Fascism for Beginners, Part 4: American Ambivalence

The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble…Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. – Adolf Hitler, from “Mein Kampf” (1925)

This is the last post in my series on fascism, specifically the German “Third Reich.” If you dropped in for the first time, you might want to start with the first post. What I’m trying to do here is understand how and why people expressed enthusiasm for Nazism, or were lulled into indifference, both inside and outside of Germany. A few of the reasons I’ve uncovered include post-World War I fatigue, the Great Depression, German Sonderweg, pre-existing anti-Semitism, and Adolf Hitler’s uncanny ability to practically hypnotize people with oratory and lies. The countries I’ve discussed (very briefly) include Germany, Russia, France, and England.

I’d now like to discuss my home country, America.

It’s true that America joined England, France, and, reluctantly, the Soviets in defeating the Nazis and liberating the concentration camps. And we did so, amazingly, while simultaneously waging a war with Japan. My beautiful mother-in-law likes to say (over and over), “If it wasn’t for our boys in that war, we’d all be speaking German.”

(Danke, mutti).

But as satisfying as it is to wave the flag, especially when we’ve emerged as victors, the buildup to war with Germany was more complicated.

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When President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April 1945, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said “In FDR there died the greatest American friend we have ever known.”

The “Big Three” (Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill) at Tehran Conference in 1943. In addition to being allies, Roosevelt and Churchill were also good friends. Stalin… not so much.

Unlike his boss Woodrow Wilson during the First World War, Roosevelt was committed to assisting England from the moment it was attacked by Germany in 1940 (and even before). In 1937, he proposed quarantining warmongering countries like Germany and Italy. After Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, he extended military aid to Britain and France. And prior to the war’s end, he demanded unconditional surrender from Germany rather than armistice.

Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which changed everything, Roosevelt’s great hurdle in assisting the Allies and bringing down Hitler was an isolationist sentiment that pervaded America. American citizens feared the bloodshed that they’d witnessed in the First World War. Additionally, wealthy capitalists feared communism, and viewed Hitler as a check against its spread. And, just as in Germany, there was an incessant paranoia (and, undoubtedly, envy) about consolidation of power by successful Jews.

The list that follows is just a smattering of groups and individuals that either unwittingly or actively tried to prevent America from assisting the European democracies in putting an end to Hitler and the Third Reich:

Henry Ford: From 1920-22, automobile entrepreneur Ford, one of the most powerful men in America, published an anti-Semitic set of booklets and pamphlets entitled “The International Jew,” warning of an increasing “Jewish menace.” His work caught the notice of a young Hitler.

Ford earned the dubious distinction of being the only American mentioned in Hitler’s 1925 blueprint for Nazism, “Mein Kampf.” And much later, SS chief Heinrich Himmler cited Ford as being “one of our most valuable, important, and witty fighters.”

Henry Ford, dressed to the nines, accepting his Order of the German Eagle award, on his 75th birthday in 1936, the height of Nazism.

U.S. Congress: Even after Germany’s repeated violations of the Treaty of Versailles, politicians from both parties adhered to a policy of non-intervention. Congress passed three Neutrality Acts, from 1935 to 1937, to maintain American isolationism. This was all in the face of Mussolini invading northern Africa, General Francisco Franco and the Falangists (similar to Italy’s Fascisti) revolting against the republican Spanish government, and Hitler’s invasion of the Rhineland.

Charles Lindbergh: Americans adored the aviation hero. He flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean in the “Spirit of St. Louis,” and Americans suffered with him after his young son was murdered.

But Lindbergh possibly exceeded even Ford in both anti-Jewish and pro-Nazi activities. As a member of the isolationist America First Committee, he lobbied against U.S. intervention in Europe and openly defended Hitler’s military aggressions. In one infamous America First speech (60 years to the day before the Twin Towers fell), Lindbergh lectured Jewish groups in America, advising them that U.S. military intervention against Hitler would only hurt European Jews.

Some choice Lindbergh quotes:

(The) greatest danger to this country lies in (Jewish) large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.

