American tax payers were paying for Nazi propaganda with American tax dollars. Here are historians Nancy Beck Young and Bradley Hart. And yet we must not mislead ourselves into believing that the government can solve all problems. We face some tough issues this session, those empty shelves I mentioned earlier, unaffordable goods and services, crime, a struggling education system, soaring energy costs. But that was only step one. Among the crash victims were Nazi sympathizer Senator Ernest Lundeen (R-Minn; born August 4, 1878 Dakota Territory) and (reputedly) a couple of FBI agents, along with other passengers and crew members on the ill-fated flight that left that afternoon from Washington DC heading for Detroit. They represented a bunch of different states, up and down the political spectrum. He was criminally charged for his role in the scheme that he ran through Congress, which was a shot across the bow to all the members of Congress who had helped Viereck carry out the scheme. Millions of Americans receive pro-Nazi, anti-interventionist content in this period. Each state in the US elects two senators who serve six-year terms in Washington, DC, where they pass laws and vote on policies. 1. Durch Klicken auf Alle akzeptieren erklren Sie sich damit einverstanden, dass Yahoo und unsere Partner Ihre personenbezogenen Daten verarbeiten und Technologien wie Cookies nutzen, um personalisierte Anzeigen und Inhalte zu zeigen, zur Messung von Anzeigen und Inhalten, um mehr ber die Zielgruppe zu erfahren sowie fr die Entwicklung von Produkten. Norma Lundeen: Ladies and gentlemen, I come to you on a mission which is unprecedented in radio broadcasting. Armed with that information, William Maloney took action. What George Sylvester Viereck figured out was that he could weaponize that against the American people. We wont be able to fix every problem this state faces during these next 119 days. We insist to be full participants in the legislative process in this chamber, and will offer our best, constructive suggestions for making the future laws of this state better. Minnesotas Norma Lundeen, widow of the Farmer-Labor Partys Ernest Lundeen, an isolationist who was later accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, unexpectedly entered the race for her late husbands U.S. Senate seat in July of 1942. The letter reads: "May I be a senator after Wash [ington] and Lundeen was carrying these pages when he died, and they were found near the scene of the plane crash. Addresses for each senator can be found on the senator's website or state's web page. But he remained isolationist and was later denounced by the party as a reactiona But the speaker was in fact doing something unusual. He starts asking for huge numbers of these speeches to be printed which are printed at government expense, of course then he actually adds to this and begins asking staffers to provide him with franked envelopes, which can be mailed through the U.S. postal service for free. Maddow: Norma contacted the news networks directly, demanding that they put a gag on any journalist who wanted to talk about her late husband. Maddow: This wasn't just pocket money, this was a whole new second stream of considerable income for the Senator. ICPSR #5839 He served from January 3. Majority Leader, colleagues, families, guests here in the Capitol, and to the People of Colorado : Welcome. She did not want the photos of his kids off his desk. That evidence would not stay hidden forever. Hart: We have a U.S. senator ( plural senators ) A member, normally elected, in the house or chamber of a legislature called a senate, as, for instance, the legislatures of the United States and Canada. Failure to address these issues risks leaving our grandchildren to face a parched, unlivable, ignorant existence. I realize you have precious little time to read another item at this moment, so its more of a placeholder for a conversation. Republican. senado. Lundeen cited a 2022 bill Polis signed that, he said, allowed for restrictive environmental building codes that raise housing costs. Rachel Maddow: A mission which is unprecedented in radio broadcasting. Kinda sounds like melodramatic radio-age hyperbole, I know. When these speeches are published, he's actually splitting the profits with this German agent of influence. Young: Viereck would stand in Lundeen's office and use Lundeen's Senate phone to make phone calls to conduct their Nazi business in the United States, disseminating Nazi propaganda to unsuspecting Americans and it's not costing us, German Nazis, a single reichsmark. Maddow: By 1940, George Sylvester Viereck and Senator Ernest Lundeen were a well-oiled, two-man propaganda machine. He said a lot of aspirational things about making Colorado better," said Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen. When this war is over, she