The Jewish & Redneck Gangsters that Beat the KKK: Charlie Birger w/ Jake Hanrahan

The Underworld Podcast

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 871 Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2022

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the era of prohibition, Charlie Birger built a bootlegging and gambling empire in southern Illinois, otherwise known as little Cairo. He charmed women, passed out money to children and poor families, bought off all the police and politicians...and killed anyone who got in his way. But he wasn't the only building an army in 1920's rural Illinois. The second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan was on the rise and enacting their own version of vigilante justice, attacking bootleggers, immigrants, and anyone who didn't fit into their version of America. The Birger Gang wasn't having it. War was coming. Danny is joined by Jake Hanrahan of Popular Front. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	At Barclays, we're here for the land of football.
0:06.4	We're here for the Premier League.
0:09.0	And the Barclays Women's Super League.
0:12.1	We're here for the football chance for giving more girls a chance. We're
0:18.0	here for the grassroots and all the muddy boots. From schools to stadiums we're here for it all.
0:27.3	Barclays here for the land of football.
0:30.5	April 19th, 1928 in Southern Illinois.
0:34.0	500 people are watching Charlie Berger, Russian Jewish immigrant, former soldier, cowboy, bootlegger,
0:40.0	bank robber, and gangster warlord of Southern Illinois, walked the 100 feet or so to the gallows.
0:46.4	He stops to shake hands with various people in the crowd, smiles at everyone, doesn't seem
0:50.7	like he has a care in the world. Berger's been a beloved figure here for a decade.
0:55.0	He kept the bars full of whiskey, tossed out money and ice cream the children,
0:59.0	he would even slip an envelope of money under the door of a poor family's house.
1:02.0	He had a bit of a reputation as a
1:04.2	Robin Hood figure and he was also charismatic as all hell, good-looking sharp and tough as nails.
1:10.0	It wasn't all smiles though. Berger had a lot of enemies. He was fond of saying, I never
1:16.1	killed a man who didn't deserve killing. But of course, you know, that's like an opinion.
1:20.6	Once he killed two men in the span of four days and got away with it too.
1:24.0	He had this habit of letting his rivals issue threats so that when he took them out he could claim self-defense.
1:30.0	It didn't hurt that he had plenty of cops and politicians on his payroll.
1:34.8	Berger also wasn't shy about his criminal exploits.
1:37.6	He once claimed he couldn't go to jail after an arrest because he needed to kill a rival
	...

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