(Three groups are) pressing this country toward war: the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration.

We can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood.

Hitler’s destruction would lay Europe open to the rape, loot, and barbarism of Soviet Russia’s forces, causing possibly the fatal wounding of western civilization.

Charles Lindbergh, pushing for non-intervention at an America First Committee rally. Roosevelt was quoted as saying “I am convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi.” After he tagged Lindbergh as being a “defeatist and appeaser,” Lindbergh resigned from the U.S. Army Air Forces.

Lindbergh was a staunch believer in eugenics, and after the war, he fathered seven children by several mistresses to prove it. He was awarded the Order of the German Eagle by the Nazi government (Ford also received this award). He accepted it from Hermann Goering at a dinner in October 1938. Several weeks later occurred Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), the first anti-Jewish pogrom, carried out by Nazi SA troops and German citizens. Even after this, Lindbergh declined to return his award.

Breckinridge Long: Long was assistant secretary of state under Roosevelt. He directed anti-immigrant efforts that effectively barred Jews and others from attaining asylum in the states following their well-publicized persecution in Germany. As late as 1943, when the U.S. government had documented evidence of German atrocities against the Jews, Long gave secret testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that attempted to stifle revisions to harsh immigration policies.

(Maybe the most infamous example of indifference to the Jewish plight occurred in 1938, when the passenger ship St. Louis, loaded with over 900 Jews fleeing Europe, was refused entry at every American port. The ship eventually returned to Europe and unloaded these unfortunate exiles at Antwerp, Belgium… which shortly thereafter was enveloped in a swarm of cockroaches wearing jackboots and swastikas).

Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.: The patriarch of the Kennedy family, Joe Sr. amassed a fortune importing Scotch whisky, transacting real estate, merging film studios, and through insider trading on Wall Street. During his Hollywood tenure, he had a three-year affair with silent film star Gloria Swanson.

In 1938, he was appointed U.S. ambassador to Britain by President Roosevelt, an old friend. He must have made Roosevelt chew off his cigarette holder, because his sails definitely lacked the tack of Jack. He was right there with Neville Chamberlain during the Munich appeasement (see previous post). Then he tried to arrange a clandestine meeting with Hitler, about the same time as Kristallnacht. He argued against military aid to England, famously saying that “democracy is finished” there. He also bragged that he knew “more about the European situation than anyone else.”

Kennedy’s biographers cite numerous examples of his anti-Semitism, some of it confirmed in letters between Kennedy and his friend, Charles Lindbergh. After Roosevelt secured the Catholic vote and was re-elected in 1940, he fired Kennedy. Joe Sr. spent the rest of his life directing his energies toward his sons.

Arch-appeaser and British Ambassador, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.

American Capitalists: As I hinted above, certain American heads of industries were more concerned about Communists than about Germans in the 1930s and early ‘40s. They ran powerful businesses, and weren’t about to see their successes jeopardized by a “Red Menace,” which they felt a far right fascist like Hitler could help suppress.

But there was an even darker side. Many of these corporations did significant business in Hitler’s Germany. Ford Motor Company’s German branch, Ford-Werke, used French POWs as slave labor prior to the U.S. entering the war. Here are some others who nurtured a close relationship with the National Socialists:

James D. Mooney (President of General Motors Overseas): in 1938, Mooney received the Order of the German Eagle. In 1939 he met Nazi officials to discuss GM’s Adam-Opel facility in Germany. He arranged for a meeting between a Goering employee, one Helmut Wohlthat, and Joseph Kennedy, regarding exchanging loans for more open trading possibilities. Mooney resigned from GM after several leading American publications accused him of Nazi sympathies.

Thomas J. Watson Sr. (Chairman and CEO of IBM): in a book called “IBM and the Holocaust,” author Edwin Black argues that Watson willfully ignored Nazi persecution of Jews in a quest for profit. IBM manufactured a punch-card machine that was used by Nazis to tabulate and track Jews in Germany, and later to track inmates within the concentration camps. Watson’s IBM began its business relationship with the Nazis in 1933, the year the party consolidated its power (and established the first concentration camp, at Dachau). Nazi Germany soon became IBM’s biggest customer, right behind the U.S. In 1937, Watson attended an International Chamber of Commerce meeting in Berlin, where he accepted the Order of the German Eagle.