asserted on the campaign trail, we must insist that our sons be returned to America. If the internationalists prevailed, she cautioned repeatedly, the United States would soon find itself entangled in continuous intrigue around the globe, one in which the American people would eventually lose control of their own country and find their own children pushed out of their cradle of liberty.. He served in the Minnesota House of Representatives 191114. May 18, 1941, 11:30 to 11:45pm, the NBC Blue Network. Lundeen was elected to the United States Senate in 1936 as a member of the Farmer-Labor Party. We care about your safety and that of your children. Lundeen was carrying these pages when he died, and they were found near the scene of the plane crash. Because George Sylvester Viereck was not the kind of a person who ought to have been a long-standing close friend and work-collaborator with a sitting U.S. Senator have been manufacturing at our technology plant in Gro-Bieberau for 100 years. Senate Stories Presented to enlighten, amuse, and inform, our new Senate history blog explores the forces, events, and personalities that have shaped the modern Senate. It immediately led them to start wondering: Were they next? His speech lasted 1 hour and 10 minutes and touched on a broad range of topics, from climate change to affordable housing, water to public safety. Education. She also went right after the journalists who she said were responsible for the smears against him. Phone: (202) 224-2441. In an echo of Coveys encouragement for to us to seek first to understand then to be understood, lets start from the perspective that every material amendment offeredis a friendly amendment. All eyes were briefly on Lundeen. Young: The relationship that the two of them come up with is that Viereck will function as speech writer for Lundeen. The Colorado Senate is just three seats away from a conservative check on the out-of-control Democrat agenda. The saying in this body is that the minority gets their say, and the majority gets their way. Senators died in relative obscurity in 1983 at the age of 87. And he was a high profile person. Like the people of Colorado do every day, we must all lean forward and strain toward the prize of a better Colorado for ourselves, our children and our posterity. The plane crashed near Lovettsville, Virginia, and all 25 persons on board were killed. Despite Norma's best efforts, the secret was getting out in the press and, soon, in court. box 4, folder 6-8. From both parties. Senator McCrory is committed to strengthening neighborhoods through education, development and civic engagement. Modern-day photo of the field in Lovettsville, Virginia where Trip 19 crashed in 1940, killing all 25 passengers on board. What she was there to do really was, as she put it, something unprecedented in radio broadcasting. A note pinned to the speech Sen. Ernest Lundeen was carrying the day he died, describing how the manuscript was found 100 yards from the scene of the crash. But his biggest, boldest, most successful operation, is the one he ran from the seat of American democracy itself. It was all the correspondence between him and a man named George Sylvester Viereck. Contents 1 Party affiliation 2 Leadership 2.1 Presiding officers 2.2 Majority leadership 2.3 Minority leadership 3 List of senators 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References All accusations of this nature are emphatically denied in the letters of the Attorney General Jackson and J. Edgar Hoover. Morse had vigorously denouncedHolman as a dangerous isolationist.. Its a Congressional privilege thats called franking, which still exists today. Covering Third Parties and Independent Candidates Since 2008. Senators The Constitution prescribes that the Senate be composed of two senators from each State (therefore, the Senate currently has 100 Members) and that a senator must be at least thirty years of age, have been a citizen of the United States for nine years, and, when elected, be a resident of the State from which he or she is chosen. senador. President, Mr. And she knew that she herself had just hidden away the evidence that would prove it. The study explained that Berlin had charged German agents in the U.S. with finding these kernels of disturbance, which were described as, "racial controversies, economic inequalities, petty jealousies in public life, differences of opinion which divide political parties and minority groups. Even the "frustrated ambitions of discarded politicians." Maddow: And that right there, that is where Norma Lundeen slipped up. President, Mr. Washington, DC 20510. At the time of his death, the FBI was investigating Lundeen's ties to George Sylvester Viereck, a top Nazi spy working in the US to spread pro-Hitler and anti-Semitic propaganda. And that Viereck file that the Senator's