Beyond Belief

by Deborah E. Lipstadt

  Shortly after the Nazis’ nationwide boycott against Jews, Hitler’s speeches were interpreted by many editors as showing “an unexpectedly moderate tone.” His claim to be interested only in “peace” and “reconciliation” was described by one midwestern paper as “fine and conciliatory words.” The St. Louis Post Dispatch believed that Germany would soon return to democracy. The Detroit News argued that the world “in fairness must wait and see what the new regime accomplishes before it hastens to condemn it.”36

  In the fall of 1933 Kurt Schmitt, Minister of the Economy, censured the boycott of Jewish business establishments. New York Times reporter Guido Endreis believed that Schmitt’s remarks were an indication that more “responsible elements in the Hitler government are taking sane counsels on this issue.” In a reversal of the norm, the New York Times’s editorial board took a somewhat more skeptical stance than its reporter and argued that the recurring cycle of terror in Germany raises doubts about acts of seeming moderation such as Schmitt’s promises or Goebbels’s statements to the foreign press that “Jews had not been treated as inferiors.” The New York Times observed that “hitherto . . . . any sign of relaxation in one place has been counterbalanced by an outburst of unreason along another section of the anti-Jewish front.” The Times wondered whether these developments would not be followed by a “new display of spiritual ferocity against the Jews.” Newsweek, which also doubted the genuineness of Schmitt’s statement, suggested that his comments be understood as a German attempt to “further its reemployment program” since, as Schmitt acknowledged, the boycotted stores and businesses employed too many people to be “simply wiped out.”37 But much of the press continued to hope that moderation was in the offing and that Germany was on the verge of abandoning its violent behavior.

  This expectation of impending moderation persisted even after the Berlin riots and the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. It was part of a broader set of expectations regarding Germany’s policies and symptomatic of the attitude which led Neville Chamberlain to the disastrous Munich agreement. Until Kristallnacht, and even to a small degree thereafter, much of the press continued to be optimistic regarding Nazism’s treatment of the Jews. It condemned the violence and then predicted that this particular act—whatever it might be—marked the end of the terrorist campaign against the Jews. It never did; in fact, the following act usually escalated the degree of brutality. After the July 1935 riots, when German authorities announced that those who engaged in individual actions against Jews would be subject to arrest, AP claimed that the “Nazi chieftains had called off their drive on ‘state enemies.’” Newspapers which a few weeks earlier had lamented the madness prevailing in Germany now hailed Germany for “show[ing] sense.” The Washington Star believed that “reason” had returned to the Teutonic state.38 There was satisfaction that Germany seemed to be responding to foreign opinion.39 The optimism may have been a reflection of the American desire to stay out of the cauldron of European problems. As long as it could be argued that Germany might eventually adopt a rational and respectable path, then it could also be argued that the world would remain at peace and America would not become entangled in foreign battles as it had less than two decades earlier.

  “Signs of Weakness”

  Some papers found a different reason for hope in the outbreaks. Their interpretation was indicative of the degree to which they were anxious to view the situation in a positive light. They argued that the Berlin riots as well as other antisemitic incidents reflected Hitler’s weakness, not his strength, and were signs of the imminent collapse of his rule.

  In some circumstances this argument would have had a certain logical foundation. Violent upheavals in the capital of a nation—particularly when the authorities attributed them to enemies of the regime—could be indicative of a threat to the government’s stability. But these were not such circumstances.

  The Troy (New York) Record concluded after the Berlin riots that “Nazi rule is crumbling,” and a southern paper, convinced that the handwriting was on the wall, declared that “the days of the Hitlerite rule are numbered; there can be no doubt about that. Any regime which makes its appeal for popular favor on the basis of a philosophy of hate cannot survive.” The Washington Post believed that the riots were a “precedent” to Germany’s imminent collapse.40 A New York paper believed the riots proof that things were “going badly” for the Nazi regime. According to the Oakland Tribune the Berlin riots revealed the existence of movements which “endanger the regime” and rendered Nazi leaders’ positions precarious at best. The Cleveland Plain Dealer concluded that Hitler’s opportunity “to create the Teutonic new age [is] fast slipping way.” The Syracuse Post Standard found the riots a cause for celebration, for the “fact that violent measures are undertaken prove [sic] that censorship and the iron fist cannot crush for long the spirit of free men.”41 Such interpretations transformed the riots into a revolt against persecution rather than an expression of it.