IBM founder, Thomas J. Watson Sr.

Torkild Rieber (Chairman of Texaco): Rieber illegally lent Texaco oil to Francisco Franco after Franco’s fascist uprising in Spain. He also traded oil with Nazi Germany for tankers. In June 1937, President Roosevelt met with him and threatened him with an oil embargo, but Rieber continued to do business with Germany in secret. After the start of the war, and despite a British embargo, Rieber arranged for Columbian oil to be shipped to the Nazis.

The day after France surrendered to Germany, on June 26, 1940, senior executives from Ford, GM, ITT, Texaco, and typewriter pioneer Underwood – including Rieber and Mooney – met with a German businessman and agent named Westrick at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City for a celebratory dinner.

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Question: Before accepting their precious Order of the German Vulture awards, didn’t these obsessive capitalists bother to read “Mein Kampf,” written in 1925, which practically laid out everything Hitler and the National Socialists would do in the next 20 years, including extermination by poison gas? And if so, did they conveniently forget it while shaking hands with Hermann Goering?

Conclusion:

Trying to end this horror story appropriately is a bit of a struggle. It needs a moral, but it begs for someone better equipped than me to offer it. Just a few thoughts before I jump to a sunnier latitude on longitudes:

My friend Tad suggested that the title “Fascism for Dummies” sounds trite and mean-spirited, and I’m inclined to agree. For posterity (blog posts get lots of “hits” long after they’re published) I’m thinking of shortening it to just “Fascism.” But if anyone has a better suggestion, please let me know.

Also, I received a personal email from someone that cynically predicted I would eventually be making Trump comparisons. I guess this person read between the lines. Because I’m one of those who still strives for truth, I’ll be truthful: when I started writing, I was considering doing just that. But I changed my mind. However, it’s not because I want to spare Trump or anyone who supports the current right-wing cabal in Washington. I still think our current president is a despicable person and a terrible choice for a leader, and that America has made a big mistake.

The reason I won’t draw specific comparisons is that I’m afraid if I do, I’ll be exploiting something that should remain unexploited. What happened in Europe from 1933 to 1945 was a horror unimaginable, and the millions who suffered and died deserve more than being a touchstone for today’s petty politics. What happened there and then transcends politics. While it should never be forgotten, it shouldn’t be exploited, either. I’ll just offer this:

Whatever society, or whatever political persuasion, it’s important we keep our eyes and ears open and elect good leaders who will nourish our humanity, rather than diminish it. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a book called “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The theme is that every human has the capacity within himself for both good and evil. Whether we submerge Hyde, or allow him to poke his head out occasionally… or strut around in broad daylight in full regalia… is up to us.

Sources:

“The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William L. Shirer

“American History: A Survey” by Alan Brinkley

“The Kennedy’s at War: 1937-1945” by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

http://www.wikipedia.com

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Fascism for Beginners, Part 3: Torpor

Our local public television station has been airing two excellent films lately, both related to fascist politics. One of them is the 1962 version of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, about American P.O.W.s hypnotized by Reds during the Korean War. There’s much more to this brilliant movie, but if you haven’t already seen it, I won’t divulge the plot.

The other movie is JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG. It’s loosely based on fact, and it concerns the post-WWII trial of four German judges who, under the tent of Nazism, helped carry out a sterilization program and sentenced innocent people to death.

One of the judges is a rabid Nazi who shows no remorse. Two of the judges are weak and confused. But the fourth judge, “Ernst Janning,” is a tragic figure.

Highly intelligent, respected both inside and outside of Germany for his judicial knowledge, Janning is a man of great ideals who holds himself above his less enlightened peers. But during the Hitler years, he slowly and inexorably became corrupted. He despises what the Nazis did, but he also despises himself. He is tormented by the knowledge that, because of his actions, he’s turned his entire life into “excrement.”

