| FDR
and the Holocaust; and should Auschwitz
have been bombed? (A 1997
historical debate) 24 Jan. 1997 Robert
Michael In preparing a
Holocaust chronology, I have unearthed
much material on the allies, as well as
the perpetrators and victims of the
Holocaust. What is so annoying is that I keep
coming up with material on FDR's morally
disastrous involvement, or lack of
involvement. Facts that I am concerned
about are his choice of the apparently
antisemitic Breckinridge Long as
State's visa director, his choice of the
apparently antisemitic Henry
Stimson as a board member of the War
Refugee Board, his consistent omission of
Jews from mention both in his weekly news
conferences and allied statements (with
one exception in each, I believe), his
damning and discriminatory anti-Jewish
statements at Casablanca to [French
generals] Noguès and
Giraud, his conversations with
Leo Crowley and Jan
Karski. Most recently, reading a book on Fr.
Coughlin, I now find that one of FDR's
statements in his first and second
inaugurals, about chasing the moneylenders
from the temple -- I was suspicious since
this is a traditional anti-Jewish phrase
-- was suggested to him by Fr. Coughlin
himself. I am also aware of FDR's lack of
support for the Wagner-Rogers bill and his
support of, I think it was the Hemmings
bill, that resulted in the rejection of
Jewish children but the acceptance of
non-Jewish children into the States. At any rate, I was wondering whether
listmembers are aware of actions FDR took,
besides the creation of the WRB and his
goal of winning the war, that would
indicate he gave a damn about the Jews of
Europe. The other issue that puzzles me is how
to square his antisemitic background with
his Jewish friends. Were they friends or
just political allies? Thanking you in advance, Bob Michael,
Prof. European History
Joseph
PolesIn response to Professor Robert
Michael 's inquiry, David
Wyman's book entitled
Abandonment of the
Jews (1984) has taken FDR to task.
He suggests that FDR placed "buffers" in
the way of Jewish committees and dodged
any action until he was forced, in January
1944, to allow the War Refugee Board to
come into existence. Long was one such
buffer as he was already in place in the
State Dept. in charge of visas. It is hard
to refute Wyman's conclusions. As a
pragmatic politician FDR took the easiest
path by dodging the "Jewish bullet." When
the heat came down on FDR, he replaced
Long.
25 Jan. 1997 Meredith
Hindley For answers to Professor Michael's
questions, I would suggest that he look at
Richard Breitman and Alan Kraut's
"European Jewry and American Refugee
Policy, 1933-1945" (Indiana, 1987). The
book is useful because it does not make
the obvious condemnations, but rather
attempts to contextualize the course of
events and FDR's reactions to them. They
are critical of FDR's administration, but
even-handed. The problem with studying and writing
about the Allied and neutral responses to
the Holocaust is that we want a moral
response from governments who had never
demonstrated a tendency to act in a moral
way, had never lent large-scale assistance
to non-natives, nor, were in a position to
do so, particularly once the war began. In
doing my own research and writing on the
subject, specifically the War Refugee
Board, I constantly have to remind myself
to use an interwar or war-time perspective
before going for the easy condemnation.
It's too easy to call leaders anti-semitic
and blame the lack of action on that
factor alone. The events are far more
complex and our hindsight too clear. Professor Michael's questions actually
raise some broader issues that the list
might consider: - What is obligation of a government
to aid the population of another
country(ies)?
- How has the specter of obligation
changed over time?
- What types of criteria have been
used in the past to justify
intervention or non-intervention?
- Is there room for humanitarian
politics at the negotiating table?
Meredith Hindley, American
University
27 Jan. 1997 Robert
Michael I have looked at the Breitman book and
yes it does contextualize. But what I get
from Wyman's
Abandonment of the
Jews and his multi-volume
collection of documents
America and the
Holocaust is the double standard
our nation used in judging when, where,
and how much to help European dp's. The
double standard is appalling. Our nation
assisted with money, ships, food, etc.,
civilians and POWs. We transported people
all over the world, when they were not
Jews. We fed Greeks, even collaborating
with the Reich government and the British
in these efforts. Even the WRB used more
than 90% American Jewish funds to support
it, whereas the US government used its own
funds to support help for non-Jewish
refugees. It's the double standard,
whether for child immigrants or shipping
or getting around restrictive laws that so
weigh upon the researcher.
27 Jan. 1997 Melanie
Joi Feuerstein I concur!! I had many of the same
reactions in response to Wyman's
indictment and evidentiary support. How
about the War Dept. specious arguments
against the feasibility of bombing
Auschwitz? An interesting note indicative
of my colleagues' response as well: after
Wyman's visit, a significant portion of
them felt necessary to expound on the
"Breckenridge Long is a son of a bitch"
approach to their essay treatment of
Wyman's book. Since you are at UMass, have you had
the opportunity to engage him on these
issues? You may find complimentary significance
in Dinnerstein's treatment of these and
other issues of American anti-semitism,
inclusive of the congressman from FDR's
Hyde Park district mailing copies of the
"Protocols" under congressional frank.
27 Jan. 1997Michael
Friedland I read with interest Robert Michael's
indictment of Franklin D. Roosevelt and
his alleged anti-Semitism and lack of
concern as to the fate of European Jews
during the Holocaust. Recent postings to
H-Diplo have mentioned scholarship
debunking David Wyman's The Abandonment of
the Jews , yet I remain convinced that
Wyman's argument that FDR could have done
much more on behalf of the Jews after 1941
is essentially sound. I am therefore not
about to take issue with Professor
Michael's claims that FDR's lack of
involvement was "morally disastrous." What should be kept in mind, however,
is that Roosevelt was not acting in a
vacuum. When discussing his role in the
refugee crisis before the entry of the
United States into the Second World War
(or even before the outbreak of
hostilities), consideration of the role of
Congress is essential. When Robert Wagner
and Edith Nourse Rogers introduced their
bill in early 1939, providing for the
admittance of German refugee children in
the United States, many religious figures,
labor organizations, prominent
politicians, and editors supported it.
Other restrictionist and patriotic groups,
such as the American Legion, DAR, and the
American Coalition of Patriotic Societies
banded together in opposition to the
Wagner-Rogers Bill, insisting that charity
began at home, and criticizing the notion
of separating children from their parents
or guardians. Throughout the criticism ran a
thinly-veiled concern that the majority of
children would be Jewish, which the bills
supporters tried to counter by insisting
that most would be Christian. In the end,
the bill did not survive the amendments
placed on it in the Senate. It is true
that Roosevelt did nothing to support the
bill; it is also clear that the majority
of Americans were opposed to the bill. The
State Department opposed it from the
outset, and Roosevelt did not mention it
at all in public. Wyman, no admirer of
Roosevelt on this score, notes that "Fresh
from the bitter battles of the 1938
election, Congress in 1939 had a more
conservative complexion than before and
was intent on asserting its independence
from strong executive leadership.
Political crosscurrents unquestionably
made it difficult for Roosevelt to back
this comparatively minor legislation which
was very unpopular in some quarters and
which Congress generally saw as too hot to
handle." ( Paper Walls , New Yo! rk:
Pantheon Books, 1985, p. 97). Roosevelt was not particularly
enthusiastic about the Hennings Bill, for
he feared for the safety of children
aboard ships steaming through
submarine-infested waters, and knew that
if children died, he might be held
responsible. Throughout the deliberations
in Congress, he made it clear that he did
not want the bill to include provisions
that would leave the decision to send such
ships through the war zone to the
executive, and supporters of the bill
acquiesced. The responsibility was given
to Congress, which passed the Hennings
Bill and thus amended the Neutrality Acts,
and the few British children who made
their way to the United States were
carried on commercial vessels, sponsored
not by the government but by organizations
such as the Women's Committee for Mercy
Ships. In the end, once German submarines
began sinking ships and killing children
in the fall of 1940, the British
government put an end to the evacuation.
