Authors:
Historic Era:
Historic Theme:
Subject:
December 1991 | Volume 42, Issue 8
Authors:
Historic Era:
Historic Theme:
Subject:
December 1991 | Volume 42, Issue 8
In the summer of 1940 the fate of the world depended on the duel between two men: Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill. It was a duel of nerves, and of wills. Churchill carried it off, because Hitler finally chose not to invade Britain. But even before he made that decision, he and Churchill were aware that this was no longer a duel between the two of them. Before the fall of France, Hitler had gained an ally, Mussolini. Before the Battle of Britain Churchill had gained the support of Roosevelt. That the latter weighed more in the balance than the former both Hitler and Churchill knew.
There are coincidences and parallels in Hitler’s and Roosevelt’s careers. The thirtieth of January was a day of celebration for both of them; the day Hitler became chancellor of Germany (in 1933) was Roosevelt’s birthday. Then, in March 1933, they came to power just a day apart, Roosevelt’s inauguration coinciding with the Reichstag election that gave Hitler his majority. For twelve years they were the heads of two of the greatest states in the world. For the first six years of their respective leaderships their main achievements were domestic; they pulled their peoples from a great depression. For the next six years they were leaders in a war, bitter enemies. They died in April 1945, eighteen days apart, before the war ended, the war that Roosevelt won and Hitler lost. But their characters, their ideas, their temperaments, their world views could not have been more different.
It is wrong to think, as many do, that Hitler was ignorant of the United States. His interest in stories about the American West went back to his youth. Although he customarily read very few diplomatic documents, in 1940 and 1941 he was an assiduous peruser of reports from the German embassy in Washington, and he had a fairly accurate comprehension of American political divisions.
Franklin Roosevelt, who had visited Europe during his youth, knew more about Germany than had his predecessor Woodrow Wilson. He disliked certain traits of German character, but he wished to cultivate good relations with Germany even after Hitler had come to power. (That event was misinterpreted by most Americans. On the day Hitler was made chancellor the correspondent of The New York Times cabled from Berlin: “Herr Hitler is reported to be in a more docile frame of mind.” Next day: “Hitler Puts Aside Aim to Be Dictator”; “Hitler News Fails to Stir Wall Street.” The editorial: “Much of Hitler’s old electoral thunder has either been stolen from him, or has died down into a negligible rumble.” During the entire week thereafter none of the forty or fifty letters to the editor printed in The New York Times mentioned Germany or Hitler.)
A few years later there was a change. Most historians regard Roosevelt’s speech of October 5, 1937, the so-called Quarantine Speech in Chicago, as a turning point, the beginning