.

'

.II

.,c.'

LI';;-F-~~~I:ITWANG~R, the popular Gennan ilOvelist, gave a talk

HUMAN SMOKE

at the Hotel Commodore ih New Yorl( ..It was F~bruarY 8, 1933.

There 'were 450,000 jews 'in Ge~ariy, . Feuchtw~nge~ ~aid, in a

.couiltry of sixty-five million people. And yet every day, eighteev

million: copies of anti~Semitic papers were publis'hed:_"Forty. copie~

">
for an averageJew per.day," he said.
In March, while Feuchtwanger was in Switzerland, BrQwnshirts
raided his house in Berlin.' They took his wife's Cal' and the manu
s'cript of a half-finished novel. They tOle ' up a pOlirait of Eleanor
Roosevelt., "I believe it was i;heir :iriteption to shoot me, b~'t tilis .
failed owing to my absence," Feuchtwci.nger said. "The U11fortunate -\
; thing is that these p~ople have taken the former wIld speeches of )
: Hitler too literally.';
.
.

Reading Questions:

Select three passages you find interest ing, thought

provoking, or raise question s. Write re sponses for each
passage - What do they remind you of? What further
questions do they prompt? Why did you find them
interesting or moving?

The excerpts are from the period before the war started.

To what extent was the United States involved before the

outbreak of the war? Cite the passages that pertain .

Based on the excerpts, should the United States have

been more involved before the war started. If so, how? If
not, why not?

-3

cC\.ughtfire:It was February 27, 193Y ,

A young Dutch-born bricldayer, Marinus van der Lubl:?e; a pro
fessed corhmuriist; was found shiiiles~' on the scene and illTested.
Hitler went in the middle of the night to the offices of the Volkischer
Be~bacht~r, where an assistant told him to come back during busi
. ness hours: "Ai~ 'you mad?" said Hitler. "Don't you' reali~e that' an
eyeht of incalculable importance 'is actually now taking place?" I-Ie
alld Goebbels worlced ..the rest of the ' night getting the next issue
ready, -, .

\. . THE REICHSTAG

Nicholson Baker

,
Hitler began sp,ea1cing; in his odd, croaldngvoice,. He .listed
off the misdeeds aJ?d corruptions of the'Weimar regime . .He wept
, over the woes of the peopl~-::-"two fists iIi the air and tears pour
ing down each side of his fia~by lllose/' Lilian Mowrer wrote, Then
he excoriated the JewS and the sbcialists, alid he promised lower .
; taxes,
higher
wages,
more' jobs, better
housing, and
cheaper
fertil- .
I
.
,
"
'
.
.
;. izer. Mowrer was not swept away, "Hitler was tal1cip.g nonsense, .
, making' the grossest'mis-staternents, garbling history inavoice .that .
was raucou~ a~d s~ggest~d the parade grourtd, and with gestU~es un
couth and unconvinci~g''' ' she thoU:ght. Yet when she iooked around \
. at the audience; she saw not just :;l.ssent but ecstacy: 'a young girl )'
with,
an old
man nodding; the
' lips
. parted, eyes fixed on htfr leader;
. .
.
sixty-year-old -yv'oinan next to her, saying "Richtig! RichtigF' after

..-CiJt.i-irignts in Gennany were suspended: "Goering-let loose his

hordes, and at orie blo~ all justic~ i~ Gerinany was smashed:" wrote
Stephan Zweig.

--w

G. McDONALD,. chairman of the' Foreigit"Policy As- '

. s~ciation ofthe United States, had dinner' in ,Berlin~ith' Emst

Hanfstaengel, Hitler's' friend. It was April 1, 1933, McD'Onald told

Hanfstaengel that he'djust had a ~neeting with Hitld, in which he'd

said that Hitler's anti-Semitjc'policieswere inj~ing GemianY. J:Iif

. le~ had said; "The world w~l1 ;et 1hank us' for teaching ith~w t~ deal.)

WIth the Jews,"

.
.
' . '
.
JAMES

.' eve~ promise Hitler made:

(j~

:!

. JAME~

Han(staengel
sipped. his wine.
He was an ardent
booster
of
.
. '
.
.
Aryanism, but he was a dark-haired man, rtotparticularly N~rdicloolcing-"except that, as he had been heard to say, his underarm

hair was quite blond. "Do you know," he said to McDonald, "that

. we have arranged to wipe out the entire Jewish popUlation in the'

Reich? Each Jew has a Storm Trooper assigned to him. Everything
is ready and can be done ina single night."
.McDonald walked back' through' the Tiergarten to his ~6tel.
Lovers were sitting on park benches. "I felt as if 1'd had a night-, .
mare," he. wrote.:

.
('
(
,

r;

--'

Kaufhaus des Westeps~a departm~nt store; Mowrei-:-shciwing hef

American passport, push~~ past the linked arms of the storm troop
ers. The place was almost empty.-Theonly customers were foreign-:
ers protesting the boycott. "The salesfolk stood. around, silent and
miserable. I wanted to buy up everything in sight," she said. "All
morning
I.
shopped'
in Jewish
places." It was
April 1933..
.
.

How' could this be happening? she wondered. The country was
calm. The streets were clean. The traffic flowed smoothly. .
~'Gern1ans
are among the most iikab1e people in Europe
and
' .

.
surely average no greater number of bullies ' and s'adists than any
other nation," she wrote. "The difference was that Hitler's 'regime
was built on sadists and bullies,from thetop down."

. c,

thele,ader of Russia; ordered operatives ~o re-.

move all the stores of food from farming ,towns in the U1aaine. Mil ~ .

'
.' they ate. 'field mice, insects, husks~

lions of people had no breadand dead children. It. was 1933.: :;'

A Russian-born American couple visiteq a: Ukrainian village.