  Even the New York Times, whose front-page headline proclaimed “Antisemites Firmly in the Saddle” and whose reporters had been arguing that it was Hitler and his followers’ power, not vulnerability, which led them to this new radical offensive, fell prey to the “weakness, not strength” interpretation. In an editorial it surmised that “all is not going well” within Hitler’s regime and the Reichsführer’s “power seems to be waning.”42

  Similar interpretations had been offered in the wake of the murder of Hitler’s chief lieutenant, storm troop leader Ernst Roehm, and many of Roehm’s followers in 1934, which Hitler had engineered.* After that and a futile Nazi attempt to precipitate a civil war in Austria which would lead to imposition of Nazi rule, there was speculation in the press that Hitler’s position of power had become more symbolic than real. Actually his power was realer than ever. Chicago Daily News correspondent Wallace R. Duel subsequently characterized repeated reports that Hitler was weakening as part of the “nightmare” with which he and other journalists had to contend. Every crisis or upheaval in Germany produced such reassuring claims from those far from the scene, and each time they proved “more false . . . than before.”43

  Of course not everyone associated with the press succumbed to this optimism. Skeptics pointed to the increasing power of Julius Streicher, publisher of the pornographic antisemitic weekly Der Stürmer, the persistent spread of antisemitic violence in Germany, the appointment of a known antisemite, Wolf von Helldorf, as Berlin police chief, and the rumors of forthcoming antisemitic legislation and argued that these developments did not augur well for improved treatment of Jews and were no cause for optimism.44 The Milwaukee Journal interpreted German actions as a change in tactics and not policies. Germany might shun overt physical violence but would relegate Jews to a “living death” and “slow starvation” by cutting them off “entirely from [their] place in the community.”45 The Baltimore Sun was also unconvinced that any amelioration was in the offing. It cautioned readers against being blinded by maneuvers designed for foreign consumption and pointed out that German leaders claimed they wanted to “halt or at least ‘modify’ ” the drive against the “‘enemies of the state’ . . . but every dispatch from Germany brings fresh tales of coercion and repression [and] of new attacks upon Jews, Catholics and other groups.” This view was echoed by the New York Post, the Washington Post, and the Chattanooga Times. The latter, which was owned by the Sulzberger family, as was the New York Times, had previously been rather optimistic about Germany’s ability to return to a path of reason. Promises of a change in policy notwithstanding, statements by Nazi leaders indicated to the Washington Post that the country was “within striking distance of . . . complete terrorism.”46

  Nothing but . . .

  All of the various explanations in the press about who precisely was responsible for and what were the ulterior motives behind the antisemitic violence were attempts to make sense of a situation that seemed fraught with irrational behavior. Such efforts to explain and rationalize antisemitism spring out
of what has been termed the “nothing but” theory of antisemitism.47 It is a theory that defines antisemitism as nothing but a means of accomplishing something else, e.g., a smokescreen designed to divert attention from other more complex problems, a means of uniting disparate groups, or a pressure valve for venting social or political discontent. Such an interpretation made it difficult, if not impossible, to understand that for the Nazis antisemitism was a, if not the, keystone of their ideology.

