Gerald Burton Winrod

Biography

He was born on March 7, 1900, to Mable E. (1881–1971), originally from Illinois, and John W. Winrod (1873–1945), originally from Missouri. His father, John, was a former bartender whose saloon was attacked by Carrie Nation.

In 1918, he was the chief clerk at the Kansas Gas and Electric Company in El Dorado, Kansas. By 1925, he formed the Defenders of the Christian Faith, a fundamentalist Christian-fascist organization that opposed teaching evolution in public schools, supported Prohibition, opposed homosexuality, and expressed support for racial segregation. Defenders of the Christian Faith existed in Kansas at least up to 1980, though many offshoots in Topeka, Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City were expected to exist.

Winrod professed strongly antisemitic views, earning him the nickname "The Jayhawk Nazi" ("Jayhawk" being a nickname for a person from Kansas). Winrod offered the following defense of his views in the introduction to his book The Truth About the Protocols which proclaimed the veracity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Winrod believed the United States to be the chosen land of God and, when the Great Depression struck, publicly stated that it was the work of Satan. He believed Franklin D. Roosevelt was a "devil" linked with the Jewish-Communist conspiracy, that the New Deal was a Jewish plot predicted by the Protocols, and that Hitler would save Europe from Communism. Winrod wrote in his book The Jewish Assault on Christianity, published in 1935 by a publishing company in Topeka, Kansas: The book was met with positive reception by many Christians at the time. Winrod would go on to say that he believed Jews were damned to hell, and that Jesus Christ condemned them in the Bible. He expanded upon these views, stating the following: Winrod spread these views through his newspaper, The Defender, which by 1937 achieved a 100,000 monthly circulation. Some of the articles reproduced materials from the pro-Nazi and virulently antisemitic international Welt-Dienst/World-Service/Service Mondial news agency founded in 1933 by Ulrich Fleischhauer.

Winrod ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate during the 1938 elections, but was defeated in the Republican primary when a popular former governor Clyde M. Reed was lured from retirement by the party establishment to run against him. With 21.4% of the vote, Winrod was a distant third after Reed and Dallas Knapp of Coffeyville, Kansas, winning only 6 of 105 counties, all of which had been heavily associated with the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.

Winrod developed a strong following among German-speaking Kansas Mennonites who identified with his religious, anti-World War II, and pro-Germany views. The Defender was printed by Mennonite-owned Herald Publishing Company of Newton, Kansas from 1931 to 1942. Winrod found support in Bethel College and Tabor College and from editors of local Mennonite papers, and some Mennonite precincts voted predominantly for Winrod in the 1938 Senate primary.

According to the 1941 Theologue, the yearbook of Practical Bible Training School (now Davis College) located outside Binghamton, New York, Winrod was a member of the school's administration. No details are given as to what Winrod's duties were. In 1942, the federal government indicted Winrod for sedition, alleging conspiracy against the U.S. government. The political aspect in attempting to suppress free speech troubled civil libertarians in what critics derided as the Great Sedition Trial. The death of the judge ended the trial in 1944. The government decided not to renew the prosecution, so Winrod and his fellow defendants were freed.{{rp|214-215}

Winrod, a lifelong proponent of faith healing who refused to see a physician, died of pneumonia on November 11, 1957, in Wichita, Kansas. He was buried in that city's White Chapel Memorial Gardens.

Family

In 1940, Winrod's wife sued for divorce. Their son Gordon (1926–2018) was a Christian Identity minister who was arrested for kidnapping in 2000.

References

Footnotes

Sources

References

1. Hart, Bradley W.. (2018). "Hitler's American Friends".
2. Winrod in the [[1910 US census]] living in Wichita, Kansas
3. [[World War I]] draft registration; September 12, 1918
4. "''American Jewish Yearbook'', covering the period from July 1, 1938 to June 30, 1939, pg. 216".
5. "Defenders of the Christian Faith v. BD. OF CTY. COMMR.".
6. "The Winrod Legacy of Hate". [[Anti-Defamation League]].