The Hennings Bill did not, as Professor
Michael states, ! "result in the rejection
of Jewish children but the acceptance of
non-Jewish children into the States"; it
was a bill targeted at British children
alone -- to those children who, by the
middle of 1940, still had a home to return
to, and could be accepted under the terms
of visitors' visas. It is doubtful whether
FDR's support could have saved the
Wagner-Rogers Bill, but to claim that he
supported the Hennings Bill because it
dealt with "non-Jewish children" is a
misreading of the historical record. He
supported neither, not because of any
latent anti-Semitism, but because he had
become politically cautious by the late
1930's, both on domestic as well as
international affairs. I'm not sure that
political timidity can be equated with
anti-Semitism. Although there is little doubt that
Breckinridge Long was anti-Semitic (Wyman
suggests that Long was more of a nativist
than an anti-Semite, as "the record does
not show him to be overtly negative
towards Jews simply because they were
Jews," (Wyman, Abandonment of the Jews ,
New York: Pantheon Books, 1984, p. 191)
although I believe his statements single
out Jews for opprobrium), he was hardly
alone in his bigotry; indeed, in the
1930's, FDR would have been hard-pressed
to find any ranking State Department
official who was not anti-Semitic.
Nativism and religious bigotry were
rampant in American diplomatic circles in
the United States and in American
embassies throughout the world. I am not
sure what Professor Michael means by Henry
Stimson's "apparent" anti-Semitism,
however; like other nativists in the
Roosevelt Administration, he was concerned
about an influx of refugees coming into
the United States and how to get them to
leave after the war, but there is little
to sugg! est that he was anti-Semitic. As to FDR's "consistent omission of
Jews from mention both in his weekly news
conferences and allied statements," the
negative cannot produce the positive --
lack of discussion of Jews does not
therefore prove anti-Semitism. Strong
anti-Jewish sentiments were commonplace in
the United States in the 1930's and
1940's, and Roosevelt was already faced
with criticism from bigots that he was
engaging not in a "New Deal" but a "Jew
Deal" for his appointment of Jews to
important positions in his government:
Henry Morgenthau, Jr., as Secretary of the
Treasury, being the most notable, but the
ranks of advisors included Rose
Schneiderman, Sidney Hillman, David Niles,
and Ben Cohen. Whereas Jews only made up
about 3 percent of the nation's
population, they constituted 15 percent of
the higher tiers of FDR's appointments. In
such a climate, credit should be given to
Roosevelt for his response to a question
about his ancestry, in which he publicly
stated that in "the dim distant past"
they! "may have been Jews or Catholics or
Protestants. What I am more interested in
is whether they were good citizens and
believers in God. I hope they were both."
(Quoted in Geoffrey Ward, A First-Class
Temperament , New York: Harper and Row,
1989, p. 254.) It is doubtful that FDR used the phrase
about driving the money changers out of
the temple was directed at the Jews. In
his second inaugural in 1937 (not to
mention the entire campaign of 1936),
Roosevelt had castigated Big Business,
telling audiences that he was proud that
it counted him as an enemy, leading
several of his advisers to worry about his
penchant for demagoguery and the
possibility of stirring up class strife,
but no one accused him of anti-Semitism. I
would be very interested in learning the
source for the information that Coughlin
suggested that FDR use the phrase in his
first and second inaugurals for several
reasons. If the source is from Coughlin
himself, it is highly unreliable; the
"Radio Priest" was well-known for his
tendency to prevaricate, especially when
it came to his own sense of
self-importance. Secondly, it's a pretty
familiar biblical verse, and if Roosevelt,
an Episcopal vestryman who was well-versed
in the Bible, was looking for a choice bit
! of rhetoric with which to assail
business and banks, he didn't need
Coughlin's assistance. Alan Brinkley has described in some
detail in Voices of Protest: Huey Long,
Father Coughlin & The Great Depression
(New York: Vintage Books, 1983) how
Coughlin had become something of a pest in
the White House as early as 1934, and how
FDR went out of his way to avoid him; by
1935, the break between the two men was
clear, and this two years before the
second inaugural. As for Professor Michael's final
question: "how to square [FDR's]
antisemitic background with his Jewish
friends. Were they friends or just
political allies?" There may never be a
way to prove it one way or the other.
There is an overwhelming amount of
evidence to suggest that FDR befriended
people when they could help his political
future, and/or when it was politically
expedient for him to do so, and when their
usefulness was over, so was the
friendship. Such a cavalier attitude
towards others was not confined to Jewish
acquaintances; witness how he neglected
his long-time aide Missy Le Hand after she
had a stroke. This is not to suggest that
anti-Semitism did not lurk in his
background. Geoffrey Ward, in A
First-Class Temperament , goes into
considerable detail stressing that both
Franklin and Eleanor were not immune to
the anti-Semitism that circulated in their
social circles, and provides disturbing
examples of jokes and comments from their
letters, which is particular! ly
surprising given Eleanor's later
humanitarianism. Despite Ward's
explanation that FDR's anti-Semitism was
more "jocular" than, say, his
stepbrother's "viciousness," the fact is
that Roosevelt was not against telling
anti-Jewish jokes, even in the company of
Henry Morgenthau (Ward, A First Class
Temperament , p. 251). There is much
evidence to suggest that the Morgenthau
and Roosevelt couples were genuinely fond
of each other, although it is not possible
to separate the symbiotic political
relationship of the two men from their
friendship -- both were progressive
Democrats, well-to-do gentlemen farmers
from upstate New York, and both interested
in political careers. His comment to Leo
Crowley, a Catholic economist, that "this
is a Protestant country, and the Catholics
and Jews are here under sufferance," and
that it was up to Crowley and Morgenthau
"to go along with anything that I want"
can be interpreted as a coarsely-worded
comment on political and ethnic realities,
cir! ca 1942, or as a prejudiced
reflection on the status of non-Prot!
estants in the United States. I'm not sure
if this is the statement to which
Professor Michael is referring, but if it
is, it may reflect more of a
coarsely-worded comment on political and
ethnic realities, circa 1942, on the part
of a scion from an established Protestant
family than anti-Semitism (Quoted in Ward,
A First Class Temperament , p.
255n48). Professor Michael raises some
interesting questions, and as someone
interested in the vagaries of political
reputations, I hope that other subscribers
to H-Diplo will pick up the thread and run
with it.
3 Feb. 1997 Brian
Loring Villa
University of Ottawa I just want to compliment H-Diplo, its
hard working staff and particularly
Michael Friedland for an exceptional
posting on Franklin D. Roosevelt and
anti-semitism. It is a long, thoughtful
and carefully nuanced review of a
difficult question. I thought I knew all
there was to be said about this subject
but I have profited , as I am sure many
others have, from this posting. It is well
worth filing for permanent retention.
