DAYTON, OHIO – MARCH 1938

Residents were shocked when Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze, the German-American Bund’s national public relations officer, spoke at Liederkranz Hall on St.

Patrick’s Day. For many, this felt like a betrayal, a reminder that the shadow of fascism wasn’t confined to Europe.

It was there, in their own city, in the heart of America.

Two hours away, in Chicago, the origins of this movement took root with the Free Society of Teutonia.

What started innocuously as a German social club, complete with jovial beer-drinking and songs of the home-land, gradually morphed into something far more sinister. The society’s anti-Semitic and anti–Treaty of Versailles rhetoric hardened.

Members marched, drilled, and fantasized about a rebirth of German glory under the swastika.…