Joe Simon decided to work backwards. Traditionally, a comic book creator starts with a superhero and then develops villains for them to fight during the writing process. Realizing that the villains were becoming just as important as the heroes, Simon took a different approach.
“I started looked around for the perfect villain,” he explained in his 2011 autobiography, My Life in Comics. “I tossed out a lot of ideas, but then I realized that we had the perfect guy right in front of us. I thought to myself, Let’s get a real live villain. Adolph Hitler would be the perfect foil for our next character, what with his hair and that stupid-looking moustache and the goose-stepping. He was like a cartoon anyway.”
Having found the perfect villain, a perfect hero was then needed. “Even though the United States wasn’t in the war, we read the newspapers,” Simon continued. “We knew what was happening in Europe, and we were outraged by the Nazis – totally outraged. We thought it was a good time for a patriotic hero.” Thus on December 20, 1940, Captain America made his debut, appearing on the cover of the first issue of his self-named comic book punching Adolph Hitler in the jaw.
The punches continued to get thrown within the pages of Captain America Comics #1 but not against Hitler. Instead, the initial storylines depicted Captain America and his sidekick Bucky combating German spies, saboteurs, and assassins inside the United States. America was not yet embroiled in the conflict raging across Europe – in fact, it was almost a full year before the United States entered World War II. Just like within the pages of Captain America, however, the fight against Nazis was already erupting in the United States.
“It was a dreamland, a pleasant fantasy for boys who might one day see action in the service of their country,” Michael Benson wrote in his 2022 book Gangsters vs. Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in Wartime America about Captain America. “But in some cities in America during the 1930s and the Great Depression, punching Nazi was a reality. And though none of the punchers wore a star-spangled costume and some of the punchers might not have seemed the type, they were all superheroes.”
In an effort to keep the Unites States out of the brewing war in Europe, Adolph Hitler decided to recruit German immigrants in the U.S. and have them form organizations that would spread the Nazi philosophy to the masses. The Friends of the New Germany was first but was quickly denounced by the American media. The German American Bund replaced it, adding “American” to the name to make it sound less foreign.
The Bund held numerous rallies throughout the country, recruiting new members and sympathizers in the process. These rallies were peaceful and conformed to the constitutional rights of assembly and free speech despite their anti-Semitic rhetoric. In 1938, members of the Bund even dressed as stormtroopers and marched to the National Maritime Association in New York City. A memorial service organized by the American Legion was forced inside to avoid a confrontation.
Realizing that even the intimidation tactics of the German American Bund fell within the boundaries of the law, Judge Nathan David Perlman – who immigrated from Poland when he was four-years-old – decided a different tactic was needed. He thus requested a face-to-face meeting with Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky and laid out both the problem and the solution. While killing members of the Bund was not an option, physically confronting them was another matter. Lansky understood and agreed to build an “army” of fellow gangsters with the sole purpose of punching Nazis.
The Bund was active in Captain America Comics as well. “For months, the Fifth Column element in America was spreading terror throughout the nation,” issue five declares. “The enemies of democracy had been beating up innocent people who refused to join their ranks and destroying their homes. Finally, the mighty Captain America and his dare-devil pal Bucky decided to take a hand and wipe out the dogs of dictatorships!”
One of the Bund’s victims is a German American who wants nothing to do with Nazism. “I am of German decent but I am a good American citizens,” he tells the Bund. “I’ll have nothing to do with an organization that aims to destroy the country that protects me and mine from creeds like yours.” The man is pummeled into submission and taken to the hospital, where he is visited by Captain America and Bucky.
“What an awful thing – to think this could happen in America,” Bucky says afterwards, to which his superhero partner replies, “Well, Captain America is going to see that it doesn’t happen here.”
While Captain America is able to infiltrate the Bund – and punch Nazis – at one of their training camps, he later gets assistance from member of his fictional fanclub. “Okay, sentinels!” the club’s leader exclaims. “We’ve voted unanimously to locate more hidden Bund hideouts so Cap can mop ’em up. Are you with me?” Everyone shouts in the affirmative. After the narrative ends, readers encounter a full page advertisement for a real-world Sentinels of Liberty fanclub.
“Captain America wants you to join more than 10,000 red-blooded young Americans in a gallant crusade against the spies and traitors who attempt treason against our nation,” it declares. For a mere ten cents, fans could receive a membership card and metal badge proclaiming them a Sentinel of Freedom.
In celebration of Adolph Hitler’s forty-ninth birthday on April 20, 1938, the German American Bund organized a parade from Carl Schurz Park in Manhattan to the Yorkville Casino ballroom for a rally. The gangsters were ready. One group, led by Meyer Lansky, went inside the ballroom. Another group waited outside, armed with baseball bats and pool cues. A third snuck into the Yorkville Casino via a fire escape.
A large picture of Hitler was on the stage while swastika banners hung throughout the hall. As a series of speakers praised Hitler and the Third Reich, the gangsters in the ballroom made their way to the stage. The group who entered via the fire escape descended from the stairs, meanwhile, while those waiting outside likewise entered the Yorkville Casino. At the point, all of them started punching the fleeing Nazis. As Michael Benson notes in Gangsters vs. Nazis, the confrontation lasted only five minutes but when it was over, “The hall was already mostly empty, but scattered about were injured Nazis.”
Within the Hollywood of Captain America, Mark Carstine of Super-Star Pictures refuses to bow to Nazi pressures to end production on his latest film. “They won’t frighten me,” he tells an associate. “I’m the movie producer here and I aim to go ahead with this picture. It’s timely! It’s truth! The action takes place in the Middle Ages but the theme is the same as the situation today – freemen against a tyrant, democracy against dictatorship! This picture will awaken the public to the real value of their right to think for themselves.” When Carstine is subsequently murdered, Captain America and Bucky head to California to again punch Nazis.
Germany’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels believed that Hollywood was the perfect vehicle to disseminate Nazi propaganda not only in the United States but throughout the world as well. Los Angeles, however, did not have a large German American community like other cities across the country so Bund members needed to relocate there instead. A Jewish attorney named Leon Lawrence Lewis decided to infiltrate the growing organization and approached various local residents about joining the Bund and spying on them. Plans to murder twenty of the top Jewish actors and producers in Hollywood was uncovered as a result
According to Michael Benson in Gangsters vs. Nazis, the Bund also discussed launching cyanide gas grenades into Jewish homes, breaking into a National Guard armory and stealing weapons, and even blowing up a munitions plant in San Diego. Instead of punching Nazis, Leon Lewis had his spy ring spread false rumors within the Bund and played the egos of the three main protagonists against each other, defeating the Bund’s plans from the inside without the use of violence.
“As the ruthless war-mongers of Europe focus their eyes on a peace-loving America, the youth of our country heed the call to arm for defense,” Captain America Comics #1 declared. “But great as the danger of foreign attack is the threat of invasion within – the dreaded Fifth Column.”
The star-spangled superhero co-created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby fought against that “dreaded Fifth Column” within the fictional world of comic books and rallied the youth of America to confront Nazism on the home front. The factual world had its own collection of unlikely superheroes in Meyer Lansky and the spy ring organized by Leon Lawrence Lewis, thwarting any “invasion within” and keeping the country safe from fascism. The chance to “punch Nazis” was just a bonus for everyone involved, including Captain America.
Anthony Letizia