Lafayette and Washington, Place des Etats-Unis. Paris. Photo GLKraut
During the war, the Union cut off the supply of cotton to France, causing what was known as the cotton famine.
“These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers,” he wrote. “That risk is unacceptable.”
My kin, John Fremont, would be appalled to know the Republican Party he co-founded was taken over by pro-Putin Insurrectionists. The Governor of Florida pretends we are not in a new Cold War, and thus the Republican Rules that President Reagan applied to Americans and the Soviet Union – do not work for him – and Putin.
Americans have a real long history with Europeans, that DeSantis chooses to ignore. There have been many flags that flew over our Nation. Ron has chosen the colorful flag of The Royal Drag Queen to be his holy war banner. He screeches the word “TRADITION”! I suggested he leave the Republican Party and form the Traditional Democrat Party that will honor and save the Red State History that led to the Civil War. This is what Ronny and Putin – WANT! They want the United States to abandon NATO, forsake their European Allies, and help rid America of – DRAG QUEENS!
I am so tempted to USE Ronny in my Bond Book as the No.1 enemy of BAD, and the two Lesbian Lovers who got married. I did this after seeing Putin’s goon squad beating up Pussy Riot! To see a grown man in a fake uniform yank the hair of a woman – then whip her – should forever be the image the Free World should shove in the ace of all tyrants – and all their supporters!
I highly suggest Ron DeSantis – secede from the Republican Party, and have at all the tradional history the Confederacy enjoyed. May I suggest a name……The Loyal Putanic Party? The right to whip the slaves you own, and those who disagree with you in a public place – is so Putanic!
John Presco
Republican Presidential Candidate
Gentlemen of the Convention:―We meet together under no ordinary circumstances. The rapid spread of Northern fanaticism has endangered our liberties and institutions, and the election of Abraham Lincoln, a wily abolitionist, to the Presidency of the United States, destroys all hope for the future. We have therefore, been sent by the people of our State to devise the best means for our security. Their dearest interests are placed in our hands―to us is committed a high trust―upon us rests a heavy responsibility, and we are expected to meet the grave questions before us with calmness and deliberation; precipitation and rashness may prove disastrous. But, gentlemen, while prudence and a proper discretion should characterize all our deliberations, we must not forget that the important crisis demands great firmness. I trust we are fully prepared to meet the grave issues before us as true Patriots. …
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/foreign-response-american-civil-war.html?chrome=1
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/foreign-response-american-civil-war.html?chrome=1
Modeling themselves on the very German organization which had barred them, they
adopted the slogan of the vigorous, devout, cheerful and free.”History of
Maccabi World Union The origins of a world sports organization named after Judea
the Maccabee, harks back to the foresight of young European Jews, towards the
end of the 19th century. They saw the formation of a national movement as an
integral part of the dream of a national home in Palestine. These youths
advocated a real change in the lifestyle of Jews, especially concerning the
physical condition of Ghetto Jews. During this period, Jewish sports clubs were
founded in Eastern and Central Europe.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2023/03/15/ron_desantis_in_the_mainstream_on_ukraine_593789.html
“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Community Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis said in a statement to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump and launched her campaign last month, has warned a Russian victory would have global implications.
“This is a war about freedom. And it is a war we have to win,” Haley said during a town hall in Urbandale, Iowa, last month. “If we lose this fight for freedom, Russia has said Poland and the Baltics are next and then we’ve got a world war.”
In response to Carlson’s questionnaire, she said opposing Russia in Ukraine is a vital American strategic interest, and the nation is “far better off with a Ukrainian victory than a Russian victory, including avoiding a wider war.”
“If Russia wins, there is no reason to believe it will stop at Ukraine. And if Russia wins, then its closest allies, China and Iran, will become more aggressive,” Haley wrote.
But she pushed back against sending “cash or blank checks” to Ukraine, as well as deploying U.S. troops to respond to the conflict.
“Along with our allies in Europe and elsewhere, we should provide conventional weapons that enable Ukraine to effectively stop the Russian invasion and occupation of its land,” Haley added.
Scott, who has been visiting early presidential primary states since late February, said “degrading the Russian military is in our vital national interest,” but added there cannot be a “blank check” policy for aid.
Pence, Haley and Scott are aligned with other Republican leaders, namely Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell said last month providing assistance to Ukraine “is not an act of charity” by the U.S. and NATO allies and urged the Biden administration to “act more decisively” to make sure assistance to Ukraine “take place at the speed of relevance.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who campaigned alongside DeSantis during their reelection bids last year, said the U.S. has a national security interest in Ukraine.
