Beyond Belief: The American Press And The Coming Of The Holocaust, 1933- 1945

by Deborah E. Lipstadt

  10. Reformed Church Messenger, April 6, 1933, August 24, 1933, pp. 9-11, September 7, 1933, pp. 8-9; Lutheran Companion, September 2, 1933, p. 1105; Moody Bible Institute Monthly, May 1933, p. 392; King’s Business, June 1933, p. 171; Sunday School Times, December 9, 1933, p. 778, all as cited in Robert W. Ross So It Was True (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), pp. 33-36.

  11. These questions appeared in The Christian Century on April 26, 1933, p. 574. The article, entitled “A Jew Protests Against Protesters,” by Robert E. Asher, appeared April 12, 1933, pp. 492-444. For The Christian Century’s comments urging restraint regarding judging Germany’s treatment of Jews, see April 5, 1933, p. 443. In light of The Christian Century’s eventual attitude toward Jewish immigration and the reports of mass murder, these early comments are instructive.

  12. Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1933 (emphasis added). In 1943 George Seldes described Lippmann as one of the two most influential columnists in the United States. (The other, he said, was Westbrook Pegler.) Lippmann was considered by many of his colleagues to be the commentator with the greatest influence on “all men of intelligence.” George Seldes, Facts and Fascism (New York: In Fact Inc., 1943), p. 233. DGFP, series C, The Third Reich, First Phase, I, January-October 1933 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1957), pp. 451-455.

  13. David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (New York: Knopf, 1979), p. 370.

  14. Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), pp. 191-192, 331. Lippmann rejected an invitation to join the Jewish Academy of Arts and Sciences and later turned down an award from that organization. He explained that he made it an “invariable rule not to accept awards or membership in organizations which have a sectarian character.” Steel, p. 619.

  15. Henry Cantril, Public Opinion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 381; Steel, p. 332.

  16. Harper’s, January 1935, p. 126.

  17. Columbus Dispatch, April 16, 1933.

  18. Roosevelt-General Nogues talk, January 17, 1943, FRUS, Casablanca Conference, pp. 608-609. Later the same day Roosevelt repeated this proposal in conversation with General Henri Giraud, of France, ibid., 609-612. Wasserstein notes that at least on one occasion Churchill had expressed similar views. A letter from James de Rothschild to Churchill on May 27, 1938, contained the following statement: “When you spoke with such sympathy last week at Cran-borne about the Jewish situation in Germany, you mentioned that the number of Jews in the various professions and occupations had been, in the days before Hitler, very high in comparison with the proportion which Jews bore to the total population. The idea that this was so was fostered by Nazi propaganda, and has been widely accepted. I am enclosing an article which appeared in the Manchester Guardian of 3rd January 1936, which disproves this by official German statistics.” Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Companion Vol. 5, The Coming of War (London, 1979), as cited in Bernard Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945 (London: Institute of Jewish Affairs, 1979), pp. 207-208.

  19. Los Angeles Times, March 21, March 25, March 30, April 6, 1933; Columbus (Ohio) Journal, March 24, 1933; Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator, March 22, 1933; New York Times, March 9, 1933, pp. 1, 10.

  20. Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1935, p. 2; Canton (Ohio) Repository, July 24, 1935; Wilmington (Delaware) Journal, July 24, 1935; La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune, July 23, 1935.

  21. Boston Post, July 29, 1935.

  22. Boston Evening Transcript, July 20, 1935; Literary Digest, August 3, 1935, p. 12.

  23. A southern paper drew a revealing parallel between the Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan. Both organizations were founded, it claimed, by “men who were striving desperately to restore order from chaos. Their aims were good and they accomplished a great deal of good.” Soon, however, they descended into “hoodlumism, mob tyranny and butchery.” According to this theory, Nazi and KKK leaders had tried but been unable to restrain their followers from being swept up by the forces that they had rather innocently unleashed. Winston-Salem (North Carolina) Journal, July 23, 1935.

  24. Trenton Times Advertiser, August 4, 1935; New York Herald Tribune, as cited in Birmingham (Alabama) News, July 20, 1935; Dallas Times Herald, July 17, 1935 (emphasis added); Winston-Salem (North Carolina) Journal, July 23, 1935; New York Times, February 21, March 1, August 20, 1935.

  25. Atlanta Constitution, November 22, 1938; Hamilton (Ohio) Journal News, November 26, 1938.

  26. Newsweek, July 27, 1935, p. 12; New York Times, July 20, 1935, p. 1.

  27. Baltimore Sun, July 19, 1935; Davenport (Ohio) Times, July 20, 1935.

  28. New York Post, July 17, 1935.

  29. Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, July 22, 1935; Utica (New York) Press, July 19, 1935.