wife was looking for and that she took away so soon after her husband died, that file contained more than a decade's-worth of correspondence between Lundeen and Viereck. Watch the full interview with state Sen. Paul Lundeen about the future of the GOP in Colorado on Colorado Point of View this Sunday at 7:30 a.m. on Channel 2. They were all being held in that D.C. apartment raided by William Maloney that day. He was very good at it. Yet, in the face of haunting statistics about rising crime and exploding unaffordability, the people of this state get up every morning, unsure of what the day ahead holds, and work to build better lives for themselves and their families. Committee Assignments. The plane crashed. These speeches would run as articles, under Lundeens byline, as if the senator had written them himself. To do that, within 2 days after the crash she travelled to his office in the Capitol to retrieve the "Viereck files". She asked them to give her the Viereck files and she took them away with her. senado. Maddow: This turbocharged Viercks operation. Fr nhere Informationen zur Nutzung Ihrer Daten lesen Sie bitte unsere Datenschutzerklrung und Cookie-Richtlinie. An IPR Political Analysis: The Seventh Realignment, Breaking News: Connor Nepomuceno Resigns from LNC. Maddow: The widow of Senator Ernest Lundeen. Senate probe The plane, a Douglas DC-3, flew into turbulence from a thunderstorm. A U.S. Capitol Switchboard operator can also connect you directly with the Majority Leader, colleagues, families, guests here in the Capitol, and to the People of Colorado : Welcome. Hart: So what Viereck has done is he's realized that there's a way to game the American Congressional system against itself. [8], In 2022 Rachel Maddow released a podcast series titled Ultra, which explored Lundeen's complicity in Nazi Germany's intelligence and propaganda operations in the U.S. during the 12 to 18 months immediately preceding America's entry into World War II. What we do: We create products for those who want to make their mark. The ship reached a maximum speed of 40 knots, came to a complete stop in 58 seconds, and then travelled in reverse at 20knots. But he remained isolationist and was later denounced by the party as a reactionary. House of Representatives. He had begun to identify those who had been involved in the scheme. Viereck's plan was working. Hed never lost a case. Many of the issues fought over in this past election are not solved, they are still with us. We face challenges too big to ignore and opportunities too important to fumble. Senator Ernest Lundeen would then deliver those speeches on the floor of the Senate, enter them into the Congressional Record. What was Hitler trying to do? The speech written for Sen. Ernest Lundeen by a paid Nazi agent. Sen. Ernest Lundeen sent these pamphlets to his constituents, and asked them to indicate whether or not they supported the United States declaring war on Germany. It was the last name of a guy: a guy named George Sylvester Viereck. In the bestselling Seven Habits of highly effective people, Steven Covey suggested we make more headway and create more good in life when we first seek to understand, and then to be understood. His work, his identity, it really wasnt a secret. The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Young: Norma Lundeen directed, upon her husband's death, to have given to her all the Viereck files. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. The charming 46-year-old widow waged a relatively low-key campaign, quietly yet passionately defending her late husbands record and promising an all-out prosecution of the war, all the while presciently warning the voters of Minnesota that the internationalists including the Farmer-Labor Partys own Elmer Benson would keep American troops in Europe, Africa and Asia following the war, thereby making the United States the policemen of the world. In part because everyone who choosesand most politicians chooseown a broadcast channel. On the afternoon of August 31, 1940, Lundeen was a passenger on Flight 19 of Pennsylvania Central Airlines, flying from Washington to, Detroit. He had close ties to George Sylvester Viereck, a leading Nazi agent in the U.S. Viereck often used Lundeen's office, and "sometimes dictated speeches for Lundeen, openly using the Senator's telephones to obtain material from Hans Thomsen at the [German] embassy. Senator Paul Lundeen. Maddow: The scale of this operation, it kind of takes your breath away. The book on your desk has the subtitle of talking politics without the noise. It offers each side of the aisle the ability, at least in some small way, to seek first to understand before seeking to be understood. Senator Ernest Lundeen in a mysterious plane crash in 1940 left a series of questions that lead to revealing threats to American democracy. She