallies on swastika-bedecked platforms and that pro-Hitler literature bearing the Congressional frank was discovered in my office. Most of these stories originated in the Daily Worker” (Fish). To be sure, the Roosevelt Administration, communists, and British Security Coordination were keen on painting Fish as pro-Nazi to further their aims. If there is a photo that exists that proves the presence of a swastika (or swastikas) and of heiling at the event Fish spoke at, I would be interested to see it, but for now I find this account to be quite doubtful.
References
Bund Leader Is Stoned By Angry Crowd In Jersey. (1938, October 3). The Lincoln Star, p. 8.
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Bundista. (1938, October 4). Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi), p. 4.
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https://www.newspapers.com/image/741839744
Evon, D. (2020, February 21). Do These Photos Show a 1939 Rally at Madison Square Garden? Snopes.
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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nazi-rally-madison-square-garden/
Fish, H. (1987, October 5). Reflections From Hamilton Fish. Chicago Tribune.
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Lentz, P. (1987, September 13). Defection to Democrats begins a political Fish family feud. Chicago Tribune, p. 16.
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Observe German Day. (1938, October 3). The Kearney Daily (Kearney, Nebraska), p. 1.
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Pearson, R. (1991, January 19). Isolationist Congressman Hamilton Fish Sr. Dies. The Washington Post.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1991/01/20/isolationist-congressman-hamilton-fish-sr-dies/4544ee14-84a6-4827-9744-5c7bd599615a
Sparks, L. (2024, March 9). Desmond-Fish Trustees Vote To Keep Library Name. The Highlands Current (Anita Prentice is in the comments section).
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https://highlandscurrent.org/2024/03/09/desmond-fish-trustees-vote-to-keep-library-name/
U.S. Germans Bar Bund At Garden Rally. (1938, October 3), p. 13. Daily News (New York City).
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Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 