6 Feb 1997 Robert
Michael I would like to thank Prof. Michael
Friedland for his excellent comments
on FDR in response to my queries. Of
course the problem is not just with FDR,
but with the anti-Jewish themes that run
through both the Jews' friends and their
enemies -- to this extent it is similar to
Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Please accept my following comments in
the collegial spirit in which they are
offered. When thinking about FDR, the context of
his behavior, I wonder where we should
draw the line between explaining and
explaining away actions. I understand
something about Adolf Hitler and the
context in which he lived and acted and
thought. I understand something about the
tradition of anti-Jewishness and
antisemitism in European history, indeed
almost two millennia of it. Hitler's
attitudes toward the Jews reflect the
attitudes of many, if not most, Europeans
of the time. But Hitler also had a
specific responsibility for his behavior
within the context of his time. One connection between AH and FDR,
which I do not believe has been discussed
up to now, are FDR's secret statements to
Generals Giraud and Nogues while FDR was
at Casablanca. He espouses, and he does it
twice in one afternoon, discriminatory
attitudes toward the Jews of North Africa
that closely follow German attitudes
toward Jews in the 1930s. Indeed, FDR even
mentions that German discrimination
against Jews was "understandable." If this were the only evidence we had,
well, perhaps it could be passed off as a
momentary lapse. But are we not all
responsible for even our prejudices? Are
not we all, as moral human beings, high or
low, obliged to become aware of our
inevitable prejudices and refuse to act on
them? Of course America was antisemitic,
climaxing in the 1930s and 1940s. But to
perceive this situation in itself as
relieving even our president of his
obligations as a human being is wrong, in
my view. I realize that probably no one on
this list agrees with the antisemitic
attitudes and behaviors of so many
Americans during the Holocaust. But Prof.
Friedland and I seem to disagree as to the
individual moral responsibilities of our
leaders during this period -- or do we
not? Of course I understand about the
isolationism and antisemitism among many
in Congress. The Wagner-Rogers Bill was
minor, but symbolically very significant.
That Roosevelt would abandon his fellow
democrat, NY Senator Robert Wagner (of
German Catholic background), and those
standing for humanitarianism in this
country seems cowardly at the least. The
bill did have the support of many
churches, humanitarian organizations,
newspapers, and public figures. Yes, FDR
was the most political of animals. Perhaps
expecting him to follow his earlier
humanitarian statements is simply too
naive. Was FDR a great leader or not? Was
he one of our greatest Presidents or not?
Was he skilled only in following certain
aspects of public opinion, or did he ever
lead? Or was his feeling about it mirrored
in the comments of his cousin, Laura
Delano Houghteling, wife of the
Commissioner of Immigration, "20,000
[Jewish] children would all too
soon grow up into 20,000 ugly adults." As to the Hennings Bill, I agree about
FDR's escaping responsibility for any
sinkings. What I meant by helping British
but not German-Jewish children was that
the net effect of FDR's role, active or
passive, was to encourage the former and
discourage the latter. Even though he may
have been getting more politically
cautious, as you write, nevertheless
Roosevelt ordered Secretary of State
Cordell Hull to award these Christian
children the status of "visitors"
(immigrants planning some day on returning
to their native land) exploiting a
loophole in America's visa restrictions
never employed for Jewish refugee
children. It still seems to me that FDR
and others, esp. in State, certainly had a
double standard. FDR replaced the pro-Jewish Leo Crowley
with the anti-Jewish Henry Stimson on the
WRB. What suggests to me that Stimson was
antisemitic is that as a member of the War
Refugee Board he blocked a proposal for
temporary havens for Jews in the United
States. He argued that a "Jewish problem"
disquieted the country, since the European
Jews do not assimilate well, and so quotas
on immigration have to take precedence
over humanitarian considerations -- at a
time when over ninety percent of
immigration quotas from Nazi Europe were
unfilled. In addition to blocking safe
havens for Jews in the United States,
Stimson helped kill a Senate resolution
favoring a Jewish state in Palestine. And
as secretary of state in 1929, he had
argued that the Jewish *race* was alien
and unassimilable and therefore Jewish
immigration had to be restricted. Earlier
in the war, he brushed off Jewish
complaints regarding the Nazi death camps
as Semitic grievances. Granted, there were a disproportion of
Jews in FDR's administration. Frankly, I
don't understand how FDR could countenance
this situation. Why was he willing to take
risks in this area, but not at all for the
Jews being murdered in Europe? Were these
mostly secularized Jews, like Morganthau?
The informal leader of liberal American
Judaism, Stephen Wise, feeling duped,
after the war I believe, distanced himself
from FDR. Many anti-Jewish individuals
still have Jewish friends, whom they see
as exceptional Jews. As to the money-changers, even if
Coughlin were imagining that he actually
suggested the phrase to FDR, the fact is
Coughlin himself used it several times in
his radio addresses just before the first
inaugural and that Rep. Louis McFadden was
using it before the 2d inaugural. FRD had
to know this. Both Coughlin and McFadden
(Republican from PA and chair of the
House's Banking and Currency Committee)
realized what FDR must have realized, that
the phrase was traditionally associated
with anti-Jewish attitudes. As to FDR's comment to Leo Crowley that
"this is a Protestant country, and the
Catholics and Jews are here on sufferance"
etc., I differ with Prof. Michael
Friedland, who sees it more as "a
reflection of political and ethnic
realities" whereas I find it representing
the anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish
attitudes of a Protestant bigot. Like Prof. Friedland, I hope other
members of the list pick up on this
thread/theme and "run with it."
6 Feb. 1997 Mark S.
Byrnes Regarding FDR's reference to driving
the money changers out of the temple: I
recently showed my Recent US class an
excerpt from Truman's acceptance speech at
the Democratic convention in 1948. He used
the same turn of phrase, deliberately
echoing FDR. Would he use such a phrase if
he believed it would strike Jewish voters
as anti-semitic? In the same speech, he
denounced a Republican refugee bill as
"anti-semitic and anti-Catholic," clearly
trying to appeal to those key components
of the New Deal coalition.
7 Feb. 1997 Robert
Michael As to Truman, I agree, he did not sense
that the phrase was antisemitic. Indeed he
must have consciously chosen to connect
himself to the most popular president (?)
we've had -- at least the only 4 termer.
Truman was also kept totally out of it, I
believe, by FDR and so I would separate
his behavior from FDR's. I have not seen
any ancillary evidence about Truman's
antisemitism, so an isolated phrase does
not prove anything. The point with FDR is
that this is but one of many pieces of
evidence. Also, whereas Truman had an American
icon to associate himself with, at the
time FDR being considered the greatest,
FDR followed Fr. Coughlin and Rep.
McFadden, two outrageous antisemites who
used the phrase.
7 Feb. 1997 Brad
De Long Robert
Michael wrote lots of things that made
me sigh. The paragraph that made me sigh
the most was: One connection between AH and
FDR, which I do not believe has been
discussed up to now, are FDR's secret
statements to Generals Giraud and
Nogues while FDR was at Casablanca. He
espouses, and he does it twice in one
afternoon, discriminatory attitudes
toward the Jews of North Africa that
closely follow German attitudes toward
Jews in the 1930s. Indeed, FDR even
mentions that German discrimination
against Jews was "understandable." The phrase "connection between
A[dolf] H[itler] and FDR"
is singularly infelicitous. Placing too much weight on what a
politician says alone in a room with
others is also a mistake: good politicians
-- and FDR was the best -- agree with
whoever they are talking to on everything
they possibly can, for they are focused on
getting the other person's agreement on
whatever is important to the politician --
and the best way to get them to agree with
you on important issue X is to pretend to
agree with them on all other issues in the
universe. And recall that Roosevelt was an
extraordinarily effective
anti-anti-Semite: moving heaven and earth
and plotting most deviously over a course
of years to get the U.S. involved in a
European crusade against Hitler out of
totally "humanitarian" motives, for the
U.S. national interest was not at all at
stake in WWII in Europe...
