Effects of a significant fifth column in the WW2 U.S.?

What would be the effects, both on the war and the society (even post-war), of a significant and t5hreatening fifth-column presence in the U.S., during WW2? Let's assume the funding and support for possible groups come from OTL superweapon projects.
 
What sort of group? If it's anything overt it will be crushed just as soon as it's known about.
Well, for example, a stronger version of some OTL movements among Afro-Americans who were sympathetic to the Japanese. Or a well-organised movement to trigger strikes and work sabotages by Italian or German Americans.
 
A KKK able to maintain widespread credibility up to the '40s would probably have the numbers and resources to form the nucleus of a Pro-Axis Fifth Column. Socialist Fifth Columists are unlikely if the U.S. is still allied with and supplying the Soviet Union, the Soviets don't want the Americans to have enough trouble supplying themselves that they can't send anything to them or the British.
 
I'm assuming here that the U.S. is on the Allied side, so an actual Socialist fifth column is indeed off the table. I wonder, would there be deportations or even murders of suspect ethnic groups?
 
I don't think the Second Klan would necessarily be a pro-Axis 5th column. They repeatedly emphasized how American they were. Something like the Bund would be a different story, as they were explicitly Nazi.

As far as the pro-Japanese black underground is concerned, I posted a historical journal article in the AH Facebook group about pro-Japanese black militants in Detroit. I'm trying to find it, but I can't. I'll post it here when I do.
 
http://www.umass.edu/afroam/downloads/allen.tak.pdf

Here's the article I mentioned about the Black Muslims. If they'd gotten a bit more proactive other than refusing to serve in the military, trying to persuade others to serve, and generally complaining, I could easily imagine espionage or sabotage of war plants in Detroit. Raising the Japanese flag over the 'hood and trying to set up a Detroit Commune would have been an elaborate suicide and they don't seem that dumb.
 

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Well I'd think that the German American Bund could potentially have turned out something if not so corrupt. Perhaps they get more motivated and loyal volunteers so that Operation Pastorius gets off the ground instead of being betrayed by its own agents:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius
If it did they could do real damage before the FBI or any sort of US counterintelligence got working, as they were pretty low quality and focused on the communists. When the Germans IOTL tried to give up the FBI refused to believe them and only really caught them because the leader of the team refused to give up on trying to surrender to the FBI and then gave up all details of the operation.

So if you have the groups motivated and aided by the Bund and not infiltrated by the Jewish Mafia (they were cracking skulls of Bund members and there was a civilian group of Jewish citizens in California that actually put together their own infiltration of Bund groups) they could really get some sabotage work done that would cause a lot of internal problems for the US war effort.
 
There isn't much evidence there was a significant "fifth column" anywhere. It is an Allied version of the "stab in the back" theory. The French Army was run over and blamed civilians for their own screw-ups. There WERE collaborationists but they came out after the Nazis took over and most of them weren't pro-Nazis but slimy opportunists whose greed or cowardice caused them to suck up to their conquerors. This happens in most wars and is nothing new.
 
There isn't much evidence there was a significant "fifth column" anywhere. It is an Allied version of the "stab in the back" theory. The French Army was run over and blamed civilians for their own screw-ups. There WERE collaborationists but they came out after the Nazis took over and most of them weren't pro-Nazis but slimy opportunists whose greed or cowardice caused them to suck up to their conquerors. This happens in most wars and is nothing new.

I don't think anybody is saying there was, although the Communists were not particularly supportive (and in some cases outright sabotaged) the Western Allies during the Nazi-Soviet Pact period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histo...ore_Operation_Barbarossa_.281939-June_1941.29

https://www.marxists.org/archive/pearce/1959/04/ww2.htm
 
I don't think the Second Klan would necessarily be a pro-Axis 5th column. They repeatedly emphasized how American they were. Something like the Bund would be a different story, as they were explicitly Nazi.

And the Nazis did not think much of the KKK, at least going by one notorious propganda poster.

I've wondered if the animosity reflected in that poster was because of the Klan's anti-immigrant stance(which would include anti-German etc), or if it was just seen as some weirdo, lowbrow thing that the Americans were doing.

In any case, I'm sure the Klan was just delighted to be linked with Jews, blacks, and jazz!
 
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