The Silver Legion of America, commonly known as the Silver Shirts, was an American fascist and pro-Nazi organization which was founded by William Dudley Pelley and headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina.

History

Pelley was a former journalist, novelist and screenwriter turned spiritualist who began to promote antisemitic views by 1931, including the belief that Jews were possessed by demons. the paramilitary Silver Legion wore a uniform modeled after the Nazis' brown shirts (SA), However, the Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected, and Pelley failed to appear in the top four. By around 1937, the Silver Legion's membership had declined to about 5,000. In 1936, a small Silver Shirt office was established in downtown Spokane. About 200 members participated before the group's end.

When the Silver Shirts tried to hold a rally at the Elks Club in Minneapolis, the meeting was interrupted by senior local Jewish-American organized crime figure David Berman.

Pelley disbanded the organization soon after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

On January 20, 1942, Pelley was sentenced to serve two to three years in prison by Superior Court Judge F. Don Phillips, in Asheville, North Carolina, for violating terms of probation of a 1935 conviction for violating North Carolina security laws. The same sentence had been suspended pending good behavior, but the court found that during that period, Pelley had published false and libelous statements, published inaccurate reports and advertising, and supported a secret military organization. For claiming that the devastation of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was worse than the government claimed, Pelley was arrested by federal authorities and sentenced to 15 years in prison for sedition and conspiracy to commit sedition, including for making seditious statements, obstructing military recruiting, and fomenting insurrection within the military.

See also

  • Christian Party (United States, 1930s)
  • German American Bund
  • Political uniform
  • Ulrich Fleischhauer

References

Notes

Further reading

  • Allen, Joe "'It Can't Happen Here?': Confronting the Fascist Threat in the US in the Late 1930s," International Socialist Review, Part One: whole no. 85 (Sept.–Oct. 2012), pp. 26–35; Part Two: whole no. 87 (Jan.–Feb. 2013), pp. 19–28.
  • Ribuffo, Leo Paul The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983.
  • Spivak, John L. Secret Armies: The New Technique of Nazi Warfare. New York: Modern Age Books, 1939.
  • Werly, John The Millenarian Right: William Dudley Pelley and the Silver Legion of America. PhD dissertation. Syracuse University, 1972.
  • Yeadon, Glen. The Nazi Hydra in America. Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive Press, 2008.
  • Photo of a Silver Legion of America meeting in the 1930s
  • The Holocaust Chronicle: Prologue: Roots of the Holocaust, p. 89
  • The American Jewish Committees' archive on the Silver Shirts
  • Atlas Obscura article on Rustic Canyon's Murphy Ranch