'.'We ~re all ~ying ' of starvation," a villager :told thern. "They want

us; 'to ,die., It is"an otganized 'faIIline. There never has 'been a better

. harvest;
. hut if we were caught cutting 'a'few ears . of com we would
be shot or put in prison and starved to death." It was August 19~3.
JOSEPH/ STALIN;

fire.

booed and hissed.~'

'

A group of tourists who witnessed the scen~ wrote a letter to

the authorities in which they said that while they had no desire

to interfere inthe municeipa l.affairsofthe city, incidents of that kind

could not 'but be disgusting to all foreignvisiior's."Some weel(slat~r,

,the girl was pronounced. mentally iI.I and taken to an asylum:

den Linden; a wide, tree-lined street in Berlin running past theUni

versity and the State Opera House. He said: "The age of extreme
Jewish intel1ec~alis:in , hasnow ended." He threw a book into a
"It was like burning som~thing alive," Lilian MOwrer said.
"Th~n students followed with whole armfuls~f books, whii~
schoolbOYS screamed into the microphone their condemnation 'of
thIS ~d that author, ap'd ~s each name was mentioned the crowd

,
~
.In NUREMBERG, starn troopers took a nlneteen-year-old.girlto a
,cabaret. Th"ey cut off her 'hair; shaved het head, and tied a placard .
aroundherneck. "I have offered.myself to a Jew/' said the placard.
-It was August 13; ,1933.

at~ swastika-bedecked
rostrum. on the Unter
,

G. McDONALD,
a speech at the Chatauqua festival. Areporter w~s there for The New
York Time~ and cbv~red it. It was 'July lO,1933.McDonald didn't
'saywhatliitler'and ,flanfstaengelbad tbldhim about their' plan for
the Jews. But ,he did say that theatte~pts on the part of Nazi apolo
gists to denY' thdt Jews were being croelly treated .were.an "insult to.
the intelligence,'! "T.be Nazis be.liwe the myth onhe supremacyof
the Arvan race, and are determined'to crush Jewi;h economic 'life,"
said. Hitler had exploit;dprejudic~s and postwar ~iliatiofis:
"T~e war, the Versailles treaty and the treatment of Germany since
the war have made Germans fum to new leaders," he said. "Hitler
ism IS in avery real sense a, gift' of the Allies and the United.
$tates. "

(p
GOEBBELSSTOOD

"1
..--.
of~be Foreign Policy Associati~n, gave

'he

,'

,,-..,..," ., '

r
I

, L

13

'0
ERNST UDET, the German pilot, was
. ping for, dive-bombers. He told

in~~'tfu~~ -N-~~Y~~k, shop

REINHARD HEYDRICH', hean-of the intelligence branch of the

German secret police, read a po~itionpaperprepared f~l- him con
cerning Jewish poiicy. Itwas May 24, 1934.
"The aim of Jewish policy must be the emigration of all Jews,'"
.the paper said. J~wish "assimilatlOriists"-those who wanted to liv~
their Jives as Germans within qermany--should be discourage<;d;
while Zionists---'-those who w~ted to'emigratetoPaiestine------:should
be encouraged, according to tli.e memo. "It is the aim of the State
,Police to support Zionism and its emigration policy as fuilyas pos
sible":

th~ sales mallager ~t CUrtiss-Wrigbt

that he .wasn't sure he could afford to buy a Hawk II. '~But Mr.
U det,'.' said. the sales manager, "the money has already been lodged
with our banle."
\
HermarID Goering, German aviation minister..and president of
the Reichstag, had bought two Curtiss-Wright Hawk lIs fot-Udet.
Udet rejoihed the Luftwaffe-the German air force-and"with his
help Junl~ers Av'iation began designing a German' plane called the
. Ju8], the Stuka.
It was even better at dive-bombing than
.
, the CUrtiss
Hawk II.
.

'

J .

rI

- ..

Every authority concymed should, in.particular, coricentrate

their efforts in recognizing the Zionist organizations and in .
supporting their training and emigration ende~vQrs; at the
. . same time the activities of German-Jewish groups should

be restricted in order to force them to abandon the idea .o f

...

AT AN AIR PAGEANT on Long Island, Ernst Udet did amazing

stunts in his red and silverFlamingo,' and a fleet ~fU:S . Atmy air- .

. remaining in Germany.

planes bombed and strafed a papier-mache village. Thedem..olished

-village Was ~amed "Dep\essionville;" It was October 8,1933 . .

In tlus way, Gernlany would eventually become a count~y "without

a future for the Jews." .
Heydrich, it blond,inail with a high forehead and long, spidery
fingers, began helping Zionist organizations set up agricultural-.
'. training centers, so that J e\;ys would lmow how to farm when they
. reached Palestine.
' .
.
. .
ILl

'2

THE BOEING CORPORATIo;:' in Seattle, sold three two~eligiJl-e

airplanes to Germany. These planes "might be reg~i:ded by a mili
tary expert as .admirable potentiai bombers," said The New York
Times; German engineers were ~tudying them attentiveiy~ Pratt and

Whitney maintained a Berlin ofiice~BJvJ;W had bought the rights

to build one of Pl'att and Whitney's engines. TheSperry ~Corpora
. tion, maker of bombsights and gyroscopic ~tabilizers~
had a patent.
sharing agreement with a G~nnan company, Askania.
~

SOMEONE THREW -': STONE thmugh the studio window of an im

migrant
painter
named Michael Califapo.
The next day, three men
.
,
.
. came to the door. It was May 16; 1935, in New York City. The men
asked to see some postcards of Califano's anti-Nazi painting, "The
.. ,Ignominy oj the Twentieth Century. The postcards were being sold
to benefit Jewish refugees. The painti~g,which had been exl~ibited
at the Independents' Show in Grand Central Palace, show.ed Hitler
expelling Einstein from Gertnany;near Hitler was an iroD1;p st hold
ing a bloody l m i f e . '
Califan01urned
to get the postcarc;is, and the men
grabbed him,
.
.
beat him, and tied him to.a steam pipe. One put the muzzle'of a
gun id his mouth and told him to be q~iet. They began sla~hing Ius
paintings'.- They slashed Einstein, Rudolph Valentino, and Adolph
Ochs, publisher of The New York Time~. They spared' the image '
(

In Berlin, an American commerCial attache wrote that Anierican

manufacturers were selling Gennany crankshafts, cylinder heads,
contr~l systems for ariti-aircr:a ft guns~ and co~ponents sufiici 4 nt to
make about a. hundred planes a month. There were, the attache re
ported,. orders out?tanding to equip two thousand planes.
It was May 1934.
/
"

/ 7

"

\J /

"

"

If
of Hitler. Califano fainted. A neighbor found him unconscious but '
alive, hanging from the pipe. He was taken toa hospitaL He'd been
p'hinning on exhiqiting his paintings at the World Jewish Congress.

