Beyond Belief

by Deborah E. Lipstadt

  110. National Jewish Monthly, January 1939, p. 156; Herbert Hoover, Further Addresses upon the American Road (New York: Scribner, 1940), p. 244.

  111. Springfield Republican, as cited in Contemporary Jewish Record, January 1939, pp. 41-50; Christian Science Monitor, November 16, 1938; Time, November 28, 1938, p. 11; New Republic, November 30, 1938, p. 87; Newsweek, November 28, 1938, pp. 13-14, December 12, 1938, pp. 16-17; Atlantic Monthly, December 1938, p. 77; Christian Century, December 7, 1938, p. 1485.

  112. Washington News, November 17, 1938; Camden (New Jersey) Courier, November 18, 1938; Knoxville (Tennessee) News Sentinel, November 16, 1938; Pittsburgh Press, November 17, 1938; Houston Chronicle, November 18, 1938; El Paso Herald Post, November 17, 1938; A. J. Sherman, Island Refuge: Britain and Refugees from the Third Reich, 1933-1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. 173; Minutes Franco-British talks of 24 November 1938, Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, third series, vol. 111 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office), pp. 294-296.

  113. New York Times, November 23, 1938.

  Chapter 5

  1. I wish to thank my former student Leah E. Weil for her research on Congressional action regarding immigration restriction and the child refugees of Europe, 1938-1941.

  2. Public Opinion Quarterly, October 1939, pp. 595-596; Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 85, 1457-1458, 2338-2341, 2805, 3865-3868, 4817-4819, and appendix, 641-642, 656-666, 835-836, 1073-1074, 1681-1682, 1886-1887, 2057-2059, 2792-2794, 3299; Admission of German Refugee Children: Joint Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Immigration, United States Senate, and a Subcommittee of the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 76th Cong., 1st sess., April 20, 21, 22, and 24, 1939, pp. 8, 45-49ff. For additional background on this period see David Wyman, Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941 (Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1968), p. 67ff.

  3. New York Herald Tribune, February 11, 1939, as quoted in German Refugee Children, p. 11.

  4. Galveston News, February 20, 1939, as quoted in German Refugee Children, p. 21. See also Sioux City Journal, February 18, 1939; Ashville (North Carolina) Times, February 23, 1939; Washington Evening Star, February 16, 1939, in German Refugee Children, pp. 12, 17, 34.

  5. Cincinnati Enquirer, May 25, 1939, as quoted in Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 84, p. 2793; New York Daily News, March 16, 1939, as quoted in German Refugee Children, p. 31; St. Petersburg (Florida) Evening Independent, March 24, 1939, in German Refugee Children, p. 38.

  6. Washington Post, February 13, 1939, as quoted in German Refugee Children, p. 9.

  7. Miami Herald, February 21, 1939, as quoted in German Refugee Children, pp. 22-23 (emphasis added); Christian Century, November 30, 1938, pp. 1456-1459.

  8. Nation, July 1, 1939, p. 3, as cited in Wyman, p. 85ff; New York Sun, as quoted in Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 84, p. 1681; Pathfinder, February 25, 1939; Montgomery Advertiser, February 17, 1939; Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, February 19, 1939, in German Refugee Children, pp. 14, 17, 20. Even the bill’s supporters felt compelled to argue that not only Jews would be aided. Sidney Hollander, president of the National Council of Jewish Federations, testified in support of the bill. In his testimony he observed that “statements have been made . . . that if this bill is passed, it will benefit primarily Jewish children . . . . If it were [true], I doubt if I would as strongly urge the passage of the bill.” David Brody, “American Jewry, the Refugees and Immigration Restriction (1932-1942),” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, June 1956, vol. 45, p. 343.

