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In this fourth installment, the book Hitler’s Aristocrats: The Secret Power Players in Britain and America Who Supported the Nazis, 1923–1941 by Susan Ronald prompts a discussion about those mentioned in relation to Connecticut historical figures.
Here, the contextual ties involve Philip Johnson in New Canaan, the architect of the famous Glass House in New Canaan with a Nazi past, and Burton Tremaine, the Meriden industrialist and post-WWII art collector. Both have recently been in the Connecticut and New York news.
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.)
The 21st century Johnson-Tremaine history context
It is known that Johnson, Burton and Burton's third wife Emily (m. 1945) had had somewhat extensive arts contact after WWII, but it’s not confirmed that Burton and Philip, both Blue Bookers from Cleveland, actually knew each other, and were friendly before WWII. But they definitely knew of each other.
Who knew who and when became a critical issue last year when the Tremaine-Johnson history controversy in Madison erupted into outrage in the town. The controversy concerned a special zoning exclusion request for a property that the Tremaines formerly resided in, with a design feature by Johnson on the property. This was regarding a proposal for the property to be transformed into an arts-and-event venue in a residential area. There was concern about traffic, noise, and layer upon layer of Nazi allegations. The case is currently in appeal in the Connecticut Superior Court.
The Architect's Newspaper listed the situation among its top 2024 international architecture world controversies.
When Burton or Emily became friendly with Philip Johnson became an issue of historical note, and under what circumstances, with the toxic tentacles of Hitler's Aristocrats whipping wildly. It was publicly known that both Burton and Nazi-loving Philip came from Cleveland society in the abstract, and that was about it.
From Connecticut to Cleveland: Did the Johnsons and Tremaines know each other and how well?
The Johnsons were described as a "prominent family" in Cleveland newspapers. Philip's father Homer was a very connected corporate lawyer, and his mother, a socialite, went to Wellesley and was active in the administration of women's and society clubs. Anyone in the 1930s even occasionally reading the Cleveland Plain Dealer or The Cleveland Press society pages or news articles couldn’t avoid the Johnsons. Through the 1930s, sometimes weekly, one of the Johnsons— Philip's father, mother, his two sisters, or Philip himself— were mentioned in some way, as a newspaper search shows.
In contrast, various Tremaines were also mentioned on the society pages and regarding business matters, although not as frequently as the Johnsons.
Burton's father, also named Burton, was a prominent industrialist at General Electric, the entrepreneurial leader of the lighting division since the 1910s.
In Cleveland, in the early 1930s, Johnson and Tremaine women belonged to the Junior League, including Burton’s first wife, with Philip’s older sister Jeannette at one time its president. In 1931, for example, Philip gave a talk on Modern architecture to the women's group. So, as we see, at the very least, the Johnsons and the Tremaines very likely knew of each other.
The Johnsons and Tremaines also lived just a few blocks from each other in upscale Cleveland Heights— for years with the Johnson family living at 2171 Overlook Road with a view of Cleveland. The 1935 Cleveland Blue Book shows Burton and his first wife and two children living at 2704 Derbyshire, with Burton's brother Alan Tremaine and his wife living at 2700. But by this time, Burton actually worked and lived in New York and Connecticut, visiting Cleveland occasionally.
Philip and Burton coincidentally also lived in New York in the early 1930s. Burton shared an apartment with two other men, and he was the Miller Company of Meriden’s New York representative. He was noted to fly to work from New York to Meriden, and also to Cleveland, where his young family with two kids lived.
Burton moved to Connecticut to take the Miller Company CEO position in May 1934, replacing Michael Schwarz, a longtime employee at the company.
At this time, Burton’s father with the same name, Burton, is shown to be living in the posh Wade Park Manor apartment building in eastern Cleveland, overlooking a park. The building itself also for a time was the residence of both the German and Hungarian consuls. The German consul, Karl Kapp and his wife, weren’t there long though, later moving into a house in suburban Shaker Heights, another upscale destination south of Cleveland Heights.
Tremaines with the toxic tentacles of Hitler’s Aristocrats nearby
Burton’s father, as mentioned, was a key figure at General Electric, which when one looks into critical business history emerges as having been in a Nazi-era business tie-up. In the 1920s and 1930s, General Electric was a focus in scholar Antony Sutton's Wall Street and the rise of Hitler (1976). Burton’s father is not mentioned, but his management colleagues Owen Young and Gerard Swope are. There are numerous mentions in Sutton's book. General Electric and Owen Young are also mentioned in Hitler's Aristocrats.
But note, determining anything beyond seemingly close business associations, including impactful decision-making, would require an advanced level of research.
Burton's father was on the GE Board as a director, and active with the company to some extent, even though by 1933 he had turned 70 years old. He spent a lot of time at an Arizona ranch property, but was noted as infrequently involved at General Electric still holding a board of director's position until his death in 1948.
Younger Burton working in New York and Meriden was noted for a time to be somewhat close to David Swope, a New York area residential housing developer and son of Gerard Swope, CEO of General Electric. Swope was referred to often in Sutton's Wall Street and the rise of Hitler.
