Assemblyman Wisniewski to speak at former Nazi camp

Assemblyman John Wisniewski will be joining Democrat candidates Kate Matteson and Gina Trish tonight (at 6:30) at the former Camp Nordland in Andover Township, New Jersey.  The event will be held in one of the buildings that housed the National Socialist Bund in the 1930's and 40's. 

We recently had correspondence from a reader who drew our attention to the fact that it was a member of the local political establishment back in the 1930's, Newton lawyer William Dolan, who handled the land transaction that granted that American Nazi group control of the land that became Camp Nordland.  Mr. Dolan was then the sitting State Senator of Sussex County, a Democrat, at a time when each county had one state senator. 

According to a scholar at the University of Michigan, " New Jersey Congressman J. Parnell Thomas, Republican of Sussex, noted that New Jersey State Senator William Dolan, a Democrat, had aided the Bund in buying Nordland and that the Democratic Township Committee of Andover had granted Nordland a liquor license." 

According to historian and author Warren Grover, Camp Nordland in Andover Township was incorporated in March 1937.  Fritz Kuhn, the American Fuehrer himself, was one of the eight trustees of Camp Nordland.  When the camp formally opened in July, State Senator Dolan was introduced by the American Nazi Bund's New Jersey Bundesleiter, and he greeted the "swastika waving" crowds.  

Dolan was a political enemy of Franklin's Alfred "Bike" Littell, who went on to take his place as State Senator and to serve as Senate President.  Littell, whose education at Princeton University had been interrupted for service in an artillery regiment in World War I, went to war with the American Nazis.   Alfred Littell was the father of Senator Bob Littell, father-in-law of NJ Republican Party Chairwoman Virginia Littell, and the grandfather of Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose.

Wikipedia notes:  "Camp Nordland was a 204-acre resort facility located in Andover Township, New Jersey. From 1937 to 1941, this site was owned and operated by the German American Bund, which sympathized with and propagandized for Nazi Germany in the United States. This resort camp was opened by the Bund on 18 July 1937.  In the years before the Second World War, the Bund held events at the facility to encourage pro-German, pro-Nazi values—many of these events attracting over 10,000 visitors. On 18 August 1940, it was the site of a joint rally with the Ku Klux Klan...  While much of its history and notoriety has faded over the last 70 years, many local residents of Sussex County still refer to the area as the 'bund camp.'"

Here is a short video that provides something of a history lesson for Assemblyman Wisniewski and the Democrats:

The writer Sinclair Lewis published a satirical novel in 1935 called, It Can't Happen Here, two years before it did happen here -- right here, in Andover Township, New Jersey.  It is high time for the Township to acknowledge that history -- as a warning against an ideology that sent so many millions to their deaths.

That's one heck of a venue for Assemblyman Wisniewski and the Democrats' to choose.  Especially given their party's history in establishing the camp.

We thought the Assemblyman was smarter than that.