  9. Pensacola News, February 21, 1939, as quoted in German Refugee Children, p. 27.

  10. Dayton Daily News, February 20, 1939, as quoted in German Refugee Children, p. 33.

  11. Those who offered this view bolstered their argument against the Wagner—Rogers bill by citing Roosevelt’s speech at the White House Conference on Children which had been held during April, the same month that the first hearings on the bill took place. Admission of German Refugee Children: Hearings Before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 76th Cong., 1st sess., on H.J. Res. 165 and H.J. Res. 168, May 24, 25, 31, and June 1, 1939, p. 67.

  12. Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 84, part 14, A-3237; Wyman, pp. 95-96; Henry Cantril, Public Opinion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 1081.

  13. Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 84, part 14, A-3237; Wyman, pp. 95-96.

  14. Cantril, p. 1150; Reader’s Digest, May 1939. Of the Jews polled, 26 percent were against any change in the quotas.

  15. New York Times, June 2, 1939, p. 1, June 3, 1939, p. 3, June 5, 1939, p. 1, June 6, 1939, p. 1, June 7, 1939, p. 1, June 8, 1939, p. 1; Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1939, p. 1.

  16. Washington Post, June 3, 1939; Greensboro (North Carolina) News, June 5, 1939, Bakersfield Californian June 5, 1939.

  17. Philadelphia Record, June 5, 1939; New York Herald Tribune, June 3, 1939; Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 3, 1939; Pittsburgh Post Gazette, June 14, 1939; Fresno (California) Bee, June 8, 1939.

  18. New York Herald Tribune, June 3, 1939; Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch, June 14, 1939; Reno (Nevada) State Journal, June 3, 1939.

  19. Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch, June 14, 1939. Also placing blame on Cuba were the Muncie (Indiana) State, June 10, 1939; South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, June 3, 1939; Utica Observer Dispatch, June 7, 1939; Brooklyn Eagle, June 4, 1939; and Pittsburgh Post Gazette, June 3, 1939.

  20. Louisville Courier Journal, June 9, 1939. The Washington Star, June 17, 1939, also argued that Cuba had committed no act of inhospitality or harshness.

  21. Seattle Times, June 5, 1939.

  22. Columbia (South Carolina) State, June 3, 1939.

  23. Christian Science Monitor, June 2, 1939.

  24. Bridgeport (Connecticut) Post, June 4, 1939; Evansville (Indiana) Courier, June 6, 1939; Charlotte (North Carolina) News, June 3, 1939; Christian Science Monitor, June 2, 1939; Richmond (Virginia) News Leader, May 30, 1939.

  25. St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 4, 1939.

  26. Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 19, 1939; St. Louis Globe Democrat, June 18, 1939.

  27. Baltimore Sun, June 3, 1939; Chattanooga (Tennessee) News, June 8, 1939; Milwaukee Post, June 6, 1939; Danville (Illinois) Commercial News, June 4, 1939; New York Post, June 6, 1939; New York Mirror, June 5, 1939.

  28. New York Times, June 8, 1939, p. 24.

  29. Greensboro (North Carolina) Press, June 5, 1939; Dallas Times Herald, June 13, 1939; Butte (Montana) Post, June 5, 1939.

  30. Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 5, 1939; Milwaukee Journal, June 2, 1939; Cleveland News, June 21, 1939; Buffalo Courier Express, June 2, 1939.

  31. Hartford (Connecticut) Courant, June 3, 1939; Frederick (Oklahoma) Leader, June 13, 1939; Canton (Ohio) Repository, June 14, 1939.

  32. Baltimore Sun, June 20, 1939; Philadelphia Record, June 5, 1939; Des Moines Register, June 14, 1939; Charleston (South Carolina) Post, June 19, 1939; Gary (Indiana) Post Tribune, June 16, 1939; Charlotte (North Carolina) News, June 20, 1939; Berkeley Gazette, June 12, 1939; Kansas City (Missouri) Times, June 17, 1939.