“There are things we can do and should do to further that interest by helping them. It’s not an unlimited interest. It’s not $60 billion every six months,” he told radio host Hugh Hewitt. “But there are things we can do and should do, and that our partners in Europe should do more of as well, and are doing. And I do think there’s some importance to it, and I think those of us who feel that way have an obligation to sort of explain to people how this fits in the broader overall package.”
Asked about DeSantis’ stance, Rubio said, “I don’t know what he’s trying to do or what the goal is. Obviously, he doesn’t deal with foreign policy every day as governor.”
In his response to Carlson, DeSantis criticized the Biden administration for continuing to provide economic and military assistance to Ukraine, claiming Mr. Biden’s commitment to helping Ukraine defend itself “distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges.”
“We cannot prioritize intervention in an escalating foreign war over the defense of our own homeland, especially as tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year from narcotics smuggled across our open border and our weapons arsenals critical for our own security are rapidly being depleted,” the Florida governor said.
While he acknowledged “peace should be the objective,” DeSantis objected to U.S. assistance that would require American troops on the ground and ruled out providing F-16 fighter jets and long-range missiles.
“These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers,” he wrote. “That risk is unacceptable.”
Trump criticized DeSantis’ latest comments late Monday night, telling reporters traveling with him after an event in Iowa that the governor is “following what I am saying. It is a flip-flop. He was totally different. Whatever I want, he wants.”
The U.S. has been the leading provider of military, economic and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, and Congress has approved more than $112 billion for the nation through four government spending packages.
But with a divided Congress, it’s unclear whether another aid package can clear the GOP-led House. Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Punchbowl News in October that Republicans would not support a “blank check” for Ukraine if the party won control of the House.
The communist connections and participants in Lincoln’s War emphasized by Red Republicans are to numerous to mention within the limited space here, so for times sake I will mention some of the more influential men and important connections. After the failed socialist revolutions of 1848 which encompassed most of the European continent, many German, English, Hungarian, Bavarian, etc. atheistic socialists flocked to the United States having been banned from their homelands for treason. Ironically just about all of them wound up in the North (for a number of factors including an already strong progressive movement brought on by Transcendentalists and Unitarians) as ardent supporters of the Republican party. During the first GOP convention one of the main objectives of the Forty-Eighters was to assure that “Puritans and native born Americans” would not control the party. The Germans, being the largest of the immigrant groups, contributed the greatest to Lincoln’s election. Frederick Engels (Marx’s brother in arms) pointed out, “had it not been for the experienced soldiers who had entered America after the European revolution — especially from Germany — the organization of the Union army would have taken still longer than it did.” The first GOP convention included 19 German -American delegates, most of whom were forty-eighters some of whom were personal friends of Marx and Engels. In fact, the GOP platform included protection of voting rights for foreign-born citizens and promotion of the Homestead Act under the nickname of the “Dutch” (i.e. German) planks. Lincoln valued the German vote so much that he even secretly purchased a German newspaper, the Illinois Staats Anzieger before his election. In fact, just about every, if not all, of the German communist participants highlighted in Red Republicans were at some point journalists for German newspapers in the U.S.. It was the “default” vocation for exiled socialists.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis answers questions from the media in the Florida Cabinet following his State of the State address during a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives Tuesday, March 7, 2023, at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Florida.
“At the South, and with our People of course, slavery is the element of all value, and a destruction of that destroys all that is property.”
—President John C. McGehee, Florida Secession Convention
“As we stand our doom is decreed,”
John C. McGehee declared on January 5, 1861. As President of Florida’s secession convention, he believed remaining in the Union meant allowing rule by those who were “sectional, irresponsible to us, and driven on by an infuriated fanatical madness that defies all opposition” and who would “destroy every vestige of right growing out of property in slaves.”
Fremont’s Foreign Fighters
Posted on June 12, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press
The South hated John Fremont – and still does. He made California great, and was the first to free the slaves. His wife, Jessie Benton Fremont, is my kindred. This progressive couple is the San Francisco World’s Fair.
Down South, gun crazy ministers are preaching the End Time Tribulation where the Killer Jesus come and wipe all things secular off the map, leaving obese religious addicts cowering in their bunkers, waiting for Obama’s socialist black troops to come ferret them out, they guzzling down another twelve pack so they can own courage.
John Fremont
A persistent accusation leveled against Fremont was that he surrounded himself with foreign officers – Germans, Hungarians, Italians, and French – and actually preferred foreigners to Americans. Furthermore, the critics charged, these officers exaggerated their military experiences, strutted about in gaudy uniforms of their own design, bestowed sonorous and absurd titles upon themselves, and could give Fremont little practical counsel in a situation full of political difficulties.
The American Civil War, 1861-1865, was the most fateful episode in the history of the United States. Therefore, it’s not surprising that countless thousands of books and articles have been written on virtually every aspect of the conflict.
