Some details about the Ku Klux Klan in pre-war in Germany, Scotland and Canada
1. Germany
A chapter of the American Ku Klux Klan was founded in Germany during 1921. Two Americans, father and son, were the chief founders of the German Klan. Both men spoke fluent German and were of German descent. The father was Rev. Otto Strohschein, a naturalizes American citizen of German birth, his son's name was Gotthard, also a naturalized citizen.
The Strohscheins, with the help of a native born American, Donald B. Gray, went to Berlin in 1921. There, according to German police, they set about organizing the order known as the "Knights of the Fiery Cross". This was patterned after the American KKK. The order was founded in February 1921. There were three degrees of membership. (The American Klan, itself, had not yet introduced the fourth degree of the KKK at this time.) The governing body of each Klavern consisted of 14 members know as "the Senate". There were three Klaverns in the various sections of Berlin, known as the Viking, Germania, and Heimdal; numbering altogether about 400 members. The provincial Klaverns were believed to bring the total to more than 1,000.
The three Americans tried to make the German Klan the exact counterpart of the KKK at home. It is believed, but unconfirmed, that they even made a trip back to America to bring about greater affiliations between the two orders. The German Klansmen soon objected to too much Americanization and practically threw the Americans out. Gray returned to the United States in the summer of 1925, and the Strohscheins went to Silesia to form new Klaverns there.
Richard Brant soon took over the order as the supreme leader and gave himself the title of "Wotan". Brant held an important position in the Siemens Electrical Works. He is also the one who wrote the oath of knighthood for the German Klan. It is interesting that part of that oath included this Masonic-like passage: "If, however, I should betray the aims of this order, I will take upon myself the most frightful martyrdom. All my bones shall be broken, my eyes shall be gouged out, my body drawn, quartered, and thrown to the vultures."
That should have attracted a multitude of new members.
At the meetings Klansmen wore white robes and hoods. In each Klavern there was a small table on which stood a small death's head and a sword. On the wall hung the flag of Imperial Germany and the flag of the (then) present German government. Initiation ceremonies were conducted at the Klaverns, but sometimes the Knights would take the prospective new members to the forest at night and conduct the ritual with blazing torches.
The German Ku Klux Klan lasted until the early 1930's, when it was forced to disband by the newly installed Nazi government. Once established the Nazis began to persecute and even outlaw all organizations that were not founded or totally controlled by them. Thus ended the German Ku Klux Klan.
Dated 1935, The German Klan, like Christ, had its cross to bear. Caught between the carnage of W.W.I and Hitler gearing up for W.W.II, the German Klan was crucified by the Nazis.
Since W.W.II, there have been numerous attempts to establish branches of modern day Klan groups in Germany and many other countries. They all failed because these "Klan" groups were not Ku Klux Klan at all. They were merely Neo-Nazi groups playing at being Ku Klux. They knew nothing of true Klan ideology and preached Nazism and not the true principles and purposes of the KKK. This led to great confusion on the part of the public and media, as well as people seeking true Klanishness.
2. Scotland
In Edinburgh, there was a strong political party called: "Protestant Action", which at one time had 8,000 members and up to a third of the seats on the City Council. The founder and leader was an ex-soldier named John Cormack.
In August 1935, members of the party clashed with the Catholic Vigilance Association in the St. Leonard's District of the city. As a response, "Kormack's Kaledonian Klan" was founded with Cormack as the "Khieftain", as a strong arm branch for the party. They had a hall called the "Kaledonian Klub" where they had a gymnasium. The Scottish Daily Express did an article on them on January 21, 1938 and the Sunday Post had a photo of a Knight on Jan. 23, 1938, with the caption: "Hoods are worn at the meetings so that possible traitors among the members do not know who has been assigned to carry out a certain job". The hoods and robes were black. Some of the members were trained in the use of arms.
They met once a week and spent most of their time stewarding meetings or at sports. Press reports say that 5,000 people came to see their first public appearance. There is some evidence that Cormack used the KKK image because he was impressed by how the Klan had organized to defeat Al Smith's Democratic bid for US president.
Cormack's friend and colleague, Matthew Perkins, in Liverpool, had been criticized earlier when he preached a sermon in the Protestant Reformers' Church saying Britain needed an organization like the Ku Klux Klan in the USA.
Cormack's Klan may have been a reaction to this. What is interesting is that Perkins was a Black man. Cormack was against anti-Semitism, but, like the KKK in the US at the time, he was also against Fascism.
