With Nazism on the rise in 1930s America, protected by free speech laws, a Jewish judge sets out to deal with them in the only way he knows how - by setting gangsters on them.

I'm not big on WW2 stories, mostly because I feel like the market is rather oversaturated. But rather perversely I'm still always on the lookout for unique stories in this setting, because those stories that are under-told are generally quite fascinating. Despite the title, though, this book is set not in wartime America but in the lead up to it. Still, it made for an entertaining listen.

I liked how vivid the writing was - the author is not at all afraid to take sides, lambasting the Nazis and lauding the gangsters. He tackles the stories told with an irrepressible glee. I also liked the cinematic excerpts and the vintage slang, though I know it won't suit everyone. But the book also opens the world of Depression era America up to the reader in a factual way, making you feel as though you are reading about the events in the newspaper.

However, I think the story was somewhat limited in scope - we might travel across the nation and visit gangsters on their home turfs, but ultimately there's not much variation in the actual beating up of the Nazis. The word count is instead puffed up with detailed discussions of the gangsters themselves, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. The trouble, I think, was that there are just so many people to keep straight that they become quite indistinct in one's mind.

My copy of this book was an audiobook, narrated by Gabriel Vaughan. I thought he did a good job of playing up the somewhat hammy nature of the book in a voice that reminded me of an old-fashioned broadcaster.

Not my favorite way to listen or read a historical fiction novel. It wasn’t hooked honestly. I think that it’s more of a personal reason and non-attraction to the book. I do think it would be better if i read it from a physical book.

I am always looking for new information and stories on different topics I teach in my class. I have to admit I had no idea about the Hitler Youth-esque camps in the US and the Jewish Gangsters that fought back against the growing Nazi support in the US. I appreciated the new information and how it expanded my understanding of how WWII affected the US as well.

I listened to the audiobook version of this and I really enjoyed the way the narrator told this story. A tumultuous time where nazism was on the rise, the Jewish gangsters of the time decided to take matters into their own hands. “Just as long as you don’t kill them” was their only guideline so elected officials would continue to look the other way. Through physical force they showed them their hate speech wasn’t welcome. This was a really good read about a historical event I had no idea happened. I highly recommend this whether you read, it listen to it.

*a copy of this book was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

The Depression-Era violence perpetrated against U.S. citizens by the government, from strike-busting by National Guard troops to General Douglas McArthur gassing WWI veterans on the Washington Mall, is shocking even by today’s standards. That’s to say nothing of the Japanese internment camps, the mass starvation, the uptick in race violence all across the South, and the rise of the German American Bund.
Anything more than a cursory study of the Depression will leave you in awe that we didn’t descend into civil war.
The open attempt by Nazis to organize an army across America, as they had done in 1920s Germany, succeeded in making tens of thousands of citizens openly pro-fascist. As it turned out, Jewish gangsters were among the American heroes who helped stem the tide of 1930s fascism. Gangsters Versus Nazis, by Michael Benson (Citadel Press, 2022) reveals a national, coordinated effort to squash the Nazi movement.
The story, like the era, is so morally ambiguous that it leaves those of us who pity the women, addicts, terrified small business owners, and others whom the mob preyed upon wondering who will fight the Nazis today.
In pop culture, Nazis are the perfect villains, easy targets for violent, Tarantino-esque wish fulfillment. Besides being always and completely immoral, they’re an incipient cultural cancer that will accept nothing short of total victory. In regular culture, many of us struggle day to day with the disconnect between supporting free speech and accepting its implications.
That was not the case in fractious, Depression-Era America. As Benson points out, there were common and open calls for replacing democracy with fascism as what was left of the fragile middle class wondered aloud whether everyone was really qualified to vote.
Hitler’s attempted consolidation of Europe was evidence to many that one strong, plain-spoken leader could accomplish more than a bunch of bickering politicians.
What separated the Jews (besides garden variety racism) were letters from the old country. Talks about neighbors being disappeared. Long before Kristallnacht, they had a sense of how bad it was for Jews under the Nazis.

