Gerald B. Winrod

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Gerald Burton Winrod (March 7, 1900 – November 11, 1957) was a Protestant fundamentalist minister and publisher of several religious-nationalist newspapers, most notably The Defender. He was a defendant in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944.

Early life

Gerald Winrod was born into a moderately religious Protestant family in Wichita, Kansas. His father was an former bartender who went thru a religious conversion.[1] Gerald Winrod's formal education lasted to the fifth grade. At age eleven he had a religious experience and began to preach as a child evangelist.

Ministry

When he turned twenty-one he had a full-time ministry and issued a publication called Jesus Is Coming Soon.[2] He founded Defenders of the Christian Faith[3] in 1925 and published a magazine called The Defender which by some estimates had up to 125,000 readers.

Winrod's other publications were The Constitutionalist, The Revealer[4] The Prayer Circle Letter[5] and The New Federalist.[6] Winrod also published a Spanish language monthly magazine El Defensor Hispano (The Spanish Defender).[7]

In the 1930s he broadcasted a program from a Mexican radio station located in Siedras Negras to an American audience in English.[8]

Politics

In 1932 he discovered The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and became a life-long convert to fighting the Jews.

In 1934 he founded The Revealer newspaper which attacked the Roosevelt Administration.

In January 1935 Winrod was invited by Dr. Otto Vollbehr to visit Hitler's Germany "to study social, political, moral, economic, and prophetic trends."[9] . The visit had a profound effect upon him. In discussing Hitler, Winrod stated: "One of the first things that disgusted Hitler was the fact that he discovered night clubs, cabarets, centers of vice, nudist colonies, as well as poison literature to be under the control and direction of an organization of Jews, who for money, were willing to tear down the Gentile morale of the nation."[10]

Previously Winrod was hostile to authoritarian regimes and in the past even considered Mussolini to be a candidate for the Anti-Christ.[11] James True a Washington DC journalist fondly gave Winrod the moniker “The Jayhawk Nazi” denoting Winrod’s Kansas roots and his anti-Semitism.[12]

In January 1937 he established The Capitol News & Feature Service, a Washington-based news agency with the purpose of supplying his take on Washington events to two thousand rural newspapers. The effort failed in April due to lack of funding.

In 1938 Rev. Gerald Winrod sought the Republican nomination for a seat in the US Senate in the state of Kansas. Critics claimed he was the first American "fascist" candidate to run for office. He came in third palce receiving 54,000 votes.[13]

Both Reverends Billy James Hargis and Billy Graham were early associates of Gerald Winrod.

Death

In his later years Gerald Winrod suffered form multiple sclerosis and in the fall of 1957 succumbed to the Asian Flu dying on November 11 of that year.

Works

Primary research material

California State University Library at Northridge (Oviatt Library-JEWISH FEDERATION COUNCIL OF GREATER LOS ANGELES’ COMMUNITY RELATIONS COMMITTEE COLLECTION, PART 2 [1]

Boxes 103-12 thru 105-16

Notes

  1. ↑ Hollywood and anti-semitism: a cultural history up to World War II, By Steven Alan Carr, page 117
  2. ↑ The conservative press in twentieth-century America, by Ronald Lora, William Henry Longton, p. 381
  3. ↑ American Political Trials by Michal R. Belknap, page 182
  4. ↑ Under Cover, p. 166, by John Roy Carlson, (1943)
  5. ↑ A Measure of Freedom, by Arnold Foster, page 82
  6. ↑ House of Representatives Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, page 1175
  7. ↑ Under Cover, p. 171, by John Roy Carlson, (1943)
  8. ↑ American Bulletin, August 21, 1935
  9. ↑ Apostles of Discord: A study of organized bigotry and disruption on the fringes of Protestantism by Ralph Lord Roy
  10. ↑ Guide to Kenneth Bradley Collection
  11. ↑ White Rage: The Extreme Right and American Politics, By Martin Durham, page 9
  12. ↑ Propaganda Analysis, Volume 2, by Institute for Propaganda Analysis (1939), page 13
  13. ↑ Under Cover, p. 169, by John Roy Carlson, (1943)

See also

External links

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