> For whatever it's worth: I'm guessing our politics are very similar.
I intuited that, which is a reason why I think this is a worthwhile debate vs debating with someone who doesn't have similar basic values about our shared humanity. Thanks for your thoughtful responses!
> I'm pushing back on the idea that Oak Park was open to Nazis in the 1950s and 60s. It was not. What there was was a rapid influx of Germans after the war, and not even 1/4th the knowledge we have today about the Holocaust and Germany's conduct during the war. The fact is: people in Oak Park had the (reasonable!) assumption that if you were allowed to immigrate into the US, you were not a war criminal.
Clearly, once it's known that someone is a Nazi war criminal nobody wants them, in no small part because no community wants to be associated with the Nazis in particular, but yes also because Nazism is deplorable, and it is the law that Nazi war criminals must be deported.
I can't look into the hearts of people of 1950-1980s Oak Park to know what they really thought or felt. I can't demonstrate what motivated them to accept migrants whether goodwill, humanity or any other number of factors.
However, arguably WW2 caused people to be repulsed by the word Nazi, their actions, and their associated imagery, more than the nuances of the ideology itself.
That incongruity persists, and there is still widespread ignorance about the connections - both explicit and thematic - between Nazi ideology and America's own history of racism, as recent high profile events in politics and society have demonstrated.
> And I have no doubt that at every point from 1948 through 2024 that a Haitian immigrant would have had a far different experience in Chicagoland than a German one.
That's my main point.
It is easier for a person like this to pass in the specific context of American white suburban society if nothing else is known about them, vs someone who comes from a different racial and ethnic group.
Conversely, it is not a coincidence that the false claims about Haitian migrants in Ohio were started by a local Neo-Nazi group.
Overall, I feel Oak Park should be commended for how open and welcoming it was to this person, while not knowing his true history. The same charity ought to be extended to anyone fleeing strife and willing to work hard, contribute, and follow the law. (and PS I know I'm preaching to the choir of you).
One bit of context I bring to this discussion is that I've spent 6 months reading the archives of our local papers --- not for this Nazism thing, but for work I'm doing on zoning reform (we're on the cusp of eliminating single-family zoning villagewide, which will be huge).
Another bit of context is that there's a modern political dimension to some of the claims being made about 1980s antisemitism. If you're not familiar with Oak Park, it is very liberal; think of it as the Berkeley† of Chicagoland. There is a deep division between activist progressive Oak Park and normie Democrat Oak Park (I'm the latter), and, for obvious reasons, the last year that division has involved Israel and a rhetorical conflict between people concerned about Islamophobia and people concerned about antisemitism††. So, I read claims that Oak Park was distinctively antisemitic in that light.
Generally, I think Oak Park was not distinctively antisemitic over the time periods we're discussing (1950-1980, when Kulle worked here, and 1981-1984, during which he was deported). It was better than most of the surrounding communities. But: everywhere was worse about antisemitism than they are now, which is a subtlety these conversations tend to miss.
So, it's true that, for instance, both the private athletic clubs in Oak Park disallowed Jewish members throughout most of the time period we're talking about --- like clubs everywhere. The local council of churches, a player in the newspaper war about Kulle, did not include Jewish congregations (or Catholics, for that matter). The sort of ambient 20th century antisemitism you'd expect to see was definitely on display here.
But Oak Park didn't see itself as prejudiced against Jewish people; in fact, a huge part of its identity, especially from 1965 onwards but also prior to that, was about us being at the vanguard of equity and inclusiveness. Soffer is right to take VOP to task for never living up to that narrative. But at the same time, you can't have that narrative and also actively hide a Nazi war criminal.
I think the reality here is really simple: in the American system, it was simply not Oak Park's job to determine whether Reinhold Kulle was a Nazi war criminal. Everyone here assumed the federal government had done that job. Nobody probed Kulle; everyone accepted his story that he'd served honorably in the German army (he lied to immigration and said he served in the Wehrmacht, but the "Wehrmacht" vs "Waffen-SS" distinction probably wouldn't have even been legible to most Oak Parkers of the time, the way it is to us now).
This is what historians are talking about when they worry about "presentism".
† ironically, the muni that originated racially-motivated single-family zoning!
> I've spent 6 months reading the archives of our local papers --- not for this Nazism thing, but for work I'm doing on zoning reform (we're on the cusp of eliminating single-family zoning villagewide, which will be huge).
Thanks for the context. I support your cause to end racially exclusionary zoning!
> This is what historians are talking about when they worry about "presentism".
If I understand what presentism means, I don't think I committed it in my argument.
Contrasting the openness of the US at a policy level to immigrants like Kulle in the 1950s vs the threats to the status of Haitian TPS holders being made today isn't applying a standard from today to the past.
Rather, it's applying a just standard from the past to today.
No, you didn't! I don't really think Soffer does, either, but it's an issue that's sort of bound up with the analysis that follows his book. Today, excusing someone for serving in the Waffen-SS would be coded differently, and more harshly, than it was in 1950 --- not because people in the 1950s were O.K. with the Waffen-SS, but because they knew less about it. And it's subtle, because the United States Government did know, and cared a lot (but was deeply fallible, then as now) --- but here we're talking about a story where the federal government harshly cracked down on the "Oak Park Nazi", and his defenders were just random people who were, I think, mostly ignorant about the issues at play.
People look back at like 1959 Oak Park and say it was wild this guy wasn't reported to immigration as soon as he turned in his marriage certificate with the Reichsadler and "Gross-Rosen" on it, but the superintendent of OPRF high school almost certainly had no idea what the hell Gross-Rosen was; even the OSI had to go consult experts to work that out.
I'm a little bit judging other people --- not you --- for judging local civic officials for not meeting the standards of a society where everybody has virtually all the world's knowledge in their pocket at all times.
I intuited that, which is a reason why I think this is a worthwhile debate vs debating with someone who doesn't have similar basic values about our shared humanity. Thanks for your thoughtful responses!
> I'm pushing back on the idea that Oak Park was open to Nazis in the 1950s and 60s. It was not. What there was was a rapid influx of Germans after the war, and not even 1/4th the knowledge we have today about the Holocaust and Germany's conduct during the war. The fact is: people in Oak Park had the (reasonable!) assumption that if you were allowed to immigrate into the US, you were not a war criminal.
Clearly, once it's known that someone is a Nazi war criminal nobody wants them, in no small part because no community wants to be associated with the Nazis in particular, but yes also because Nazism is deplorable, and it is the law that Nazi war criminals must be deported.
I can't look into the hearts of people of 1950-1980s Oak Park to know what they really thought or felt. I can't demonstrate what motivated them to accept migrants whether goodwill, humanity or any other number of factors.
However, arguably WW2 caused people to be repulsed by the word Nazi, their actions, and their associated imagery, more than the nuances of the ideology itself.
That incongruity persists, and there is still widespread ignorance about the connections - both explicit and thematic - between Nazi ideology and America's own history of racism, as recent high profile events in politics and society have demonstrated.
> And I have no doubt that at every point from 1948 through 2024 that a Haitian immigrant would have had a far different experience in Chicagoland than a German one.
That's my main point. It is easier for a person like this to pass in the specific context of American white suburban society if nothing else is known about them, vs someone who comes from a different racial and ethnic group.
Conversely, it is not a coincidence that the false claims about Haitian migrants in Ohio were started by a local Neo-Nazi group.
Overall, I feel Oak Park should be commended for how open and welcoming it was to this person, while not knowing his true history. The same charity ought to be extended to anyone fleeing strife and willing to work hard, contribute, and follow the law. (and PS I know I'm preaching to the choir of you).