  30. Trenton (New Jersey) Star Gazette, July 18, 1935; Jersey City Journal, July 19, 1935.

  31. Memo, Dodd to Hull, July 17, 1935, FRUS, 1935, vol. II, p. 402-403; Shafir, p. 481.

  32. William L. Shirer, 20th Century Journey: vol. II, The Nightmare Years, 1930-1940 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984), p. 137; Time, July 29, 1935, p. 19; Newsweek, July 27, 1935, p. 12.

  33. Chicago Tribune, March 13, March 24, 1933; Christian Science Monitor, March 7, 1933, p. 12; Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1933, sec. II, p. 4.

  34. Christian Science Monitor March 24, 1933, p. 1. Not all Christian Science Monitor reports were skewed in this direction. A few days later the Christian Science Monitor bureau in Berlin offered a less sanguine picture, one which contradicted Steele’s optimistic assessment. The reporter acknowledged that while there was little active persecution, antisemitism continued in other forms. Newspaper articles attacked Jews. Propaganda designed to elicit hatred of Jews was to be found everywhere. Storm troopers on Berlin streets were to be seen selling pamphlets entitled “Jews demand Hitler’s murder.” Christian Science Monitor, March 27, 1933, pp. 1, 4.

  35. New York Times, March 12, 1933, sec. IV, p. 4, July 10, 1933, pp. 1, 10; Nation, July 19, 1933, p. 59.

  36. St. Paul Dispatch, Detroit News, St. Louis Post Dispatch, as cited in Literary Digest, April 8, 1933, p. 1.

  37. During the same period an official rebuke was given to two towns where Jews had been forced to suffer a variety of indignities including pulling weeds out of a railway bed with their teeth. Goebbels’s and Schmitt’s comments coupled with the reprimand fostered a perception of evolving moderation in the treatment of Jews. However, the day after Schmitt’s remarks were publicized, an unnamed “high ranking German official” made it clear that the Minister of the Economy’s call for a hands-off policy did not represent any deviation from “Nazism’s plan to rear a purely ‘Aryan’ State.” New York Times, September 28, 1933, p. 1; September 29, 1933, pp. 10, 11, 18; Newsweek, October 7, 1933, p. 12.

  38. Memo, Dodd to Hull, July 30, 1935, FRUS, 1935, vol. II, pp. 402-403; New York Post, July 31, 1935; Birmingham (Alabama) Herald, July 31, 1935; Washington Star, July 30, 1935.

  39. Philadelphia Ledger, July 31, 1935; Pittsfield (Massachusetts) Eagle, July 30, 1935; Louisville Courier Journal, July 31, 1935; Wheeling (West Virginia) Register, July 31, 1935; Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 31, 1935; Galveston (Texas) News, July 31, 1935; Davenport (Ohio) Democrat, July 31, 1935; Schenectady (New York) Gazetteer, August 1, 1935; Syracuse Herald, July 31, 1935.

  40. Troy (New York) Record, July 24, 1935; Jackson (Mississippi) Patriot, July 23, 1935; Washington Post, August 4, 1935.

  41. Brooklyn Eagle, July 19, 1935; Oakland (California) Tribune, July 23, 1935; Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 21, 1935; Syracuse Post Standard, July 24, 1935.

  42. New York Times, July 23, 1935, pp. 1, 18, July 24, 1935, p. 1.

  43. Wallace R. Duel, People Under Hitler (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1942), p. 4.

  44. Birmingham (Alabama) Herald, July 31, 1935; Mobile (Alabama) Press Register, July 21, 1935; Knickerbocker Press (Albany, New York), July 20, 1935; memo, Dodd to Hull, July 30, 1935, FRUS, 1935,
vol. II, pp. 402-403.

  45. Milwaukee Journal, August 4, 1935.

  46. Baltimore Sun, August 1, 1935; New York Post, July 31, 1935; Washington Post, August 4, 1935; Chattanooga Times, August 6, 1935.

  47. Andrew Sharf, The British Press and Jews Under Nazi Rule (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 27.

  48. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Hitler’s Reich: The First Phase (New York: Macmillan, 1933), p. 55.

