70. Memo, Dodd to Hull, September 26, 1935, DS 862.4016/1561; memo, Dodd to Hull, October 31, 1935, DS 862.4016/1573; Voelkischer Beobachter, October 23, 1935, as cited in Eliahu Ben Elissar, La Diplomatie du III Reich et les Juifs, 1933-1939 (Paris-Julliard, 1969), pp. 160-162.
Chapter 3
1. New York Times, May 29, 1933.
2. New York Times, June 8, 1933, p. 1.
3. Richard D. Mandell, The Nazi Olympics (New York: Ballantine Books, 1971), p. 78. The Amateur Athletic Union of the United States (AAU) was scheduled to meet in November 1933. At that meeting, in a near-unanimous vote, it agreed not to certify athletes for the Games unless Germany’s position regarding Jewish athletes changed “in fact as well as in theory.” The AAU stated that the German Olympic Committee had violated the ideals of the Olympic Games and of sports competition by depriving German Jews of the right to “prepare for and participate in” Olympic competition. New York Times, November 21, 1933, p. 1, November 22, 1933, p. 28; Nation, November 29, 1933, p. 607; Literary Digest, December 2, 1933, p. 22.
4. Newsweek, April 22, 1933, p. 13. On July 2, 1933, the Nazi Minister of Education announced that Jews would henceforth be excluded from youth, welfare, and gymnastic organizations and that use of the facilities of all athletic clubs would be denied to them. Later that month Jews were forbidden from serving as lifeguards in Breslau. Eventually all swimming resorts were closed to them. It was not long before Jews who wished to train for the Games found the requisite playing fields and training camps off limits. Mandell, pp. 64-66; New York Times, November 28, 1933, p. 25.
5. Mandell, p. 81; Arthur Morse, While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 174; Eliahu Ben Elissar, La Diplomatie du III Reich et les Juifs (Paris: Julliard, 1969), pp. 167-170; Shlomo Shafir, “The Impact of the Jewish Crisis on American-German Relations, 1933-1939,” pp. 581, 584-585; New York Times, November 27, 1935, p. 14.
6. Literary Digest, July 11, 1936, p. 35; New York Times, November 23, November 26, December 1, 1933, October 22, p. 1, October 23, 1935; Grand Junction (Colorado) Sentinel, October 29, 1935.
Sherrill’s resignation from his ambassadorial post had been “joyfully accepted” by the State Department. See entry for January 11, 1934, Phillips Diary, Phillips Papers, as quoted in Shafir, p. 584; memo of Sherrill’s visit to Hitler in Munich on August 24, 1935, in Roosevelt Papers, President’s Secretary’s File, box 7, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y., Elissar, pp. 173-175; Morse, pp. 181-182; New York Times, September 27, 1934, p. 28.
7. Morse, p. 174; list of places forbidden to Jews is contained in Ambassador Dodd’s dispatch, May 17, 1935, DS 862.4016/1457. From the middle of 1933 on, warnings had come from American embassy officials in Germany, particularly George Messersmith, to the effect that German promises could not be trusted regarding Jewish participation in the Games. Memo, Messersmith to Hull, June 17, 1933, DS 862.4016/1181, and November 28, 1933, DS 862.4063/01 Games 1, as cited in Shafir, p. 581.
8. New York Times, December 7, 1934, p. 31, August 2, 1935, p. 8.
9. William Johnson, All That Glitters Is Not Gold (New York: Putnam, 1972), p. 176.
10. Ibid.
11. New York Times, August 12, 1935, p. 1; memo, Dodd to Hull, December 10, 1935, DS 765.84/3007, as cited in Shafir, p. 587.
12. H. J. Resolution 381 opposing the expenditure of public funds on the Olympics was introduced by Emanuel Celler of New York on August 16, 1935. Congressional Record, 74th Cong., 1st sess., 1935, 79, part 12 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1935), 13332; New York Times, August 16, 1935, p. 4.
13. Springfield (Massachusetts) News, July 27, 1935.
14. Commonweal, August 16, 1935; Norfolk (Virginia) Pilot, August 8, 1935.
15. Norfolk Pilot, August 24, 1935.
16. New York World Telegram, September 16, 1935; Troy Record, September 9, 1935; East St. Louis Journal, August 8, 1935; Trenton Gazette, August 10, 1935.
17. New York World Telegram, September 16, 1935.
18. Boston Globe, July 30, 1935.
19. Trenton Gazette, August 10, 1935.
20. Springfield (Illinois) Journal, August 11, 1935.
21. Johnson, pp. 175–176. Allentown (Pennsylvania) Call, September 8, 1935.
22. Saturday Evening Post, May 6, 1933, p. 71.
23. Chicago Tribune, July 5, 1936, p. 16.
24. Des Moines Register, November 5, 1935.
25. Superior (Wisconsin) Telegram, August 5, 1935; Seattle Star, August 7, 1935; Lawrence (Massachusetts) Eagle, August 1, 1935.
