(1) Last thread Trump's German heritage, I showed that both his grandparents were born in Kallstadt, Germany and had the bulk of their family there during WW I.
Trump's grandfather died of the 1918 Spanish Flu, & his grandmother, Elisabeth, was alone.
(2) Now, we will cover Fred Trump, Donald's father.
Fred's father, Friedrich returned to Kallstadt, Germany in 1901, and by the next year, met and married Elisabeth Christ. They moved to New York City, where their first child, Elizabeth, was born in 1904.
(3) Later that year, the family returned to Kallstadt & Fred Christ Trump was conceived in Bavaria, where his parents wished to re-establish residency, but Frederick Sr. was banished for dodging the draft. The family returned to the Bronx in 1905, where Fred was born 11/11.
(4) Fred Trump's younger brother, John G., was born in 1907. The 3 children were raised speaking Deutsch. In 1908, they moved to Queens.
WWI broke out in July, 1914, & the U.S. officially declared war on Germany in April, 1917. Elisabeth Trump's family still lived there.
(5) Fred's father died in the 1918 flu pandemic, just before the end of the war. From 1918 to 1923, Fred attended High School, while working as a caddy, curb whitewasher, and delivery boy.
Meanwhile, his mother continued the real estate business Friedrich had begun.
(6) Fred took classes in carpentry & reading blueprints. He studied plumbing, masonry, & electrical wiring via correspondence courses. After graduating HS in 1923, Trump obtained work moving lumber & as a carpenter's assistant. He continued his education at Pratt Institute.
(7) Elisabeth and Fred established "E. Trump & Son" in 1925 and did business as early as 1926. That year, they Trump built 20 homes in Queens, selling some houses before they were complete to finance others.
That company would eventual become "The Trump Organization".
(8) So, under the controlling influence of his German-born mother, Fred worked odd jobs during High School and was molded to take over the family business.
His mother saw the USA declare war on her fatherland, and still raised her children speaking German after the war.
(9) 1927 Ku Klux Klan incident:
On Memorial Day, 1927, over 1,000 KKK members marched in a Queens parade to protest "Native-born Protestant Americans" being "assaulted by Roman Catholic police of New York City."
The 21-year old Trump and six other men were arrested.
(10) The original KKK died out in the 1870s, but its 1915 resurgence was linked to a movie released that same year, Birth of a Nation, based on the book, The Clansman. While lauded for film techniques, it was highly offensive, w/blatant racism & rewriting of history.
(11) The Klan entered American politics by “shrinking the tent.”
Instead of just attacking blacks, they added other targets: Jews, Catholics, and immigrants.
Klansmen offered themselves as true “Americanism”.
newyorkalmanack.com/2020/01/1920s-…
(12) In 1933 Trump built one of NYC's 1st modern supermarkets, Trump Market, in Queens. It was modeled on Long Island's King Kullen, a self-service supermarket chain. Trump's motto, "Serve Yourself and Save!" quickly became popular. After 6 mos., Trump sold it to King Kullen.
(13) In 1934, Trump w/a partner acquired in federal court the mortgage-servicing subsidiary of Brooklyn's J. Lehrenkrauss, which had gone bankrupt & been broken up.
This gave Trump access to many properties nearing foreclosure, which he bought low & sold at a profit.
(14) Hitler attained real power in 1933, after the Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act of 1933, giving him expanded authority. President Paul von Hindenburg had already appointed Hitler as Chancellor in January after a series of parliamentary elections & backroom intrigues.
(15) In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office.
In his acceptance speech, Roosevelt declared, "I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people... This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms."
FDR quickly gained support & enemies.
(16) Trump made use of loan subsidies from the FHA not long after the program was initiated by FDR in '34. By '36, Trump had 400 workers building homes selling for $3,000-$6,250.
In the late 1930s, he used the Trump Show Boat yacht to advertise off the shore of Coney Island.
(17) During World War II and until the 1980s, Fred Trump denied that he spoke German and claimed that he was of Swedish origin. According to Trump's nephew, John Walter, "He had a lot of Jewish tenants and it wasn't a good thing to be German in those days."
(18) Elisabeth & her 3 children were a closeted Deutsche family, who were raised speaking Deutsch.
They likely lost family in the fatherland during WW I, & were severely hurt by the US declaration of war on Germany.
As WW II began, did they still have loyalty to the Reich?
(19) During World War II, Fred Trump built barracks & garden apartments for U.S. Navy personnel near major shipyards along the East Coast.
In 1954, The @nytimes included Trump on a list of 35 city builders accused of war profiteering from government contracts.
(20) Fred Trump & his partner were cited as examples of how profits were made by builders using the FHA.
The two paid $34,200 for land that they rented to their corp. for $76,960/y in a 99y lease. If the apartments they built ever defaulted, the FHA would owe them $1.924M.
(21) In 1966, Fred Trump was again investigated for windfall profiteering, this time by NY's State Investigation Commission. After Trump overestimated building costs sponsored by a state program, he profited $598,000 on equipment rentals, which he had spent on other projects.
(22) So both of Fred Trump's parents likely had relatives that fought for Germany during the first World War. The rebirth of the KKK also appealed to him.
It's not far fetched to believe he would say, "You also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."
(23) Entrenched in both local KKK and family Nazi propaganda during WW II, it's also easy to see Fred Trump not being offended by the antisemitic cry, "Jews will not replace us" or the Nazi cry, "Blood and soil".
(24) It takes some Chutzpah to con the US Navy on housing contracts during World War II.
Later, he would bribe a doctor to falsify medical records to keep his second son out of the Vietnam draft.
He also favored McCarthyism, and hired McCarthy's fixer, Roy Cohn.
(25) The life of Fred Trump sheds light on the enigma of Donald Trump.
His first wife said Donald kept a book of Hitler's speeches on his nightstand.
He and his friend Marie Brenner, later confirmed that Marty Davis gave it to him.
Wake up! Wake up!
businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-…
(26) Credits:
Bavarian State Archives
@businessinsider
cinefania.com
greenwood.com
infoaut.org
@nytimes
@PolitiFact
@Wikipedia
businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-…
newyorkalmanack.com/2020/01/1920s-…
nytimes.com/2020/09/05/us/…
politifact.com/article/2019/a…
(27) @threadreaderapp unroll
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