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THE WEEK OF AUGUST 5, 2004
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Of A Story And Recalling The Bund
Looking at an old image of our neighborhood, the viewer might spot a sign that is only partially visible and be puzzled by its wording. We suspect that such could be the case with the picture of a 1912 postcard that is being presented this week.
It is a view of Fairview Avenue,
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This 1912 postcard view shows Fairview Avenue looking southeast from Harman Street in Ridgewood. Note the word “Consumers” at right, which is a clue to the kind of business which existed at the location.
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In truth, a saloon was located on the southwest corner of the intersection. It served beer from the Consumers Park Brewery, located at Franklin Avenue and Montgomery Street near Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.
The brewery was organized in 1897 by Herman Raub and eventually over 1,000 saloonkeepers were shareholders. It was an efficient plant, brewing both lager beer as well as ales and porter. In 1900, they shipped 72,000 barrels (31 gallons per bbl.) and in 1901, they increased the total to 90,000 barrels.
In 1902, in a great publicity feat, Prince Henry, the heir to the Prussian throne, visited New York with the Imperial yachts, Hohenzollen and Meteor. The only beer served on the Imperial yachts was from the Consumers Park Brewery. To honor the occasion, they called their lager beer “Hohenzollen Beer.”
In January 1913, the Consumers Park Brewery merged with the New York and Brooklyn Brewing Company, with the new company called “Interboro Brewing Company.” Their brands were “Interboro” and “Bismark.” The New York and Brooklyn Brewing Company plants were closed and all their beer was brewed at the Consumers Park plant.
The Interboro Brewing Company continued in business through 1920, when they closed because of Prohibition.
“Consumers Park” also was the name of a train station at Montgomery Street. The stop was part of the old Brooklyn Rapid Transit subway line—later reorganized as the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit (BMT). On November 1, 1918, a train crash occurred in the tunnel of the next station, Malbone Street (Empire Boulevard). It took the lives of 97 people on the Brighton Beach local-express and sent many others to the hospital. Bodies of the fatally injured were brought to the local police stationhouse and to the lobby of Ebbets Field. The Malbone Street crash remains the city’s worst subway disaster.
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Two years after his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Ace Parker’s image became part of a set of football cards, issued in 1974 by the Fleer Gum Co. of Philadelphia in conjunction with the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
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In our column of July 8, 2004, we discussed the football version of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who played at Ebbets Field, and the name “Ace Parker” was mentioned. Parker—known as “Clarence” before he gained his nickname—was a fine football player at Duke University in North Carolina during the 1930s and subsequently with the Brooklyn Dodgers in professional football. He was the finest punter in college football and he excelled at angling the ball out of bounds near the goal line.
We are reminded of a story that has a link to Ace Parker. It goes back to a Saturday afternoon in the fall in the late 1940s. The Old Timer and a friend got a football and went to Victory Field at Myrtle Avenue and Woodhaven Boulevard in Glendale. One of the football fields with yardage markers was not in use, so we started booting the ball back and forth. As best we can recall, most of the punts were 35 to 40 yards. Occasionally, we would get off a 45-yarder.
As we were punting the ball back and forth, another punter with a football came onto the field. He booted the ball and then ran down the field, retrieved it and booted it back. He was getting off some high spirals of about 60 yards. We asked him if he would like to join us and he said yes.
We asked this fellow where he played football. Before answering, he volunteered that he had been the second-string punter at his school. He then told us he had played for Duke University when Ace Parker was the punter. I mentioned to our new acquaintance that I had read a book by Mr. Mills on how to control the direction (left or right) of the bounce on a punt and also that I was never successful. He then proceeded to show us how he could control the direction of the bounce.
Some years later, the Old Timer was on a business trip with two of his company associates. We were flying on a Boeing Stratocruiser, which in the rear had two seats facing two seats. We occupied three of the seats with the one seat vacant. We were chatting about sports when a man across the aisle asked if he could join us. We invited him to do so and he introduced himself. He was famous college football coach, Johnny Vogt, of “Ole Miss” (Mississippi).
The Old Timer took the opportunity to ask Coach Vogt whether he thought it was possible to control the direction (left or right) of a bounce on a punt. In responding, he mentioned that there was a book by Mills on the subject. The Old Timer then told the story about his encounter with the second-string punter who had played for Duke behind Ace Parker.
At its annual football banquet, Duke University presents a number of awards to outstanding players. One is named for Ace Parker, a two-time All-American in 1935 and 1936. Following his Hall of Fame career as a pro player, he returned to Duke and served as an assistant coach from 1947 to 1965.
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Our column in the July 29, 2004 issue contained the concluding part of an excellent letter from Arlene Stein (nee Stenchever) of Deming, New Mexico, a former resident of our neighborhood. In recalling what it was like as a young girl growing up on Menahan Street in Ridgewood during the 1930s, Mrs. Stein mentioned the existence of Nazi sympathizers and the German-American Bund, which held meetings in our neighborhood “to the dismay of most German-Americans.”
The Bund was organized in the U.S. in the 1930s as “Friends of New Germany.” As Arlene Stein mentioned, the uniform for the members was a black hat with a red symbol. For the men, a white shirt and black trousers and for the ladies, a white blouse and a black skirt. Units were organized in cities with a German ancestry population such as New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, etc.