26. Atlanta Constitution, August 25, 1935.
27. Milwaukee Herald, September 10, 1935; Christian Century, August 7, 1935, p. 1007, August 14, 1935, p. 1028.
28. New York Times July 12, 1936. Memo, Dodd to Hull, January 30, 1936, DS 862.4016/1610; Messersmith to Hull, November 15, 1934, DS 862.4063/01. G. 57; Messersmith to Phillips, November 30, 1935, DS 862.00/3573; Messersmith to Geist, November 12, 1935, Frankfurter Papers, box 25, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., as cited in Shafir, p. 587.
29. Minneapolis Star, August 8, 1935; St. Joseph (Missouri) Gazette, August 1, 1935. Bang was quoted in a “roundup” of sports writers’ opinions in the Knoxville Journal, November 8, 1935.
30. Lansing (Michigan) Journal, August 7, 1935; Wheeling (West Virginia) News Register, September 10, 1935.
31. Charleston (South Carolina) Post, August 6, 1935; Morse, pp. 359-360; Henry L. Feingold, The Politics of Rescue (New York: Waldon Press, 1970), p. 257.
32. Mandell, pp. 68, 77-78.
33. Dodd to Hull, January 30, 1936, DS 862.4016/1610. See also FRUS, 1936, vol. II, p. 197.
34. Charleston (South Carolina) Post, August 6, 1935.
35. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, October 23, 1935; Albany Press, November 1, 1935; Charleston Post, August 5, 1935; Memo, Dodd to Hull, October 31, 1935, DS 862.4016/1573.
36. Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1935.
37. Los Angeles Times, September 13, 1935.
38. Mobile (Alabama) Register, November 9, 1935.
39. Literary Digest, August 31, 1935.
40. New York World Telegram, February 17, February 19, 1936; Mandell, pp. 87-88; Washington Post, August 3, 1936, p. 7, August 5, 1936, p. 7.
41. Los Angeles Times, September 9, 1935.
42. William L. Shirer, 20th Century Journey: A Memoir of a Life and the Times, vol. II, The Nightmare Years, 1930-1940 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984), p. 233; author’s interview with William Shirer, December 19, 1984.
43. New York Times, October 22, November 4, 1935.
44. Compare the New York Times editorial of October 22, 1935, with that of Christian Century August 7, 1935. Commonweal, August 9, 1935; Waterbury Evening Democrat, August 30, 1935; New York American, October 7, October 17, 1935; New York Evening Post, October 22, 1935; Amsterdam News, August 23, 1935; South Bend (Indiana) News Times, September 26, 1935; Troy (New York) Record, September 9, 1935, as cited in Margaret K. Norden, “American Editorial Response to the Rise of Adolf Hitler: A Preliminary Consideration,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly, vol. 30 (October 1968), p. 295. For additional expressions of opposition to the Games see Patterson (New Jersey) Call, October 11, 1935, Wichita (Kansas) Beacon, October 18, 1935, and Dallas Times Herald, October 19, 1935.
45. Moshe Gottlieb, “The American Controversy over the Olympic Games,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly, vol. LXI (March 1972), p. 207; New York Times, October 1, October 22, 1935; Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1935; Economic Bulletin, November 1935, p. 6.
46. Easton (Pennsylvania) Express, October 24, 1935; Boise (Idaho) Statesman, October 23, 1935; Worcester Post, October 29, 1935. Sherrill to Louis Rittenberg, October 3, 1935, Felix M. Warburg Papers, box 331, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio; Shafir, p. 586; Gottlieb, pp. 188-189. For Brundage’s comments see Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1935, January 26, 1936. Wheeling (West Virginia) Register, December 8, 1935; New York Times, July 16, 1936.
47. Commonweal, November 8, 1935, p. 40, and November 29, 1935; Christian Century, August 7, 1935, p. 1007, and August 14, 1935; New York Times, October 22, 1935.
48. New York Times, October 23, 1935; Committee on Fair Play in Sports, Preserve the Olympic Ideal: A Statement Against American Participation in the Olympic Games in Berlin (New York, 1935), pp. 31-32.
49. Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, August 31, 1935; Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1935; Knoxville Journal, November 8, 1935.
50. Knoxville Journal, November 8, 1935; Time, November 4, 1935, pp. 61-62; Mandell, pp. 77-78, 86-87; Catholic World, January 1936, p. 394.
