Rudolf Markmann

Rudolf Markmann (sometimes also Rudolph; 1905–1976) was the leader of the Atlantic coast district (Eastern district) of the German American Bund. In 1936, Markmann along with German American Bund leader Fritz Kuhn and his lieutenants: Karl Arndt, George Froboese, Karl Weiler traveled to the Berlin Olympics and were received by Adolf Hitler. He spent his last years in Miami, Florida.

Life

Markmann was born in Germany in 1905. He first visited the United States in 1924, left the US in the fall of 1925, and returned in January 1927. He filed his declaration of intention to become a citizen in the Southern District of New York on February 21, 1928. He left the United States on May 26, 1928, to visit Germany and returned on June 26, 1928. He made a similar trip in the summer of 1932. He was naturalized in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Queens, on June 21, 1933, at which time he took his oath of allegiance.

He became a member of the Friends of New Germany on October 3, 1933, at a joint meeting of the Friends of New Germany and the N.S.D.A.P. He was the local reporter for the Deutsche Zeitung, the official newspaper of the Friends of New Germany, and he made press reports of each meeting to the newspaper headquarters. He became a member of the Astoria Unit and, in January, 1934, he became the unit leader of the Friends of New Germany located in Astoria. Under his unit leadership the membership tripled itself. He was chosen unit leader three months after he first joined. Two years later he was appointed by Fritz Kuhn as leader of the Eastern District. He was second in command to Fritz Kuhn in the Eastern District of the Bund and this was the most important district in the United States for it covered all the Atlantic seaboard states.

Markmann was very active in Bund affairs and the evidence indicates he took a leading part in the activities of the Bund. He was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and when Hitler's birthday was celebrated on April 20, 1934, he stood underneath a photograph of Hitler during the occasion of this celebration.

He attended the annual Convention of 1934 as a delegate from the Astoria Unit. This Convention pledged itself to further all the aims of German culture so far as they were based on the principles of the National Socialistic world philosophy. He attended the Convention in 1935 in Pennsylvania. He again attended the 1936 Convention at which time the name of the organization was changed from the Friends of New Germany to the German-American Bund.

Madison Square Garden

The German-born Rudolph Markmann was the fourth speaker. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1933. He led the Atlantic Coast District of the Bund. He was one of eight Bund leaders whose citizenship was revoked in June 1944 on the grounds he violated his citizenship oath by joining the Bund. The Brooklyn Eagle reported (March 21, 1944) that Markmann testified in Brooklyn Federal Court that he eventually quit the Bund's many activities because it interfered with his family life and made him "tired and sleepy." It's not clear if Markmann was ever deported.

US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit - 155 F.2d 141 (2d Cir. 1946), April 2, 1946:

Rudolf Markmann was born in Germany in 1905. He entered the United States for permanent residence in January 1927. He filed his declaration of intention to become a citizen in 1928, his petition for citizenship in March 1933 and he was admitted to citizenship on June 21, 1933. Three and a half months later, October 3, 1933, he joined the Bund. He became a group leader of the Astoria unit in January 1934 and two years later he was appointed to the important position of gauleiter for the eastern district. This position he held until he resigned from the Bund in the spring of 1939 after fleeing to Germany immediately following the indictment and arrest of Fritz Kuhn. He returned to the United States in April 1940, but did not thereafter rejoin the Bund. The district court found that before, at the time of, and after his naturalization Markmann entertained views and beliefs inconsistent with renunciation of allegiance to the Third German Reich and with acceptance of allegiance to the United States. Markmann made a statement in 1941 that he then thought the Bund an un-American organization and that he had resigned because he could not remain a good United States citizen and stay in it, but he testified that he did not entertain this view when he joined the Bund and that he renounced his German allegiance in good faith. He testified also that he registered for military service. Assuming that the evidence would justify a finding that during the years when he was gauleiter for the eastern district his devotion to Germany was stronger than his devotion to his adopted country, the inference that this was likewise true when he took his oath in June of 1933 is highly conjectural. So far as we can discover the record is barren of any evidence that before or near the critical date he did or said anything which would indicate a mental reservation when he took the oath. In the light of the Baumgartner opinion, 322 U.S. 665, 64 S. Ct. 1240, 88 L. Ed. 1525, the judgment against him must be reversed. While the period of relation back was longer in that case we think we must be guided by Justice Frankfurter's emphatic language and hold that the evidence of Markmann's activities after his naturalization fails to prove fraud in his oath according to the exacting standard required in cases of this character. *148 In the appeals of Bregler, Hauck, Weiss and Markmann the judgments are reversed and the complaints dismissed.