Human Smoke is brilliant. I had no idea that Roosevelt was a virulent anti-semite [1] or that starvation through blockade was a key part of allied strategy.[2]
And TIL that between 500 000 and 3 000 000 Germans are estimated to have died in the subsequent forced relocation back to German territory.[3]
A memoir of one soldier's experience in the Pacific which is along the same lines as the Atlantic article is Goodbye Darkness.[4] It's a hell of a read.
"Franklin's mother Sara shared anti-Semitic attitudes common among Americans at the time.[citation needed] Although anti-Semitism was common during the era, it is argued[citation needed] that FDR was not anti-Semitic. Some of his closest political associates, such as Felix Frankfurter, Bernard Baruch and Samuel I. Rosenman, were Jewish, and he happily cultivated the important Jewish vote in New York City. He appointed Henry Morgenthau, Jr. as the first Jewish Secretary of the Treasury and appointed Frankfurter to the Supreme Court. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin cites statistics showing that FDR’s high level executive appointments favored Jews (15% of his top appointments at a time when Jews represented 3% of the U.S. population) which subjected Roosevelt to frequent criticism. The August, 1936 edition of "The White Knight" published an article referring to the New Deal as the “Jew Deal.” Pamphlets appeared such as "What Every Congressman Should Know" in 1940 (featuring a sketch of the Capitol building with a Star of David atop its dome) that proclaimed that the Jews were in control of the American government. Financier and FDR confidant Bernard Baruch was called the “Unofficial President” in the anti-Semitic literature of the time. The periodical Liberation, for example, accused FDR of loading his government with Jews.[2]
During his first term Roosevelt condemned Hitler's persecution of German Jews. As the Jewish exodus from Germany increased after 1937, Roosevelt was asked by American Jewish organizations and Congressmen to allow these refugees to settle in the U.S. At first he suggested that the Jewish refugees should be "resettled" elsewhere, and suggested Venezuela, Ethiopia or West Africa — anywhere but the U.S. Morgenthau, Ickes and Eleanor pressed him to adopt a more generous policy but he was afraid of provoking the men such as Charles Lindbergh who exploited anti-Semitism as a means of attacking Roosevelt's policies.
In practice very few Jewish refugees came to the U.S. — only 22,000 German refugees were admitted in 1940, not all of them Jewish. The State Department official in charge of refugee issues, Breckinridge Long, insisted on following the highly restrictive immigration laws to the letter. As one example, in 1939, the State Department under Roosevelt did not allow a boat of Jews fleeing from the Nazis into the United States. When the passenger ship St. Louis approached the coast of Florida with nearly a thousand German Jews fleeing persecution by Hitler, Roosevelt did not respond to telegrams from passengers requesting asylum, and the State Department refused entry to the ship. Forced to return to Antwerp, many of the passengers eventually died in concentration camps.[3]
After 1942, when Roosevelt was made aware of the Nazi extermination of the Jews by Rabbi Stephen Wise, the Polish envoy Jan Karski and others, he told them that the best solution was to destroy Nazi Germany. At Casablanca in 1943 Roosevelt announced there would be no compromise whatever with Hitler. In May 1943 he wrote to Cordell Hull (whose wife was Jewish): "I do not think we can do other than strictly comply with the present immigration laws." In January 1944, however, Morgenthau succeeded in persuading Roosevelt to allow the creation of a War Refugee Board in the Treasury Department. This allowed an increasing number of Jews to enter the U.S. in 1944 and 1945. It also financed Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg's work in Budapest, where he and others helped to save 100,000+ Jews from deportation to death camps. By this time, however, the European Jewish communities had already been largely destroyed in Hitler's Holocaust.
In any case, after 1945 the focus of Jewish aspirations shifted from migration to the U.S. to settlement in British mandate of Palestine, where the Zionist movement hoped to create a Jewish state. Roosevelt was also opposed to this idea. When he met King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia in February 1945, he assured him he did not support a Jewish state in British mandate of Palestine.[citation needed]"
Estragon|13 years ago
And TIL that between 500 000 and 3 000 000 Germans are estimated to have died in the subsequent forced relocation back to German territory.[3]
A memoir of one soldier's experience in the Pacific which is along the same lines as the Atlantic article is Goodbye Darkness.[4] It's a hell of a read.
