GATHERING OF THE KLANS

Foreign Branches of the 1915 -1944 Ku Klux Klan

    Because the revival Klan had 100% Americanism as a major theme, few historians gave much attention to the foreign branches established by the KKK. This, too, is a major part of the Klan's "lost" history. This, too, would make a book of historical worth. As we only have a few fragments of documentation we would be grateful for any additional information sent us concerning foreign Klan branches.
    If you're wondering how 100% Americanism could take hold overseas, the answer is simple. It didn't. The KKK had sense enough to modify and change certain policies and adapt the Klan to the specific country each branch was established in. Our source of information is the New York Times. While details are few, they give interesting insights none the less. We would be grateful if someone with the time would do a more thorough search of the back issues of the New York Times and send us any additional information  about the overseas Klans (or the Klan in general) from the time period of 1865-1944. Thank you in advance.
   The November 30, 1924 issue of the New York Times ran this news brief: "Urge Czechs to Organize Klan. Copyright, 1924, by the New York Times Company. Special Cable to the New York Times. VIENNA, Nov. 29. - In the Czechoslovakia provinces propaganda leaflets have been distributed calling for the Ku Klux Klan organization there. It is being formed on the American plan and is against Germans, Jews, Clericals and Communists. "
    The July 15, 1928 issue of the New York Times ran this news brief: "Klan Reported in Lithuania, Aiming at Catholic Church. Wireless to The New York Times. Berlin, July 14, - The Catholic publication, Kovno, asserts that a branch of the Ku Klux Klan has been established in Lithuania with avowed purpose of undermining the work of the Catholic Church. The organizers were unable to keep secret their various ceremonies when initiating new members into the order, Kovno asserts. A flaming cross and white hoods and robes similar to those used in America were introduced here the newspaper declares."
    The August 28, 1923 issue of the New York Times ran this news brief: "Report 1,000 in New Zealand Klan. Melbourne, Australia, Aug. 27. - The Argus says a branch of the Ku Klux Klan has been formed at Auckland, New Zealand, to combat Asiatic labor and traders. It is asserted that the Branch has a membership of nearly 1,000."
     From the NYT or from a different newspaper, the following article is from the same time period as the ones above: "Mexico City Editor Seized. Masked Band Forces Promise to Print Klan Article. Mexico City. Aug. 27. - The publication of articles denouncing the Ku Klux Klan and denying the existence of that organization in Mexico is believed to have been responsible for the kidnapping last Saturday night of Jose' Campos, director of the newspaper Excelsior. Senior Campos was overpowered upon leaving his home and was held captive for four hours by a group of masked men in a suburb of the capital. He was not harmed, but was forced to promise to publish an article admitting the existence of the Klan in Mexico. He was told that the organization had been formed for the purpose of enforcing justice, since the government police were inactive."
  Rare photo of British Klansmen 

     

To many people around the world, the violence in British Occupied Ireland may seem incomprehensible. After all, it is nearly 15 years since the political conflict in the British province of Ireland was officially declared over, with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

That agreement was meant to signal the peaceful end of a nearly 30-year conflict that cost the lives of more than 3,000 people, which proportionate to the population of Northern Ireland represented a huge number of deaths.

Now it appears that street violence has once again returned with scenes from the main city Belfast looking like a war zone. Dozens of policemen were injured in riots, properties and vehicles were set ablaze, family homes were targeted by petrol bombs and hundreds of police reserves had to be flown in from England, Scotland and Wales to back up the overstretched security forces.

Adding to the bewilderment of observers is that the rioting crowds are supporters of a seemingly arcane institution called the Orange Order. Their members dress with strange-looking orange-coloured sashes, wear quaint black bowler hats and carry swords and flags to commemorate a battle that occurred more than 320 years ago between rival Protestant and Catholic English kings on Irish soil.

The commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, in which Protestant King William of Orange defeated the Catholic King James, is held every year on the 12th July. The annual Orange marches are held by Protestant descendants of British settlers who invaded the North of Ireland as part of Britain’s colonial conquest and demographic engineering against the native, mainly Catholic Irish.

The truth is that every year these marches are accompanied by violence, even in recent years of so-called peace. Why? Because the Orange Order was from its inception nearly 200 years ago set up deliberately as a sectarian instrument of British colonial domination in Ireland. The Order was exclusively Protestant, pro-British and rabidly anti-Catholic. The British colonial authorities fomented the Order and its vicious sectarianism as a way of driving a wedge between the communities and in particular to subjugate the rebellious Irish.

British partition of Ireland in 1921 into a nominally independent southern state and a British-run northern province has always been a bone of contention for the northern pro-independence Irish. They have felt alienated within a British gerrymandered northern state, denied of their national rights and dominated by a false pro-British Protestant majority. For the maintenance of this injustice, successive British governments have relied on the sectarianism of the Orange Order to enforce their unlawful imperialist presence in Ireland.

Every year, the pro-British Orangemen would march through the mainly Catholic nationalist villages, towns and areas of Belfast in a demonstration of the second-class status that the native Irish were assigned by the British authorities. The Orange Order and its triumphal boorish marches were aimed at denigrating the Irish Catholics, to remind them that the British state bestowed its favor on the Protestant, pro-Unionist community. The marchers would be draped with British Union flags and the foulest insults would be chanted or sung while the processions passed by Catholic homes and churches.

