Cover art by Jesus Saiz
In the first six issues of J. Michael Straczynski’s Captain America – published between September 2023 and February 2024 – the star-spangled superhero fights against a supernatural force intent on creating a darker world order. Unbeknownst to Steve Rogers, he faced this same being during the late 1930s, a mere days before taking the Super Solider Serum of Abraham Erskine and becoming Captain America. The comic books series thus takes place both in the past and the present, with flashbacks depicting the heroic effort of a sickly boy standing up to American Nazis that mirrored real-world events at the time.
While walking through a New York City park in 1938, a hungry Steve Rogers is informed that a nearby rally is giving away free sandwiches. As he waits for his food, Rogers overhears a speaker telling the crowd, “In the next few years, America will rise as she has never risen before! She will be more powerful than she has ever been! Because our partnership will ensure a future of peace and progress! We will do this together, with your help, your loyalty, your patriotism, and your support. Step up! Show your loyalty! Show your patriotism! Show the world who you are! Join the German American Bund! Sieg heil!”
The German American Bund hold additional rallies throughout the city, and Steve Rogers is always on hand to provoke them. “Excuse me,” he calls out at one event. “I’ve been listening to your wind for ten minutes, and you still haven’t said a word about invading countries you think you own, killing people you don’t like, concentration camps.” The speaker accuses him of falling for “the propaganda put out by the Zionists and Communists who run the American banks and press” while a pair Bund soldiers physically remove Rogers from the area. At the next rally, Steve Rogers is once again present and the sequence repeats itself.
Eventually Rogers is noticed by Meyer Lansky. In the real world, Lansky was a Jewish gangster recruited by Judge Nathan David Perlman to fight against the German American Bund in New York City, just like he’s doing within the Marvel Comics Universe. Lansky has heard rumors that the Bund is planning something “big” – codenamed Operation Garden – but has been unable to uncover any additional information. He thus tasks Steve Rogers with keeping his eyes and ears open and letting him know if he learns anything.
During the late 1930s, Adolph Hitler established the German American Bund to both recruit German immigrants in the U.S. and spread Nazi propaganda in the hopes of keeping the United States out of the brewing war in Europe. As part of those efforts, Fritz Kuhn – leader of the Bund – organized a massive rally in one of the most famous arenas in the country, Madison Square Garden. The word then went out for all members of the German American Bund to descend upon New York City on February 20, 1939, for the big event.
Security guards swept the Garden beforehand for bombs. Outside, a huge crowd of protesters gathered, hampering the efforts of the German American Bund to enter the arena. Many – upon seeing the size of the crowd – decided to turn around, resulting in attendance being smaller than the twenty thousand initially expected. Sitting on folding chairs on the floor of Madison Square Garden, as well as two decks of grandstand seating on the sides, they listened to what Michael Benson refers to in his 2022 book Gangsters vs. Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in Wartime America as a series of boring speeches until Fritz Kuhn stepped up to the podium.
“We have made great strides forward in every section of the country,” he told the crowd. “I know that the Bund will march forward with thousands of new comrades in the years to come. Our great cause of national socialism will be and must be better understood. We have many to win on our side, but I am confident the coming year will see a brilliant future for the Bund in America.”
Kuhn then made a call for action. “You all have heard of me through the Jewish-controlled press,” he said. “American radio is censored – it is controlled by the Jews! Wake up! You, Aryan, Nordic, and Christians, must demand that our government be returned to the people who founded it. The time will come when no one will stand in our way.”
It turns out that future Captain America nemeses Heinrich Zemo and Wolfgang von Strucker are the masterminds behind Operation Garden. The German American Bund in the Marvel Comics Universe are also holding a huge rally in Madison Square Garden, with over twenty thousand supporters likewise expected to attend. During Fritz Kuhn’s speech, Strucker plans on detonating a bomb that “will leave nothing behind but a crater a half mile wide.” Although Zemo considers the loss of so many Bund regrettable, he realizes it is for a greater cause.
“Once we have ‘proof’ that twenty thousand Americans were killed in an attack against us by Communists and Jewish extremists, the United States will rise up and take our side,” he tells Strucker. “On that day, an unbreakable alliance will be formed between the Reich and America. The world will never dare go to war against both of us, and the Fuhrer will be able to proceed unhindered with his plans for the future. It will be beautiful.”
Back in the New York City of the real world, Police Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine estimated that the anti-Nazis crowd outside Madison Square Garden was at least ten thousand strong while Chief Inspector Louis F. Costuma multiplied the number by ten and estimated 100,000. Standing between the masses and the Garden itself was a contingent of seventeen hundred police officers. Valentine remarked at the time, “I’ve got enough men here to stop a revolution.”
Those men were indeed needed. Since the Nazis were all inside, the crowd inevitably attacked the police holding them back. The orchestra from the Broadway musical I Must Love Someone performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” after that night’s performance in the hopes of easing tensions. Bars and taverns in the area, meanwhile, were kept busy with a steady stream of protesters stopping in for a quick drink before rejoining the mayhem.
A twenty-sex year-old unemployed Jewish plumber from Brooklyn named Isadore Greenbaum was able to sneak into Madison Square Garden. During Kuhn’s speech, he headed towards the stage but instead of the podium, he targeted the speaker cables. After silencing Kuhn’s microphone, Greenbaum turned to the crowd and screamed, “Down with Hitler!” He then went after Kuhn but was slammed to the floor and beaten by Bund security guards. The police quickly stepped in to rescue Greenbaum and escorted him out of Madison Square Garden.
The next day, a district magistrate told Greenbaum that his actions could have resulted in an untold number of injuries. “You say many women and children might have been killed or injured,” Greenbaum replied. “Your honor, do you know how many children and innocent persons will be killed if the persecution they were speaking last night were kept up?” Greenbaum was fined $25, which was paid by a Manhattan Jewish newspaper. A few days later, Meyer Lansky sent a large gift basket to Isadore Greenbaum’s Brooklyn home.
On February 20, 1939, in the Marvel Comics Universe – the same day as the rally in the real world – a battle is also waged outside Madison Square Garden, only this one is against the Nazis as opposed to the police. Steve Rogers is present, watching the mayhem. When a Nazi guard keeping tabs on a truck containing the bomb has a change of heart, he tells Rogers about Operation Garden.
Steve Rogers gets word to Meyer Lansky, who rounds up his men and arrives at Madison Square Garden with baseball bat in hand. While the group of gangsters are able to overpower the Nazis, getting into the armored vehicle containing the bomb is another matter. Steve Rogers eventually smashes one of the windows and crawls inside – no one else is small enough to fit. He does his best to drive the truck out of the city but the timer on the bomb is nearing zero. With no other options available, Rogers drives the vehicle into Hudson Bay and escapes from the truck seconds before the bomb explodes.
Steve Rogers wakes up in the hospital three days later. Both his recovery from the Hudson and subsequent medical treatment are courtesy of Meyer Lansky. The doctor, however, does not have good news. “Your health has been declining for a long time,” he tells Rogers. “Heart, lungs, nervous system. What you just went through has accelerated that to a degree beyond any hope of…. In my professional opinion, barring a miracle, you maybe have five years. Could be less. Could be a lot less.”
Fortunately a miracle arrives in the hospital room doorway soon afterwards, a man by the name of Abraham Erskine.
Anthony Letizia