  33. Boston Globe, June 17, 1939.

  34. Watertown (New York) Times, June 3, 1939; Washington Star, June 4, 1939.

  35. Springfield (Illinois) State Register, June 5, 1939.

  36. Missoula (Montana) Missoulian, June 7, 1939; Seattle Times, June 5, 1939.

  37. Hartford (Connecticut) Times, June 3, 1939.

  38. Bridgeport (Connecticut) Times Star, June 6, 1939.

  39. Greensboro (North Carolina) Record, June 9, 1939.

  40. Syracuse (New York) Herald, June 5, 1939.

  41. Newsweek, September 12, 1939, p. 17; Time, September 12, 1939, p. 30.

  Chapter 6

  1. Dieckhoff to Hans-Georg Machensen, November 24, 1937, Dieckhoff to Weizsacker, December 20
, 1937, DGFP, series D, I, pp. 649, 658-661. Sander Diamond, The Nazi Movement in the United States, 1924-41 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), pp. 21-22, n. 2.

  2. Diamond, p. 23.

  3. Donald M. McKale, The Swastika Outside Germany (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1977); Ladislas Farago, The Game of the Foxes (New York: McKay, 1971); John Rogge, The Official German Report (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1961).

  4. FRUS, vol. 1, November 27, 1937, p. 174; Dieckhoff to Weizsacker, November 8, 1938, Les Instructions Secrètes de la Propaganda Allemande (Paris: La Petit Parisien, n.d.), as cited in Alton Frye, Nazi Germany and the American Hemisphere, 1933-1941 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 31, 213. Diamond, p. 39.

  5. John Roy Carlson, Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld of America (New York: Dutton, 1943).

  6. Rogge, p. 17.

  7. McKale, pp. 89-90.

  8. Los Angeles Examiner, January 16, 1934.

  9. Chicago Daily News, March 22, 1934; Boston American, April 4, 1934.

  10. New York Post, March 27, November 27, 1934.

  11. Investigation of Nazi and Other Propaganda: Report Pursuant to House Resolution No. 198, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., report no. 153, February 15, 1935; New York Times, August 19, 1935; Rogge, p. 16ff.; McKale, pp. 90-91; Diamond, pp. 180ff.

  12. For dissolution of FONG see Diamond, pp. 179-201, 222; McKale, p. 91.

  13. Saturday Evening Post, May 27, 1939, p. 5ff.

  14. Diamond, p. 39; The Brown Network: The Activities of the Nazis in Foreign Countries (New York: Knight Publications, 1936).

  15. For Kuhn’s report on the meeting with Hitler see the Bund’s yearbook, Kämpfendes Deutschtum: Jahrbuch des Amerika-deutschen Volksbundes auf das Jahr 1937 (New York, 1937), pp. 55-56, as cited in Diamond, p. 256; Nation, March 20, 1937, p. 312, June 5, 1937, pp. 636-637, July 24, 1937, p. 86.

  16. Literary Digest, August 14, 1937, p. 17.

  17. “Hitler Speaks and the Bund Obeys,” Look, October 10, 1938; McKale, p. 141; Diamond, pp. 286, 306; German Embassy to Foreign Ministry, December 20, 1937, DGFP, Series D, I, pp. 642, 659, 661, 696.

  18. Diamond, p. 310; Dies to Roosevelt, August 15, 1942; J. Edgar Hoover to the Attorney General, August 17, 1942, Dies file, 10B, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. Nation, October 15, 1938, p. 366; William E. Leuchtenberg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal 1932-1940, (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 280-281; Frye, pp. 140-151; DGFP, series D, IX, pp. 625-626. Providence (Rhode Island) Bulletin, n.d., 1940, by American correspondent of London’s New Statesman and Nation, in American Jewish Committee clipping file, no. 189, YIVO Institute, New York. The quotation of the U.S. Attorney is from Leon G. Turrou, Nazi Spies in America (New York: Random House, 1938), p. 285.