A NAZI PARTY propagandist in Bavaria filed a report The anti

Semitic campaign in his district was making no headway, he said,

'~Everychildlearns about the!Jewish menace; anti-Semitic propa

gan,da is delivered inlec~res everywhere," he wrote. Anti-Je~iSh

, '
,~

posters and issues of Der Stiirmer were prominently on view. "And

TEN THOUSAND' PEOPLE marched up Fifth Avenue from y,rash

,

; despite 'all this" the campaigns ,have not the slightest suc~ess,"
,said. "The peasants do noF wish to svver their ties with Jews."

It was October 1935.: '

,

ington Square Park. They carried signs that said: NO NATION CAN
AFFORD BOTH WAR AND CIVILIZATION and PROMOTE JAPANESE FRIEND
SHIP. The Wo~en's International Le~gue for Peace and Freedom
formed a "[(larching war cemetery,"and there was a sort offioat: a
turf graveyard 'of white crosses 'with two mourners, a mother and
, child, and a sign tha~ said, WHAT PRICE GLORY?
Among those leading the' march were
famous religious
leader$-:-John Haynes Holmes of the Commuriio/ Church (the ad-'
mirer of Gandhi) and Rabbi St~phen Wise of the Free Synagogue- ,

.8

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" China, was again, in February 1936, the largest purchaser of

arms, followed b~ Chile, followed by Germany. CDina bad bought

airplanes, tanks, and; ammunition. Germany bought "non-military"
, aircraft, revolvers, and ammunition:

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THE' U.S. GOVERNMJ'NT released its monthly statistical summary

ofli~ensed arms sales to\foreign govemrne~ts: Under the provisio~s

of the Neutrality Act, all. aims sales had to have the approval of the

Munitions Control Board of the State Department.

H
cIj

p:'B ' ~ ~

, ~long ~ith leaders of other denominations, a group of Quakers, and

some socialists carrying red banners. A dog wore a sign that said, ,
I'M NOT GOING TO BE AWAR DOG:
The crowd turned onto Twenty-sixth Street, then went down.

.
,
Ifwar comes I will not fight.

Ifwar comes I will not enlist.

Ifwar comes I will not be conscripted.

Ifwar comes I will do nothing to support it.

If war comes I will do everything to 'oppose it.

So help :me God.

(J)n

0 , 'U'

'cIj

two

Madison Avenue to Union Square, where three hundred policemen

stood in lines keeping order. Socialist Charles Solomon to.1d the
crowd that capitalism. breeds imperialism, "which is the parent of
those international frictions that cause war." John Haynes HolITles
promised that the jails would overflow if war came, and he led the
crowd in a pledge:

~ ~,

, ON MUSSOLINI's ORDERS, Italian airplanes dropped gas bombs ,

on Ethiopia. i'Beginnj.~g af 7:30 A.M" a squadron of seven bombers'

dropped steel containers, some containing phosgene and others

, mustard g~s," reported' The New York Times. "Several fell among

peasant huts." It was March 16, 1936.

A month iater,Walter Holmes, a reporter for The Times of Lon

don, wrote about a new means ofItalian attack on Ethiopian troops

and civilians: aerial spraying. "Fro~ a fine rain of corrosive liquid '

descending from the planes there seems to be little pro{~ction, u~

something in the nature .of a

suit were devised," ,

he wrote. Consequently; a large number subjected to this form of

attack received ghastly injuries on the' head, face and upper paris of

the body."

les~ po~sibly

di~ing

Za

It was May 18, 1935.

CAPTAIN PHILIP S. M UMFORD" a [om1er British officer in Iraq,

I~'

joined the Peace Pledge Union. He gave a speech about why. "What

BENITO MUSSOLINI wanted an empire like the British had. He

gave a deinopstration of Italy's military resources, in advance of a
planned annexation of Ethiopia. It was May 18,

19~5.

Bombs, poi-,

is the difference between throwing 500 babies into a fire and throw

ing fire from aeroplanes on 500' babies?" he asked. "There is

, ,none."
,
, 1t wa~ Janualy5, 1937.

z...~

21

THE. CHURCH BELLS 'in Guemicabeganringing. It was market

day, Monday, at 4:30 P.M., on April'28, 1937 . Gerrtlan pilots were in
the ~ir. They wore the badge ofthe Kondor Legion: a condor phlIl~ing earthward with a bo~b held in its claws'.
.
They were over the town for three hours. The curate of tq.e
Church of Santa Maria de Guemica wrote: "Before God and my
country I bear witness that the airplanes threw incendiary bombs."
The Times of ;London wrote: "The whole town of 7,000 inhabit
ants, plus 3,000 refugees, was slowly and systematicallypoullded to
pieces." A reporter for the Daily Mail wrote: "A sight that haunted
me for weeks was the charred bodies of several women and children
. huddled together in what had been the cellar of a house. It had been
a refugio.': ..
Later Hennann Goering said that Guemica had been a testing
ground for th~Luftwaffe. "It was'a pity,"
he said, "but we . could
not
.
.
.
do otherwise, a~ we had nowhere .elseto try out our machines."

A DE~TIST 'FROM NEW YORK, Dr. Howard Blake, talked with

Rafael Trujillo, president of the 'Dominican Republic. Blake was
representing the.American Jewish Congress. He and Trujillo were
trying' to determine whether one million eastern: European Jews
couldJ?1oye to Trujillo's country. It was January' 1937.
Blake toured the proposed
. .
.area of resettlement with the .presi
dent's engineering aide and the secretary of agriculture. The island
was, Blake said, a "veritable paradise."
President Trujillo wrot~ a: letter 'to Rabbi Stephen Wise, pres i
dentofthe American Jewish Congress. "The Dominican people and
'government, over which I ha~e the honbr to preside, received th~
proposal with the greatest sympathy," Trujillo said, "and expect !o
be able to offer a hospitable reception to that immigration of Jew
ish agricul1;uralists whom you propose to bring to my country to
dedicate themselves to the' land and develbpment o{industrial en
terprises." .
.
Trujillo wanted Jewish immigrants because they were white:
Later that yea~, Trujillo's troops massacred twelve thousand Haitian

1.4

'- .

