Page 188 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The American Diplomats 175

consulting the principal Consulates, by telephone if necessary, with a view
to ascertaining the situation throughout different parts of the country.” 77
a day after sending this telegram and before he had received any reply
from Berlin, Hull held a press conference at which he distributed a reassur-
ing statement by Göring that the German ambassador to the United states
had passed on to the state department. Göring promised to maintain “law
and order under all circumstances” and pointed out that he had dismissed
fifteen sa men because they had acted “on their own authority.” Finally,
Göring declared, “if one considers that during the last weeks a revolution
was witnessed one will have to admit that it passed with very little blood-
shed.” Hull ended the press conference with an announcement that no offi-
cial protest against the treatment of the Jews would be considered until the
state department received a reliable account of conditions in Germany. 78
Hull was cautious and preferred not to ruffle feathers; he therefore made
every effort to avoid criticizing the new regime in Germany. He hoped that
the Nazis would soon stop the attacks on Jews and that he would then not
be obliged to break his silence. He complained that he was “under heavy
pressure” to take some action, and he feared that the “monster mass meet-
ing” to be held on March 27 in New York, and other rallies in Chicago, Bos-
ton, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, and seventy additional locations,
would place him in an untenable situation. He was convinced that “outside
intervention has rarely produced the results desired and has frequently ag-
gravated the situation.” to defend his policy of nonintervention, he tended
to refer to the “alleged mistreatment of Jewish nationals,” and he would
clutch at any sign, however dubious and misleading, that suggested that
Hitler was committed to restoring law and order.
But pressure on Hull and President roosevelt to condemn the Nazis did
not let up, throwing doubt on the claim by some historians that american
Jews and american organizations in general were far too silent on Hitler’s
anti-semitism. Within weeks of Hitler’s ascent to power, stephen s. Wise,
79
a prominent reform rabbi and the leader of the World Jewish Congress,
did his utmost to alert americans to the bestiality and dangers of Nazism.
He visited secretary Hull to plead for a statement of condemnation of Ger-
man persecution of the Jews, and he called for an economic boycott of
Germany. He warned that the Nazis were not attacking only German Jews
but world Jewry. 80
rabbi Wise was not the only person in the United states to call for the
strong denunciation of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. the archives of
the state department contain hundreds of messages, pleas, and petitions