  19. Dieckhoff to Weizsacker, November 8, 1938, DGFP, series D, I, p. 368; McKale, p. 143. For the speeches of rally leaders see Six Addresses on the Aims and Purposes of the German American Bund, Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939 (New York, 1939), as cited in Diamond, p. 326; New York Times, February 21, 1939, p. 1. For reports from German officials to Berlin regarding the rally, see Borches to Berlin, February 27, 1939, DGFP, series D, IV, pp. 675-678; Frye, p. 91.

  20. The Nation called the meeting a “disgusting exhibition.” Nation, March 4, 1939, April 1, 1939, pp. 374-375; New York Times, February 26, 1939; Saturday Evening Post, May 27, 1939, p. 7; Diamond, p. 328. For additional press reports on Bund activities see citations from the Baltimore Sun, Cincinnati Times Star, Boston Herald, Atlanta Constitution, Springfield (Massachusetts) Union, New York Post, and St. Joseph News Press in Contemporary Jewish Record, March-April 1939, p. 54ff. For a lengthy bibliography of materials on the Bund and other fifth-column groups see Thomas Huntington, “The Trojan Horse Bibliography,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library, vol. 44 (October 1940), pp. 741-744.

  21. Diamond, p. 306; New York Times, November 27, 1940.

  22. David S. Wyman, Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1968), pp. 185-186; Leuchtenberg, p. 300.

  23. Conference on National Defense, May 30, 1940, Roosevelt Press Conferences, vol. XV, 420-21, as cited in Richard Polenberg, One Nation Divisible: Class, Race and Ethnicity in the United States Since 1938 (New York: Penguin, 1980), p. 43.

  24. J. Edgar Hoover, “Enemies Within,” American Magazine, August 1940, pp. 18-19, 143-145.

  25. American Magazine, September 1940, p. 44ff., November 1940, p. 16ff., December 1940, p. 24ff., April 1941, pp. 14-15, 120-121.

  26. New York World Telegram, June 4-13, 1940; Pittsburgh Press, June 3-4, 1940; New York Post, September 16-21, 1940; New York Journal American, September 22-30, 1940.

  27. A series by Bruce Catton of NEA Service, Inc., published in New York World Telegram, November 27, 28, 29, 1940. A gauge of the panic spreading in America was this statement by Attorney General Frank Murphy in September 1940: “Unless we are pudding headed we will drive from the land the hirelings here to undo the labors of our Fathers.” It is particularly noteworthy that Murphy would make such a statement, since he was considered a strong supporter of civil liberties. J. Woodford Howard, Mr. Justice Murphy (Princeton, 1968), p. 207, as quoted in Richard Polenberg, One Nation Divisible: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States Since 1938, (New York: Penguin, 1980), p. 44. The State Department was voicing similar arguments: see FRUS, 1940, vol. II, p. 242ff.

  28. “The Five Columns and Mrs. Crowley,” America, July 6, 1940, pp. 345-346; “What the Nazis Want Us to Believe,” America, September 14, 1940, p. 623; “Hunting for Hitlers Can Become a Mania,” America, September 21, 1940, p. 651.

  29. “America vs. Fifth Columnists: A Symposium,” Survey Graphic, November 1940, pp. 545-550.

  30. J. Edgar Hoover, “Big Scare,” American Magazine, August 1941, p. 24ff.

  31. McCall’s, November 1940, reprinted in La Notizia, November 22, 1940.

  32. Fortune, July 1940, insert, as cited in Wyman, p. 185; New York World Telegram, June 4-13, 1940; New York Mirror, July 3, 1940; New York Herald Tribune, July 6, 1940; New York Journal American, September 30, 1940.

