Rudolph Markmann

Rudolph Markmann (born 1905) 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.

Background

Background on Rudolph Markmann from UNITED STATES v. BREGLER

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.