later made a dramatic plea for justice for her late husbands memory, but was denied an That's when he had first gotten to know Viereck. Sound design by Tarek Fouda. And theyd get paid for it. Looking around the publicist's apartment that day in Washington, William Power Maloney took in the sight of hundreds of documents and envelopes bearing the names of all sorts of members of Congress: Republican Congressman Stephen Day of Illinois, Democratic Congressman Martin L. Sweeney of Ohio, Democratic Senator David Worth Clark of Idaho, Republican Congressman George Tinkham of Massachusetts, Republican Congressman Jacob Thorkelson of Montana, Republican Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota. How far did it go? Norma Lundeen: A number of photographs of my husband were taken while he was speaking. It's really a scheme of genius in some ways, I think we would say evil genius. But we are intent to do more than just talk. Viereck was not some kind of code word. Join our email list to receive press releases and other important news about legislation delivered straight to your inbox. Maddow: Once George Viereck was arrested, the members of Congress who had participated in this scheme, they knew that prosecutors were onto them. Radio Announcer: Youre about to hear an address delivered before a meeting of the America First Committee in Madison Square Garden in New York City. The handwritten note at the top was added by his widow, Norma. Bold. Correspondence with organizations; speech invitations, some personal financial records, arranged alphabetically 1906-1932. box 4, folder 1-3. A copy of the Congressional Record from 1940, containing Sen. Ernest Lundeen's last speech on the floor of the Senate. And then it was Moran and his chapter of the Christian Front that so energetically distributed it. When you find yourself challenged, the extraneous, the minutia, the distraction, falls away. [7] Also on board were "a Special Agent of the FBI, a second FBI employee, and a prosecutor from Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Because not only did she know for a fact that that allegation was true, that in fact an agent from Hitler's government really had been writing speeches for her Senator husband, she knew that it was true. Nancy Beck Young: This group of people, if they were anything first, it was their own political success and careers first. Remember the thousands and thousands of Nazi propaganda books and leaflets and pamphlets that he disseminated all over Boston and the Northeast? in Episode one, features Senator Lundeen, the plane crash, and more. He was gonna need more Senators. She threatened to sue one radio journalist who had reported a story about her late husband. A letter Sen. Ernest Lundeen wrote to himself on the eve before he was sworn in to the United States Senate. He served from January 3, 1937, in the 75th and 76th Congresses, until his death. Initially, his Communist sympathies remained strong: in 1936, then Senator-elect Lundeen addressed a meeting of the "Friends of the Soviet Union" at Madison Square Garden as " Tovarishchi " ("Comrades"). Coloradans remain optimistic. Lundeen might be dead, but George Sylvester Viereck was still out there. Requests for Senator Lundeen's speech "Six It is a tradition in this building to claim that this policy or that piece of legislation is bi-partisan. Norma Lundeen: I am the widow of Ernest Lundeen, United States senator from Minnesota, who was killed in an airplane crash on August 31, 1940. Note that he may make real-time changes to some of the exact language. The biggest names really in Republican congressional politics, they all fall under the spell of this sort of Nazi propaganda operation. The cause of the mysterious crash was never How many members of Congress were in on this thing? Viereck wrote speeches and articles for Lundeen about how our supposed allies were weak and hypocritical and corrupt and doomed, how American democracy was corrupt and rigged, how the fascist government in Germany was strong, how the United States government should stay out of Germanys way. We found correspondence from a Vice President at NBC telling Norma Lundeen that he personally had intervened to delete mentions of Senator Lundeen from two different broadcasts. Radio Reporter: Senator Ernest Lundeen reported killed today in the crash of a Pennsylvania central airlines plane. He served as, a Republican from Minnesota in the United States House of Representatives, from March 4, 1917, to March 3, 1919 in the 65th congress. Viereck, who had actively supported Robert M. La Follettes insurgent candidacy for the presidency in 1924, had cultivated friendships with several leading isolationist lawmakers, including New Yorks Hamilton Fish, Jr., but Senator Lundeen was arguably his closest ally in Congress. Space for freedom and