A substantial portion of these publications naturally deal with the prominent military men on both sides. One individual who has received much attention from historians and Civil War buffs, even though his service in the war was rather brief, is the charismatic John C. Fremont.
On the eve of the Civil War Fremont was one of the best-known and most popular figures in America. His explorations in the Far West had earned him the sobriquet of “Pathfinder.” In 1856 he ran for president on the Republican ticket. He had been asked to be the Democratic presidential candidate, but declined because that party supported slavery.
Although Fremont lost the election, he garnered a substantial portion of the popular and electoral vote. His wife, the intrepid Jessie Benton, was the daughter of the powerful Missouri politician Thomas Hart Benton. In the minds of many Americans, Fremont seemed to embody the spirit of the nation.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln commissioned Fremont a major-general and assigned him to the command of the Western Department, with headquarters at St. Louis, Missouri. The situation in Missouri was a most turbulent one and the problems facing Fremont were almost insurmountable. His meager forces were short of arms, ammunition, and supplies of every kind. The majority of Missourians were not in sympathy with the attempt of the North to coerce the South. The state was honeycombed with secessionist camps; guerrillas and bushwhackers burned bridges, wrecked trains, attacked exposed Federal units, and terrorized pro-Union citizens.
Despite the overwhelming obstacles, Fremont accomplished much. He organized and trained an army from raw recruits, fortified St. Louis and other key centers, built a squadron of river gunboats, secured strategic rivers posts, and consolidated the railroad transportation system. Declaring that drastic conditions call for drastic measures, he imposed martial law, arrested active secessionists, and suspended the publication of newspapers charged with disloyalty. Like other commanding generals of departments Fremont was not guided by precedents but had to improvise.
Fremont’s actions aroused enmity from various quarters. His numerous political antagonists, ready to capitalize on any misstep, accused him of ostentation and reckless expenditure. His promotion to major-general over the head of many regular army officers excited jealousy. The Blair family, powerful in both local and national politics and once his most ardent supporters, became his bitter foes.
On August 30, 1861, Fremont issued the Missouri Emancipation Proclamation, declaring the property of Missourians in rebellion confiscated and their slaves freed. Radical Northerners rejoiced; “The hour has come, and the man,” intoned Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Lincoln, whose moderate stance on slavery at the time was calculated to keep border slave states loyal, deemed the act as premature and asked Fremont to revoke it. When Fremont refused, Lincoln countermanded it personally.
A persistent accusation leveled against Fremont was that he surrounded himself with foreign officers – Germans, Hungarians, Italians, and French – and actually preferred foreigners to Americans. Furthermore, the critics charged, these officers exaggerated their military experiences, strutted about in gaudy uniforms of their own design, bestowed sonorous and absurd titles upon themselves, and could give Fremont little practical counsel in a situation full of political difficulties.
While there was an element of truth in all of these, the critics, as well as some modern writers echoing their views, overlook a few indisputable facts. First, native-born officers were scarce at the start of the Civil War, prompting not only Fremont but other commanders to rely heavily on the foreign born. Second, many of Fremont’s staff officers successfully continued their military careers longer after he left the army.
A number of publications state or imply that a significant number of the foreign officers around Fremont were Hungarians. Actually, there were only four Hungarians on Fremont’s staff who held important positions at any given time: Alexander Asboth, Charles Zagonyi, John Fiala, and Anselm Albert. Gustav Waagner’s tenure as the Western Department’s chief of artillery lasted but a few weeks due to Fremont’s dismissal.
Other Hungarians serving in Missouri in the early days of the war – Joseph Nemett, Emeric Meszaros, Hugo Hollan, Anton Gerster, Nicholas Perczel, and the four Rombauer brothers: Robert, Roderick Emil, Raphael Guido and Roland – were not part of the Fremont entourage. Philip Figyelmessy, Emeric Szabad and Nicolai Dunka on Fremont’s staff in the Mountain Department occupied minor posts.
A brief summary on the lives and careers of the four prominent Hungarians with Fremont is as follows.
Alexander Asboth
Alexander Asboth – A lieutenant-colonel during the 1848-49 War of Liberation and one of Kossuth’s most loyal followers, Asboth accompanied him to the Ottoman Empire and shared the entire Turkish internment with him. He came to the United States aboard the Mississippi, the vessel sent by President Millard Fillmore to bring Kossuth and his companions to America.
Until the outbreak of the Civil War, Asboth worked as an engineer, his chosen profession. While in the employ of Frederick Law Olmsted, the renowned landscape architect, Asboth helped to survey Central Park as well as the upper west side of Manhattan.