51. Christian Century, August 7, 1935, p. 1007, August 14, 1935, August 28, 1935, p. 1075; New York Times, August 5, 1935, p. 7.
52. George Messersmith wrote to Julian Mack, the Federal Judge and Zionist leader, appealing for public opposition to participation. When Mack relayed Messersmith’s sentiments to President Roosevelt, FDR described the American envoy as “one of the best men we have in the whole [Diplomatic] Service and I count greatly on his judgement.” Memo, Mack to Roosevelt, December 2, 1935, and Roosevelt to Mack, December 4, 1935, in Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs, vol. III, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 111; Memo, Dodd to Hull, October 11, 1935, DS 862.4063/01 G. 49; Dodd to Hull, December 10, 1935, DS 765.84/3007; Messersmith to Hull, November 15, 1934, DS 862.4063/01 G. 57; Shafir, 587.
53. New York Times, November 18, November 27, 1935.
54. Brooklyn Citizen, November 27, 1935; Troy (New York) Times Record, November 27, 1935; Washington Post, November 23, 1935; Philadelphia Record, December 2, 1935; Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1935.
55. Nation, October 16, 1935, p. 426, October 23, 1935, p. 461. Approximately 150 editorials were examined regarding the Olympic Games. Two-thirds of these favored a boycott and one-third opposed one.
56. Gottlieb, pp. 208-209; Los Angeles Times, November 28, December 2, 1935; New York Times, September 22, December 7, December 9, 1935.
57. Philadelphia Record, December 10, 1935; Washington Post, December 10, 1935; Hartford (Connecticut) Times, December 10, 1935; Indianapolis Star, December 12, 1935; Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 1935.
58. Wheeling (West Virginia) Register, December 9, 1935.
59. Philadelphia Record, December 10, 1935.
60. Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1935.
61. The Nation, August 1, 1936, p. 124; New York Times, August 16, 1936; interview with William Shirer, December 19, 1984.
62. Time, August 10, 1936, p. 40; August 17, 1936, p. 37; August 24, 1936, pp. 56-58.
63. Literary Digest, July 11, August 29, 1936; Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1936.
64. Chicago Tribune, July 5, 1936; Los Angeles Times, July 5, 1936, sec. II, p. 11, July 18, 1936, p. 13; Time, August 10, 1936, p. 40; New York Times, August 16, 1936. It is true that the more ostensibly anti-Jewish placards and newspapers did “disappear” for the duration of the Games. However, Streicher’s antisemitic journal Stürmer not only appeared but had on its cover a cartoon occupying half a page showing a “degenerate and brutal person labeled ‘Jew’ staring with envy and hatred at a German looking victor crowned with laurel.” At the bottom of the page in heavy black letters was the slogan “Jews are our Misfortune.” The issue contained a special article directed at foreign visitors, with long series of quotes from dead and living foreign antisemites. New York Times, July 30, 1936; Mandell, p. 159.
No American paper seemed to have been as taken with the Games as the French Ambassador to Germany, who declared them “the apotheosis of Hitler and his Third Reich.” André François-Poncet, The Fateful Years: Memoirs of a French Ambassador in Berlin, 1931-1938 (New York, 1949), pp. 203-207; Robert Dallek, Democrat and Diplomat: The Life of William E. Dodd (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 288; Franklin Ried Gannon, The British Press and Germany, 1936-1939 (London: Oxford, 1971), p. 102.
65. Washington Post, July 25, 1936; Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1936, sec. II, p. 9.
66. Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1936, sec. II, p. 9, August 2, 1936, p. 1 and sec. II, p. 11, August 4, 1936, sec. II, p. 4.
67. Washington Post, February 17, 1936; New York Times, August 14, 1936; Los Angeles Times, July 18, July 31, August 7, 1936. Gallico was then one of the highest paid and most respected sports writers in the country. When he covered the competition at Garmisch, he was about to leave sports writing to take up a career as a writer. Shirer, Nightmare Years, p. 235.
68. Literary Digest, July 11, 1936, p. 33.
69. New York Times, July 6, 1936, p. 14.
70. Time, February 17, 1936, p. 37; New York Times, July 12, July 18, July 31, 1936, August 1, 1936, p. 1, August 2, 1936, p. 1, August 16, 1936.
71. New York Times, August 3, 16, 1936.
72. Washington Post, July 30, 1936, sports section, p. 1.
73. Los Angeles Times, August 2, 1936, sports section, p. 1; William Shirer, Berlin Diary, (New York: Knopf, 1941), author’s interview with William Shirer, December 19, 1984; Mandell, p. 108.