9 Feb. 1997 Ryan
Stanley
Department of History, Harvard
University And recall that Roosevelt was
an extraordinarily effective
anti-anti-Semite: moving heaven and
earth and plotting most deviously over
a course of years to get the U.S.
involved in a European crusade against
Hitler out of totally "humanitarian"
motives, for the U.S. national interest
was not at all at stake in WWII in
Europe... An "anti-anti-Semite." True, but the
fact that FDR vigorously opposed the Jews'
mortal enemy does not in itself prove that
he harboured any great love for the Jews.
I was under the impression that the
primary objects of FDR's humanitarian
concerns were the people of Great Britain,
not the Jews of Europe. And "not at all"
is a strong phrase -- I thought FDR saw
the survival of Great Britain, America's
staunchest ally in Europe and a leading
trade partner, as very much a matter of
national interest for the U.S. Whether we,
in retrospect, might disagree is another
matter. But it's been a while since I
studied WWII -- what evidence is there
that FDR considered the rescue of the Jews
a principal reason to go to war? In any case, I do concur with the
general thrust of Mr. De Long's post, that
historians sometimes seem inclined to hold
FDR's personal character to unreasonably
high standards. The possibility that a
patrician U.S. leader born in the late
19th century might have been somewhat
anti-Semitic does not arouse any great
outrage in me.
9 Feb. 1997 Ross
Mackenzie Robert
Michael wrote: Prof. Michael
Friedland and I seem to disagree as
to the individual moral
responsibilities of our leaders during
this period -- or do we not? ...... Of
course I understand about the
isolationism and antisemitism among
many in Congress. The Wagner-Rogers
Bill was minor, but symbolically very
significant. That Roosevelt would
abandon his fellow democrat, NY Senator
Robert Wagner (of German Catholic
background), and those standing for
humanitarianism in this country seems
cowardly at the least. ... Yes, FDR was
the most political of animals. Perhaps
expecting him to follow his earlier
humanitarian statements is simply too
naive. Was FDR a great leader or not?
Was he one of our greatest Presidents
or not? Was he skilled only in
following certain aspects of public
opinion, or did he ever lead? If I may take up Professor Michael's
invitation to run with this thread: I feel
that perhaps he is concentrating overly on
one, albeit important, aspect of
Roosevelt's actions. It must be stressed
that in the two years between the outbreak
of war in Europe and the involvement of
the United States in that war, the
President's attention was largely
concentrated on two key priorities; his
re-election and expanding American aid to
Britain. Helping Jewish refugees at this
point was simply not: - A particularly practical policy
from a political point of view
considering the strength of
isolationist opinion exemplified by the
America First organisation. FDR was, if
nothing else, a consummate politician
and as he had stated in a Fireside Chat
to the Nation as early as June 28 1933;
"I believe in practical explanations
and practical policies."
- An important enough item on his own
internal agenda to warrant much
personal time or attention,
particularly since he could already
rely on the important Jewish vote.
This, in itself, is hardly an
indication of anti-Jewish opinion,
since the interests of European Jews
were significantly enhanced by his
support for greater American
involvement in and support for Britain
in the war against Fascism. It is,
however, more an indication of the
sheer weight of work with which FDR had
to contend, and which was, undoubtedly,
an important contributory factor in the
collapse of his personal physical
condition as the war progressed.
Furthermore, it is perhaps best to note
that, at the time, the extent of the
Holocaust ultimately perpetrated in
continental Europe was not as clear as
it has since become and that it only
became formally systematised in 1941
with the adoption of the Final
Solution, by which stage FDR (newly
re-elected ) was espousing considerably
more interventionist! policies than he
had done earlier.
FDR could and did lead the nation and
manipulate public opinion to his advantage
but he was skilled enough a politician to
recognise when it was politic to do so and
how to do it ( with the definite exception
of his proposed Supreme Court reforms in
1937 ). His moral support for the plight
of occupied Europe and its inhabitants was
never in doubt, but he was determined not
to let the handling of what he undoubtedly
considered a less important matter affect
his overall aims and objectives. In 1937 the imprudent handling of the
Supreme Court reforms had helped ensure
that little domestic policy of substance
received Congressional endorsement
throughout the remainder of his second
term. Now he was determined to ensure that
Congress did not gainsay him again, and
its more internationalist minded members
were often the most socially conservative
( anti-Jewish ). The fight against Fascism
had therefore to be avoid being couched as
a crusade for the Jewish race. Professor Robert
Michael also wrote: In addition to blocking safe
havens for Jews in the United States,
Stimson helped kill a Senate resolution
favoring a Jewish state in Palestine. This statement clearly infers that
anti-Zionism equates to anti-Semitism,
which I find difficult to swallow. A man
may possess no prejudices against Jews in
general, but still have objected to the
idea of depriving a majority group ( The
Arabs ) of control of their own territory
in favour of a minority group ( The Jews
). It was simply undemocratic and why
should the Arabs be persecuted for the
actions of the Germans? One principle the
Allies were fighting for was that of
self-determination. Alsace-Lorraine was to
be returned to France, after its
re-annexation by Germany, because that was
the will of the majority of its people,
why should Palestine be any different? Palestine was also a mandated territory
of the League of Nations under British
control. Considering that the United
States was not even a member of the
League, I fail to see, how its post-war
status was ever anything to do with
America at this point in time. It is perhaps also pertinent to note
that, despite Truman's protestations of
support for the Jewish cause after the
war, American immigration quotas remained
at low pre-war levels. Truman merely
passed the buck by directing Jewish
immigration to where the Zionist elements
wanted it - Palestine, and ignored Arab
opposition. Lord Mayhew, then Bevin's
Minister of State at the Foreign Office
was later to recall meeting Ambassador Lou
Douglas whilst Bevin was away. Douglas
demanded an increase in the quota of Jews
to be allowed to enter Palestine legally.
Mayhew recalled that; "I replied in line
with Bevin's thinking that this was just a
prescription for war. Whereupon the
Ambassador said slowly and deliberately
that the President wished the Secretary of
State to know that if we were able to help
him on this point, this would enable
Britain's friends in Congress to get
through Britain's appropriation of
Marshall aid." He thus faced Britain with
a choice between supporting the cau! se of
the Arab majority or starvation. How kind,
and if we accept the broad definition of a
Semite as a person of a race possessing a
Semitic tongue ( e.g. Hebrew, Arabic,
Aramaic, Coptic or Ethiopic ) how
anti-semitic!
9 Feb. 1997 Robert Drake [email protected] On 7 Feb. Robert Michael
[email protected] wrote: [here quoting Mark Burns:] Regarding FDR's reference to
driving the money changers out of the
temple: I recently showed my Recent US
class an excerpt from Truman's
acceptance speech at the Democratic
convention in 1948. He used the same
turn of phrase, deliberately echoing
FDR. Would he use such a phrase if he
believed it would strike Jewish voters
as anti-semitic? In the same speech, he
denounced a Republican refugee bill as
"anti-semitic and anti-Catholic,"
clearly trying to appeal to those key
components of the New Deal coalition. [Prof. Robert
Michael:] Thanks, Mark. As to Truman, I agree, he did not sense
that the phrase was antisemitic. Indeed he
must have consciously chosen to connect
himself to the most popular president (?)
we've had -- at least the only 4 termer.
