A name to remember

C.S. Lewis. Jerry Lewis. Jerry Lee Lewis. Huey Lewis. Ray Lewis. Carl Lewis. John Lewis. Meriwether Lewis.

All but the first name are Americans, individuals who have made contributions to our country in entertainment, music, sport, and public service.

Leon Lewis? Not a household name.

An American Jew and a World War I veteran, Lewis was one of the first American citizens to be alarmed by actions and words coming from Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Adolph Hitler was revered not only by many Germans. His ideology also appealed to American isolationists. Hitler’s drive to restore German greatness was fueled by a victim mentality, blame, and a warped sense of nationalism coupled with eugenics, a doctrine that promoted the concept of a superior race.

In 1933, after Hitler was named chancellor, Lewis went to work in the United States. It is worth noting there were no thoughts of a world war or mention of the word “holocaust” at this time. Lewis had been paying close attention, however, to the rhetoric across the ocean and sensed something wicked this way was coming. He was not wrong.

Many Americans supported the Nazi mindset. The KKK had its revival in the 1920s. This organization would be joined by the German American Bund, the Christian Front, the Silver Shirts, the Christian American Guard, the American Nationalist Party, and the National Protective Order of Gentiles. A Detroit-based priest named Father Coughlin spewed pro-Nazi and antisemitic sermons on the radio to millions of listeners.

In Los Angeles, Lewis organized a network of spies to infiltrate these American antisemitic groups. His band of brothers included only one Jew. The rest were American veterans of World War I and their wives, many of whom were of German descent. For these U.S. citizens, it was another war worth fighting. Sadly, they found that many local city officials, law enforcement personnel, and local F.B.I. were also Nazi sympathizers.

According to USC history professor Stephen A. Ross, Lewis’s spies “uncovered plans to blow up a munitions plant in San Diego and to destroy several docks and warehouses along the coast.” Plots to kill Jews in Hollywood was a priority, as many Hollywood moguls at the time were Jewish.

Leon Lewis and his band of two dozen people did their best to bring this dark presence to light.

“They stopped this without ever firing a gun, without ever using a weapon. They used the most powerful weapon of all… their brains,” Ross writes in his book “Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America.”

The National World War II Museum provides a related article about the extent of Nazism’s influence in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s. “American Nazism and Madison Square Garden” published April 14, 2021.

Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West Texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.