"Hitler's American Friends: The Third Reich's..." Topic

… Supporters in the United States.

"Americans who remember World War II reminisce about how it brought the country together. The less-popular truth behind this warm nostalgia: Until the attack on Pearl Harbor, America was deeply, dangerously divided.

Bradley W. Hart's Hitler's American Friends exposes the homegrown antagonists who sought to protect and promote Hitler, leave Europeans (and especially European Jews) to fend for themselves, and elevate the Nazi regime.

Some of these friends were Americans of German heritage who joined the Bund, whose leadership dreamed of installing a stateside Führer. Some were as bizarre and hair-raising as the Silver Shirt Legion, run by an eccentric who claimed Hitler fulfilled a religious prophesy. Some were Midwestern Catholics like Father Charles Coughlin, an early right-wing radio star who broadcast anti-Semitic tirades. They were even members of Congress who used their franking privilege – sending mail at cost to American taxpayers – to distribute German propaganda. And celebrity pilot Charles Lindbergh ended up speaking for them all at the America First Committee…."

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Amicalement
Armand

Another Progressive attempt to cover-up the REAL strength of isolationism – the left (until late June 1941).

No question there were nazi promoters in the US until the war started. After Pearl Harbor, they joined in the fight, Charles Lindbergh being a prime example. The same can not be said for communist apologist.

VCarter, have you read what Lindbergh actually said and wrote? He was not a Nazi promoter, he merely said that Hitler was pulling Germany out of the bad situation it had fallen into.

And, while Coughlin was, indeed, anti-Semitic, his main thrust, with which his Irish-American audience passionately agreed, was anti-British – no more American boys should fight and die to prop up the British Empire.

… have you read what Lindbergh actually said and wrote? He was not a Nazi promoter, he merely said that Hitler was pulling Germany out of the bad situation it had fallen into.

Well that's not quite what I read in Lindbergh's writings.

In public speeches in 1940 he stated "Our bond with Europe is one of race and not of political ideology."

A 1942 Time magazine article noted his views as:

Communism [is] an ideology that would destroy the West's "racial strength" and replace everyone of European descent with "a pressing sea of Yellow, Black, and Brown". He stated that if he had to choose, he would rather see America allied with Nazi Germany than Soviet Russia.

What I read is a belief that racial identity is more important than political system. That our alliance with western Europe is based on blood lines, and that he disagreed with leaders of the "British race" and the "Jewish race" who worked so hard to draw us into war with the Nazis (as he rather famously stated in Congressional testimony). He saw Nazi Germany as the only consistent protection against the inferior races of Asia (as he wrote in his diary in 1939).

Is it any wonder that Roosevelt saw him as having dual loyalties? Yes he was an ardent supporter of US military power. But he was also very public in his proclamations of his own racism and admiration of Nazi Germany and Hitler's peculiar philosophies.

So he could go to the Pacific and practice his art against the Japanese as a contractor for aircraft manufacturers. But he was prevented from re-joining the US military and was not welcome to participate in the US war effort against Germany.

At least that's what my readings give me to understand. Wasn't there, and didn't see any of it for myself.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)