74. Washington Post, February 9, 1936, August 2, 1936, p. 7.
75. Washington Post, August 3, 1936, p. 7.
76. Washington Post, August 5, 1936, p. 7, August 6, 1936, p. 17, August 16, 1936, part B, p. 5; August 17, 1936, p. 7.
77. For treatment of Owens see: Time, August 17, 1936, p. 37; Washington Post, August 6, 1936, p. 1; Washington Post, July 31, 1936; New York Times, August 3, 1936, p. 1, August 4, 1936, p. 1; Nation, August 15, 1936, p. 185; Literary Digest, August 29, 1936, p. 33.
78. Wise to Brandeis, October 6, 1936, Brandeis Collection, roll 26, as quoted in Shafir, pp. 593-594. After the Games, Ambassador Dodd was far less sanguine than his boss, the President. He reported to Washington that the “Jewish population awaits with fear and trembling the termination of the Olympic period which has vouchsafed on them a certain respite against molestation.” He doubted that the Nazis would be “quite so foolish” as to immediately resume their “spectacular” antisemitic activities and thereby “spoil the good impression” they had made on foreign opinion by the Games. Some of the press echoed Dodd’s fears. Actually the Nazis waited a while before actively pursuing their antisemitic campaign. The Games marked the beginning of a slight pause in the persecution of the Jews. “Political Report of the Ambassador in Germany,” FRUS, 1936, vol. II, August 19, 1936, p. 202. Williamsport (Pennsylvania) Sun, July 29, 1936.
79. Shirer, Nightmare Years, p. 232.
80. Interview with Howard K. Smith, February 27, 1985.
81. Mandell, p. 118.
Chapter 4
1. New York Times, March 23, April 3, 1938. Gedye’s report of April 3 was cited by State Department official George Messersmith as a reliable description of what was happening in Vienna. It was, Messersmith wrote in a personal letter, “an unspeakably horrible situation.” George Messersmith to Jacob Billikopf, April 4, 1938, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio. His article and the fact that he was ordered out of Austria by the Nazis for his reports were also mentioned by some papers in their editorials. See, for example, San Jose Mercury Herald, April 9, 1938.
2. For listing of editorials see the Press Information Bulletin, March 24 through April 14, 1938. Bulletins are to be found in Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.
3. Shlomo Shafir, “The Impact of the Jewish Crisis on American-Jewish Relations, 1933-1939,” Ph.D. diss. (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1971), pp. 696-697; Dieckhoff to Foreign Ministry, March 22, 1938, DGFP, series D, I, pp. 696-697.
4. Detroit Free Press, March 23, 1938.
5. Greensboro (North Carolina) Record, March 24, 1938.
6. Newsweek, April 4, 1938, p. 11; Miami Herald, March 26, 1938; Trenton (New Jersey) Gazette, March 26, 1938.
7. Trenton (New Jersey) Gazette, March 26, 1938; Mobile (Alabama) Register, March 25, 1938.
8. Newsweek, April 4, 1938; Lansing (Michigan) Journal, Marc
h 27, 1938. For a detailed description of Freud’s treatment by the Nazis, see Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud (New York, Basic Books, 1961), pp. 512-518.
9. FRUS, 1938, vol. I, pp. 740-741. “The Press Conferences of President Franklin D. Roosevelt,” XI (March 25, 1938), 248-250; David S. Wyman, Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1968), p. 43. The President announced that the conference would attempt to alleviate the situation of all political refugees, including those from Russia, Spain, and Italy, and not just Jews. This may have been an attempt to diffuse some of the criticism that he believed would be leveled at the plan for the conference. Roosevelt may have also reasoned that this broad approach was a way of winning the support of those who were concerned about Spanish or Russian refugees. At any rate it misfired. Certain papers cited it as a means of camouflaging the fact that these were mainly Jewish refugees, while others complained that it was a sign that the plan was but the beginning of a broad liberalization of immigration. Roosevelt Press Conference, March 25, 1938; Chattanooga Times, March 26, 1938; Huntington (West Virginia) Advertiser, March 25, 1938.
10. The German quota was not filled from 1930, when quotas were first instituted, until 1939. The allowance for Germany was 25,957; after the Anschluss it was combined with the Austrian quota for a total of 27,360. The following table shows the number of immigrants who entered under the German quota during the first five years of Nazi rule:
1933
1,445
1934
3,744
1935
5,532
1936
6,642
1937
11,536
See Louis Adamic, America and the Refugees, pp. 10-11, and Lewis and Marian Shibsby, “Status of the Refugee Under American Immigration Laws,” Annals, CCIII, May 1939, 78ff., both cited in Henry L. Feingold, The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970), p. 313, n. 39.
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