--

'-2.'2 "

.
TWEN!Y THOUSAND cheenngpeop1e
were in' Madison Square'

Garden. It was March 15, 1937, at ~ anti-Nazi rally' and boycott

; Germany night. A bigbaim~r onstage showed a workingman using

plie~s to crush a swasti~a. ;Rabbi Stephen Wise spoke on the menace

ofHitlerism, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia said a f~w se~ltences, and

. so. did the head of the CIO labor union. Joseph Tenenbaum, chair
man of a c(')'alition ' that was advocating the boycott of German
goods, said that the four years . sinc~ Hitler and his cabal had come
to power had been a '''nightmare of dread terr.or and savagery." And .
the nightmare wa? coming to the United States:

Every German boat anchoring ODOur shore's discharges a

fresh cargo of Nazi rats which spread the bubonic plague
of anti-Semitism and racial hatred, and nibble away at the
. fundamentals of our great commonwealth.
"No one is safe from the N'azi holocaust," Tenenbaum said.

THE UNITED PACIFIST COMMITTEE sponsored a protest march.

Eighty people carri~d posters written ingreen paint: WAR MEANS FAS

CISM, said one poster. THOU SHALT NOT KILL, said another. Another

said: 2 PLUS 2 MAKE 4, GUN PLUS GuN MAKE WAR-DISARM. The,march

ers walked down Fifth Av~nue. A spectator patted one of them on

. the back. "Good for you," 'he said, "b~t don't worry- we're not
. going to have any more war:" It was May 21, 1938.

peasants becau~e they were black. .

. 07. . .

z.s

THE JAPANESE GOVERNM;;T placed art airplane order. They

wanted twenty-nine Lockheed Model 14 transport-bOlnbers. A sales
booklet from Lockheed said that the Model 14 was a,"verJ' formi- .
dable weapon for offens.ive or defen.ive tactical purposes." It Was
May 1938.
The Tachikawa Aircraft Company and the Kawasaki Aircraft
Company liked the design of the Lockheed airplanes so much that
they began building them under license. Tachikawa and Kawasaki
built more than two hundred Lockheed Model 14s.

.. z(.,

~
.

'

.. - - . .. -

,--"

--

. _.

. ,

THE GERMAN CONsuL 'ofCleveland wentto Henry,Ford's birth-"

day party inDetJ.:oit Ford was turning seventy-five, and the German

consul had a gift for him from Adolf Hitler. It was a big g?ICl-and

white medal with four gold eagl:es and four little swastikas
it,

and with it caine a wide red silk neck sash that stood out dramati
. cally against Henry Ford's white suit It was July30; 1938.

.'

It

AtBERT"WEDEMEYBR;;:.the US. Army captain, was at a goodbye

'diimer'at his ptofessor~shouse in Berlin. Wedemeyer had success'"

. fully completed his studies at the German War College, and he and

hisWife"a.Ii.d children ~eres~iling back to the United States. It was

the,summer qn938.

AD o'LF 'HITLERbegah tahking;ab6\lf~he; conquest of Czechoslova

'
.
~ .
-_ .. '
,
kia:He had.in mipda gra~'-doentf~nice 'into Prague-crowds, news
reelcam'eras; swastika'banmirs. It was AugUst )938. Hitler 's chief,

of staff,General Ludwig Beck, ..",;,asopposed. His army had no en

'

' .

Wedenieyer replied'that he ha~ no religious or racial prejudices.

"I made it t~~ar,'~ Wedemeyer wrote, "that I had severa] good friends

who were Jewish'and thatI accepted as loyal citizens of my ~ountry

those who professed Judaism or any other religion."

Colonel Lohmann then made a request. Would Wedemeyer be

will!ng to look after the Lohnianns~ two children if something hap

pened? Wedemeyer said he would do everything he could for the

children.

Lohmaim seemed greatly reliey-ed .and ShODk Wedemeyer's ,

hand warmly as they said gooclbye.

,
, <-'-'
. /
-,---.,.
/ .
\.

/ zg

. '

, " Wedemeyer,'s professor, ~oloneILohmann, a Luftwaffe officer,

seemed nervous and upsetafterdinner,and so did his wile, Maria.

Over liqueur in the library, Lohmann revealed the reason for his

unhappiness. "Maria is a Jewess," Colonel,Lohmanns'aid. "I hope

, this will not affect our friendship." .,.

--- --. ~

on

.'

..

thusiasm for war, and the German people hadn't any either. Only
the young, handpicked indoctrinees 'in Hitler's private militia, the
SS; were eager for it
Beck wrote a memo:recommending that his generals
refuse to
,
, obey Hitler'sorde;rs to invadt? Czechoslov~kia, if the ,orders came.
"Abn~rmal times require deeds' that are also out of the ordinary,}' .
, , Beck wrote: A united opposition would save them allfrom "blood
guilt." I;litler got word of Beck's opposition and demanded his resig- .
.nation., Beck quietly complied, leaving his deputy, Franz Hald~r, in ' 1
charge of the general
staff ."Now all. depends
on you," Beck Sald,
.
'
, General
Halder, a'man whose wick
of conscience flickered fit:"
.
. .
fully, had been watching Hitl~r for a .while.' He believed Hitler to
be both mentally ill and eviL He met with some well-plac~d co
conspirators who wanted to mount a coup,right away. Halder; ,full of
doubts and mindful of public sentiment, wanted to wait for the per
fect moment. He asked for a d~tailedcoup plan; he wanted incon
t~stable proof that Hitler intended to lead the country into another
world, war before he gav~ t~e go-ahead. And there was afuither dis
agreement: Halder and Beck wanted Hitler arrested and put on trial;
another faction wanted him examined by a psychiatrist and declared
insane; the radicals wanted him assassinated outright.
Then, sud~en}y, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain
flew to Munich, averting war by signing'over Czechoslovakia,with
, out violence. An overwrought General 'Halder; believing that the
.. best'chance for overthrowing Hitler was lost, put. his head down on
his des It. and wept.

l.a

'BERNARD BARUCH disembarked from ,the Queen Mary. It was

-September 12, 1938. Baruch had been shooting grouse on the Scot
'tish mqors and talking to Winston Churchill and ~ierre Laval about
airplanes , He wouldn't reveal to reporters whether Roosevelt had ' '
asked him to reorganize American industry for war, as he had done
last time around for President Wilson. He wan~ed to eliminate the
war-profit motive in industry, he said: "Everyomdmows today that
no country wins anything in a war."