The real conspiracy
Enter Nathan Perlman, former N.Y. Special Deputy Attorney General, assemblyman, and congressman, future judge. Perlman watched the rise of the German American Bund and other Nazi organizations in terror and disgust. He knew what was happening in Europe, how the Nazis had used their freedom of speech to gain power, and then rescinded rights for non-Nazis.
He watched the tide rise with no legal way to stop it. Then he picked up the phone and called Meyer Lansky, a man who needs no introduction to mob enthusiasts. If you don’t know the name, suffice it to say that most of the modern picture of how organized crime works came out of his head. In his elucidation of the mob’s inner workings, Benson provides a thumbnail sketch sufficient to bring in the uninitiated without boring those of us who read books about the mob.
He also paints the entire cast of toughs and killers with a sympathetic-enough portrait to give the reader context without undermining their crimes. If he strays from objective description at all it’s in the title, which could easily have been Gangsters Mercilessly Beat Nazis Into Submission. There rarely if at all were versus-level confrontations.
Perlman also recruited rabbis as a buffer. Although he had no compunction about actively violating Nazi First Amendment Rights, he wanted to make sure the mob stayed on the right side of the Biblical prohibition against murder. The incongruity throughout involves the gangsters worrying more about their mothers discovering how they earn their living than they were about being arrested.
Family ties are the reason that gangsters get a pass that serial killers don’t, in nonfiction anyway. When discussing Perlman’s decision to align with the mob, promising protection as long as no one is murdered, Benson observed mobsters made the perfect allies: “They hurt and killed people for a living and didn’t much care about the law.”
What’s a disorderly conduct charge to a professional assassin, especially when the fix is in among the judiciary? As long as no one got killed, sentences for beating Nazis consisted of a scolding by the presiding judge.

A cinematic story
Because the book relies so heavily on brief biographical sketches, Benson moves from hard facts to musical prose to keep the story from getting bogged down in dates and descriptions. He evokes classic noir both in the prose style and by relying on stage direction (cut to, fade in). These are deployed as kind of reverse speedbumps, letting you know that the action is about to ramp up.
While there is some blood and gore, the descriptions aren’t gratuitous. Plus, at the risk of introducing a spoiler, the only people who get really hurt are Nazis. And there were a lot of them.
Benson takes us to most major American cities and not a few minor ones for a look into how well and easily Americans were swayed by or at least receptive to the Nazi menace. This is where the work shines as a history.
It’s in no way novel to observe that many of the things that hate-mongers say online would get them punched in public. Gangsters Versus Nazis is about a time when that actually happened.
The end of many stories is the same, Perlman calls a local gangster and a local rabbi and sics them on the Nazis. But there are spies and intrigue. There are also plenty of Americans who are happy to be pro-Nazi until the punching starts, and that is the most revelatory, terrifying aspect of this work.
It is only barely an oversimplification to say that early 1930s Americans were for (or at least ambivalent about) Nazis until punching them was an option. The gangsters became catalysts, showing the country neighborhood by neighborhood that some people only respond to violence.
After that, punching Nazis was in vogue, and shop workers and bank managers stood elbow to elbow with thumb-breakers for the chance to crack Nazi skulls. In many instances “civilian” participation was nondenominational.

The bigger picture
In painting the anti-Jewish sentiment that pervaded American culture, Benson doesn’t hedge, calling out antisemites like Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh among others. His discussion about an American past fraught with heroes being villainous and killers demonstrating virtue calls to mind the current controversy about whether and how to view American history.
“History hates nuance and thus keeps many dirty secrets,” he writes. In the digital age, another way to say it is, “Don’t Google your heroes.”
In the end, as seems to always be the case with demagogues, the Nazi leaders turned out to be liars, charlatans, and thieves. Weakened by the gangster onslaught, the Nazis retreated back to their holes to wait for the internet to be invented.
Still, the book haunts me. I like a good gangster story as much as the next guy, but it is hard to endorse the idea that a judge would use religious and criminal leaders to strip a political minority of their First Amendment Rights.
“Endorse” isn’t the word I want.
“Root for” does the trick.
I wonder what it says about me, about us, that I finished this book more worried that we didn’t have gangsters to root for than about how enthusiastically I cheered what would be horrifying moral lapses if Nazis weren’t the targets.
I know there’s a material difference, but only in retrospect. As much fun and as enlightening as Gangsters Versus Nazis is, it raised for me troubling questions about my place in history and my view of it. Beyond the juicy revelations (and there are a ton) and the satisfying descriptions of brass knuckles on Nazi noses, that is what makes this book such a compelling work.

Hmmm did I just pick up a textbook or a History for Dummies book? This is both rolled into one well thought out with

events methodically placed story. There were times I had to remind myself Gabriel Vaughan was narrating a book. It felt as if I was listening to an old radio program. The author writes events happening in the United States and gives prominent figures who were involved with Nazis .. Charles Lindbergh (I had heard) and Henry Ford (I had not). The timeline is smooth and reads quickly showing the various groups and people and their violent level (beatings or death).

Thank you NetGalley and Tantor Audio for accepting my request to read and review Gangsters vs. Nazis.

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#GabrielVaughan
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I found this book very, very interesting... I am usually not interested in history, but this was very surprising regarding the events that occurred before WWII in the United States where nazi propaganda was promoted. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in WWII and the time period before United States joined the conflict.