One of the popular songs of hatred sung by the Orangemen is ‘The Sash’. With drums banging out the rhythm, the marchers would sing: “We’re up to our knees in Fenian [Catholic] blood.” Can you imagine the humiliation and terror that Catholic households must have felt during these grotesque carnivals of vilification conducted right outside their homes?

Here is another example of the depraved mentality of these Orange marches. In one mainly Catholic area of Belfast called the Lower Ormeau a group of five unarmed men in a sporting office was slaughtered by a British paramilitary death squad in 1992. In subsequent years when the Orange marchers would parade past the Catholic residents, the Orangemen would in unison raise their arms with five fingers pointed at the households and neighbors of the murdered men. That was meant as a sickening degradation of that community aimed to demonstrate British-state-sanctioned superiority of the Orangemen.

Typically, the 12th July marches - thousands of them all across the British territory of Northern Ireland - would proceed in the morning through the Catholic areas on the way to a designated gathering point for dozens of Orange lodges emanating from different directions. All day in the field, the Orangemen and their paramilitary supporters would listen to bloodcurdling speeches denouncing Catholics as “enemies of the British state”. Copious amounts of alcohol would be consumed to fire up the hatred.

Then in the evening, the Orange marchers would make their return procession through the same Catholic areas that they had debased earlier that day. That is when the violence would often ignite, mostly provoked by the Orange side. To compare the Orange Order to the Ku Klux Klan is a fair assessment. Can you imagine the KKK being allowed to march through an African-American district of New York, Los Angeles or Georgia? Maybe a few centuries ago such a supremacist provocation could have happened against African-Americans. But only a few years ago, in the heyday of the British Orange state of Northern Ireland with its state-sanctioned discrimination against Catholics, the Orange Order would be fully facilitated in its provocative marches by the mainly Protestant-manned police force; and all with British government tacit approval from London.

Today, such outrageous state backing of sectarian provocation and humiliation is no longer acceptable or countenanced. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 stipulated “equality” for all cultural traditions in Northern Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland replaced the hated sectarian and death-squad-colluding Royal Ulster Constabulary, and a Parades Commission was set up to restrain the worst excesses of the Orange Order.

Nevertheless, it is still reprehensible that any Catholic community in Northern Ireland should have to endure any level of sectarian menace from the Orange Order and its paramilitary supporters. The latest violence in Northern Ireland has flared because the Parades Commission ruled that the Orangemen could not make their “traditional” return march through the Catholic North Belfast area of Ardoyne. During the decades of conflict, the community in Ardoyne saw hundreds of its people killed by British-state-sanctioned Protestant death squads. Yet, the same like-minded bigots in the Orange Order are aggrieved because their days of coat-trailing triumphalism through Catholic areas like the Ardoyne are now on the wane.

The Orange Order and its supporters make the absurd claim that such restrictions amount to “an erosion” of Pro-British Protestant culture. Of course, British media and politicians in London are wringing their hands over the latest upsurge in Orange violence.

London-appointed Northern Ireland minister Theresa Villiers said of the mayhem this weekend: “This sort of behavior does nothing to promote ‘Britishness’ or the pro-Union cause.”

Ms Villiers and her London government are woefully ignorant of history or are feigning ignorance. For it is precisely British colonial policy in Northern Ireland that instigated and fomented the sectarian psychosis of the Orange Order and its followers over many centuries and until recently. Every year, Irish people, both Catholic as well as many decent Protestants, have to endure the hate-filled legacy of British misrule in Ireland. The only viable long-term solution to Ireland’s ongoing political problem is for the British government to remove its unlawful imperialist presence in Northern Ireland, give way to long-denied Irish self-determination, and for the British misrulers to take their poisonous sectarianism with them. 

Some details about the Ku Klux Klan in 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 honoraria 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 court's 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 then 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. Bennett, 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 rolls 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 then 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.) In spite 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, 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.

   Some details about the Ku Klux Klan in pre-war 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". Which 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 then 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.
    Illustration below: 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.

Some details about the Ku Klux Klan in pre-war 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.

Article above: The man in the photo is wearing a Klanswoman's robe. If you're going to do something, do it right. Nothing looks more ridiculous then a man wearing women's apparel. This is not the first time I have seen this sort of thing. At a Klan rally in Pulaski, TN. I came across a young man wearing a Klansman's robe. I told him he was wearing a woman's robe. Some other people did the same. He, however, insisted he was wearing a Klavalier's robe. It's obvious that this ignoramus never bothered to go to the library and look at some books on the KKK that had photos. Do your research, unless you want to be known as the transvestites of the KKK, like the Scotsman above.

Orange Order Foreign  Branch of the Ku Klux Klan

By Finian Cunningham

Today, such outrageous state backing of sectarian provocation and humiliation is no longer acceptable or countenanced. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 stipulated “equality” for all cultural traditions in Northern Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland replaced the hated sectarian and death-squad-colluding Royal Ulster Constabulary, and a Parades Commission was set up to restrain the worst excesses of the Orange Order."