3. Canada
For much of the 1920's and 1930's, Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia had growing branches of the KKK. But none of those provinces, even when combined, could equal the size and influence of the KKK in Saskatchewan. From the late 1920's to the early 1930's, the Saskatchewan Klan was a power to be reckoned with. It toppled the province's government, established over 100 Klaverns across the province, and signed up nearly 40,000 members. It was the single largest White racial conservationist organization in Canadian history. When one considers that Saskatchewan's population was 750,000 at the time, it was an impressive success. At $10.00 per membership it was, also, wealthy. Documents in the Saskatchewan provincial archives reveal that in the tiny village of Woodrow, for example, 153 residents were members of the KKK out of a population of 218.
Such was the Klan's popularity at the time.
In November 1926, three Indiana men, former South Bend Exalted Cyclops Hugh Finley (Pat) Emmons, Klan organizer Lewis A. Scott, and Scott's son, Harold, teamed up to establish the Saskatchewan Realm of the Invisible Empire. At well attended rallies held all over the province, Emmons described the KKK as "the greatest Christian, benevolent fraternal organization in the world today". One Moose Jaw Klonklave, on June 7, 1927, drew nearly 10,000 Klansmen, some arriving from Regina on Canadian Pacific Railway cars. Many church ministers spoke at Klan rallies for an honorarium of up to $25.00.
Like the Klan in the USA, rapid success and large sums of money led to scandal. The Scots ran off to Australia with $500,000.00 plundered from the Klan's treasury. Emmons went to Florida with $20,000.00. He was indicted for theft and agreed to return to Canada for trial. He was acquitted when he proved to the courts satisfaction that the Toronto based Imperial Palace of the Canadian Klan had given him permission to keep practically all the money he collected. Toronto Klan leaders then sent Klan organizer "Doctor" J.H. Hawkins to Saskatchewan to replace the Scots and Emmons. He was later joined by John J. Moloney from Alberta. Hawkins was an excellent speaker and, with Moloney's help, quickly got the Klan going again. By 1928, the Ku Klux Klan could boast of the allegiance of no less than eight mayors, eleven village clerks, seven reeves, twelve secretary - treasurers, and thirty seven councilors. Chiefs of police, ministers, W.W.I vets, doctors, teachers, justices of the peace, lawyers, and scores of Orangemen were also part of the Saskatchewan Klan's political power structure. It could even count on the occasional support of R.B. Bennet, the Conservative leader and future Prime Minister.
Almost six decades later, the Imperial Wizard of the Invisible Empire Association of Alberta, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Tearlach Barra Eoin Ros Dunsford Mac a'Phearsoin (professional herbalist and registered minister of the National Spirit Church),
reflected on the Klan's good old days, when John J. Moloney and his Kluxers inspired respect across Alberta and Saskatchewan. "In 1927," said the Klan leader. "The Grand Master of the Orange Order asked KKK organizers from the USA to come to Alberta to organize the Klan. John Moloney eventually became the leader of the Canadian Klan and he officially incorporated the KKK in September 1932. That lasted until 1950. When I moved here in 1965, I joined the Odd Fellows Fraternal Order and the Klan as well." After a pause the Imperial Wizard went on: "The Klan was still in existence then, in a very small way. It was viewed as a very Protestant organization here, because the organization in the 1930's, and even before that, got its members from the Orange Order." It is interesting to note that there were provisions in the Canadian Klan's charter where people who belonged to minority groups (neither White nor Christian) could join as registered supporters.
The Canadian Klan lingered on more or less for years. Finally, in 1979, the leadership roles passed on to Wolfgang Droege and James Alexander McQuirter. Droege organized a British Columbia publicity tour for by David Duke, Grand Wizard of the American based Knights of the KKK. Duke conducted more than 30 newspaper, television, and radio interviews. The tour was a total success resulting in massive publicity. A Conservative Member of Parliament offered to be Duke's advisor and promoter. Interest in the Canadian Klan boomed as a result.
By October 1980, Droege was forced out of his printing job. The provincial government was putting pressure on the owner, and he was having problems getting government work due to his employee's Klan involvement. (Such government pressure is illegal in the USA thanks to our written Bill of Rights.) Inspite of such things, the Canadian Knights of the KKK continued to grow to a size of 2,500 committed Klan members. Because Droege oversaw a massive recruitment in urban British Columbia schools, Vancouver high schools, the University of British Columbia, and the B.C. Institute of Technology most of the members were very young.