A sincere thank you to NetGalley and Tandor Audio for providing me an advanced audio copy of “Gangsters vs. Nazis” in exchange for an honest review. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read this story and leave my review voluntarily.

This is a fascinating and detail history of Meyer Lansky's Jewish ruffians roughing up attendees at meetings of the German American Bund. This was an organization of ethnic Germans living in the US that held a pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic, and US isolationist agenda. It is interesting that they promoted a immigration/replacement influx conspiracy theory not unlike today's extreme right-wing. Jack Ruby makes a cameo in the punch-ups which is one of a couple of threads that will be of interest to JFK assassination researchers.

This substantially book altered my view on mobsters/the mafia, and shifted my, perhaps rosy glasses assumption, about the political climate/social view surrounding the WWII and the Nazis in America (particularly in Brooklyn, NYC and LA). Perhaps most importantly, this book reminded me that monsters are not always monsters. That is, people who do "bad acts" are not always bad eggs. This isn't to excuse or justify the crimes they may commit, but rather to remember humans are complex and even "bad" people are not bad all the time.

Overall, I found the book and subject matter fascinating and the author did a great job weaving facts with storyline narrative to make it more relatable, interesting, and not too academic or dry. I thought it was well-organized. My only 'complaint' is there are so many characters that I sometimes had difficulty following or remembering who someone is. The author did a good job of trying to jog my memory with context sometimes, but I still struggled. I'd love to see this made into a documentary-series.

As a Jewish person, I also want to thank the author immensely for detailing a portion of our history.

Thank you netgalley for my ARC. I look forward to another listen when the book comes out.

Back in the 30’s, as Hitler rose to power in Germany, many people in America were convinced that Hitler had the right idea; that the Jews were to blame for many of the problems that the country was facing. As these anti-Semitic group began to grow in number and spread across the country a surprising group–the mob–decided, with a bit of encouragement from some unexpected sources, to take matters into their own hands, waging their own war against the Nazi groups as they attempted to spread their massage of hate throughout many major cities in the United States.

Story: If Gangsters vs Nazis was the sort of history that was taught to me as a child I would have had a love for history that I simply did not have. This book was fascinating and extremely informative. I liked the way in which the novel was set up, focusing on one area of the country at a time. I also liked that it was full of factual information without coming across as dry or boring; I was hooked rather quickly and intrigued by the topic, especially the mob aspect of things. Gangsters vs Nazis was a page-turner that I really enjoyed.

Narration: Gabriel Vaughan’s narration was well done. The tone used was very fitting to the topic–it almost sounded like a news report–and it flowed well as I listened to the novel. While minor, I also liked listening to the pronunciation of names and places that I would have never known how to say.

An enlightening read that highlights further issues in American history. Disturbing echoes in history are recounted with eerie parallels in recent events. A valuable read/listen for any American.

One of the least boring non fiction books I’ve ever listened to, Gangsters vs. Nazis is superbly narrated by Gabriel Vaughan. It’s an excellent retelling of a little known chapter in American history in the years leading up to WW2. Jewish gangsters were recruited by a Jewish judge to literally fight the pro German organizations in the US, who were espousing Hitler’s antisemitic garbage. They broke up rallies (violently but short of killing), and supporters also helped infiltrate the German American Bund, and also the Silver Shirts, an antisemitic organization. The book gives background to many of the main characters on both sides, and recounts the nationwide effort at bringing down these groups. Some of the narration was very humorous. An excellent addition to Jewish American history.

My thanks to Tantor Audio and to Netgalley for providing an ALC of this excellent book.

WW2, 1930s, 1940s, gangsters, the-mob, espionage, fascists, historical-figures, historical-places-events, historical-research, historical-setting, history-and-culture*****
This review is for the audiobook narrated by Gabriel Vaughan who makes it all the more fun all while making sure that the reader knows that this really is nonfiction!
This is the way that nonfiction history OUGHT to be presented!
Certainly, there is some salty language, violence, attitudes no longer acceptable (some never should have been but were), and some VERY unpleasant truths. But all in all, it is a terrific read!
The intro ties it all with some attitudes of today by telling us that in Captain America Comics #1 which hit the newsstands a full year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor when so much of the US was still in denial about the vile things happening in Europe, and The Captain showed what needed to be done and threw the first punch (but not the last).
From there on, the lesser-known history of the happenings in the US is presented clearly and bluntly but with wit and attitude. The publisher's blurb does a good job of getting readers interested, but you have to read the book to really appreciate it all. Great read!
I requested and received a free temporary audio copy from Tantor Audio via NetGalley. Thank you!