Documents the scope and success of pro-Nazi groups in the U.S. and their links to the Nazi government. Over 50 photographs of leading political figures, pro-German rallies in America and reproductions of shocking German propaganda posters published in the U.S. are also included. Offers a portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt as a statesman and savvy politician who was more aggressively opposed to Hitler than previously thought.
This controversial review of history challenges accepted notions of FDR's behavior on the eve of World War II by depicting him not as a blind follower reluctant to act, but as the most cunning anti-Nazi statesman of his time.
Bogen handler om truslen imod den civile søfart og træfninger mellem amerikanske og tyske flådeenheder, og især i Nordatlanten forud for Pearl Harbor og det politiske efterspil derpå. Den handler defor samtidig om de to statsmænd Hitler og Roosevelt, deres signaler og gøremål i en krig, som foreløbig var uerklæret, uofficiel.
A gripping and groundbreaking account of how all but one of FDR's ambassadors in Europe misjudged Hitler and his intentions As German tanks rolled toward Paris in late May 1940, the U.S. Ambassador to France, William Bullitt, was determined to stay put, holed up in the Chateau St. Firmin in Chantilly, his country residence. Bullitt told the president that he would neither evacuate the embassy nor his chateau, an eighteenth Renaissance manse with a wine cellar of over 18,000 bottles, even though “we have only two revolvers in this entire mission with only forty bullets.” As German forces closed in on the French capital, Bullitt wrote the president, “In case I should get blown up before I see you again, I want you to know that it has been marvelous to work for you.” As the fighting raged in France, across the English Channel, Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy wrote to his wife Rose, “The situation is more than critical. It means a terrible finish for the allies.” David McKean's Watching Darkness Fall will recount the rise of the Third Reich in Germany and the road to war from the perspective of four American diplomats in Europe who witnessed it firsthand: Joseph Kennedy, William Dodd, Breckinridge Long, and William Bullitt, who all served in key Western European capitals—London, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and Moscow—in the years prior to World War II. In many ways they were America’s first line of defense and they often communicated with the president directly, as Roosevelt's eyes and ears on the ground. Unfortunately, most of them underestimated the power and resolve of Adolf Hitler and Germany’s Third Reich. Watching Darkness Fall is a gripping new history of the years leading up to and the beginning of WWII in Europe told through the lives of five well-educated and mostly wealthy men all vying for the attention of the man in the Oval Office.
The Second World War was caused by one man--Adolf Hitler. Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin were called on by history to stop this menace. In this book, which includes new material, the background, attitude, and personalities of these men are explored in detail.
From a world-renowned cultural historian, an original look at the hidden commonalities among Fascism, Nazism, and the New Deal Today Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal is regarded as the democratic ideal, the positive American response to an economic crisis that propelled Germany and Italy toward Fascism. Yet in the 1930s, shocking as it may seem, these regimes were hardly considered antithetical. Now, Wolfgang Schivelbusch investigates the shared elements of these three "new deals" to offer a striking explanation for the popularity of Europe's totalitarian systems. Returning to the Depression, Schivelbusch traces the emergence of a new type of state: bolstered by mass propaganda, led by a charismatic figure, and projecting stability and power. He uncovers stunning similarities among the three regimes: the symbolic importance of gigantic public works programs like the TVA dams and the German autobahn, which not only put people back to work but embodied the state's authority; the seductive persuasiveness of Roosevelt's fireside chats and Mussolini's radio talks; the vogue for monumental architecture stamped on Washington, as on Berlin; and the omnipresent banners enlisting citizens as loyal followers of the state. Far from equating Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mussolini or minimizing their acute differences, Schivelbusch proposes that the populist and paternalist qualities common to their states hold the key to the puzzling allegiance once granted to Europe's most tyrannical regimes.
Mexico's relationship with the world during the 1930s is revealed as a fascinating series of calculated responses to domestic political changes and international economic shifts.
While broadly concerned about the nature of New Deal diplomacy, Patrick J. Hearden's Roosevelt Confronts Hitler pays special attention to American policy toward Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1941. Basing his conclusions on information gathered from his extensive research in various archives and private collections, Hearden presents a persuasive reinterpretation of how and why the United States went to war with Germany in 1941. Although President Roosevelt repeatedly claimed in public speeches that Hitler was bent upon world conquest, the question of strategic defense was not the primary factor underlying the American decision to enter the war. Moreover, despite the genuine concern of Roosevelt and his advisors for the plight of the Jews inside the Third Reich, this ethical question was even less important than the issue of national security in prompting the preparation for war. The American decision to enter the war, Hearden argues, was actually based much more upon economic considerations and ideological commitments than on either moral aspirations or military apprehensions. Roosevelt, his advisors, and influential business leaders were primarily concerned about the menace that triumphant Germany would present the free enterprise system in the United States. If Hitler and the Axis powers succeeded in dividing the world into exclusive trade zones, the New Deal planners would have to regulate the American economy to create an internal balance between supply and demand. Convinced that capitalism could not function within the framework of only one country, they chose to fight to keep foreign markets open for surplus American commodities and thereby to preserve entrepreneurial freedom in the United States.
As Allied soldiers fought the Nazis, Franklin Roosevelt and, later, Harry Truman fought in private with Churchill and Stalin over how to ensure that Germany could never threaten the world again.
A panoramic narrative of the years leading up to the Second World War—a tale of democratic crisis, racial conflict, and a belated recognition of evil, with profound resonance for our own time. Berlin, November 1937. Adolf Hitler meets with his military commanders to impress upon them the urgent necessity for a war of aggression in eastern Europe. Some generals are unnerved by the Führer’s grandiose plan, but these dissenters are silenced one by one, setting in motion events that will culminate in the most calamitous war in history. Benjamin Carter Hett takes us behind the scenes in Berlin, London, Moscow, and Washington, revealing the unsettled politics within each country in the wake of the German dictator’s growing provocations. He reveals the fitful path by which anti-Nazi forces inside and outside Germany came to understand Hitler’s true menace to European civilization and learned to oppose him, painting a sweeping portrait of governments under siege, as larger-than-life figures struggled to turn events to their advantage. As in The Death of Democracy, his acclaimed history of the fall of the Weimar Republic, Hett draws on original sources and newly released documents to show how these long-ago conflicts have unexpected resonances in our own time. To read The Nazi Menace is to see past and present in a new and unnerving light.