  This is not to suggest that the Nazi leadership had no ulterior motives when it pursued its antisemitic campaign or that there were no variations of opinion among Nazi leaders. The struggles of 1934, including the murder of Ernst Roehm and his followers, revealed the volatility of such differences of opinion. During the early years of Nazi rule, Germany, in many respects, was still in the throes of an internal revolution as different segments of the party and government hierarchies jockeyed for power. The press was correct in arguing that antisemitism sometimes did serve as a smokescreen and that Jews were often useful as convenient scapegoats. Certain antisemitic acts were timed to divert attention from other problems, and some reflected divisions of opinion between competing Nazi factions. For example, there was serious debate in the Nazi ranks about the efficacy of actions such as the April 1, 1933, boycott of Jewish stores. There were officials, such as Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht, who were opposed to precipitous measures that might both “inflame opinion abroad” and “create economic and financial disturbances,” and who were upset by the Berlin riots and the vulgar and public tactics of individuals such as Julius Streicher. At the other end of the spectrum there were Streicher and others who sought the “complete subordination” of the Jew, including citizenship restrictions, loss of property rights, and prohibitions upon business and social relations with non-Jews.48 The press did not totally misread the situation; different factions were jockeying for position. However, its inclination to attribute outbreaks of antisemitism to nothing but the Nazi leadership’s desire to placate one side or another or to divert attention from other problems obscured the degree to which antisemitism was central to Nazi ideology.49

  Of course the press was not alone in its optimism or it adherence to “nothing but” explanations. Many Germans, Jews and non-Jews, and foreigners, including diplomats and journalists, believed that the Jews were simply serving as scapegoats. Many German Jews themselves believed that each antisemitic act marked the culmination of the Nazi campaign against them. At the time of the Nuremberg Laws some German Jews argued that because their status was now formalized by law, the situation would stabilize and improve.50

  Yet it remains difficult to justify the press’s failure to understand Nazi antisemitism. It might have required a quantum leap of the imagination to comprehend that Nazism was fundamentally different from other conventional systems of government particularly in its policies and conduct regarding the Jews. But Nazi leaders constantly reiterated their antisemitic ideology, openly promised to rid Germany of its Jews, and made no attempt to hide their visceral hatred of Jews and Judaism. In June 1932 Literary Digest unequivocally observed that “antisemitism is an outstanding feature of the Hitler philosophy.” In 1933 Edgar Ansel Mowrer argued in his book Germany Puts the Clock Back that the aim of the Nazis’ “barbarous campaign was the extermination, permanent subjugation or voluntary departure of the Jews from Germany.”51 But as the reaction to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws would demonstrate, few, particularly among those viewing the situation from afar, shared Mowrer’s understanding.

  The Nuremberg Laws

  When the Nuremberg Laws, which officially disenfranchised Jews and classified them as noncitizens, were issued in September 1935, the press tried to make meaning of them in the same way that it had tried to interpret many antisemitic acts during the preceding two and a half years. It explained, rationalized, and interpreted them as the Nazi quid pro quo for the actions of others and rarely understood their true significance.

  The laws divided the German population into two classes—Reich citizens, who had to be of “Aryan” ancestry, and state subjects, i.e., Jews, who could no longer secure employment in government positions, serve in the army, vote, marry non-Jews, engage in extramarital sexual relations with “Aryans,” hire female non-Jewish domestic workers, or fly the German flag, which, as a result of the laws, was now the swastika. Shocked by the laws, many papers condemned them as the embodiment of “the bigotry of the Middle Ages.” Jews were commonly described as a “people without a country.”52

  Adhering to a pattern that we have seen was established as early as 1933, the press not only condemned but tried to explain the reasons why the Nazis issued the laws. Once again, the way the press explicated the laws revealed its perception of conditions in Germany. One common interpretation was that the decrees constituted the German response to an incident that had occurred in New York City on July 26, when demonstrators boarded the German ship the SS Bremen, which was anchored in the harbor, and ripped down the swastika from its mast. German authorities demanded an apology from the State Department and punishment of the perpetrators. They were infuriated when Louis Brodsky, the New York magistrate who heard the case against the demonstrators, admonished them for their actions but dismissed the charges on the grounds that the sight of this “pirate” flag would naturally incense them. Press interest in events in this New York City courtroom was heightened by the fact that a few days earlier the colorful mayor of the City of New York, Fiorello LaGuardia, had refused to renew the license of a German masseur on the grounds that Americans doing business in Germany were being treated unfairly and that he was reciprocating Germany’s policy toward them. Brodsky’s and LaGuardia’s forays into the arena of foreign relations were severely criticized by the press. Many papers, including the New York Herald Tribune, New York Sun, and Washington Post, reminded the mayor that treaty rights were outside the bounds of his authority. In addition to criticizing the mayor and the magistrate, the press hastened to interpret the laws as nothing but Germany’s response to the magistrate’s “unnecessary” remarks and a quid pro quo for the desecration of the Nazi flag.53