Turners and Free Thinkers
Posted on June 12, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press
Many of the Forty-Eighters were Free Thinkers and members of the Turnverein. Racist Neo-Confederate Evangelical Bubbas are claiming they are victims of Liberal Socialists who formed Big Government in order to take away their State Rights and individual liberties – because Lincoln was a Marxist who had no moral qualms about slavery in the South, he using slavery as an excuse to plant the Evil Red Empire in the land of the free.
This BIG LIE comes out of the mouths of a thousand evangelical ministers who work round the clock to give their flocks the moral high ground over the Democrats who promote Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, and Equal Pay – all the things that Jesus hates!
For some strange reason these fakes believe Jesus was pro-capitalist, and anti-socialism. This has to be true because they need Jesus to lead them against the Liberal North, and the minorities in the Southwest. Who else do they got – Mitt the Mormon?
Getting rid of the public school system is vital in bringing bach puritanical ecclesiastical rule to America. Without Jesus in their camp, this is another crazy, armed rise of racist South. Do not sit on the sidelines and let fake church folks rewrite American history as was the case with my Turnverien kindred in Belmont who were more then likely socialists. The Turnverien Jews were socialist Zionists, and played a huge role in the founding of the Socialist State of Israel in 1947. There is nothing in the Bible that says socialists are evil and are the enemies of God. Assholes who got young Americans into Vietnam in order to put an end to Elvis and the Rock and Roll movement, told many lies in the name of Jesus.
“Like other German-American groups, the American Turners experienced discrimination during World War I. The German language was banned in schools and universities, and German language journals and newspapers were shut down, but the Turner societies continued to function.
The Stuttmeisters refused to change their name, which no doubt made them targets.
The biggest problem in America is obese adults and children. You could not find a fat hippie because we never watched T.V. were outside in the parks, and at night we danced our ass off. Sure we took drugs, but only a handful of us died. Obese folks are dying by the tens of thousands! I’m sure many parents would like to see the Chinese Red Army burst through their door and force their children outside to play – against their will!
Oh Mom! Why should I excercise. Our minister said the world is going to end next Friday, and when I get raptured all my fat will not go with me.”
So spare us oh Evil Red Empire of Lincoln, we Liberals on the West Coast! Those big beer-bellied Bubbas down South hate your guts, and want to make war against you. But, are too fat for our armed forces.
There is a Gun Sickness in America, it is the new age drug that goes hand in hand with religious addiction, those who use the Bible to find targets for their target practice. Stupid obese Bubbas looked forward to shooting at the Russians of the Evil Empire. But, when the Iron Curtain fell, Gun Sickies looked for targets closer to home. These mentally ill morons ate not Patriots. Most are guilty of Treason.
Jon Presco
On the fourth of May [1856] the regular annual festival of the Turnverein Association of San Francisco took place, with all the usual accompaniments of music, dancing, gymnastics, oratory, eating and drinking. The festival, which was inaugurated by a procession of the Society to welcome their brother Turners from the interior, lasted three days, and everybody passed off in the most orderly and agreeable manner. The gymnastic performances were excellent, and formed a large portion of the ceremonies.
Another idea supported by both Lincoln and Marx was Federal involvement in education. In 1862, Lincoln signed the Morrill act, named for Senator Justin Morrill who defended it this way: “The role of the national government is to mold the character of the American people.” Instantly money that was made through Federal land grant sales went to funding colleges. It goes without saying that Washington controlled the curriculum. In Carl Sandburg’s six-volume account of the life of Lincoln he highlights something conservatives should find disturbing. When referring to Robert Owen’s (an early American socialist) utopia it is said that “the scheme lighted up Lincoln’s heart.” It is for these reasons that columnist Vin Suprynowicz has called Lincoln and his most ardent supporters “American Bolsheviks.”
Communists in the Ranks
The communist connections and participants in Lincoln’s War emphasized by Red Republicans are to numerous to mention within the limited space here, so for times sake I will mention some of the more influential men and important connections. After the failed socialist revolutions of 1848 which encompassed most of the European continent, many German, English, Hungarian, Bavarian, etc. atheistic socialists flocked to the United States having been banned from their homelands for treason. Ironically just about all of them wound up in the North (for a number of factors including an already strong progressive movement brought on by Transcendentalists and Unitarians) as ardent supporters of the Republican party. During the first GOP convention one of the main objectives of the Forty-Eighters was to assure that “Puritans and native born Americans” would not control the party. The Germans, being the largest of the immigrant groups, contributed the greatest to Lincoln’s election. Frederick Engels (Marx’s brother in arms) pointed out, “had it not been for the experienced soldiers who had entered America after the European revolution — especially from Germany — the organization of the Union army would have taken still longer than it did.” The first GOP convention included 19 German -American delegates, most of whom were forty-eighters some of whom were personal friends of Marx and Engels. In fact, the GOP platform included protection of voting rights for foreign-born citizens and promotion of the Homestead Act under the nickname of the “Dutch” (i.e. German) planks. Lincoln valued the German vote so much that he even secretly purchased a German newspaper, the Illinois Staats Anzieger before his election. In fact, just about every, if not all, of the German communist participants highlighted in Red Republicans were at some point journalists for German newspapers in the U.S.. It was the “default” vocation for exiled socialists.