The next month,

Baruch stayed over at the White.House: Bomb:..
.
,
.
ers were the anSwer, he told the president: The United States should .
be turning out fifty thousand long-range 1:Jombers. He didn't men
tion long-rarlge bombers to reporters, though. To reporters he said,
. "I beli~ve AIDerica is unprepared." .France ~d Engiand ,had.been
tragically unprepared, he said, and that was the reason for what hap- '
pened at Munich. He didn't want the United States to be in the same
"humiliating position."
A few days later, Roosevelt said at a news conference that mass
production
.
. in
airplane manufacturing h,,!-dn~t re,ceived adequate con
sideration and that it was time for a fresh look at military spend
ing. "Roosevelt Moves to Rush Expansion of Army and Nary"

was the headline in The New York Times on .october 15, 1938. This

prompted a predictable headline from the' Goebbels people in Ger

many: "The Jew Ba~~ch Smells Business Profits," There were other

German headlines, too: "Is Washington Dancing to Baruch's Tune?"

Lies
as Basis for Tremendous
Reannarnent in

.And, ~'Inflammatory
'
,
:
'
United States ofAmerica"-with the subhead "Jew Baruch's Mental
Cobwebs."

, "

gogues:demonstrators stood with prayer books from which they

tore leaves." Th'e wealthy synagogue on Fasanenstrasse "was a fuf
nace." Twenty-five thousand people were sent as hostages to con
centration camps .

I.

It was called Kristallnacht, Crystal Night, because it happened .

.
\
at night and a lot of plate glass was broken, and because the word
"crystal"
simultaneously distracted
froin, and
raised a toast to, the
.
.
.
.
.ferociousness of the rioting-and perhaps finally also becausethe
word echoed the title of one ofGoebbels's favorite books,on p~opa- .
gandatechnique, Edy,rard Bemays's Crystallizing Public .opinion:
Goebbels had successfully used vom Rath's assassination crystal
lize Gennan anti-Semibsm.

.,

to

~I
: RUFUS

. to his house in Haverford, Pennsylvania, to plan aid for Gehnan

. Jews. It Was November 16,1938.
The Jewish Joint Distribution Committee had called to ask

whether the American Friends S~~ice Committee could open feed

ing centers in Germany, which was something Jones knew how to

do. Jones ~nd Pi~kett founded the Refugee Service COl11ni.ittee, ,and

. the next clay th~y serit a letter out 'to every Quaker meeting in the

United States. ~(Cables fro111 Germany indicate that American news~ .

paper reports have not exaggerated the tragedy," the letter. said. The

. ref~ge~s ne,eded hOUSIng, money, and the affidavits of promised

support req1ii~ed by the State Dep~rtment.

'3-0

had a couference about the Grynzspan .

; agit~tion. "He decides: Let the demonstratioils c~ntinue," Goeobels
... Wrote. "Pull back the'jKilice.. The Jews
should. for once
feel the anger
.
. .
of the people."
. Patiy leaders called their subordinates, and the Gestapo sent
out, by 'Teletype, rules to guide the rioting throughout Germany that
. was to be theconsequence ofEmst vom Rath's assassination. It was
to be sayage but orderly. The burning of synagogues was permitted
"onlyifthere is no danger offiresfortl~e neighborhood." Jewish
homes and busil].esses "may be destroyed but not looted." AndfoI-:
eigners "may not be molested even if they are Jews."
It began at 1:00 in the morning on November 10,1938. Otto
Tolischus reported on it for The New York Times. "There was
scarcely a Jewish shop, cafe, office or synagogue that was not ei
ther wrecked, burned severely, or destroyed," he said. "Before synat GpEBBELS AND HITLER

J ~NES had Clarence ;iclcett and twenty other Quakers oVer

r--

.. -. -" . ... - _.

IN LEIPZIG, the American conSUl, David Buffum, wrote up a re

. pori: o~ the riots. "Irione of the Jewish sections an eigh~een year old
'boy was hurled from a three story window to land with both leg~
broken on a street littered with burning beds and otherhouse:hold
furniture," Buffum said. "Three synagogues in Leipzig were fired
simultaneously by incendiary bombs and all sacred objects and re
cotds desecrated or (l~stroyed, in most instances hurled thro~gh the
windows and bumed in the stieets." It was, he said; "a barrage of
Nazi ferocity as had had no equal hithe~to in Gennany, or very .
.Jilcel~ anywhere els~ in .the world .since savagery, if ever."
C

(j)

~2

-..;.,.....

,.

...

.. _ .. _ ._ -

~1

GANDHI WROTE an artiCle foe Harijan, the weekly' English~

language pap,e r hIS edited in Delhi. It was Noverr:ber 26, 1938.

ROOSEVELT GAVE his five hundredth press conference. It was November 15, 1938, five d~ys aSter Clystal Night. Roosevelt was aske.d

Gandhi had, he wrote, received questlo~sabout the Jews imd

Arabs in Palestine and about the persecution of the Jews in Ger

about the new Washington airport and about cherry trees. Thenhe
read a short statement announcing that he was recalling the German

many, and.:.........not ~ithout hesitation-he had decided ' to Offer his

Views,

ambassador and that public opinion had been "deeply shocked." He

did not use the word "'J ews:"
,
"1 myself could scarcely believe.that such things could occur in

. "My sympathies are all with the jews," Gandhi said. "If ever
there could be a justifiable war in the name ofandJor humanity,' a
war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecutioJ:!. of a whole
race, wortld be completely justified." But no war was justifiable,
Gandhi believed
I,

.'
a twentieth century' civilizahon," Roosevelt said.
A reporter asked if he felt that there was any place in the
world thatwould be abletotake a mass emigration of the Jews from"
Germany.

. ,"1 have given a gTeat deal of thought to it;" said the president.

