MA, Kent State University, 2012, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This study explores the policies, ideals, and resistance tactics used by northeast Ohio's most active non-sectarian anti-Nazi organization from 1933 to 1946, The League for Human Rights Against Nazism. Led by famed Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and local activist Grace Mayette, the League conducted public boycotts, informational speeches, and rallies, as well as secretive investigation campaigns against domestic fascist organizations like the German American Bund and Silver Shirt Legion. As the nation entered World War Two, the League altered their activities by engaging more heavily with the local community through their weekly newspaper column, “The Rumor Roundup” and releasing "This is Cleveland," a magazine/study into Cleveland's legacy as the nation's leading liberal and multiracial city. Moreover, this thesis challenges two historiographical trends. First, it shows how clandestine vigilance tactics were often used against perceived enemies and was a response to the perception that the federal government was not aggressively pursuing domestic fascist groups. Second, it shows that Jewish and sympathetic Gentile anti-Nazi resistance in the United States was much stronger, targeted, and organized than previous historians have claimed. In all, this thesis reviews the various roles the League played in Cleveland and northeast Ohio as the region's leading anti-Nazi voice, vigilant spy network, public information organization, civil rights advocate, and leader in uniting the local Jewish population while simultaneously adding to and challenging old historiographical trends.

Committee: Kenneth Bindas PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Richard Steigmann-Gall PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Clarence Wunderlin PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: History