Walter Winchell and the Defeat of the German American Bund

1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK

Walter Winchell, the newspaper columnist, radio commentator and television personality, pioneered the fast-paced, gossip-driven, politically charged journalism that dominates today. His on-air activism to his 50 million listeners during World War II helped to defeat the German American Bund, the US version of the Nazi party. While his post-war legacy is much more problematic, his enormously impactful wartime efforts are worthy of being remembered and celebrated.

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VIEW THE TRAILER

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THE SCHEDULE

⇒ September 26-29 view the film Walter Winchell — The Power of Gossip on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register.

⇒ Sunday, September 28 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time, tune into the program with our distinguished panel of speakers. A link will be provided to all who register.

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MEET THE SPEAKERS

Ben Loeterman produced and directed Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip for the PBS series American Masters. He holds two Emmy awards for directing and investigative journalism, two Columbia duPont Awards for his films about the 9/11 attacks, and Amnesty International’s Humanitarian Spotlight award for The Triumph of Evil, about how US policy actively enabled the genocide in Rwanda. His work appeared on the first twenty seasons of the PBS series Frontline. His PBS specials include The People v. Leo Frank, about an infamous case of antisemitism in the South and 1913: Seeds of Conflict, about the impact of European Jewish migration to Palestine during the Ottoman Empire. His current film is about US propaganda, censorship and the atomic bomb.

Arnie Bernstein is a historian and author with a passion for uncovering overlooked stories from America’s past. His critically acclaimed works include Swastika Nation: Fritz Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the German-American Bund and Bath Massacre: America’s First School Bombing. His work has been honored by the Illinois State Library Center for the Book and the State Library of Michigan. He appears as an expert in the PBS American Experience episode Nazi Town, USA and in Germany’s national public television documentary The American Führer: Hitler’s Deputy in America. He has served as a panelist for webinars hosted by New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage and was interviewed on the podcast Star-Spangled Fascism.

Felix Etienne-Edouard Pfeifle, right, who will moderate, is an architectural designer with considerable expertise in World War II. He graduated cum laude from UC-Berkeley and was a Fulbright Fellow in Vienna. He has taught at the New School for Social Research and was President of the Fulbright Association (Los Angeles) and the Los Angeles Bach Festival. He previously moderated our Sunday programs on Otto von Habsburg, the Dutch heroine Hannie Schaft, and the monarchies during World War II, and he facilitated our program on the late Russian resistance hero Alexei Navalny.

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Registration is by donation of any amount ($18 suggested, tax-deductible.)