Michel Larocque had the distinction of being the first Quebecker to establish a branch of the Klan in that province since the 1920's. By 1990, a variety of American based independent KKK groups were establishing branches in Canada. This led to division. There was no longer "the Klan" in Canada but "the Klans" in Canada. The Quebeckers, along with Klansmen in Ontario and the Maritimes, were directly under the leadership of Thomas Herman, a former Newfields, Maine, and police officer. The Quebec Ku Klux Klan split when Eric Vachon, federalist leader of the Sherbrooke Klan chapter tried to take over Larocque's separatist Montreal branch. Larocque formed his own KKK organization calling it the "Longitude 74 KKK". Montreal is situated on the 74th longitude. After a year of name changes and personality conflicts the group drifted. Meanwhile the Sherbrooke faction hit the streets. Vachon's Klan grew bolder by July, 1991, launching membership drives in the eastern townships of Bury, Compton, Sawyerville, and Johnville.
So what went wrong in the great white north? In the 1990's, there was a parallel collapse of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States and Canada (as well as in several European countries, Australia and New Zealand). Large numbers of neo Nazis and skinheads began to join the various Klan groups en masse. They even formed their own "Nazi" Klans. The violent actions of these people led to the arrests of many "Klan" leaders and the collapse of many Klan groups across Canada, the USA, and beyond.
Nearly all the KKK organizations that existed in the 1990's are now defunct. In Canada, a new Criminal Code of Canada and a Canadian Human Rights Act outlawed most of the Klan's activities. For example, in Alberta, the province's Individual Rights Protection Act prohibits the displaying of Klan symbols, fiery crosses, and White Power insignia. Even Klan literature crossing the border from the USA to Canada can be seized by Canadian Customs and Excise officers with newly given authority from the Canadian federal government. Lacking a written Bill of Rights as we have in the USA, the Canadian Ku Klux Klan (as well as other foreign Klans) will be hard pressed to revive itself. It may exist in a minor way as a private club, White people's fraternal order, or self help group, but gone are the days when the Canadian KKK would ever be able to command the numbers and political power it once had. But, will there still be attempts to revive the Canadian Ku Klux Klan? You bet there will be. Will they succeed to any extent at all? That all depends on who will be leading the revival.
1. Germany
A chapter of the American Ku Klux Klan was founded in Germany during 1921. Two Americans, father and son, were the chief founders of the German Klan. Both men spoke fluent German and were of German descent. The father was Rev. Otto Strohschein, a naturalizes American citizen of German birth, his son's name was Gotthard, also a naturalized citizen.
The Strohscheins, with the help of a native born American, Donald B. Gray, went to Berlin in 1921. There, according to German police, they set about organizing the order known as the "Knights of the Fiery Cross". This was patterned after the American KKK. The order was founded in February 1921. There were three degrees of membership. (The American Klan, itself, had not yet introduced the fourth degree of the KKK at this time.) The governing body of each Klavern consisted of 14 members know as "the Senate". There were three Klaverns in the various sections of Berlin, known as the Viking, Germania, and Heimdal; numbering altogether about 400 members. The provincial Klaverns were believed to bring the total to more than 1,000.
The three Americans tried to make the German Klan the exact counterpart of the KKK at home. It is believed, but unconfirmed, that they even made a trip back to America to bring about greater affiliations between the two orders. The German Klansmen soon objected to too much Americanization and practically threw the Americans out. Gray returned to the United States in the summer of 1925, and the Strohscheins went to Silesia to form new Klaverns there.
Richard Brant soon took over the order as the supreme leader and gave himself the title of "Wotan". Brant held an important position in the Siemens Electrical Works. He is also the one who wrote the oath of knighthood for the German Klan. It is interesting that part of that oath included this Masonic-like passage: "If, however, I should betray the aims of this order, I will take upon myself the most frightful martyrdom. All my bones shall be broken, my eyes shall be gouged out, my body drawn, quartered, and thrown to the vultures."
That should have attracted a multitude of new members.
At the meetings Klansmen wore white robes and hoods. In each Klavern there was a small table on which stood a small death's head and a sword. On the wall hung the flag of Imperial Germany and the flag of the (then) present German government. Initiation ceremonies were conducted at the Klaverns, but sometimes the Knights would take the prospective new members to the forest at night and conduct the ritual with blazing torches.