On the fourth of May [1856] the regular annual festival of the Turnverein Association of San Francisco took place, with all the usual accompaniments of music, dancing, gymnastics, oratory, eating and drinking. The festival, which was inaugurated by a procession of the Society to welcome their brother Turners from the interior, lasted three days, and everybody passed off in the most orderly and agreeable manner. The gymnastic performances were excellent, and formed a large portion of the ceremonies.
The celebration of the “May festival,” although in the United States it is conducted under the control of the Turnverein Association, is a national festival in which all the Germans partake, and which is celebrated throughout all Germany. The origin of the Turner Association, which has now become so large and so important a one among our German citizens, was a political one. Germany is divided into thirty-six different States, with as many Governments of a despotic nature, and many of them hostile to each other.
Young Germany, deeply imbued with the spirit of freedom, has been for a long time anxious to throw off these yokes, and unite under one liberal, consolidated Government; but the rulers, in order to prevent this, have forbidden all assemblies or associations for political purposes, under heavy penalties. In order to avoid this prohibition an enthusiastic republican named Jahn made the meeting and associations for gymnastic exercises the occasion for the spread of democratic doctrines, and the Turnverein (or gymnastic association,) soon spread and grew into importance wherever Germans are found. This association now exists in, and exercises a great influence over the whole German population.
There is no secrecy about the association, neither is there any direct connection between the different associations, although a Turner of any one city considers himself, to all intents and purposes, a member of the Turnverein of any other city.
Formation of Turnverein Gymnastic Militias
The Turn Verein associations became powerful social and political organizations
in Germany that used gymnastic training as a preliminary and inconspicuous
preparation for military drills. In 1848 they helped spark a liberal revolution
to establish a unified, democratic republic in Germany. The revolution was
defeated and over 600,000 Germans were exiled as a result.
The First Turner societies in the United States were organized in 1848 by German
immigrants and exiles carrying the torch of liberty and democratic reform. These
“48’ers”, as they were called, created vigorous athletic, cultural, and social
societies throughout the country in the tradition of the German Turn Verein
societies. The Turner motto, “Sound Mind in a Sound Body,” expresses their
holistic vision for realizing human potential through the harmonious integration
of intellectual and physical development.
Many young people who enter the military due to the poverty they were born in,
come from Liberal Democratic families. In the military they are subjected to
born again evangelicals from the red states who have been trying to use our
military to conduct Christian Crusades. These End Time Crazies are
ne0-Confederates who harass non-Christians into joining their lost cause that
brought our nation to financial ruin. Militia group like Blackwater have
disgraced our nation and military. They train up to forty thousand evangelicals
a month at their Christian camp in North Carolina. Veterans of these groups, and
foreign crusades, go to townhall meeting and harass our elected leaders.
Many of Americas youth are becoming obese due to fast food chains who prey on
the poor. Obesity is a national crisis. I suggest the formation of Turner
Militias, where Democratic Veterans can train young people (who do not subscribe
to the Rapture and Tribulation) in gymastics and other fitness programs, and at
the same time train them in the art of warfare. This training was tradtional
amongst my Prussian ancestors who were Teutonic Knights.
New Turnverein Clubs will set uo a social network all over the world in order to
teach young people how to think for themselves, something the Repubiocan
Zionists forbid in regards to the debate of Healthcare. New Turner Halls will be
an alternative to mega-churches were people are told who to vote for.
A new Israelitische Turnverein Konstantinopel will be formed in Israel that will
keep Liberalsim alive, and combat the rise of the hateful hawks.
Kurt Vonnegut’s grandfather was a Turnverein Freethinker.
Jon Presco
“Like many of his fellow German forty-eighters, Clemens Vonnegut was very
socially active. Some of the social structures that he was interested in
changing in Indianapolis included separation of Church and State, an increase in
rights for women, and a move towards socialism. Consistent with the ideology of
the Freethinkers Society of Indianapolis, Vonnegut believed strongly that
organized religion threatened individual intellectual growth and personality.
Only a minority of forty-eighters belonged to freethinker societies because of
their vehement antireligious beliefs. This minority, however, was by far the
best educated and most politically active group of immigrants. Freethinker
societies were first organized in Germany; they began showing up in large
American cities in the 1840s “but its greatest stimulus and support came from
the refugees of 1848.”