"

->;.\

'

'"

s~

E XPULSIONS BECAN in Czechoslo'vakia, Small groups of Jews

. "Can you tell us any place particularly desirable?" the reporter

s\lbsistedin encampments on the outskirts of towns where their

. asked.

' families had lived for generations, Czech and German authorities

"No," the president answered, "the time is not ripe for that."

prohibited g~fts . of food or W,ater. It "'(as the middle of October

Another reporter asked the presid.ent if he would rec6mmend

1938 . .'

a ~elaxation of the immigrationrestrict,ions so tJratJewish refugees

--~I

could coine to the United States.

" .HEINRICH '. HIMMLER'S ' Blackshirt newspaper, .Das Schwarze

"That is not in contemplatiori,'; said Roosevelt-. "We have the .

quota system."

~I.{

KOIPS, ca~ied a front-pag~ article: "The Jews living in Germany

'and Italy are hostages given into our hands by fate so that we may
-

defend ourselves in the most effective manner against attacks by

.'

A RE P 0 RT E R asked a question: 'fOn Tuesday, Mr.President,_you

intimated that you did not propose, or would not consider, lowering
the immigration barriers 'for the benefit of German refugees. ,Since
that time .a good deal has been said in print that you might do so
after all. Have you changed your mind?"
"No," said President Roosevelt. He said, however, that Ger
man visitors who were already in the United States under temporary
. visas could stay on. It wouldn't be right, "from the point of view of
humanity," to put them on a boat and send them back.
Again a reporter asked ifthere' would be ally change to the quota

world Jewry." It was the endofOctober 1938. '

3~
.
IN DACHAU, Walter Loeb, oneolth~ thirty thotisal1d '~~; arrested

after Kristallnacht, was ' ordered to take a' medical examinatioh. "I
did not pass," h~ wrote later, "because I had visible frostbite on ~y
hands', and they did not want the outside world to see scars or marks
of maltreatments (such as beati;ngs, etc.)."A Gennan prisoner lent
him gloves, and a week later, when. the doctor examin~d him, he
passed;
.
\

M~st of the "November Jews" were released that winter, many

laws.

"I thirik not," said the p~esident. It was November 18, 193&.

after they 'had signed away

th~ir assets and promised to emigr~te.

. "Because of the cold wave that bega~ Sunday," The New York Times

reported,

'~there

were dozens of cases of men whose' frozen limbs

had been amputated."

, It was December 1938.

"

..

-;~

England were the tint line of defense against this m~nace. Hitler '
himself was a wild man, Roosevelt said, who apparently thought he
was the'reincamation of Juliu.s Caesar,and Jesus Christ. '<'Whatcan
we do with a personality like'that?" the president askep. ,tWe would

set up a new department, called the Reich

Bureau for Jewish Emigration, to rationalize and speed up the pace
of extortional expulsion. It was January 24,.1939.,
The same ' week, the state-controlled Jewish newspaper, the
. Jiidisches Nachrichtenbldtt, printed a hope: "If the United States
'coulddecide to accept 100,000 Jews froin Gemiany cOI?-ditionally,
they could remain in the thinly settled regions in the West of that

country and would make a. very valuable contribution to the

. sblu
tion of the emigration problem." Alaska was another possibility for
jewish ,settlement, said the Nachrichtenblatt. The New York Times

. REINHARD HEYDRICH

republished their hope.

,- call him
a nut. Butthere
isn't.. anyuse ~alllng him-a nut because he
.
.
is a powerand we have ~o recognize that."
.
'
Hence the need for thousands of airplanes.

" .

L/ti .

spread, with fabric drapip,g f~-wise, boudoir stYle, behind it. T~o
swastika emblems hung to the right and left c:>f the stage. Hitler was

wearing adoub1e~breastedjacket and tie.

. "Today I will once more be a prophet," Hitlei' said. "If the in-
ternational Jewish financiers, inside and outside Europe, succeed in
. plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will
not be the 'Bolshevisatibn of the earth; and thus the victory of Jewry,

,but the annihilation of the Jewish race iri Europe!" There was a roar

and frantic applause fro~ the assembled deleg~tes: It was JallUary

>

30, 1939.
, Time magazine, studying the speech shortly afterwar'd, couldn't
understand why joumalists were calling it mild. It was, Ti,me thought,
"one of the most sensational aild t):rreatening talks ever made by the
head of a State."

'.' _ ,_.

'-13

called in the Senate Military Affairs Com'-'

mittee for asecret meeting. The Senate was voting on a bill that

. wouid autporize the purchase of thousands of airplanes for the use

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT

oftheAnny Air Corps: It was January 3.1, 1939:

Germany's aim was WOJild qomi~atlon, Roosevelt to I? the sena
tors, and the gradual encirclement of the United States. France .and

.".

_. . .

his finger o--;:;:,the stage of the Reichstag. Behind .

him was Hermann Goering, Reichstag presideT?-t, and various nota~' .

bles. Behind Goering was an enormous backlit eagle, its Vi/ings out

. ,

42
ELEANC?R RC?OSEVELT, who had set aside her arlti-Semitism, said

that passing the Wagner-Rogers child-refugee biU was "the humani

tariim thing to do.". Aweek latel; she asked her
husband, who was
.
.
on a cruise in the Caribbean, if it was all right for her to give her full

support to th~ bill. President Roosevelt replied: "It is all right for

you to support child refugee bill but it is best for me to say nothing
till I get back.':.When he got back, he said nothing ~bout:the bill. It

. was February1939.

Dozen~ of newspapers wrote editorials endorsing the measure.

It was a small gesture, s~id the New York Herald Tribune, but well
worth doing, "both for the portion of misery that it would end and

as a gesture to the world of where American sympathies ,unrnista1c

ably lie.."

The New York Times editorial said: "If we had a barbed-wire

frontier, as have some less fortunate countries, and cOlild see these .

c~ildren,. who~e parents are dead or' in .concentration camps, we

would not hesitate. All we need is imagination. They cry out t6 us
from thek darlmess."
.
The Time~ Herald, of Newport News, Virginia, wrote, "The call
of humanity 'in distress is universal and there is little doubt that th~
Wagner and Rogers bills will be adopted."
- .--.. -

HITLER SHOOK

t.ff

than 120,000 visa applications awaiting

action at the American consulate iIi.Vienna. It was March 1939.