The German Ku Klux Klan lasted until the early 1930's, when it was forced to disband by the newly installed Nazi government. Once established the Nazis began to persecute and even outlaw all organizations that were not founded or totally controlled by them. Thus ended the German Ku Klux Klan.
Dated 1935, The German Klan, like Christ, had its cross to bear. Caught between the carnage of W.W.I and Hitler gearing up for W.W.II, the German Klan was crucified by the Nazis.
Since W.W.II, there have been numerous attempts to establish branches of modern day Klan groups in Germany and many other countries. They all failed because these "Klan" groups were not Ku Klux Klan at all. They were merely Neo-Nazi groups playing at being Ku Klux. They knew nothing of true Klan ideology and preached Nazism and not the true principles and purposes of the KKK. This led to great confusion on the part of the public and media, as well as people seeking true Klanishness.
2. Scotland
In Edinburgh, there was a strong political party called: "Protestant Action", which at one time had 8,000 members and up to a third of the seats on the City Council. The founder and leader was an ex-soldier named John Cormack.
In August 1935, members of the party clashed with the Catholic Vigilance Association in the St. Leonard's District of the city. As a response, "Kormack's Kaledonian Klan" was founded with Cormack as the "Khieftain", as a strong arm branch for the party. They had a hall called the "Kaledonian Klub" where they had a gymnasium. The Scottish Daily Express did an article on them on January 21, 1938 and the Sunday Post had a photo of a Knight on Jan. 23, 1938, with the caption: "Hoods are worn at the meetings so that possible traitors among the members do not know who has been assigned to carry out a certain job". The hoods and robes were black. Some of the members were trained in the use of arms.
They met once a week and spent most of their time stewarding meetings or at sports. Press reports say that 5,000 people came to see their first public appearance. There is some evidence that Cormack used the KKK image because he was impressed by how the Klan had organized to defeat Al Smith's Democratic bid for US president.
Cormack's friend and colleague, Matthew Perkins, in Liverpool, had been criticized earlier when he preached a sermon in the Protestant Reformers' Church saying Britain needed an organization like the Ku Klux Klan in the USA.
Cormack's Klan may have been a reaction to this. What is interesting is that Perkins was a Black man. Cormack was against anti-Semitism, but, like the KKK in the US at the time, he was also against Fascism.
3. Canada
For much of the 1920's and 1930's, Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia had growing branches of the KKK. But none of those provinces, even when combined, could equal the size and influence of the KKK in Saskatchewan. From the late 1920's to the early 1930's, the Saskatchewan Klan was a power to be reckoned with. It toppled the province's government, established over 100 Klaverns across the province, and signed up nearly 40,000 members. It was the single largest White racial conservationist organization in Canadian history. When one considers that Saskatchewan's population was 750,000 at the time, it was an impressive success. At $10.00 per membership it was, also, wealthy. Documents in the Saskatchewan provincial archives reveal that in the tiny village of Woodrow, for example, 153 residents were members of the KKK out of a population of 218.
Such was the Klan's popularity at the time.
In November 1926, three Indiana men, former South Bend Exalted Cyclops Hugh Finley (Pat) Emmons, Klan organizer Lewis A. Scott, and Scott's son, Harold, teamed up to establish the Saskatchewan Realm of the Invisible Empire. At well attended rallies held all over the province, Emmons described the KKK as "the greatest Christian, benevolent fraternal organization in the world today". One Moose Jaw Klonklave, on June 7, 1927, drew nearly 10,000 Klansmen, some arriving from Regina on Canadian Pacific Railway cars. Many church ministers spoke at Klan rallies for an honorarium of up to $25.00.
Like the Klan in the USA, rapid success and large sums of money led to scandal. The Scots ran off to Australia with $500,000.00 plundered from the Klan's treasury. Emmons went to Florida with $20,000.00. He was indicted for theft and agreed to return to Canada for trial. He was acquitted when he proved to the courts satisfaction that the Toronto based Imperial Palace of the Canadian Klan had given him permission to keep practically all the money he collected. Toronto Klan leaders then sent Klan organizer "Doctor" J.H. Hawkins to Saskatchewan to replace the Scots and Emmons. He was later joined by John J. Moloney from Alberta. Hawkins was an excellent speaker and, with Moloney's help, quickly got the Klan going again. By 1928, the Ku Klux Klan could boast of the allegiance of no less than eight mayors, eleven village clerks, seven reeves, twelve secretary - treasurers, and thirty seven councilors. Chiefs of police, ministers, W.W.I vets, doctors, teachers, justices of the peace, lawyers, and scores of Orangemen were also part of the Saskatchewan Klan's political power structure. It could even count on the occasional support of R.B. Bennet, the Conservative leader and future Prime Minister.
