I always got the impression that the Ku Klux Klan for the most part (not its far-right descendants) was primarily an anti-Black group that upheld White Supremacy in the Southeastern USA and later on expanded to the Midwest to curtail non-Protestant immigration. With the exception of the lynching of Leo Frank, I never heard about anti-Semitic activities from the KKK. There was also a high-ranking Jewish senator from the Confederate States of America by the name of Judah P. Benjamin; the KKK members were originally disaffected CSA veterans. The only civil war anti-Semitic activity was Grant's expulsion which was from the union.
Anyway enough rambling. My main point is that was Anti-Semitism among the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups due to Nazi influence? Was it because of a more ancient anti-semitism present in the United States? Or was it something the film made up?
The history of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States is an interesting one, and modern historiography has largely identified that there have been three broad 'iterations' of the KKK.
The first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865 by ex-confederates and drew heavily on popular conceptions of secret societies popular throughout the Anglosphere at the time. This iteration largely sought to exclude newly freed blacks from reconstruction society and maintain the social hierarchy of the U.S South. Various cells of the Klan carried out assassinations, cross-burnings, lynchings, and vandalism throughout the South. Political violence during this time was present throughout the country, but was especially bad in Louisiana: during the election period of 1868 over 800 political assassinations were carried out by the KKK or other elements who opposed Reconstruction. This iteration of the Klan was largely dissipated by the end of the 1870s, following the end of Reconstruction in 1877. While some local branches of the Klan may have resembled later iterations in anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant rhetoric, the general goal was to dis-empower newly freed Blacks and Reconstruction Republicans in the South.
The Second iteration arose in the late 1910s, and is characterized by Leonard Moore as "a temporary but powerful outpouring of ethnic nationalism..." (Moore, 33). This iteration rhetorically defined itself broadly as anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-communist, and anti-immigrant. However, Moore argues that this wave of the Klan also tried to define itself positively, as an American national populist group and a much broader membership than the earlier iteration. So already in the second iteration we can see Klan roots of anti-Semitism. This iteration was broadly prevalent across White Protestant society and in politics at the time, especially with the Progressive movement which was attempting to enforce Prohibition. This populist movement was dominant throughout the early 1920s, and ended around 1929.
This brings us to the Third Iteration of the KKK, which began as a response to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. This iteration has been present into the 1970s, during which the film in question takes place. The anti-Semitism of the modern Klan is certainly fueled by neo-Nazi ideology, with a strong overlap between the modern Klan and other neo-Nazi or White Supremacist groups. During the 1970s, however, the national Klan was far from its prominence in the late 50s due to a public perception of violence caused by the repression of civil rights activists in the 60s, as well as Federal investigations. The overlap between the KKK and neo-Nazi or White Supremacist groups has been noted by historians, including John Drabble, who argue that following the successful COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE operation conducted by the FBI, the KKK concluded that the Federal government had been subverted, and turned rhetorically to a broader White Supremacist/Anti-Government message. The COINTELPRO operations which targeted the Klan and sowed factionalism throughout the national Klan led to its fragmentation and increasing marginalization and radicalization. Estimates of the third Klan membership have its peak in 1967 with 14-15,000 members. This number had dropped to 4300 by 1971.
To conclude, the modern Klan's anti-Semitic tendencies were present in earlier iterations, but certainly have their roots in newer conceptions of White Supremacy, which tend to derive from popularized Nazi ideology.
Works Cited:
Drabble, John. “From White Supremacy to White Power: The FBI, COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE, and the Nazification of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s.” American Studies, vol. 48, no. 3, 2007, pp. 49–74. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40644149. Accessed 25 May 2020.
Moore, Leonard Joseph. Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928. University of North Carolina Press, 1991. JSTOR, https://mcgill.on.worldcat.org/oclc/45727836. Accessed 25 May 2020.
Moore, Leonard Joseph. "Notes from HIST393: US Civil War and Reconstruction." McGill University. Fall 2019.