THERE .wERE

G)

MORE

~-I

---:

. Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish.Agencyfor Palestine. "Jew~ '",ho

must choose between
utter. extinction and immigration to Palestine
'
.
under conditions called illegal naturaUy will not waver, for a mo
ment in their choice."
Palestinian Arabs hated the White
Paper
because
they wanted
.
.
. .
..
th~ British and the Jews out of their country.

THE PLANNERS inthe U.S .. N~vy distributed a new revision to its

most important war plan; called Basic War plan ORANGE. It was
'
. . '
March 8, 1939.
the navy had been working on variations of War Plan OR- .
ANGE.for ye'ars; it filled manypages. ~'War with ORANGE will be ..
precipitated without notice," the secret plan said; it would be "an
offensive war oflong duration." The National Mission of War Plan
ORANGE was:

L/7

HADCO~E, Hitlerbel'ieved, to' reclaim pol~nd. Secrecy

was the prec~ndition ~f success, he said i~ a room full of generals.
If England comes to Poland's defense, then Germany must take ov_er
Holland with}ightning speed. And Belgium. Germany needed the
airllelds of both countries . A conflict ,ith England would be; he
said, a life-and-death struggle.
It was May 23, J 939: fEtler's generals still didri~twant t9,go
to war.
, .. Ge.rmany must bum its bridges! Hitlersaid, It W:l~ :l nllPct;".., ~ ...
'the
lives of eighty million
people.
The
War
might
last ten or fifteen "
.
.
.
.
,
.
'.
years. Tb,.e English were "proud, courageous,'tenacio'us, firm in re
, sistance, and gifted as organIzers." They had '.t~e love of adventure
. and the courage of the Nordic race; he. said. They'd been a world
power for three hundred years. But a s~rprise attack could lead to a
THE DAY

, To impose the will ofthe UNITED STATES upon ORANGE

~y destroying ORANGE Anned Forces and by disrupting

. ORANGE economic life, while protectingAMERlCAN in
terests at home and abroad.

ORANGE stood for Japan.

LIS
'-.
DAY, April: 8, 19~9 . Twenty-tWo thousand people

,IT WAS ARMY

watched tanks and troops with new M-l rifles parade ~own Fifth
Avenue in New Y~rk. Governor Lehman 'said: "I am convinced that
adequate preparedness, instead' of being an incentive toward war, is
,

/'

"

our greatest safeguard for peace." .

The United Pacifist Committee"led by Reverend Muste, led a
tiny. counterdemonstration .. Fifty-two people walked on the side- .
walk holding signs and pass~ng Qut handbills~ MASS MURDER IS NO
DEFENS'E 'OFLIBERTY; one sign said.

,quiCk decision. Surprise was the plan. And secrecy.

~t

LOCKHEED STOPPED SELLiN? airplanes

to Japan, :at the request

of Secreta,ry of State Cordelr'!{ull. Lockheed.employees remained'
., in Japan, ho~ever, assembling and testing the airplanes that were
anivi~g in fulfillme'n tofprevious orders. It was May 1939.

4('
promulgated new policies in,Pales

tine, It was May 17, 1939. J~wsshould make up no more than one- .

third of the total population, according to a document that came to

. be called 'the white Paper. Ten thousand Jews could come in each
year for the next five yea~s, ,cAfte't the period of five years, 'no fur
ther Jewish immigration will be permitted unless the Arabs of Pal
estine are prepared to acq~i~sce in it," said the .paper.
Jews hated tqe White Paper, a~d Arabs hated if too. "Anyone
. aware of the position. of the Jews 'in Eastern and Central Europe
today w~ll not for one moment believe that they will cease coming
t~ their homeland because some law terms it illegal," said David

_.... ____._

THE BRITISH- GOVERNMENT

e., 1"

;A

REFUGEE JOURNALIST

n~ Manfred George addressed the

American Writers'Corigressin New York. It was June 4, 1939 .

"Never before in history has a country lost practically 1111 of

its' poets, novelists and essayists at the . same time," . George said.
"Within one year Germany lost the overwhelming spiritual influ
ence its famous thinkers and writers had exelte'd over the whole
world. It Was a kind of deatl1-the body stayed where it was, the
soul was spread all over the-world."

[; 0

. .. _-----

HITLER ASKED two of his helpers-his personal physicia~, Karl

Brandt, and his staff aide, .Phi1ip,Bouhler~to 'set up a mecbanism
for registering children born with spina bifida,' retardation, maifor
mations of the head, and other congenital problems. 'Registration
fonns'went out to hospitals. Theywere filled out and forwarded t04
Tiergarten 'Street, Beriin, . which. was Bouhler',s office. The house,
soon lmown as, the headquarters of the T-4 program, had been con
fiscat~d by,the government from its Jewish owner. It was the sum- '

C;-f

Roosevelt's secretary passed on O'Day'smessage. Roosevelt

, wrote "File No action FDR. ',' Without his suppoct"the bill-and the

chlldren--'-had no chance.

. Clarence Pickett wrote: "The facts and the logk the, eloquence

and the-fervor, seemed to me all on the side of the bill, but tho~e of

lis whosupP,?rted it plugged away in vain. The bill never came. out

of committee."

L;2

NINE NEWSPAPER EDITQRs-anapubl~she:rs rgot off the Yankee

Clipper in New, York after a trip to England. A reporter from Life
magazine was thel:e to taik to them. TIle publishers had met power
ful people-including Lord Beaverbrook, publisher of the Daily
Express, and NevIlle Chamberlain, the prime minister~and they
were reassured, "Their virtually unanimous prediction," according
to Life magazine:,."There willoe no ,war this y~ar.'; It was July 13,
1939,
"

C; 1

'\

'

' ..

'

',_

~~.

AD'OLF HITLER invited his military comm~nders tohis house in

the mountains. It was August 22,1939 . Goeririg-; -t-he.master of cer
. emonies, was wearing short pants, lace~up boots, a strap-on dagger
! in a red sheath, and a green jacket with yellow leather buttons. Hit~
. lefwas in tr,e usual Nazi brown, standig by the grapd piano, on
which stood a bust of Richard Wagner.