Truman was also kept totally out of it, I
believe, by FDR and so I would separate
his behavior from FDR's. I have not seen
any ancillary evidence about Truman's
antisemitism, so an isolated phrase does
not prove anything. The point with FDR is
that this is but one of many pieces of
evidence. Also, whereas Truman had an American
icon to associate himself with, at the
time FDR being considered the greatest,
FDR followed Fr. Coughlin and Rep.
McFadden, two outrageous antisemites who
used the phrase. I think when it comes to FDR you need
to look at his actions. Some of his
closest advisors were Jewish. He appointed
many Jews to influential positions in the
Judiciary and the Administration. One of
his closest friends and confidants was
Rabbi Stephen Wise. Further, FDR was a
Jewish hero. Father Coughlin was one of
FDR's most outspoken critics just for this
reason. Remember the "Jew Deal?" I do not
defend all of the president's actions (or
lack of action), but his actions should
not be explained by antisemitism.
9 Feb. 1997 Robert
Michael To Brad
De Long, thanks for your stimulating
comments. What other of my responses made you
sigh and why? As to your comments, sigh, as to
politicians who agree with each other.
Isn't it usually the weaker who agree with
the stronger? Not the other way around?
Did Alexander of Russia overwhelm Napoleon
or the other way around? Did Daladier and
Chamberlain overcome Hitler or the other
way around? We are talking about the
President of the United States, arguably
the most powerful man in the world at the
time. Even if the Nogues and Giraud were
arguing discrimination, FDR is going
beyond agreeing with these French
officials, if that IS what he was doing.
He was agreeing with the German -- sigh --
policies of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.
What -- sigh -- side was he on,
anyhow? Your final paragraph, "And recall that
Roosevelt was an extraordinarily effective
anti-anti-Semite: moving heaven and earth
and plotting most deviously over a course
of years to get the U.S. involved in a
European crusade against Hitler out of
totally "humanitarian" motives, for the
U.S. national interest was not at all at
stake in WWII in Europe" is singularly
infelicitous. Surely you are being sarcastic. Or do
you actually mean to say that FDR intended
to involve this country in a war out of
purely humanitarian motives? It seems to
me that political power was at stake. Even
granting that he had "humanitarian"
motives (for whom? Americans, Europeans,
which Europeans?), you really can't be
arguing that they were aimed at the Jews
of Europe, can you? After all the things
that he did NOT do that he could have done
to help the Jews of Europe without any
damage to our war effort! Humanitarian
motives for Jews, surely you jest.
9 Feb. 1997 Phyllis
Soybel Butler
University of Illinois at Chicago I agree with Brad
De Long and others who point out that
FDR really was a politician who knew the
crowd with whom he was conversing. By this
I mean, FDR in his actions showed himself
to be less anti-semitic than most
Americans of the time. They were his
friends, his associates, his appointees.
While he did little to advance the cause
of Jewish refugees, let us understand he
did no more and no less than others at the
same time, including the Jewish community
here in the United States. Why vilify a
man for being human? In his "approval" if
this is even correct to say of not bombing
targets like Auschwitz, the military
arguments that it did little to advance
victory are sound, although personally
saddening. My two cents worth from the land of
dissertators and Lincoln, University of
Illinois at Chicago
10 Feb. 1997 Brad
De Long: Robert
Michael wrote: Surely you are being
sarcastic. Or do you actually mean to
say that FDR intended to involve this
country in a war out of purely
humanitarian motives? It seems to me
that political power was at stake. Even
granting that he had "humanitarian"
motives (for whom? Americans,
Europeans, which Europeans?), you
really can't be arguing that they were
aimed at the Jews of Europe, can you?
After all the things that he did NOT do
that he could have done to help the
Jews of Europe without any damage to
our war effort! Humanitarian motives
for Jews, surely you jest. I do mean to say that FDR tried his
hardest to involve this country in a war
out of purely humanitarian motives. Back
before the atomic bomb (a big
qualification), the national interest of
the United States was all but unaffected
by who ruled what chunk of Europe. Surely
nothing was at stake for American national
security that was worth spending 450,000
American lives. Better from the narrow
perspective of the national security of
the United States to spend the money
beefing up the navy and the air force for
home defense than fighting a war in
Europe. After the atomic bomb things are very
different. But before the atomic bomb --
remember: in World War II American,
British, and Canadian armies only got back
onto the European continent because they
had the industrial economy of Britain as
an advanced supply base and because 2/3 of
the German army was pinned down in Russia
by the Red Army. Projecting military power
across the Atlantic is -- even today -- a
horrendous logistical exercise. Now I think Roosevelt was a great man.
But he was not great because his foreign
policy was carefully tuned to advance the
national interest of the United States --
he was great because his foreign policy
had much wider aims.
10 Feb. 1997 [email protected] (Lou
McDermott) BOMB AUSCHWITZ! Right it is better for
the US and GB to kill the concentration
camp inhabitants than for the Germans.
While we are on FDR, what about the
controversy over the supposed lack of
effort by the Zionists to do something
about saving the Jews in the concentration
camps? It seems to be a most divisive
topic in Israel right now.
10 Feb. 1997 M. Paton Walsh
[email protected] On 10 Feb. Brad
De Long wrote: [quoting Robert
Michael:] Surely you are being
sarcastic. Or do you actually mean to
say that FDR intended to involve this
country in a war out of purely
humanitarian motives? [Brad
De Long:] I do mean to say that FDR
tried his hardest to involve this
country in a war out of purely
humanitarian motives. Back before the
atomic bomb (a big qualification), the
national interest of the United States
was all but unaffected by who ruled
what chunk of Europe. Surely nothing
was at stake for American national
security that was worth spending
450,000 American lives. Better from the
narrow perspective of the national
security of the United States to spend
the money beefing up the navy and the
air force for home defense than
fighting a war in Europe. The conviction that the national
interests of the United States were "all
but unaffected by who ruled what chunk of
Europe" was not shared by the majority of
the American public, 1939-1941. While the
"what if" questions involved in any
assessment of how damaging continued
isolationism would have been, make the
issue of what was *really* at stake hard
to deal with, it is nevertheless apparent
(from opinion polls, newspapers, radio
debates, and so on) that a substantial
number of Americans feared a wide variety
of *direct* threats to U.S. security and
interests if the Germans controlled the
European continent and succeeded in
conquering Britain, ranging from military
attack to economic isolation, given
Germany's autarkic economic policies.
Moreover, given the very public debate
over American intervention, this was a
moment at which the American public was
unusually well-informed about the issues
and thus better equipped to make an
intelligent assessment of the dangers, or
lack! thereof. In addition, while horror
at Nazi tactics was often a part of
interventionist arguments, few advocates
of aid to the allies or US entry into the
war justified that advocacy without
explicit reference to what they believed
were very real threats to American
interests and security.
11 Feb. 1997 Joseph H. Poles [email protected] RE: Lou McDermott "BOMB AUSCHWITZ." The
killing centers, i.e., gassing chambers
and crematoriums were highly visible from
the air and the bombing conditions were
excellent over the target areas. Some of
the prisoners may have been killed in the
attacks but many more lives could have
been saved. The only ingredient missing was the
desire of the Defense Department to
initiate any non-military attacks.