Israelitische Turnverein Konstantinopel
The Christian-right believes the temple must be rebuilt so Jesus can come down
in a cloud, destroy his enemies, and lift up his chosen people. For this reason
they have declared cultural warfare on the left and the Democratic party. They
oppose healthcare in a rage as it is a government solution that will delay the
coming of Jesus. They see a Zionist solution coming out of a cloud in a magic
show.
The Revolution of 1848 was a step in the founding of the new Nation of Israel in
1947. When this revolt failed, thousands of Forty-Eighters fled Europe to all
parts of the world. My Stuttmesiters kin fled to Chile, and then America. They
married into the Janke family who founded a Turnverein (Tanforan) society in
Belmont California. The Jews were members of the Turnvereins, even founding
groups in Germany and Austria. But due to anti-semiticism, they were banned.
http://www.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/rz/turnvere.htm
“To foster physical education, belief in Jewish heritage and the Jewish nation,
and to work actively for the rebuilding of our own country and for the
preservation of our people”. The very name Maccabi pointed the new Zionist
orientation of the World Union. The saga of the ancient Maccabees celebrated at
Chanukah signified the courageous fight for freedom of conscience and religion,
for autonomy and sovereignty – the very goals toward which modern Zionism
strove.”
Flaunting their rebellious spirit, the gymnasts of Vormärz wore their hair long
and sported large black hats decorated with a rooster feather instead of the
more formal attire of the Biedermeier period. Spread throughout the geographic
area of Germany, this more diverse gymnastic movement staged larger and more
elaborate gymnastic festivals, which sometimes lasted several days and always
culminated with a pledge for national unity. In an effort to realize this unity
on a gymnastic level, an all-German gymnastic union was formed in April 1848,
shortly after revolution had swept the German Confederation.”
“The history of our people relates to the fact that we were once strong
physically…. but today that is not the case. Others succeeded in degenerating us
physically. They made the ghetto Jews of the middle ages into sorrow weaklings,
haggard and unable to defend ourselves in the narrow alleyways of the Ghetto…
Nobody can deny us the necessary physical activity needed to make our bodies
healthy again.
We will renew our youth in our aging years: We will develop wide chests, strong
arms and legs, a brave look. We will be warriors. What is lacking physically, we
will develop through exercise. But our recovery to health is not only through
the body, but also in the spirit, for as Hebrews will attain more achievements
in sport, so will our self-confidence improves. Long lives Sport! Hebrew Sports
clubs go forward and bloom”.
In 1878 Emil Harris became the first Jew ever to hold the position of Chief of
Police of Los Angeles, Earlier in the decade he was an organizer of the Fire
Department, the Turnverein and the Young Men’s Hebrew Association. Harris was
captain of the Turnverein’s rifle club, with Conrad Jacoby as his lieutenant. In
1874 he was one of the principal law officers responsible for the capture of the
notorious bandit, Tiburcio Vasquez.
A less serious but more amusing law enforcement matter was the request presented
to the City Council by Rabbi Edelman for permission “to shoot the pigeons
swarming about the synagogue.” The Council referred the matter to the Chief of
Police “with power to act.””The first all Jewish gymnastic club was formed in
1895 known as the Israelitische Turnverein Konstantinopel (Israelite Gymnastic
Association Constantinople), it was formed by German and Austrian Jews residing
in Constantinople (Istanbul – Kushta) who were unwelcome at the German gymnastic
societies with their “Aryan – only” membership proclivities.
Modeling themselves on the very German organization which had barred them, they
adopted the slogan of the vigorous, devout, cheerful and free.”History of
Maccabi World Union The origins of a world sports organization named after Judea
the Maccabee, harks back to the foresight of young European Jews, towards the
end of the 19th century. They saw the formation of a national movement as an
integral part of the dream of a national home in Palestine. These youths
advocated a real change in the lifestyle of Jews, especially concerning the
physical condition of Ghetto Jews. During this period, Jewish sports clubs were
founded in Eastern and Central Europe.
The first club was founded in 1895 in Constantinople, Turkey, and named “The
Jewish Sports Club”. In 1897 a club was established in Bulgaria. 1898 saw the
founding of “Bar Kochba” Berlin. Other clubs that followed were named after “Bar
Kochba” or Hebrew names such as “Hakoach” or “Hagibor” that symbolized strength
and heroism.The basic premise behind the founding of these clubs was of Jewish
Nationalism. The concept was that Jews were not only a religious entity, but
also one based on a common historical and social background, having special
cultural and psychological concepts that have been preserved to this day.