[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=8HKQEJlAl9gC&lpg=PP1...
[2] http://books.google.com/books?id=8HKQEJlAl9gC&pg=PA143
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans...
[4] http://books.google.com/books?id=nvPRNK-Zo_YC&printsec=f...
Steko|13 years ago
For balance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt%27s_recor...
quoting the whole thing...
"Franklin's mother Sara shared anti-Semitic attitudes common among Americans at the time.[citation needed] Although anti-Semitism was common during the era, it is argued[citation needed] that FDR was not anti-Semitic. Some of his closest political associates, such as Felix Frankfurter, Bernard Baruch and Samuel I. Rosenman, were Jewish, and he happily cultivated the important Jewish vote in New York City. He appointed Henry Morgenthau, Jr. as the first Jewish Secretary of the Treasury and appointed Frankfurter to the Supreme Court. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin cites statistics showing that FDR’s high level executive appointments favored Jews (15% of his top appointments at a time when Jews represented 3% of the U.S. population) which subjected Roosevelt to frequent criticism. The August, 1936 edition of "The White Knight" published an article referring to the New Deal as the “Jew Deal.” Pamphlets appeared such as "What Every Congressman Should Know" in 1940 (featuring a sketch of the Capitol building with a Star of David atop its dome) that proclaimed that the Jews were in control of the American government. Financier and FDR confidant Bernard Baruch was called the “Unofficial President” in the anti-Semitic literature of the time. The periodical Liberation, for example, accused FDR of loading his government with Jews.[2]
During his first term Roosevelt condemned Hitler's persecution of German Jews. As the Jewish exodus from Germany increased after 1937, Roosevelt was asked by American Jewish organizations and Congressmen to allow these refugees to settle in the U.S. At first he suggested that the Jewish refugees should be "resettled" elsewhere, and suggested Venezuela, Ethiopia or West Africa — anywhere but the U.S. Morgenthau, Ickes and Eleanor pressed him to adopt a more generous policy but he was afraid of provoking the men such as Charles Lindbergh who exploited anti-Semitism as a means of attacking Roosevelt's policies.
In practice very few Jewish refugees came to the U.S. — only 22,000 German refugees were admitted in 1940, not all of them Jewish. The State Department official in charge of refugee issues, Breckinridge Long, insisted on following the highly restrictive immigration laws to the letter. As one example, in 1939, the State Department under Roosevelt did not allow a boat of Jews fleeing from the Nazis into the United States. When the passenger ship St. Louis approached the coast of Florida with nearly a thousand German Jews fleeing persecution by Hitler, Roosevelt did not respond to telegrams from passengers requesting asylum, and the State Department refused entry to the ship. Forced to return to Antwerp, many of the passengers eventually died in concentration camps.[3]
After 1942, when Roosevelt was made aware of the Nazi extermination of the Jews by Rabbi Stephen Wise, the Polish envoy Jan Karski and others, he told them that the best solution was to destroy Nazi Germany. At Casablanca in 1943 Roosevelt announced there would be no compromise whatever with Hitler. In May 1943 he wrote to Cordell Hull (whose wife was Jewish): "I do not think we can do other than strictly comply with the present immigration laws." In January 1944, however, Morgenthau succeeded in persuading Roosevelt to allow the creation of a War Refugee Board in the Treasury Department. This allowed an increasing number of Jews to enter the U.S. in 1944 and 1945. It also financed Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg's work in Budapest, where he and others helped to save 100,000+ Jews from deportation to death camps. By this time, however, the European Jewish communities had already been largely destroyed in Hitler's Holocaust.
In any case, after 1945 the focus of Jewish aspirations shifted from migration to the U.S. to settlement in British mandate of Palestine, where the Zionist movement hoped to create a Jewish state. Roosevelt was also opposed to this idea. When he met King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia in February 1945, he assured him he did not support a Jewish state in British mandate of Palestine.[citation needed]"
antidoh|13 years ago