In the early fall of 1932, Burton flew cross-country together in a small plane from Meriden and New York to the Tremaine family ranch in Arizona, with multiple stops including Cleveland. David Swope took on the role as navigator. Then they flew back. The two learned to fly planes out of what later became the small Meriden Markham Airport.
At this juncture, who knows about the mix of personal and business views among Burton's father, Burton, father-and-son Gerard and David Swope, Owen Young, and any GE decision-makers enthusiastic about the business of German and Nazi business tie-ups, or against it.
But we can agree that Burton and his father were, at the least, uncomfortably close to the toxic tentacles of Hitler’s Aristocrats. History and research shows us not to make quick judgments; well-placed people can turn out to be not involved in initiatives, looking the other way, and sometimes to actually have been eyes-and-ears spies passing on important intelligence.
Philip Johnson slipping into pro-Nazi madness
Reported by national wire services in December 1934, Cleveland society watchers definitely knew that Philip Johnson left his architecture curator position at the Museum of Modern Art in New York to follow strongman Huey Long, democratic governor of Louisiana. Across the country, a wave of coverage reported on this with a photo of Johnson and his friend Alan Blackburn, also a Long supporter.
Through 1936, Philip was also reported extensively in Ohio newspapers to have aligned to Father Coughlin, then another left-oriented strongman figure, as Coughlin’s Ohio representative. Coughlin is also shortlisted in Hitler's Aristocrats.
1938: Tremaines return from Europe; Philip in High Nazi mode
As noted in the last installment, Burton and his second wife Sally Tremaine went on their honeymoon right after Henry Ford received a medal from Hitler during his 75th birthday celebration. A month later, Burton's Miller Company celebrated a deal with the Ford Motor Company in the town newspaper via an advertisement. The two Tremaines went to Europe for six weeks to unspecified countries. They returned to New York on September 12, 1938, on the S. S. Normandie out of Le Havre, France.
If Burton and Philip Johnson, who also was in Europe, met up in Paris or elsewhere, is not yet known.
Philip was in Europe and also Germany, attending a Nuremberg rally and whatnot. He returned to New York on September 26, 1938, traveling first class on the S. S. Bremen with his pal, Viola Bodenschatz and her husband. Viola was the sister-in-law of Herman Goering’s former adjutant, and Goering’s long-time friend. (Goering is another one of the shortlisted Hitler’s Aristocrats, convicted after WWII at the main Nuremberg trial, sentenced to execution via hanging, and committed suicide just beforehand.)
Just three days after Viola's arrival in New York, she was called out as a Nazi propagandist by the U. S. House investigating un-American activities in Washington, DC, reported in the national newspapers. (In 1942, she was convicted as an unregistered foreign agent.)
Also travelling in first class on the S. S. Bremen were a who’s who of Nazi embassy and consular officials working in the Americas. They included Hans Borchers, German Consul to New York, and previously the German Consul to Cleveland until 1933. Also on the ship was Georg Gyssling, the consul to Los Angeles whom Emily Hall Tremaine encountered regarding her hosting the Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha (see part I).
The German consul to Montreal and later Philadelphia was also there, as was Hans Dieckhoff, German Ambassador to the United States, a later contact of Johnson's. Further, the German ambassadors to Mexico and another responsible for seemingly all of Central America were on the ship. The Japanese ambassador to Chile was also travelling first class.
In other words, Philip was travelling with Nazi officials, and a likely Japanese ally, later known for facilitating the mass espionage out of America through Texas into Mexico and Latin America with the final destination: Berlin.
Knoedler art gallery dealer Charles R. Henschel from New York City was also on the ship.
Unfortunately, U. S. Gestapo head Herbert Scholz and his Nazi vixen / alleged spy wife weren’t on this voyage of the S. S. Bremen to join in on the festivities. But we can assume they were there in spirit. (See part three.)
Back to Father Coughlin, a rabid anti-semite on the airwaves, and Philip Johnson
Prior to Philip’s trip to Germany in 1938, in 1935-37, Philip based himself in Cleveland and the family farm about 60 miles away southwest of the city. Philip had fascist political aspirations— basically a desire for power; first he dove into the authoritarian left, and then he swung far right. He teamed up with another of Hitler’s Aristocrats, Father Charles Coughlin based in Detroit.
The Cleveland social set and business elite knew this. It was in the papers. He was the son of big corporate lawyer Homer Johnson and reported as such.
Coughlin had a national radio program in the 1930s, with an audience share reputed to have been the largest ever in America. Johnson also took to the airwaves on radio stations in Ohio for two years.
Six weeks after Johnson returned from Germany, both he and Coughlin appear to have turned full-tilt Nazi. This was bizarrely right after Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938, when Germany attacked the Jews, and many synagogues were burned to the ground.
About ten days afterwards, Coughlin blamed the Jews on his radio program. (Listen to Coughlin’s shocking radio rant starting at 24:45.)
This didn’t seem to bother Philip Johnson. He opted to write for Coughlin’s now pro-Nazi magazine Social Justice without any reservations. He travelled back to seemingly glorious Germany again in 1939. He cheered the Nazi advance into Poland with such energy, such enthusiasm, as if coming straight from his soul.
> 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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