\"

'

A MEMB,ER OF THE 'HOUSE OF REPRESEN'FATIVE S, Caroline

o 'Day, tried to reach Presidel1t-Roos~velt to~sk him what he
thought of the child-refugee bill, which was still alive in committee.

, It was June 2, 1939.

cal sItUation," Hit1ersaid, "in order that you may 'haye insi&ht into

the individual elements on which I have' based my decision to act

and in order to strengthen your c,orifidence." Now was tht': time for

' an attack on Poland, he said. War was inevitable, and he was the

man to lead the country into it. There would never again be a mad

who canied more authority. He would not live forever. He could be

elimimi.ted at, any time "by a crimin~'l or an idiot." Germany ~ust

strike or be destroyed. "We can only hold out for a f~w more years,"

he said. There was risk in striking, yes. But EngIi:ll1d wasn't pre

pared for war yet. They had only 150antiail'cni.ft guns. They didn't

really wCl,nt to d~fend Poland, or even to lend Poland money. And

now that Germany was worldng out a pact with S.talin, there ~as

less of a'worry about an English blockade.

"Oilr'enemies are kleine

,
Wurmchen," Hitler said. "I saw tllem in Munich." Kleine .WUrll1chen
means ~'little worms.~'
"
, Goering thanked Hitler and said that the armed forces would do,", ~
their duty. They broke for a bite to eat on the ten-ace.
Still, the co~anders weren 't c;nvinced. Hitler talked t6 them
again. No shrinking back, he said. Peace won't do us any good. "A
'. maniy bearing," he said. The goal -Was fhedestruction, tlle com- '
plete annihilation, of Poland, Poland firs~, then the weslerp. powers.
,
"Close your hearts to pity," he said. "Act brutally,"
. No one said no. 'They r~tumed to their posts, keeping their

doubts to themselves. One general thought ~that the bragging"in

Hitler's' speech was repulsive: "Here a rq.an spoke who had lost ,all

feeling of responsibility and any clear conception of what a victori

ous war signified," h~'; wrote. Hitler was determined,hethought, "t,o

leap into the dark,"

, mer of 1939.

_.

"I have called you together to give you a pic~re of the politi

.r:; l.,1

AT THE KROLL OPERA HOUSE, where the Reichstag'met, at ten

, o'clock in the moming, Hitler gave a warspeech~or rather a war-'
as-suicide speech. He began by denouncing the Treaty of Versailles,
which had now becorne "utterly intolerable." "Danzig was and is a
German city!" he said. Germany was tll1der Polish attack: "Sll;~e
5:45 A,M. we have bee~l returning fire!" be claimed. "Who~ver dis
. regards tJ?e rules of humane warfare can but e~pect us ' to do the
same,';,
'

Hitler was prepared to make th~ ultimate sacrifice for Germany,

/' he told
his deputies. His voice sounded odd. .If something' should
.
happen to him, Goering would succeed him, and if something
should happen to Goering, then Ru<iolf Hess ,would take charge. If
Hess died-well, then the Senate would ch~ose someone worthy.
~lj

s~

VICTOR KLEMPERER, a retired teacher in Dresden, was trying to

'make progress o~ his 'autobiography. It wasAu~ust 29, 1939.
,
Klemperei wanted to write about studying in Paris at the Sor
bornie in1903, but he Gouldn't. "T~ese last few days pulled and still
pull too much at my nerves," he wrote. Would there be a bloody po
grom as. soon as the war started? "Incalculable danger,for all Jews,
here," he sensed. His friend Moral had just visited frorri Berlin: "He
is expecting the outbreak of war and in that case being shot down, ,
perhaps not insome~ild pqgrom, butproperly rounded up and put
up against a barracks wall.~'

HITLER WAS NOT WELL-his generals wohdered whether he was

in the midst of some sort of mental breakdown. It was the very end
ofAug~st1939. President Roosevel~ had written Hitler an appeal: .
"Countless human lives can yet be saved," Roosevelt said, if
Gennany and Poland would just agree on a "pacific means of settle

ment." A rich Swede, Birger Dahlems-'-managing director of Elec

trolux's British subsidiary-conveyed a last-minute message from

London to his friend Goering, saying that.Britain wanted to find

some way to peace. Goering woke. Hitler, and H~tler met with

Dahlems. Hi~ler paced, talking rapidly in a way that was, thought

he stared,
at .times he seemed to be

Dahle~s; "abnormal." At times

.
,
addressing a political rally. "I will bui~d U-boats, build U-boats,
build U-boats," Hitler said, "I will build aircraft, build aircraft, build
,aircraft, and I will destroy my 'enemies."Then he settled dowp., He
and Dahlems worked out a proposal in which Germany got some
thing, Poland got somethipg, and Germany "pledged to defend the
.British empire."
EniSland was not interested. Dahlems was "a wasp at a picnic,"
wrote A.lexandel:
Cadogan, the permanent
undersecretary,
:in his
(
.
,
diary. "He spent most of Tues with Goering and Hitler, but their
~tyrms' were as to Qe exp,ected: give us a free hand in Central and.
E. Europe and we will guarantee the British Empire."
Meanwhile, anotherinte~mediary, Nevile Henderson, was also
in negotiations to avert a war. Hitler shouted at Henderson, Hender~
son shout~d at Hitler. ,On August 29; one ofHitler's staff said tha~
Hitler was "unimagin~bly nervy, edgy and sharp."

c:;7

'.

THAT DAY, near the beach at Tel Aviv, more than one thbusand
. Jewish refugees wer~ trying to g'et to shore. They had come on an
. old ship, the Tiger Hill. A British patrol boat, enforCing the prohibi
., tions of tne White Paper, fired on the refugees to forc~ them back
Two were kilIed~ Of the rest; some reached land and mefged with ,
the Jewish popUlation, and some were held at a 'British' detention.
camp.

r.:-~
'?

Cl-IRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD was in his .living room with his

fri.endVernon, listening to the radio. "It was as though neither of us
were present The living room _seemed absolutely empty~with
'nothing in it butthe annou~cer's voice. No fear, no despair, no sen
sation at alL Justhollowness."

/"