Founded amid the nationalist enthusiasms of the War of Liberation, the German gymnastic movement, or Turnverein, had fundamentally changed by the time of the 1848 revolutions in the German lands. Although Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, the gymnasium instructor who had originated the idea of nationalist gymnastics in Berlin in 1811, was still venerated in the organization, his anti-Semitism, hatred of the French, and loyalty to the Hohenzollern dynasty left him out of step with an organization committed to national unification and political liberalism. While the Turnverein’s ideological stance reflected the prevailing spirit of the German Vormärz, it also bespoke the peculiar circumstances of the organization’s history. The German Confederation of Metternich had viewed the patriotic enthusiasms of the War of Liberation with suspicion and had banned the Turnverein following the murder of the conservative journalist August von Kotzebue by the young student Karl Sand in 1819. Turnverein practice areas had been closed, the apparatus dismantled, and the leaders prosecuted. Jahn himself had been imprisoned at the Kolberg Fortress until 1825, and barred from teaching or gymnastic work after his release. This period, which Jahn called the Turnsperre, lasted in Prussia and most German states until the 1840s.
The lifting of the Turnsperre in the more liberal atmosphere of the 1840s reawakened the Turnverein to a vigorous new life. The center of the revived movement shifted out of Prussia, which had been its heartland under Jahn’s leadership, to the South and West German States, where the Turnsperre had generally been shorter and less restrictive. The membership of the new clubs was more inclusive, as the cor of students and academics which had made up the rank and file of the Turnverein in its early years was joined by a large contingent of craft workers, along with many Jewish members, often in positions of leadership. These gymnastic clubs were often closely aligned with workers’ organizations and democratic clubs with whom they shared a desire for reform and a rejection of traditional hierarchies.
In contrast to the organization Jahn had founded, almost one-half of the membership on the 1840s were non-gymnasts, the so-called “Friends of Turnen,” and because of this, the new clubs engaged in more non-gymnastic activities, such as funding libraries and reading rooms, and sponsoring lectures, often of a politically liberal nature. They joined the new volunteer firemen’s movement, and acted as a police force during the outbreaks of social unrest which characterized the revolutionary period. They even imparted a new spirit to their gymnastic program by initiating training sessions for children and, far more radical in light of the times, for women as well. Flaunting their rebellious spirit, the gymnasts of Vormärz wore their hair long and sported large black hats decorated with a rooster feather instead of the more formal attire of the Biedermeier period.
Spread throughout the geographic area of Germany, this more diverse gymnastic movement staged larger and more elaborate gymnastic festivals, which sometimes lasted several days and always culminated with a pledge for national unity. In an effort to realize this unity on a gymnastic level, an all-German gymnastic union was formed in April 1848, shortly after revolution had swept the German Confederation. Established as a demonstration of support for the Frankfurt Parliament, the new league was immediately controversial not the least because it avowed purpose, “to work for the unity of the German people and to uplift the brotherhood and the physical and spiritual power of the people,” failed to mention gymnastics. Impatient with the cautious program of the German Gymnastic Union, a group of radical clubs formed a second, rival union called the “Democratic Gymnastic Union,” and further schisms followed.
Given the radicalization of the movement in the 1840s, it is not surprising that the German gymnasts were directly involved in the 1848 revolutions. Turnverein leaders won renown for their leading roles in local uprisings, among them Gustav Struve in Baden, Otto Heubner in Dresden, and August Schärttner in Hanau. One Turnverein leader who was not in the forefront of radical change was Turnvater Jahn. Elected as a representative to the Frankfurt Parliament, Jahn was given honor, but no real influence, in the revived gymnastic movement.
Although a proposal to form a “Gymnastic Army” (Turnerschar) to supplement the National Guard was never realized, gymnasts manned barricades and participated in crucial fighting during the revolutions. Early in the revolutionary period, the eighty-odd members of the Kiel Turnverein took arms against Denmark in the conflict over Schleswig-Holstein. Although soon defeated, their actions won praise from moderates in the organization who contrasted their “unpolitical” dedication to the cause of the nation with the more radical social and political programs of gymnasts in other regions. Exemplifying this latter trend were the gymnasts in the mob that murdered Prince Felix Lichnowsky and General Hans von Auerswald in Frankfurt in September 1848, during a popular protest against the armistice with Denmark, and those who fought, often in the club uniform, to defend the city of Dresden against Prussian forces in May 1849. Turnverein clubs also participated in the veneration of Robert Blum, who had been killed by counter-revolutionary forces in Vienna, by holding services in his honor, marching in memorial parades, and helping to raise money for his family.
The Turnverein as an organization was most closely associated with the uprisings in Baden, the center of the radical sentiment in southwest Germany. Gymnasts had been among the defenders of the city of Freiburg in early disturbances in the province in April 1848. In the late spring and early summer of 1849, violence erupted again and brought about some of the most prolonged fighting of the revolutionary period. After agitation for a democratic nation-state had forced the Grand Duke to flee, other German states, led by Prussia, sent in troops to crush the movement. The gymnastic organization of the Rhineland province of Hanau organized a march to Baden to defend the province. Although this force gathered around 600 men along the way, it was poorly armed and led and easily outmatched by the regular armies it encountered. About 240 survivors of this effort managed to cross into neighboring Switzerland, where they received a hero’s welcome from Swiss gymnasts and students.
