John C. Schafer
American politician (1893-1962)
John Charles Schafer (May 7, 1893 – June 9, 1962) was an American railroad operator and Republican politician from Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. He served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Wisconsin's 4th congressional district from 1923 to 1933, and from 1939 to 1941. Initially a member of the progressive faction of Republicans, Schafer fell out with progressive leadership after the death of U.S. senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. and then became a supporter of the stalwart faction. Late in his career, he drifted into extreme anti-communism and was a defender of the Nazi German American Bund in the lead-up to World War II. Schafer was a member of the Steuben Society, a German American group that later came out in favor of Nazism.
Earlier in his career, he served one term in the Wisconsin State Assembly (1921). He was noted for his large physical presence, booming voice, and pompadour hairstyle; he was described as weighing 270 lbs in 1928.
Early life and war service
John C. Schafer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1893. He attended West Allis High School until his junior year, when he dropped out to go to work as an office boy at the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, and eventually went to work on the assembly line.
When the United States entered World War I, Schafer enlisted in the United States Army with the 13th Engineer Regiment.
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This entry incorporates text from “John C. Schafer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.