  49. Streicher, whom Dodd described as the “greatest Jew baiter of all,” warranted a lengthy dispatch from the embassy to the Secretary of State. On August 15, 1933, the Stürmer editor gave his “maiden speech” in Berlin before a crowd of 12,000 to 14,000. (A few thousand could not get into the hall and listened to the speech over radio in a nearby hall.) Berlin was home for at least one-third of the Jews still in Germany when Streicher gave his speech. According to the American embassy, Streicher’s antisemitic harangue was “not without its significance.” Dodd believed that it reflected a “new offensive against the Jews.” He explained that incidents against Jews “involving physical violence are still occurring constantly but in a lessening degree; mental and spiritual persecution, on a ‘legalized’ basis, much more insidious and far-reaching, is supplanting it.” Memo, Dodd to Hull, July 30, 1935, DS 862.4016/1514; memo, Dodd to Hull, August 20, 1935, DS 862.4016/1538; memo, Dodd to Hull, September 7, 1935, DS 862.4016/1550; Newsweek, August 24, 1935, p. 16.

  Those who interpreted the antisemitic outbreaks, including the riots, as simply a manifestation of tension between extremists and moderates found their position bolstered by the statements of Hjalmar Schacht. Schacht, who remained the American press’s favorite German “moderate” until his ouster from power in 1939, criticized the extralegal actions of those such as the July rioters. However, he condoned legal antisemitism. When he was contrasted with someone like Streicher, it was easy to portray Schacht as a moderate. Newsweek praised him for his good courage and his willingness to criticize some of the antisemitic outbreaks. Newsweek, August 24, 1935. The Cleveland News went so far as to fret that he may have endangered himself by his outspoken comments. It cautioned him to be more judicious in his criticism. Cleveland News, August 20, 1935.

  It is true that Schacht was a far more appealing and moderate character than Streicher or Goebbels. However, he supported measures which would not have bloodied Jews in the street but would have forced them into a modern ghetto. Schacht’s suggestions would have left Jews so economically deprived that they would have had to endure a living death. He advocated the slow and regulated institution of economic legislation against the Jews. He wished to avoid the foreign boycotts and financial disruptions which threatened to ensue each time there was an outbreak of violence. His position was predicated on financial calculations. He rarely differed with the basic antisemitic ideology of the party or its objective of eradicating the German Jewish community. In fact one of the most immediate results of the 1935 party rally at which the Nuremberg Laws were announced was a “stiffening of antisemitism” in Schact’s domain. Among other things, he gave notice to officials in the Reichsbank who were married to Jewish women. Dodd to Hull, September 26, 1935, DS 862.4016/1561. See also Hjalmar Schacht, My First Seventy-Six Years: The Autobiography of Hjalmar Schacht (London: Allan Hacht, 1955), p. 347.

  One of the few press voices to demur from the general praise of Schacht was the New York Times. Although prior to the riots it had described him as a moderating influence, subsequently it accused him of wryly playing two games at one time. On one hand, he was genuinely concerned about the repercussions of a foreign boycott; on the other hand, he was also trying to establish an alibi in the face of economic collapse. It was wrong, the Times argued, to call him a humanitarian when, although he might decry wanton public attacks on Jews, he did not object to private persecution as long as it did not result in foreign repercussions. New York Times, February 21, March 1, August 20, 1935.

  Christian Century took a similar stance. Schacht’s statements were for “foreign consumption, since if he had any convictions . . . he would have resigned long ago.” More of a pragmatist than a moderate, Schacht emerged as a popular figure in the American press because he could be so favorably compared with the other unsavory characters at the helm of the Germany state. He represented the elite, educated “good German” from whom, Americans hoped, would come the sanity and rational thinking then absent in Germany. Christian Century, September 11, 1935.

  50. Prior to the events of the latter half of 1935, particularly the riots and the Nuremberg decrees, there had even been some confusion in the ranks of the German Jewish community as to whether their future was to be in Germany or outside of it. The rate of emigration slowed down markedly. In the first year of the Hitler regime 50,000 Jews left the Reich. In 1934 only 25,000 departed, and in fact many who had left returned. Some of the returnees were placed in concentration camps. As a result of what took place on July 15, 1935, and through November of that year, when the second set of laws governing Jewish rights of citizenship were issued, many leaders of the German Jewish community abandoned any hope for the survival of their community under Nazi rule. For expressions of pessimism on the part of German Jews, see Dodd to Hull, September 7, 1935, DS 862.4016/1550. See also Consul General Douglas Jenkins to Hull, November 4, 1935, FRUS, 1935, vol. II, pp. 292-293. For examples of the treatment of young German Jews who returned to their country from a foreign state, see memo, Consul General Samuel Honaker to Hull, August 23, 1935, DS 862.4016/1543. See also American Jewish Year Book, vol. 37, pp. 183-185, vol. 38, p. 320; Shafir, pp. 476-477.

