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Over 400 pages, Hitler’s Aristocrats: The Secret Power Players in Britain and America Who Supported the Nazis, 1923–1941 features a star-studded cast of charlatans from the social set and business, and politicians. As previewed in the book promo, “Hitler’s Aristocrats uncovers the battle between these influencers and those who heroically opposed them.” (See the list of key players.)
Among the selection, book author Susan Ronald points to a number of associates of former Nazi agent Philip Johnson (1906-2005), whose Glass House site in New Canaan was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997.
In this second installment, Hitler’s Aristocrats is positioned as a prompt to focus on social and business interactions and contexts of Philip Johnson, and in a wider sense occasionally Burton Tremaine, also from Cleveland. Both have recently been in the Connecticut and New York news.
There are many unanswered questions about their 1930s. The goal is the identification of a fuller list of available sources with integrity, enabling stronger, fact-based accounts of the acclaimed historical arts figures— during a complex and very opaque time.
Cleveland-Detroit Nazi Madness
Aileen Winslow was a top social leader in Cleveland, where Blue Bookers Philip Johnson and Burton Tremaine came from. Cleveland had its number of Nazi supporters; The History of the Cleveland Nazis: 1933 – 1945 (2016), over 250 pages, details that with somewhat of an emphasis on the working classes and the German-American Bund, with sections on the German consuls to Cleveland and stray pro-Nazi academics.
In late March 1940, it was reported that Aileen hosted a dinner party and reception for the touring Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha at her posh farm just outside of the city. In Ronald’s book, the Duke is noted as one of Hitler’s Aristocrats. In fact, he was a key one.
A few weeks later, the Duke was hosted for an event at the villa of Connecticut art lady Emily Hall Tremaine (previously Speckels), while she lived in Santa Barbara before WWII. This is the focus in Part I.
Adding a Cleveland context, there were a number of events for the Duke while he was in the city. Aileen’s small dinner party for 12 in his honor included the German consul to Cleveland, Karl Kapp and his wife, a fascist academic and some of Aileen's friends.
Aileen had been in the London expat diplomatic crowd, and she previously wrote the biography of another figure in Hitler's Aristocrats, American socialite Wallis Simpson, before the marriage. Aileen wrote this biography under a pseudonym.
From the 1920s, elite Cleveland-Detroit businesses were at times tied to German business tie-ups, including Alcoa, General Electric, Ford Motor Company, and General Motors for starters. Historical newspapers detail the company scandals at length, as the German regime changed to Nazi starting in 1933. Henry Ford and GM’s CEO Mooney are featured in Hitler’s Aristocrats. In the 1930s, sometimes the two CEOs were celebrated; at other times, they were despised.
Philip Johnson's father Homer was very tied into Alcoa, and Philip owned a substantial amount of stock in the company. He also promoted aluminum as building cladding in his co-curated 1932 Modern Architecture exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The show travelled to other museums, including in Cleveland and Hartford, CT. Homer was noted as on the exhibition committee.
General Electric, also in a German company tie-up, is also mentioned in Ronald’s book. Burton Tremaine's father was an entrepreneurial force behind the lighting division from the 1910s and into the early 1930s.
As the decade progressed, the toxic tentacles of Hitler’s Aristocrats were seemingly everywhere in Cleveland business and society.
Charles Bedaux: Adventurer, Industrial Management Guru, And Dodgy AF
Also from Cleveland and featured in Hitler’s Aristocrats, Charles Bedaux started his industrial management consultancy business there in 1918, which quickly went national, then international.
Inserting a Philip Johnson context: Bedaux’s early clients included two companies that had Philip’s father, Homer Johnson, as a director.
Homer Johnson (1862-1960) was “Mr. Cleveland”, as Philip described him without exaggeration. Homer was a corporate lawyer in a top law firm that he owned in the city, started in the late 1880s. Homer had been the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and he was often reported to be at business and social events with higher-tier society, with ties to Washington, DC.
Homer studied law at Harvard and Johnson’s mother studied art history at Wellesley. Homer, Johnson’s mother, and Philip's two sisters were reported almost weekly through the 1930s in the newspapers regarding business and society matters.
It’s unclear exactly when Bedaux later moved to France and how often he and his second wife Fern were in Cleveland. Bedaux ended up in France by the 1930s and entangled with Nazis. He may be most known for hosting the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Edward and Wallis, at his renovated chateau in 1937.
Wallis’s old pal Aileen Winslow, from Cleveland, visited Wallis while staying at Bedaux’s chateau before the marriage, with Bedaux and Fern there. This was recorded in Wallis’s diary.
Upon Aileen’s return to Cleveland, she apparently wouldn’t say a word about the Duke and Duchess, at least that was said by her columnist pal Winsor French at The Cleveland Press. (In his reporting, or rather gossip from the 1930s, Winsor could be considered Philip's gay nemesis— in a sort of battle of the bitchy Blue Book gays.)
It’s unclear how much contact Charles and Fern Bedeaux had had with Cleveland social leader Aileen Winslow over the years, let alone if Philip and Burton knew her personally, or to what extent.
Meeting Hitler, with US trip scheduled to follow
Later that year, Bedaux then helped Wallis and Edward meet Hitler, and on that occasion, the phenomenon of Hitler’s Aristocrats was set; its iconic photographs of the three meeting in Germany are truly disturbing. One of these photos made Ronald's book cover, shown above.
The Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha (detailed in part 1 of this review), a British royal and Hitler ally, was Edward’s cousin, and also involved in their visit to Germany.
The plan afterwards was to bring Edward and Wallis to America to meet a varied group of American industrialists that Bedaux knew. This included a stop in Cleveland. This trip across America for the pro-Nazi dream team was however cancelled. Union protests erupted against Bedaux, because of negative views on his methods to increase worker productivity.
Who in Cleveland would have hosted events? Who in business and society in Cleveland would have been invited to attend such events? Would that have included Philip Johnson, likely in Cleveland at that time, or maybe he'd have attended the events in New York? This historical documentation has not yet been identified.
Dancing with Nazis shaped Bedaux’s fate. He was arrested by the French in North Africa at the U. S. request while working on a project in North Africa in 1943.
On January 13, 1943, The Cleveland Press ran a United Press wire service article about the arrest on the front page. Following it was a short additioned article, "Bedaux well-known to many in Cleveland". They wrote, "Charles E. Bedaux is well-known to a number of Cleveland manufacturers, engineers and cost accountants... He made his headquarters at 4300 Euclid avenue."
A year later while detained in Miami, Bedaux ended up “committing suicide”.
Bedaux was thought to be knowledgeable about a vast number of his clients, including American businessmen, and their ties to Nazi Germany. It was thought that he potentially even had sensitive personal information on the businessmen, aligned to the Nazi MO.
After Bedaux's death, in the declassified military intelligence file on him, it was thought that some of his important documentation may have gone missing while he was in custody.
This was queried by a woman that presumably worked at one of Bedeaux's companies. She was requesting a formal statement for Bedaux's surviving family that, towards the end, Bedaux passed on important information to U. S. intelligence authorities.
Missing documentation? Sound familiar?
The toxic tentacles of Hitler’s Aristocrats were potentially deep— and sometimes swinging wildly.
> See: Ronald, Susan. (2023). Hitler’s Aristocrats. St. Martin’s Press. 464 pp.
Six installments, Hitler's Artistocrats et al.: part 1 | 2a | 2b | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | + Assassination Plot | + Martha & Hitler | + Thomas W. Lamont
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