11 Feb. 1997 Frank Kofsky
[email protected] Lou McDermott writes: BOMB AUSCHWITZ! Right it is
better for the US and GB to kill the
concentration camp inhabitants than for
the Germans. The idea of having Britain or the U.S.
originated with concentration-camp
prisoners themselves, who smuggled such an
appeal to the outside world. See David
Wyman, THE ABANDONMENT OF THE JEWS. -- Frank Kofsky
11 Feb. 1997 Brian
Loring Villa An excellent student of mine, Noel
Bullock and I are collaborating on an
article on the decision not to bomb
Auschwitz which ought to liven the
discussion up quite a bit, as it takes a
rather different tack on the question.
Noel did his work and it is my fault that
it is not quite ready to throw into the
pot for discussion just yet. It will
suggest that the attack on the
administration for that decision is really
far off the mark. But I do want to warmly compliment the
enlightened, dispassionate and
comprehending tone of Phyllis
Soybel Butler's contribution which is
definitely worth an awful lot more than
two cents worth she claims. She has
written: "I agree with Brad
De Long and others who point out
that FDR really was a politician who
knew the crowd with whom he was
conversing. By this I mean, FDR in his
actions showed himself to be less
anti-Semitic than most Americans of the
time. They were his friends, his
associates, his appointees. While he
did little to advance the cause of
Jewish refugees, let us understand he
did no more and no less than others at
the same time, including the Jewish
community here in the United States.
Why vilify a man for being human? In
his "approval" if this is even correct
to say of not bombing targets like
Auschwitz, the military arguments that
it did little to advance victory are
sound, although personally saddening." If anything Roosevelt's political
approach to the Holocaust problem can be
viewed with even more understanding if not
sympathy. It needs saying that the policy
of unrelenting hostility to Nazi Germany
which Roosevelt adopted, practically from
day one, was the policy which American
Jewry or at least its press overwhelmingly
supported, and which he carried out if
anything more militantly than was urged by
some of his advisors who happened to be
Jewish. He had also adopted the social and
economic policies of left Jewish opinion,
for his own reasons, no doubt, but they
were associated with the openness of his
administration to Jewish opinion. His
Chief advisor on the large questions, it
increasingly becomes clear was Felix
Frankfurter, as much, perhaps more, than
Harry Hopkins. Noting all this, can one really say it
was a practical possibility for Roosevelt
also to have opened the flood gates to
Jewish emigration to the United States,
still reeling from the depression of 1937
? I do not know myself what the right
policy for Jewish groups to advocate might
have been -- there was so much wrong with
the world -- but I do know that in a
pluralistic democracy no ethnic group can
have it all or appear to have it all, and
that in practical politics Jewish opinion,
could choose the policy of war on Hitler
or it could choose a policy of mass rescue
of Jews. Urging both, without working out
the problem of strategy and timing very
carefully, was a formula for disaster on
both the domestic and international plane.
This of course is not to say that both
causes were not absolutely right, only
that to advocate them simultaneously
required more careful thought than the
anguish of the moment allowed. Roosevelt
decided, in accordance, I think with a
significant body o! f Jewish opinion, to
settle first with Hitler as a hostile
power, and then to deal with Hitler, the
Nazis, the SS and German condoners of
their crimes, next. For the programme of
correction and retribution Roosevelt
turned to his Secretary of the Treasury.
And who can forget Roosevelt's stated
reason for appointing Herbert Lehman to
head UNRRA-that it was right that Germans
should have to beg for a scrap of bread
from a Jew ? And when it came to setting
policy FDR forbade that UNRRA give even a
scrap to Germans. Roosevelt's ordering of priorities, of
course, had terrible implications. It left
European Jews to suffer terribly. But the
reverse priority to rescue European Jews
and then to try to wage war on Hitler did
not seem like a practical programme. In
fact, was there anyone with any political
clout, Jewish or non Jewish, who advocated
that ? The situation that obtained during
the war, that we could have rescued
significant number of Jews had we been
willing to relent in the prosecution of
the war, had always been the reality.
Indeed what historian has ever been able
to construct a counterfactual in which one
could have opened the flood gates to the
refugees and still have an American public
opinion willing to go to war with Germany
? To say that Roosevelt was closer to the
practical than the noble is to simply
state the obvious. But who on the American
political scene would have done more ?
With all his faults he stood head and
shoulder above most of his political
contemporaries. Given that American
opinion was divided -- and unfortunately
these issues tended to divide more --
Roosevelt, working in real time and space,
had to pursue those policies which united
Americans.
12 Feb. 1997 Phyllis
Soybel Butler On 11 Feb. 1997 Frank Kofsky wrote: The idea of having Britain or
the U.S. originated with
concentration-camp prisoners
themselves, who smuggled such an appeal
to the outside world. See David Wyman,
THE ABANDONMENT OF THE JEWS. Still didn't mean it was right or
strategically sound. In addition, it would
probably have sent a message to the
Germans that a) they had the right idea
and b) that the British and Americans
didn't care either.
13 Feb. 1997 Gerd Korman [email protected] It would be helpful if this discussion
shifted its attention to Governor Herbert
Lehman. What do we know about him today?
He had to make all kinds of choices in
response to the Jewish events of the
1930's and 1940's. Some of these would
have been heroic, and we should identify
and analyze them. For until we comprehend the risks
facing the New York governor, had he
chosen to go public in a sustained
campaign to change administration
policies, we cannot hope to understand FDR
and the antisemitism of his society.
13 Feb. 1997 Robert
Michael Thanks to all who have contributed to
this thread and to those who posted it to
the H-DIPLO web site. I have so much material to reply to,
and to hone my thinking, that it will take
a while before I can fully reply to the
(mostly) thoughtful responses. Since our
U. Mass-D mainframe was down from last
Thursday to today, I am just catching up
on all the posts. The most recent communication by Ms.
Butler begs an immediate response. She
wrote quoting Frank Kofsky's post of 11
Feb.: The idea of having Britain or
the U.S. originated with
concentration-camp prisoners
themselves, who smuggled such an appeal
to the outside world. See David Wyman,
THE ABANDONMENT OF THE JEWS. [Butler:] Still didn't mean it was right or
strategically sound. In addition, it would
probably have sent a message to the
Germans that a) they had the right idea
and b) that the British and Americans
didn't care either." Reading this issue from the German
side, it seems to me that just the
opposite message would have been sent.
That the Allies gave enough of a damn
about the Jews actually to try to stop the
slaughter. Certainly, the cc camps inmates
seem to be unanimous on this matter. That the Allies devoted an enormous
amount of air power to helping the
(non-Jewish) Poles in 1944, when this
power could hardly be spared; whereas they
never intentionally (once or twice they
bombed Auschwitz BY ACCIDENT) bombed
Auschwitz or the other 5 death camps
confirmed what the leading Nazis knew and
gave them all the more permission to
continue the Holocaust at full blast. Such
bombing of death camps and rail lines was
never even a tertiary target for the
Allies -- no way, no how. Asst. Secretary
of War lied about the capabilities of our
Air Force from mid 1944 on. The lack of any sense of urgency, in my
view, came from the top down. FDR again;
also Stimson, Long, and a dozen other
State Department decision makers. Second
point, the Germans recognized for a long
while that the Allies did not give a damn
about the Jews -- both Goebbels and Hitler
speak about this publicly. Knowing that thousands of Jews were
being massacred in the most despicable
circumstances did not motivate the Allies
to do a damn thing, even try to do much
was beyond them. The British in the Foreign and Colonial
offices said it much better than our State
Department antisemites: - H. F. Downie, Head of the Middle
East Department of the Colonial Office,
the official principally concerned with
Palestine, wrote on 15 March 1941 also
about Jewish complaints, that "one
regret[s] that the Jews are not
on the other side in this war." He was
also quoted in 1941 as saying that the
Jews were "enemies just as the Germans
are, but in a more insidious way."