  33. “Is There a Führer in the House?” New Republic, August 12, 1940, pp. 212-213; Heywood Broun, “I Can Hear You Plainly,” New Republic, October 10, 1939. Coughlin was known to use Nazi materials for his broadcasts. A six—page illustrated article in Look in September 1939 argued that Coughlin not only parroted Nazi preachings but was intimately connected with Kuhn and the Bund. The article was written by William Mueller, who was identified by Look as an “investigator—journalist, authority on the German-American Bund, and a Catholic.” “Father Coughlin and the Nazi Bund,” Look, September 26, 1939; Public Opinion Quarterly, October 1939, p. 604; Charles Herbert Stember et al., Jews in the Mind of America (New York: Basic Books, 1966), pp. 127-128.

  34. Donald Drummond, The Passing of American Neutrality (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1955), pp. 372-376.

  35. “Who Is the Fifth Column?” Survey Graphic, October 1940, pp. 503-508; Nation, June 22, 1940, pp. 745-746, June 29, 1940, July 27, 1940, p. 73, August 24, 1940, p. 153, August 31, 1940, pp. 103-104; Polenberg, p. 42; Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 3d sess., 76, part I, 680 part 6, 6773.

  36. New York Herald Tribune, October 10, 1940, p. 24.

  37. Saturday Evening Post, May 29, 1941, pp. 12, 89; Wyman, p. 190.

  38. Life, June 17, 1940.

  39. Los Angeles Times, September 15, 1941.

  40. Edwin James, as cited in Milwaukee Journal, April 25, 1940. For similar attitudes see Augusta (Maine) Kennebec Journal, April 25, 1940; Tulsa (Oklahoma) World, April 25, 1940; Springfield (Illinois) Journal, March 19, 1941.

  41. Heinz Pol, “Spies Among Refugees?” New Republic, August 31, 1940, p. 167.

  42. New York Journal American, September 23, 1940; “What Is the Fifth Column?” Survey Graphic, October 1940, pp. 503-508.

  43. Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 8
4, part 10, 10455-10456; Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 3d sess., vol. 87, part 8, 8347, 9036; Wyman, pp. 185-190, 269; New York Journal American, May 23, 1940; Nation, July 5, 1941, p. 3, July 19, 1941, p. 45.

  44. Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States: Hearings Before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 77th Cong., 1st sess., part 14, 8481, 8489-8490; Wyman, p. 191; Dayton Journal, February 27, 1941.

  45. New York Herald Tribune, June 19, 1941; Philadelphia Bulletin, June 19, 1941.

  46. New York Journal American, June 28, 1941 (emphasis added).

  47. Philadelphia Record, June 19, 1941.

  48. The headlines accompanying the story generally reinforced the State Department’s charge. The Washington Post:

  U.S. BARS REFUGEES NAZIS CAN COERCE

  Acts to End Espionage Forced by Threats to Torture Relatives

  The Post, by using the phrase “end espionage” in its headline, made it appear as if the State Department acted because of actual cases of refugees spying and not because it wanted to prevent a potential problem from being realized. The Washington Times Herald did a somewhat similar thing:

  REFUGEES TERRORIZED INTO SPYING

  FOR GERMANY TO SAVE KIN, CHARGE

  The Philadelphia Inquirer used refugees and spies as synonymous terms:

  STATE DEPARTMENT ACTS TO BAR ENTRY OF FOREIGN AGENTS

  The Baltimore Sun’s headline was more reserved. It described the move as a “precaution” against espionage and sabotage. Washington Post, June 19, 1941; Washington Times Herald, June 19, 1941; Philadelphia Inquirer, June 19, 1941; Baltimore Sun, June 19, June 20, 1941.

  49. Nation, July 19, 1941, p. 45.

  50. New Republic, August 19, 1941, p. 208; PM, February 11, 1941. Some journals showed far greater sympathy for political refugees than they did for “racial” or “religious” refugees, particularly if they were Jews. Christian Century, which even in the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht stood firmly against increased immigration of Jews to the United States, came out strongly in favor of the entry of British children and the immigration of “Spanish and German political refugees.” Christian Century, November 30, 1938, June 3, August 21, 1940, February 5, 1941.