George W. Christians | |
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| Born | August 5, 1888 Eldred, New York, U.S. |
| Died | June 27, 1983 (aged 94) Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute |
| Occupation | Engineer |
| Known for | Founder of the Crusader White Shirts |
George William Christians (August 5, 1888 – June 27, 1983) was an American engineer in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who lost a fortune in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and afterwards launched a "paper and ink" campaign for a "revolution for economic liberty" in the United States.[1]
He deliberately adopted extreme and sometimes contradictory political positions in order to publicize his economic ideas. He founded the American Reds and then changed their name to the American Fascists when fascism began to rise. He also founded the Crusader White Shirts, an organization that allied itself with fascist causes. He defended the Nazi Oscar C. Pfaus, and the American Jewish press spoke of him in the same breath as American anti-Semites; but the journalist John Roy Carlson, who spent years undercover in the American right, wrote that Christians was anti-Catholic but not anti-Semitic.
In 1938, he described himself as so "red" (communist) that he made Russian "reds" look yellow, and planned a new American revolution for a visit by President Roosevelt to Chattanooga, which would take place under cover of darkness and during which his men would raise the red flag from the city courthouse.
He was arrested in 1942, after the United States entered World War II, and charged with sending seditious material to officers of the U.S. Army. He was convicted in the first trial of its kind during the war and sentenced to five years in prison with a recommendation by the judge that he not be released until after the war was over. From his jail cell, he repudiated his methods but not his beliefs.