- J. S. Bennett, Colonial Office
official, on l8 April l94l, noted that
"the Jews have done nothing but add to
our difficulties by . . . unscrupulous
Zionist 'sob-stuff' and
misrepresentation, it is hard to bear."
On 6 May l94l, Shuckburgh wrote, "I can
think of nobody who would be in the
least likely to take them in. . . . We
cannot be deterred by the kind of
prewar humanitarianism that prevailed
in l939."
- On 23 September l942, Herbert
Morrison, Home Secretary and Minister
of Security, wrote that "any relaxation
of immigration policy could lead French
Jewish children "to be dumped here" by
Vichy."
- Osbert Peake, Under Secretary of
the Home Office, spoke for the British
delegation to the Bermuda Conference,
when he stated that any successful
rescue attempt of Jews, especially old
people and children,"would be relieving
Hitler of an obligation to care for
these useless people."
- A. R. Dew, head of the Southern
Department of the Foreign Office,
stated on l September l944 in response
to the British Jews urging help for
Jews in Hungary and Rumania: "A
disproportionate amount of time of this
office is wasted in dealing with these
wailing Jews."
What was true of British attitudes also
characterized Canadian ones. - Charles Blair, Director of Canadian
Immigration during the war -- "a
religious man, . . . precisely the man
the ruling Liberal government wanted"
-- felt that all Jews were "utterly
selfish," alien beings who had to be
kept out of Canada at all costs. When
asked how many Jews would be allowed to
immigrate to Canada after the war, a
senior official summed up the Allied
position neatly: "None is too
many."
This material is just a small sample of
the litany of hateful responses by Allied
leaders on the matter of the Jews of the
Holocaust. Bombing the camps, indeed. Not to
worry, no Jews would be directly killed by
Allies (except occasionally in Palestine).
We killed by omission. On May 12, 1943, Shmuel Zygielbaum,
Jewish Bund representative on the Polish
National Council killed himself and left
this suicide note: "From the latest information from
Poland, it is evident that the Germans,
with the most ruthless cruelty, are now
murdering the few remaining Jews in
Poland. . . . The responsibility for the
crime of murdering the entire Jewish
population of Poland falls in the first
instance on the perpetrators, but
indirectly it is also a burden of the
whole of humanity, the people and
governments of the Allied States which
thus far have made no effort toward
concrete action for the purpose of
curtailing this crime. "By the passive observation of the
murder of defenseless millions, and of the
maltreatment of children, women, and old
men, these countries have become the
criminals accomplices. . . . ". . . By my death I wish to express my
strongest protest against the inactivity
with which the world is looking on and
permitting the extermination of my
people." Zygielbaum's death is widely
reported but his motives are ignored. Robert Michael, Professor of European
History, University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth
14 Feb. 1997 [email protected] (Mike
Benninger) On 11 Feb. Joseph H. Poles
[email protected] wrote: RE: Lou McDermott "BOMB AUSCHWITZ." The
killing centers, i.e., gassing chambers
and crematoriums were highly visible from
the air and the bombing conditions were
excellent over the target areas. Some of
the prisoners may have been killed in the
attacks but many more lives could have
been saved. The only ingredient missing
was the desire of the Defense Department
to initiate any non-military attacks. It might be interesting to add the
comments of David Wyman to this debate,
for in his "Abandonment of the Jews", he
states directly that not only were the
military means available, but that in many
cases, non-military logistical support for
other ethnic groups was often available
and regularly used...
14 Feb. 1997 Phyllis
Soybel Butler From the personal standpoint, as a
descendent of European Jews, I am
disturbed but hardly shocked at the
attitudes of Foreign and Colonial Office
officials. Perhaps I should be, but history tells
me differently. And I concur that the
failure of countries prior to WWII, like
the United States and Great Britain, to
take a string and uncompromising stand
against the discrimination and
dehumanization of peoples, like the Jews,
and the inability or lack of desire to
much during the first 2 years, before I
might add the systematic killing of Jews
in death camps took place, is immoral and
reprehensible. HOWEVER, from a strategic and military
standpoint, bombing Auschwitz made no real
sense. The railroad lines led into camps
which seemed to produce little going out,
they did not really seem to come from
anywhere but cities. In short, I still am not convinced that
the American and British decisions to not
bomb Auschwitz and the other camps was
wrong in a practical sense. Nor looking at
FDR, do I believe it was religiously or
racially (depending one's classification)
motivated.
15 Feb. 1997 Brian
Loring Villa I continue to find myself in broad
general agreement with Phyllis
Soybel Butler on this subject,
including her post of 14 February. But it
is open for some debate whether the United
Nations by their declarations beginning in
1942 did not take a "strong and
uncompromising stand against the
discrimination and dehumanization of
peoples." There were a number of clear
unequivocal statements. The question of
just how shrill they should have been must
be viewed broadly in context. Discussions
about the moral condemnations required
rarely note that it was also necessary to
make like statements about the suffering
of Japan's victims, about the immorality
of collaboration, about the brutality of
the Occupation etc. etc. In short, just how much shrillness
could the public stand, could governments
utter without beginning to lose
credibility ? These are questions, I
believe, that are best answered by those
with knowledge or experience of
psychological warfare during World War II
because they actually are very technical
questions, on which very careful polls and
studies were made. I do not claim
expertise in this area but I remember
reading one psy-ops expert saying that too
much shrillness could compromise the
ability of the political leadership to
lead. That always struck me as
insightful. As to the bombing of Auschwitz, I am
grateful for the spur for me to finish up
the article on which Noel Bullock and I
have worked for nearly two years. It will be interesting to see
reactions. It is very different from the
discussion that has occurred hitherto.
16 Feb. 1997 Adam
M. Charney On 14 Feb. Phyllis
Soybel Butler wrote: In short, I still am not
convinced that the American and British
decisions to not bomb Auschwitz and the
other camps was wrong in a practical
sense. Nor looking at FDR, do I believe
it was religiously or racially
(depending one's classification)
motivated. Your argument seems to me to be the
traditional one - that there was no
strategic value to bombing those lines and
that therefore doing so would have
constituted a waste of military resources.
While I take no position on the
anti-semitism of FDR (he was likely no
more or less anti-semitic than others of
his socio-economic class). The point is,
that resources were not terribly scarce,
certainly after the US entered the war and
that the diversion of small amounts of
resources could have saved many many
lives. The pro-bombing argument does not
approach it in military or strategic terms
- there was little benefit in that
regard.
16 Feb. 1997 Robert
Michael In response to Prof. Butler's most
recent assertions re bombing: Flying missions to help the Warsaw
Poles in Fall 1944 made no sense. Almost
all the material we dropped was picked up
by the Germans and used against us and the
Poles. We took losses and kept on
flying. Compare these actions, and the sense
that the Allies were on their side
indicated to the Poles, with whom the U.S.
had NO alliance that required such
voluntary actions, with the Allied
attitudes and behavior in regard to the
European Jews. The Allies knew why not many products
left Auschwitz -- though the satellite
camps sure produced goods -- that's why
they were bombed. The Allies knew, and we
have evidence that they knew, the
Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was primarily a
death factory. If a double standard does not seem
evident, well, look again. I also don't understand what difference
being a descendant of European Jews makes.