The aftermath of the 1848 revolutions devastated the German gymnastic movement. Clubs were disbanded, property confiscated and leaders lost to jail or exile. The various attempts to form a union of gymnastic clubs likewise fell victim to the Reaction. In these circumstances, the Turnverein turned away from politics to concentrate on its gymnastic program. It was only with the revival of the drivefor German unification in the late 1860s, that the gymnastic movement rediscovered its purpose and was able to regain he momentum of the revolutionary era.
The Turnvereine made an important contribution to the integration of German-Americans into their new home. The organizations continue to exist in areas of heavy German immigration, such as Iowa, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, Kentucky, New York City, and Los Angeles.
Together with Carl Schurz, the American Turners were supportive of the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States. They provided the bodyguard at his inauguration on March 4, 1861, and at his funeral in April, 1865. In the Camp Jackson Affair, a large force of German volunteers helped prevent Confederate forces from seizing the government arsenal in St. Louis just prior to the beginning of the war.[5]
Like other German-American groups, the American Turners experienced discrimination during World War I. The German language was banned in schools and universities, and German language journals and newspapers were shut down, but the Turner societies continued to function.[2]
In 1948, the U.S. Post Office issued a 3-cent commemorative stamp marking the 100th anniversary of the movement in the United States.
Cultural assimilation and the two World Wars with Germany took a gradual toll on membership, with some halls closing and others becoming regular dance halls, bars or bowling alleys.[4] Fifty-four Turner societies still exist around the U.S. as of 2011. The current headquarters of the American Turners is in Louisville, Kentucky.[6]
Turners (German: Turner, gymnasts in English) are members of German-American gymnastic clubs. A German gymnastic movement was started by Turnvater (turners’ father) Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in the early 19th century when Germany was occupied by Napoleon. The Turnvereine (“gymnastic unions”) were not only athletic, but also political, reflecting their origin in similar “nationalistic gymnastic” organizations in Europe. The Turner movement in Germany was generally liberal in nature, and many Turners took part in the Revolution of 1848.[1] After its defeat, the movement was suppressed and many Turners left Germany, some emigrating to the United States. Several of these Forty-Eighters went on to become Civil War soldiers, the great majority in the Union Army, and American politicians. Besides serving as physical education, social, political and cultural organizations for German immigrants, Turners were also active in the American public education and the labor movements.[2][3][4] Eventually the German Turner movement became involved in the process leading to German unification.
Forty-Eighters in the USA
In the United States, many Forty-Eighters opposed nativism and slavery, in keeping with the liberal ideals that had led them to flee Germany. Several thousand enlisted in the Union Army, where they became prominent in the Civil War. In the Camp Jackson Affair, a large force of German volunteers helped prevent Confederate forces from seizing the government arsenal in St. Louis just prior to the beginning of the war.[2]
Many Forty-Eighters settled in the Texas Hill Country in the vicinity of Fredericksburg, and voted heavily against Texas’s secession. In the Bellville area of Austin County, another destination for Forty-Eighters, the German precincts voted decisively against the secession ordinance.[3]
More than 30,000 Forty-Eighters settled in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. There they helped define the distinct German culture of the neighborhood, but in some cases also brought a rebellious nature with them from Germany. During violent protests in 1853 and 1854, Forty-Eighters were held responsible for the killing of two law enforcement officers.[4] In the Cincinnati Riot of 1853, in which one demonstrator was killed, Forty-Eighters violently protested the visit of the papal emissary Cardinal Gaetano Bedini, who had repressed revolutionaries in the Papal States in 1849.[5]
Many German Forty-Eighters settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, helping solidify that city’s progressive political bent and cultural Deutschtum. The Acht-und-vierzigers and their descendants contributed to the development of that city’s long Socialist political tradition.[6]
After the Civil War, Forty-Eighters supported improved labor laws and working conditions. They also advanced the country’s cultural and intellectual development in such fields as education, the arts, medicine, journalism, and business.
The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the socialist revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In Germany, the Forty-Eighters favored unification of the German people, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights.[1] Disappointed at the failure of the revolution to bring about the reform of the system of government in Germany or the Austrian Empire and sometimes on the government’s wanted list because of their involvement in the revolution, they gave up their old lives to try again abroad. Many emigrated to the United States, England, and Australia after the revolutions failed. They included Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, and others. Many were respected, wealthy, and well-educated; as such, they were not typical migrants. A large number went on to be very successful in their new countries.
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