  Shortly after the riots, when rumors were rife about laws which would affect the status of the Jew in Germany, even the American embassy subscribed to the scapegoat explanation. It reported to Secretary of State Hull that “the tenets of the Party include making the Jew a scapegoat at a time when it is beset by serious internal difficulties. In this connection it is noticeable that even the lower class Germans have frequently been heard to express the view that intensive Jew-baiting is intended to divert attention from financial difficulties and domestic political opposition.” Memo, White to Hull, August 20, 1935, DS 862.4016/1538.

  51. Literary Digest, June 18, 1932, p. 19; Edgar Mowrer, Germany Puts the Clock Back (New York: Morrow, 1933), p. 239.

  52. Cleveland News, September 17, 1935; Cincinnati Enquirer, September 18, 1935; Boston Transcript, September 16, 1935; Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, September 19, 1935; Flint (Michigan) Journal, September 19, 1935; Pueblo Springs (Colorado) Gazetteer, September 18, 1935; Fort Worth (Texas) Star Telegraph, September 19, 1935; Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 18, 1935; Denver News, September 21, 1935; Newsweek, September 21, 1935. Many papers which had not previously commented on Nazi persecution did so on the occasion of the Nuremburg Laws. Shirer, Nightmare Years, p. 226.

  53. New York Herald Tribune, July 28, 1935; New York Sun, August 2, 1935; Washington Post, August 1, 1935; Lynchburg (Virginia) News, August 2, 1935; Richmond Times Dispatch, August 4, 1935; Kenosha (Wisconsin) News, September 9, 1935; Easton (Pennsylvania) Express. September 10, 1935.

  54. Newsweek, September 21, 1935, p. 12.

  55. Los Angeles Times, September 16, 1935. The headline in the New York Herald Tribune did make the ban on citizenship the lead item, but it referred to the change in flag twice:

  NAZIS BAR JEWS AS CITIZENS,

  MAKE SWASTIKA SOLE FLAG

  IN REPLY TO N.Y. ‘INSULT’

  SUBSERVIENT REICHSTAG IN EXTRA SESSION

  OUTLAWS MIXED MARRIAGES, PUTS JEWS BACK IN MIDDLE

  AGES

  Memel ‘Tortures’ Decried by Hitler

  World Anti-Jewish Flag ‘Insulted’ by Semites in New York

  Replaces the Reich Imperial Banner

  New York Herald Tribune, September 16, 1935.

  56. Washington Herald, September 16, 1935.

  57. New York Times, September 16, 1935.

  58. Baltimore Sun, September 16, 1935.

  59. Chris
tian Science Monitor, September 16, 1935, p. 10.

  60. In another example of an obfuscated reaction to the news, the Troy (New York) Record, September 17, 1935, believed the most important part of the laws was the limits placed on Jewish children’s education. “One might digest some of these proscriptions without gagging if it were not for the inhuman Asiatic practice recently embraced in Germany, of punishing children for fancied shortcomings of their ancestors.” The Record decried punishing children whose parents “are socially objectionable” (emphasis added). The Record’s description of Jews as “socially objectionable” indicated failure to comprehend the demonic place Jews occupied in Nazi ideology. The paper compared their treatment with Stalinist treatment of middle-class children and concluded the lot of Russian children was more trying because they were denied any education, while the Nazis promised state aid for “separate Jewish taught schools.” See also Meridan (Mississippi) Star, September 18, 1935; Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, September 16, 1935; Boston Transcript, September 16, 1935.

  61. Cleveland News, September 17, 1935.

  62. New York Times, September 22, 1935.

  63. Christian Science Monitor, October 17, 1935. See also Memo, Dodd to Hull, August 20, 1935, DS 862.4016/1538.

  64. Boston Transcript, September 16, 1935.

  65. Diplomatic dispatches from the period indicate that as a result of previously issued antisemitic legislation the status of the Jew was quite dire. See, for example, report by Ralph C. Busser, American Consul in Leipzig, July 22, 1935, DS 862.4016/1503; report by American Consul General in Stuttgart Samuel W. Honaker, August 23, 1935, DS 862.4016/1543; memo, Dodd to Hull, October 17, 1935, DS 862.4016/1568.

  66. Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 18, 1935.

  67. New York Times, September 1, 1935, p. 12. Memo, Chargé in Germany J. C. White to Hull, August 20, 1935, DS 862.4016/1538; Dodd to Hull, September 26, 1935, DS 862.4016/1561.

  68. Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1935, sec. II, p. 4; St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 17, 1935; Cincinnati Enquirer, September 18, November 18, 1935.