Almost six decades later, the Imperial Wizard of the Invisible Empire Association of Alberta, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Tearlach Barra Eoin Ros Dunsford Mac a'Phearsoin (professional herbalist and registered minister of the National Spirit Church),
reflected on the Klan's good old days, when John J. Moloney and his Kluxers inspired respect across Alberta and Saskatchewan. "In 1927," said the Klan leader. "The Grand Master of the Orange Order asked KKK organizers from the USA to come to Alberta to organize the Klan. John Moloney eventually became the leader of the Canadian Klan and he officially incorporated the KKK in September 1932. That lasted until 1950. When I moved here in 1965, I joined the Odd Fellows Fraternal Order and the Klan as well." After a pause the Imperial Wizard went on: "The Klan was still in existence then, in a very small way. It was viewed as a very Protestant organization here, because the organization in the 1930's, and even before that, got its members from the Orange Order." It is interesting to note that there were provisions in the Canadian Klan's charter where people who belonged to minority groups (neither White nor Christian) could join as registered supporters.
The Canadian Klan lingered on more or less for years. Finally, in 1979, the leadership roles passed on to Wolfgang Droege and James Alexander McQuirter. Droege organized a British Columbia publicity tour for by David Duke, Grand Wizard of the American based Knights of the KKK. Duke conducted more than 30 newspaper, television, and radio interviews. The tour was a total success resulting in massive publicity. A Conservative Member of Parliament offered to be Duke's advisor and promoter. Interest in the Canadian Klan boomed as a result.
By October 1980, Droege was forced out of his printing job. The provincial government was putting pressure on the owner, and he was having problems getting government work due to his employee's Klan involvement. (Such government pressure is illegal in the USA thanks to our written Bill of Rights.) Inspite of such things, the Canadian Knights of the KKK continued to grow to a size of 2,500 committed Klan members. Because Droege oversaw a massive recruitment in urban British Columbia schools, Vancouver high schools, the University of British Columbia, and the B.C. Institute of Technology most of the members were very young.
Michel Larocque had the distinction of being the first Quebecker to establish a branch of the Klan in that province since the 1920's. By 1990, a variety of American based independent KKK groups were establishing branches in Canada. This led to division. There was no longer "the Klan" in Canada but "the Klans" in Canada. The Quebeckers, along with Klansmen in Ontario and the Maritimes, were directly under the leadership of Thomas Herman, a former Newfields, Maine, and police officer. The Quebec Ku Klux Klan split when Eric Vachon, federalist leader of the Sherbrooke Klan chapter tried to take over Larocque's separatist Montreal branch. Larocque formed his own KKK organization calling it the "Longitude 74 KKK". Montreal is situated on the 74th longitude. After a year of name changes and personality conflicts the group drifted. Meanwhile the Sherbrooke faction hit the streets. Vachon's Klan grew bolder by July, 1991, launching membership drives in the eastern townships of Bury, Compton, Sawyerville, and Johnville.
So what went wrong in the great white north? In the 1990's, there was a parallel collapse of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States and Canada (as well as in several European countries, Australia and New Zealand). Large numbers of neo Nazis and skinheads began to join the various Klan groups en masse. They even formed their own "Nazi" Klans. The violent actions of these people led to the arrests of many "Klan" leaders and the collapse of many Klan groups across Canada, the USA, and beyond.
Nearly all the KKK organizations that existed in the 1990's are now defunct. In Canada, a new Criminal Code of Canada and a Canadian Human Rights Act outlawed most of the Klan's activities. For example, in Alberta, the province's Individual Rights Protection Act prohibits the displaying of Klan symbols, fiery crosses, and White Power insignia. Even Klan literature crossing the border from the USA to Canada can be seized by Canadian Customs and Excise officers with newly given authority from the Canadian federal government. Lacking a written Bill of Rights as we have in the USA, the Canadian Ku Klux Klan (as well as other foreign Klans) will be hard pressed to revive itself. It may exist in a minor way as a private club, White people's fraternal order, or self help group, but gone are the days when the Canadian KKK would ever be able to command the numbers and political power it once had. But, will there still be attempts to revive the Canadian Ku Klux Klan? You bet there will be. Will they succeed to any extent at all? That all depends on who will be leading the revival.