Fritz Gissibl was the leader and apparently made his headquarters in Chicago. One of his chiefs was Walter Kappe, who later returned to Germany where he would become the architect of the scheme that brought two four-man teams of saboteurs to U.S. shores in 1942. One team came by U-boat and landed on a beach near Amagansett, Long Island. The other team arrived in Florida. All four would-be destroyers were captured before they could carry out their mission of industrial sabotage.
As for the emergence of the Bund in New York City, units were organized in Ridgewood, Glendale, Astoria, Brooklyn and Yorkville. On April 8, 1934, they held a rally at the Ridgewood Grove at St. Nicholas Avenue and Palmetto Street in Ridgewood to protest against a boycott of German-made products. Whether this was an aftermath of World War I or an anti-Hitler movement, we do not know. About 6,000 attended the rally.
Fritz Kuhn, who was born in Germany, was a naturalized U.S. citizen. He replaced Fritz Gissibl as the organization’s leader and its name was changed to the German-American Bund. Kuhn encouraged German-born members who were not U.S. citizens to become naturalized U.S. citizens.
In 1935, a summer camp opened at Yaphank in Suffolk County, Long Island. Originally referred to as picnic grounds run by a group called the “German-American Settlement League,” the lakefront property served as a weekend gathering place for Nazi sympathizers. Before long, it became apparent that the summer retreat was a project of the German-American Bund, as members dressed in the organization’s uniform and carried flags with swastikas. In 1936, it was called Camp Siegfried.
Also in 1936, the Summer Olympics were held in Berlin. Fritz Kuhn attended and was introduced to Adolf Hitler. According to one report, Hitler was not favorably impressed with Kuhn.
Time passed and Kuhn, who reportedly had claimed that he would become “America’s Fuhrer,” was eventually replaced by Gerhard Kunze.
In April 1940, the German Panzers swept through Belgium and France and drove the British Army off the continent of Europe at Dunkirk. The U.S. Congress was alarmed at this development in the war in Europe and they passed a peacetime military draft in September 1940. The Bund tried to persuade their members of draft age to evade the draft. This was a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in jail and up to a $10,000 fine. In November 1941, Gerhard Kunze fled to Mexico.
On December 7, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor without warning. Several days later the U.S. declared war against Japan, Germany and Italy.
As Arlene Stein noted, FBI agents were monitoring the activities of the Bund. However, it was only in June and July of 1942 that the FBI made arrests of Bund members. Seventy-two were arrested, of which 15 were women. Among those arrested were: Bruno C. Knupfer, 45, a coal dealer, residing at 65-15 Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood. He was born in Germany and came to the U.S. in 1923. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1930. In 1940 he was appointed Gauleiter (district leader) for Brooklyn.
Hugh Weiss, 31, lived in Astoria. He was born in Germany in 1911 and came to the U.S. in 1929. In 1934 he became a naturalized U.S. citizen and in that same year joined the Bund. He was appointed Gauleiter for Astoria and also for Ridgewood. He had 250 members in his Astoria unit. The number of members in Ridgewood was not stated.
John August Grill, 37, was born in Ridgewood in 1905. He was a baker. He joined the Bund in 1937 and in 1939 was appointed Gauleiter for Glendale. He had 45 members in his unit.
Otto Fenske lived in Woodhaven. He was Gauleiter for Yorkville in Manhattan.
After reviewing the backgrounds of each of those arrested by the FBI, 31 were held for trial in Manhattan before a federal judge. A motion was then made to postpone the trial to September 8, 1942.
In June 1942 the FBI tracked down Gerhard Kunze in Mexico and the Mexican government placed Kunze under arrest and shipped him back to the U.S., where he was tried in a court in Hartford, Connecticut. He pled guilty at his trial.
As for Fritz Kuhn, his own landing in trouble preceded that of the others. A probe of the Bund’s taxes had determined that Kuhn was an embezzler and even though the Bund declined to pursue charges against him for the theft of more than $14,000 in funds, Kuhn was prosecuted in 1939 by Manhattan District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey. The case ended in a conviction and Kuhn lost his citizenship. He was held by the government in an internment camp during the war and then was deported to West Germany, where he remained in jail until his death a few years later, in 1951.
We have a local story related to the Bund which involves an amusing incident. On Tuesday morning at 3 a.m. on June 16, 1942, Karl Jacob Geiger, 59, of 164 Wyckoff Avenue in Ridgewood, was arrested for marching along Wyckoff Avenue near Myrtle Avenue in his Bund uniform. Geiger had joined the Bund in 1937. He had promised a friend who was also a Bund member that whoever died first, the other would march through the street in his Bund uniform—and Geiger was carrying out his promise. Upon investigation, the police found out that his son, Carl, was also a Bund member and had gone to Camp Siegfried and also to Camp Nordland in New Jersey.
Old Timer’s Note—If you have any remembrances or old photographs which you would like to share with our readers, write (“regular” mail, please; no e-mail) to the Old Timer c/o Times Newsweekly, P.O. Box 860299, Ridgewood, NY 11386-0299. All photographs will be carefully returned to you.