opportunity, creativity and ingenuity, and access to support and connection to help when a season of life is so heavy as to overwhelm a fellow Coloradan. On each Senator's Home Page you will find his/her contact information, Capitol and District addresses and phone numbers, a map of the district, the Member's biography, a list of all the legislation authored by that Senator, his/her committee memberships, press releases and other publications, district links, and more. Norma Lundeen: A pair of columnists had written that two Department of Justice agents were on the plane with my husband when it crashed, that they had been assigned to watch him. IE 11 is not supported. They expected to find evidence of that scheme that they knew about: notes, documents, records of payments, other evidence linking this Nazi agent to Senator Lundeen. Envelopes bearing the names of Senators Rush Holt and Senator Burton Wheeler and Congressman Clare Hoffman, and all sorts of others. Lundeens secretary arrived at the senators office on that fateful morning and found Lundeen slumped over on his desk: Hes got his head down on his desk, his head is Young: Viereck is a spy for the German government, part of his responsibility being cozying up to those in power in U.S. politics to gather as much information as possible and to try to get them to do things that will forestall U.S. entry into the war. Our Senior Executive Producers are Cory Gnazzo and Laura Conaway. It went on for years, right up until the day Lundeen died with one of Vierecks speeches in his pocket. Germany's agents operating in the U.S. were tasked with finding those things and exploiting them here, in the interest of "national demoralization.. There was no Facebook, no Twitter, there was no news on TV. America First. That tight-little, patriotic-sounding populist slogan was both a don't-get-involved-in-the-war rallying cry, and a good, profile-boosting vehicle for members of congress who for whatever reason were opposed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was just an electoral juggernaut at the time. The speech written for Sen. Ernest Lundeen by a paid Nazi agent. The Republican caucus in this chamber can, and I believe will, make a fundamental difference. In the immediate wake of her husbands death, Norma Lundeen had a good reason for wanting that correspondence to never see the light of day. When ore is blasted by the heat of the crucible it is refined into something precious. Lundeen was born and raised on his father's homestead in Brooklyn Township of Lincoln County near Beresford in the Dakota Territory. And after about eight months of reading these reports about her deceased husband in the papers, hearing about them on the radio news, Norma Lundeen decided that shed had enough. His father, C. H. Lundeen, was an early pioneer who was credited with the naming of Brooklyn Township as well as with helping to establish the school and other institutions located there. Lundeen, who had been active in the America First Committee, was never a serious factor in the primary. Despite the loud protests of the senators widow, Norma Lundeen, on the radio her threats to sue reporters into submission, her attempts to gaslight the American people that her husband wasnt really standing in front of the swastika despite all of that, the details of her husbands relationship with this Nazi agent, those details began to get out. Lundeens husband, who had been tragically killed in a plane crash near the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia two years earlier, was reportedly under investigation by the FBI at the time of his death. As a matter of fact, he was standing under the stars and stripes. Norma had an answer for that. He was something close to famous for his opposition to World War I. The application of one, or sometimes two members names, from the second party has been the accepted measure of that claim. Lundeen was adamantly opposed to the United States involvement in World War I and campaigned on that stance. Maddow: This was the early 1940s. DENVER Below is the transcript of Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeens (R-Monument) speech on the opening day of the First Regular Session of the 74th She had essentially just been handed the airwaves at NBC, at the National Broadcasting Company, set loose to say whatever she wanted. He needed to reach millions of Americans. All of us face a public school system that is hemorrhaging quality teachers and failing to meet the needs of far too many students unless we fund and focus on students instead of the system. Yes! Letter from Attorney General Robert H. Jackson addressed to Sen. Ernest Lundeen's widow, denying that there was ongoing investigation into Lundeen at the time of his death. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States . senator. The twelve Republican senators seated in this chamber were also elected by the hard-working people who call Colorado home. Business card from Ernest Lundeen's campaign for Congress. It was disbanded when Derrick was only six, after that grouchy old ultra-Libertarian Senator Timothy de Illy If you were trying to reach Americans in their homes, if you were trying to influence Americans opinions and political leanings, and fundraise, and all the rest of it, you sent them mail. She later made a dramatic The prosecutor who was appointed was named William Power Maloney. Justice Department Prosecutor William Power Maloney had identified the threat. But the other members of Congress, that band of America Firsters who were all in on it, too, they were still flying under the radar. And it was a hot story: the worst civilian air crash in U.S. history, a Senator killed, three members of the justice department on the plane with him, killed in the same crash, the cause of the crash totally unclear; the reporting on his ties to the Hitler government, which was soon bolstered by legitimately shocking photos that emerged of Senator Lundeen standing under a giant swastika banner. Maddow: Viereck told Lundeen that he had a plan by which they could make some pretty serious cash. Material created by or approved by the Hitler government in Berlin, provided to viciously anti-Semitic groups, linked to both street violence against American Jews and also violent armed plots against the U.S. government; Viereck using kernels of disturbance here in American life to drive us apart from one another, to drive us apart from our allies, to destabilize life here at home, to scare us, to make fascism seem like it was on the march, and on its way here, and maybe we should welcome it. The Justice Department had failed to convict the members of the Christian Front who tried to overthrow the government. IE 11 is not supported. To the majority caucus: We will make honest and sincere efforts to work with you. senator noun. The speech written for Sen. Ernest Lundeen by a paid Nazi agent. PROCEEDINGS and DEBATES of the SIXTY-FIFTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION, Exhibit 1 62-CV-18-254 Filed in Second Judicial District Court 1/30/2018 2:53 PM Ramsey County, MN, A Guide to the Records of Minnesota's Public Lands, Sixty-Eighth Congress March 4, 1923, to March 3, 1925. But besides their connection to this German foreign agent, they did all have one other thing in common. They asserted that Lundeens speeches were bitterly anti-British and vigorously against American preparedness. Whether certain foreign agents figured that they were about to be exposed, whether G-men on the plane tangled with Lundeen on the flight, or whether it was an act of God and the weather may never be known, they declared. 1. a lawmaking body, especially the upper house of the parliament in some countries. People are thinking my husband is on trial, she pleaded in an anguished voice. We hope that the majority will listen to our ideas and incorporate the best of them in what we ultimately together offer the people of Colorado. Young: Republicans are just feeling very defeated as if theres nothing that they can do to stop Roosevelt. All of us face something completely unexpected in Coloradoempty store shelvesand runaway UNaffordability when we do find the products and services we seek. Hart: This was a closely guarded sort of set of correspondence that Norma Lundeen did not want out in the wider world. Program for the funeral service of Sen. Ernest Lundeen on September 4, 1940, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Speech before Congress by US Senator Ernest, Senator Lundeen gave this speech detailing the history of the, Lundeen served in the United States Army during the Spanish-American War. Most of Ernest Lundeen's brothers and sisters died during a diphtheria epidemic during the 1880s. Hart: What Viereck realizes is that members of Congress have unique privileges relating to the words that they speak on the floor of the House or Senate and to the Congressional Record itself. Just as she failed to find justice in the courtroom, the soft-spoken and attractive Lundeen found little fondness and impartiality for her husbands memory at the ballot box as Benson, still enormously popular among Farmer-Laborites in the Twin Cities and with miners on Minnesotas Iron Range, easily captured the partys U.S. Senate nomination, garnering 66,051 votes to Lundeens 24,019 and 17,163 for Arens. Hart: This is a moment of great political danger, I think for these men. Norma Lundeen: The dead cannot be hurt by vilification. She complained to the radio stations who carried his reporting, trying to get him taken off the air; she threatened the sponsors who advertised on the broadcasts in which he appeared.

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