The defense attorney wages an admirable but futile battle to exonerate Janning, who is a hero of his. At one point, American prosecutors show film footage of liberation of the concentration camps (this is actual footage, and it’s not for the squeamish). The defense attorney becomes so desperate, he tries to justify the judges’ actions by blaming other nations and individuals for Germany’s descent into barbarism.

I’d like to briefly discuss these accomplices, who also figure largely in William Shirer’s book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Joseph Stalin

Russia: In April 1945, the first troops to enter bombed-out Berlin were the Russians, hated by both Hitler and the Western democracies (Joseph Stalin was as fascistic as Hitler or Mussolini, just a different political stripe). Had not the Russians repelled German forces at Stalingrad in 1942-43 – maybe the bloodiest confrontation in the history of man – the war would have had a different outcome. But in August 1939, Hitler and Stalin had signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact. This treaty enabled the two dictatorships to mutually carve up Poland and Eastern Europe.

Stalin was as brutal, cunning, and power-obsessed as Hitler. He just didn’t share Hitler’s pathological theories on race. Stalin’s great mistake was that, like so many others, he trusted Hitler. But Hitler despised Communism almost as much as Judaism, and he ridiculed the Pact from the moment it was signed. Thus, it wasn’t surprising when, against his top generals’ advice, Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941. Stalin’s uncharacteristic coziness with Hitler during the Pact allowed the Germans to build their military and expand their territory for a period of two long years.

The result: hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, Jews, Bolsheviks, and resistance fighters in the East were ultimately rounded up and exterminated by Nazi Einsatzgruppen.

Nazi “Einsatzgruppen” executing a Ukrainian Jewish mother and her child (whom she’s clutching to her chest). This 1942 photo was never intended for distribution, but was somehow smuggled outside the Nazi sphere.

France: France had an opportunity to stop Hitler early on. On March 7, 1936, German forces illegally broke the 1925 Locarno Treaty and entered the demilitarized zone in the French Rhineland. Author Shirer was present when Hitler made the announcement to the German Reichstag, and recorded in his diary the disgusting scene that follows:

All the militarism in their German blood surges to their heads… Their hands are raised in slavish salute, their faces now contorted with hysteria, their mouths wide open, shouting, shouting, their eyes, burning with fanaticism, glued on the new god, the Messiah.

Had the French stood up to this blatant act of aggression, it would have rendered Hitler weak and unreliable in the eyes of Germans, and possibly shortened the reign of the Third Reich. In 1936, the German army was not the juggernaut it later became. Additionally, army Commander-in-Chief Werner von Blomberg had already decided on retreat in case of French countermeasures. But France had been devastated by the previous war and was “paralyzed by internal strife” and “sinking into defeatism.” Hitler’s military coup in the Rhineland set the stage for similar maneuvers in Austria and Czechoslovakia, and ultimately the invasion of Poland.

Neville Chamberlain

Great Britain: under the terms of the Locarno Treaty, Great Britain was obligated to assist France after Germany’s invasion of the Rhineland. Instead, it incomprehensibly believed Hitler when he assured the European democracies that he only desired peace, and that his actions weren’t hostile. Then, in 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain brokered with Hitler the Munich Agreement, which allowed Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia (this after allowing the Nazis to force an Anschluss and annex Austria, creating a “Greater (Nazi) Germany”).

Chamberlain’s continued appeasement of Hitler was greeted with huge approval by British citizens and Parliament, since it prevented outright war (although succeeding Prime Minister Winston Churchill remained highly critical). In reality, it merely delayed the inevitable, for it permitted Germany to strengthen its armed forces and opened the door for Hitler to invade Poland, which officially started World War II. Soon, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France also toppled to the Germans.

Many of those same British who applauded the Munich Agreement would soon be huddling in bomb shelters while the German Luftwaffe roared overhead.

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There’s one other “accomplice” I’d like to talk about. But I’ll wait until the fourth and final installment of “Fascism for Beginners” to discuss my home country.

(Header image: detail from the “Hell Panel” from “Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymous Bosch)