The Agitator: William Bailey and the First American Uprising against Nazism

by Peter Duffy

Overview

This story of an anti-fascist's dramatic and remarkable victory against Nazism in 1935 is an inspiration to anyone compelled to resist when signs of oppression are on the horizon

By 1935, Hitler had suppressed all internal opposition and established himself as Germany's unchallenged dictator. Yet many Americans remained largely indifferent as he turned his dangerous ambitions abroad. Not William Bailey.

Just days after violent anti-Semitic riots had broken out in Berlin, the SS Bremen, the flagship of Hitler's commercial armada, was welcomed into New York Harbor. Bailey led a small group that slipped past security and cut down the Nazi flag from the boat in the middle of a lavish party. A brawl ensued, followed by a media circus and a trial, in which Bailey and his team were stunningly acquitted. The political victory ultimately exposed Hitler's narcissism and violent aggression for all of America to see.

The Agitator is the captivating story of Bailey's courage and vision in the Bremen incident, the pinnacle of a life spent battling against fascism. Bailey's story is full of drama and heart--and it's an inspiration to anyone who seeks to resist tyranny.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541762312
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	03/19/2019
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Peter Duffy is an author and journalist based in New York City. He has written three books of historical non-fiction — The Bielski Brothers (HarperCollins, 2003); The Killing of Major Denis Mahon (HarperCollins, 2007); and Double Agent (Scribner, 2014). His journalism has appeared in the New York Times, New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, the New Republic, and many other publications.

Editorial Reviews

02/25/2019

In this well-told history, journalist Duffy (Double Agent) recounts a little-known incident of American protest against the Third Reich. In July 1935, a small group of Communist Party members and fellow travelers, led by a young merchant seaman named Bill Bailey, crashed a huge reception on the German luxury liner SS Bremen, berthed at a New York dock. They tore down its swastika flag and tossed it into New York Harbor to protest the Third Reich’s violence against Jews and dissidents. Duffy profiles Bailey in depth: a “slum kid from a destitute Irish family, a reformed juvenile delinquent with a Hell’s Kitchen twang who developed a political conscience” who went on to be an actor and to defy the House Un-American Activities Committee. Duffy places the event in context (including the summer 1935 Berlin pogrom against Jews known as the Kurfürstandamn riots) and recounts how Bailey and his comrades (the Bremen Six) were acquitted of charges of violence and unlawful assembly thanks to popular support, a skilled defense team headed by the communist congressman Vito Marcantonio, and a sympathetic judge, Louis Brodsky. Duffy also contrasts their action with the diplomatic diffidence of the State Department, which apologized to Berlin three times for the incident. The Bremen protest was a fascinating event, and Duffy’s account of it is pleasaing and brisk. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2018-12-11

A biography of an important 20th-century activist who was one of the first to stand up to "the well-publicized injustices of the Third Reich."

The subject of Duffy's (Double Agent: The First Hero of World War II and How the FBI Outwitted and Destroyed a Nazi Spy Ring, 2014, etc.) latest is Bill Bailey (1915-1995), a merchant seaman with little formal education who joined the American Communist Party as a teenager and became increasingly angry about the U.S. government appeasing Hitler during 4his rise to power and subsequent comprehensive repression of any form of dissent. Bailey's fleeting fame occurred when he and a few like-minded Nazi haters boarded the Bremen, "the flagship of Hitler's commercial armada," in New York Harbor in 1935. A dress-up party was in progress to celebrate the departure of the massive ship. Bailey and his colleagues had devised a plan to scale the mast and remove the Nazi flag, which featured a swastika. The plan succeeded, becoming "the first blow landed against the Third Reich by foreign adversaries, delivered without guns or bomb, years before America, or any country, chose to take military action against a regime that was already signaling its treacherous intentions." However, local authorities, feeling duty-bound to protect a foreign vessel against politically oriented trespassers, arrested Bailey and a few accomplices. Throughout the narrative, Duffy offers detailed sections about the Bremen and its impressive luxury, the duties of merchant mariners, the American Communist Party, Hitler's rise, the German persecution of Jews, and the failure of most Americans—including President Franklin Roosevelt—to counteract the evils of Nazism in the early 1930s. In addition, the author critiques the criminal justice system as he provides detailed coverage of the trial that resulted in the acquittals of Bailey and his colleagues. After the acquittal, Bailey remained a political activist, union organizer, and merchant mariner, serving in World War II. For the last few decades of his life, he remained out of the spotlight.

A well-fleshed-out biography featuring an appropriate amount of historical context.

Kirkus Reviews