If one is, or is not, the issues still
stand.
17 Feb. 1997 Meredith
Hindley
American University After reading Prof. Michael's post
listing the anti-semitic views in the FO,
I question the productivity of such an
exercise. I don't see how a discussion on
whose government was more anti-semitic
than the other gets us very far. The
bottom line is that the Allied response to
the Holocaust was less than stellar for a
very complicated set of reasons, of which
anti-semitism is one. For the British, the
Jews and their claims of Palestine
threatened attempts to preserve British
colonial order in the Middle East. Had
America been in the same position, I
anticipate that sentiments like those
expressed by the FO would have been found
in abundance in the State Department. As far as Hitler and Goebbels noticing
that the Allies didn't give a damn about
the Jews, let's consider the mindset of
the two men under discussion. Hitler
launched the war with two guiding
principles in mind: race and space. The
destruction of the Jews for Hitler was
central to his planning and actions.
Goebbels spent more than a decade dishing
out anti-semitic trash to the German
populace. For both of these men, the
destruction of the Jews was a POLITICAL
issue and central to the maintenance of
the German state and Germany's war
aims. The Allies, on the other hand, fought
first for survival and then to prevent the
reemergence of Nazi Germany. For them the
war was about defeating fascism. In *Jews
for Sale,* Yehuda Bauer pointed out that
the Allies did not grasp the political
importance that Hitler placed on the
destruction of the Jews. Instead, the
Allies regarded the plight of the Jews a
HUMANITARIAN issue, and therefore a
secondary (or even lower) concern of the
war. Restoring governments, like that of
Poland, received a higher priority because
it was considered a political issue. In a
sense, the Allies just didn't "get it."
They didn't understand how the Jews fit
into Hitler's program and didn't make
providing assistance a priority. This split in thinking is not
particularly satisfying explanation, but
it does go some way towards explaining why
the camps weren't bombed. The Allies
didn't understand that bombing even one
camp would send a strong message to Hitler
and set him on notice as to the immorality
of his actions. I'd like to ask a very practical
question: how does one propose to get the
Jews held by the Nazis out of Eastern
Europe? The area fell under the sphere of
the Soviets and they were even less
concerned about the Jews than the western
Allies (i.e. it was a non-issue for
Stalin). Bomb the camps, the Nazis would
have diverted the Jews to other camps
either on trains or by forced marches,
which would have yielded deaths also.
Hitler was so devoted to the Final
Solution that even in the darkest days of
the war, trains carrying Jews received
priority over military troops and
materiel. Any discussion on the Allied response
to the Holocaust is ultimately
dissatisfying because moral indignation
and practicalities cannot be reconciled.
In the end, I agree with Gerhard Weinberg
who argues that the best thing for the
Jews of Europe was for the Allies to
achieve the quickest victory possible. The
quicker the victory, the sooner the Nazi
killing machine could be stopped.
17 Feb. 1997 James
G. Cassedy I'm a short time lurker without the
credentials of most individuals on this
list, and a little free time this Holiday
afternoon. When we attempt to judge those who
didn't bomb the Nazi extermination camps,
I can't help but think that perhaps we are
people throwing rocks in glass houses. Since learning of the extermination of
millions during World War II, we have
permitted the extermination of hundreds of
thousands of Cambodians. After the somber
Holocaust Museum in Washington was open we
permitted the extermination of hundreds of
thousands of Africans, and thousands of
Muslims in the heart of Europe, before we
chose to do anything. I'm sure others can
think of other horrific crimes against
mankind, and I'm sure others can provide
excuses justifying why we did nothing. I suspect that other future horrors
will take place, and we will do nothing.
Perhaps inertia in the face of horrors
which do not directly effect us is part of
our being. I leave that to brighter
individuals. But to condemn others in the
midst of our own failures seems a little
much. Jim Cassedy, Center for Electronic
Records National Archives and Records
Administration (Opinions, written on
President's Day, do not reflect those of
NARA). 17 Feb. 1997 David
A. Welch Those interested in this topic should
keep an eye out for the forthcoming
NASM-Holocaust Museum book called (I
believe) THE BOMBING OF
AUSCHWITZ: SHOULD THE ALLIES HAVE
ATTEMPTED IT? -- especially the
essay by Tami Davis Biddle. David A. Welch 24 Feb. 1997 Robert
Michael In reply to Meredith Hindley: I was not playing a comparison game.
This would have been foolish since both
sides were morally culpable, hypocritical,
consciously ignoring facts in favor of the
Jews at the same time as they favored
non-Jews. Yet comparing is heuristic in
that we can better examine the different
capabilities, concerns, and responses to
the Holocaust of each nation. Antisemitic
sentiments were quite common among both
U.S. State Department and British Foreign
and Colonial Offices. What you write about the centrality of
the Holocaust for Hitler and Goebbels is
true. But I think you are quite wrong in
narrowing it to only a political issue.
For them, it was an
ideological-psychological-moral issue with
political ramifications. If Bauer said that the Allies
considered the Holocaust a humanitarian
issue, his evidence differs from mine. The
Allies privately and the Nazis publicly
indicated clearly that there was no longer
any room for humanitarianism when it came
to the Jews. I distinguish here the Allied
public claptrap from their private words
and actions. There were several opportunities to get
Jews out of Europe. The evidence is quite
overwhelming on this point. Not all the
Jews, of course, but hundreds of thousands
more than actually escaped. But the Allies
consistently refused to follow up until
too damn late; whereas at the same time
they were helping non-Jews consistently. I
could recite the evidence but I don't
think that would be of much help in terms
of the responses I have been getting from
citations of evidence, at least from many
of those who have replied on this list.
But suffice it to say that dozens of
opportunities arose that members of our
State and the British Foreign and Colonial
offices not only refused to do anything
about but sought to head off, at the same
time they were acting to help millions of
non-Jews. Their attitudes were, as Pehle,
Paul, and DuBois indicated, pretty much
like the Nazis. You ignore the differences between
bombing railway lines in the Balkans
versus Poland and the West and the
psychological effects of doing this on
those in neutral, occupied, and axis
satellite nations. Why was winning the war the best way to
stop the slaughter of Jews, but spending
billions of dollars for aid, and thousands
of hours of effort and negotiations while
at the same time prosecuting the war the
best way to help non-Jews? Reply to Brian
Loring Villa: Who is demanding
"shrillness," whatever that is? Of the
many Allied declarations, only one
included Jews. The Allies could have done
so many things they refused to do, and for
complicated reasons, one of which was,
according to my reading of the evidence,
the clear role that antisemitism played in
the U.S. State Department and in the
British Foreign and Home and Colonial
Offices. To all: I am an outsider in the sense
that I am neither an Americanist nor a
diplomatic historian, and I thank you all
for giving me the opportunity to read your
perspectives; it has been most
enlightening. I have had more food for
thought from members of this list than
from the other lists (which I co-edit) on
which I have raised these issues. I thank
you for helping me understand the
counterarguments and alternative
interpretations of the facts involved in
this enormously sensitive issue.
Furthermore, I have been helped to become
aware of the circling-of-the-wagons
movement that occurs when icons are
attacked. When my book is finished, I will
be sure to take into consideration all
that I have learned from the debate on
this list. | 
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