  Many papers featured the change of flag in their headlines and relegated the Jews’ loss of citizenship to a secondary or even tertiary item of interest. Newsweek’s heading said this:

  HITLER DECREES SWASTIKA REICH FLAG;

  Bars Intermarriage;

  Relegates Jews to Dark Ages54

  Los Angeles Times readers were confronted with a headline that truly obscured the issue and made it sound as if citizenship rights had been “limited” in some oblique fashion.

  DEFIANCE TO JEWS OF ENTIRE WORLD

  HURLED BY HITLER

  SWASTIKA MADE SOLE GERMAN FLAG BY SPECIAL

  REICHSTAG SESSION;

  Citizenship Limited55

  The Washington Herald was mute regarding the Jews’ change of legal status:

  HITLER ASSAILS LEAGUE AND JEWRY AS EUROPE SEETHES

  German-Jew Marriage Banned;

  Swastika Made Official Flag56

  The New York Times interpreted the laws as instigated and motivated by the New York City incident:

  REICH ADOPTS SWASTIKA

  AS NATION’S OFFICIAL FLAG;

  HITLER’S REPLY TO ‘INSULT’

  Anti-Jewish Laws Passed

  ‘Non-Aryans’ Deprived of Citizenship and Right to Intermarry.

  Forbidden to Show Flag

  They are Warned by Hitler

  Further ‘Provocative’ Acts Will Draw Reprisals.57

  There were headlines that stressed the deprivation of citizenship rights and did not portray the action as a response to the Bremen incident or focus primary attention on the adoption of the swastika as a state emblem.

  Baltimore Sun:

  HITLER DEPRIVES JEWS OF CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS,

  BANS INTERMARRIAGES

  THREATENS OTHER STEPS TO SOLVE RACE PROBLEM

  Laws Restricting Rights of Hebrews

  Voted By Special Session of
Reichstag—

  Swastika Proclaimed Only Reich Flag58

  Christian Science Monitor:

  REICH BANS JEWS FROM CITIZENSHIP

  Hitler’s Reichstag Speech Prelude to Enactment of Three New Laws Swastika Adopted59

  Readers who read past the headlines in any of these and numerous other American papers were generally given enough information to understand the laws. However, the presentation of them as a quid pro quo for the Bremen incident and the stress on the swastika obscured the fact that the laws represented the embodiment of Nazi ideology.60

  Some papers acknowledged that the decrees were a new step in severity but still reverted to the “nothing but” approach. They interpreted the laws as a means of deflecting the attention of the German people from their domestic problems. The Cleveland News declared them an “escape mechanism for tyrants who seek to divert the minds of their subjects.”61 In fact, however, the laws were quite different from earlier proscriptions. The Jews’ unprotected and permanent second-class status was now “formally rooted in law,” and, as Ambassador Dodd reminded Secretary of State Hull, law was regarded with great “sanctity” and observed with much “discipline” in Germany.

  Other papers, intent on finding a rational explanation for the laws, argued that the decrees were nothing but an attempt by Hitler to pacify extremist Nazis. Because the laws did not completely exclude Jews from Germany’s economy and did not physically subjugate them, some press analysts optimistically argued that the moderate elements in the party had prevailed.62 J. E. Williams, editorial columnist for the Christian Science Monitor, typified those who recognized the laws’ severity but found them cause for optimism because “radical” Nazis had been forced to surrender their freedom to conduct “individual isolated actions against Jews.”63 This interpretation made it seem as if Jews and extremists had each been forced to make some concessions.