Reeling from the damages of an unwanted war, United States veterans returned to a home full of distraught. Farmers, who had invested heavily into their lands for the war effort, upon the rapid economic contraction following the war's end, had lost their savings and more. Industrial workers in urban centers, primarily of immigrant descent, felt their pockets pinched by growing economic competition with African American workers escaping the lynching and brutalization's of Jim Crow Dixie. And veterans themselves felt resentful in their economic marginalization occurring from a failed demobilization plan. One of these veterans from across the shore was Adolph Hitler.
Resuming work with the New York Times, Hitler travelled across the country, finding source material for his editorials on the "state of the nation" as he quipped. He found it in the Windy City, just outside the porch of a small city house of a friend of his (through his veteran days).
The end of the 1910's was not a pleasant time for African Americans.
The Birth of a Nation had grown into a national hit, portraying African Americans as "savage animals" and "serial rapists", feeding off of the myth of African-American male's lack of control and lustful violent desires. In May of 1919, Madame C. J. Walker, the first self-made female millionaire (of any race) died of natural causes at the age of fifty-one. Her demise meant the departure of a great community leader, both in African-American and woman’s causes. Along with pitiful economic conditions and a growing anger amongst their new neighbors northern whites, the black community had much to fear for.
Unfortunately, those fears found their realizations in July of 1919 in Chicago. Rising racial animosity and growing jobs insecurity exploded into five days of violence, in which 38 deaths occurred. The riot shocked the nation, causing many in the political sphere to reflect on how to improve race relations in Chicago and the country, including Illinois Governor Frank Lowden, who received praise for the reorganization of the city's government following the riots. However, not everyone was filled with feelings of hope for reconciliation and improved race relations.
"The events in Chicago have proven that the races cannot comingle in peace. A nation, victorious in war, has greeted the following year with savage chaos and has demonstrated the folly of Marxism throughout." Hitler wrote many more damning pieces about the riot and race relations in general.
"Hitler often connected racial tension with "Marxist meddling", indicative of a time when Bolshevik radicalism had toppled the Czar and Europe witnessed during the same year as the Chicago riot numerous Communist uprisings. The Red Scare was vibrant even at that time, and Hitler knew how to fan those flames; an ability that took him far." -
The Great Men of American History, by Eric Foner, American Historian and author.
"It was the Chicago riots that convinced Hitler to enter the political arena as an avowed white supremacist. Beforehand, he merely maintained these views in intellectual circles and in writings for purposes of information. Never before did he intend to personally carry these ideas across to Washington." -
Adolph Hitler: An Impactful Legacy, by David McCullough, American Historian and author.
(A soldier with five policemen in the Douglas neighborhood during the Chicago riots, 1919.)
(Madame C. J. Walker, an African-American entrepreneur famed for her success in producing beauty products primarily for African American women. Her legacy was frequently used by Libertarian Positivism and in general anti-Hitlerian ideologies as proof of Hitlerism's unsound positions on race.)