Page 211 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

198 The American Diplomats

none of them “Jew haters” or “Jew baiters,” who agreed with him, and he
was confident that most americans also agreed with him. strowd ended his
letter on a patriotic note: he would be willing to have his son “give his life
if necessary in defense of our country but not to protect alien property in a
foreign country.”
the under secretary passed the letter on to Moffat, who found it so
compelling—he referred to it as “the only one that appears to be reasoned
and not violently anti-semitic”—that he thought it important for Welles to
send more than a formal reply. He did just that and assured strowd that
although the United states abhorred the repressive policies of the German
government and had made that clear, it had no intention of interfering in
the domestic affairs of Germany or any other country. 137
as indicated at the beginning of this chapter, many americans among the
elite and the general public shared this isolationist point of view. Not only
conservatives took up that cause. in 1936, the platform of the democratic
Party contained the following plank: “We shall continue to observe a true
neutrality in the disputes of others.” during the presidential campaign that
year, roosevelt declared, “We shun political commitments which might en-
tangle us in foreign wars; we avoid connection with the political activities
of the league of Nations.” 138
it should also be noted that anti-semitism had “increased dramatically”
during the 1920s and 1930s, and often the isolationists propagated that prej-
udice most vigorously. 139 Various cultural and political currents proved to
be fertile ground for movements hostile to the Jews: the fear of Bolshevism,
a political ideology that many considered a Jewish invention; the broad
interest in racial doctrines that attributed cultural and moral inferiority to
Jews; and widespread apprehension that Jewish immigrants would replace
americans in the labor markets and also in the corporate world then domi-
nated by Protestants. even a diplomat as hostile to Nazism as Messersmith
opposed easing restrictions on Jewish immigration into the United states
because he feared that an influx of Jews would increase unemployment.
during the initial period of the Hitler regime there was also consider-
able skepticism, among the public and even among some journalists, about
the reports of mistreatment of Jews and the ruthlessness of the Nazi regime
in general. 140 Consequently, the U.s. government, despite its abhorrence
of the anti-Jewish violence and the frequent appeals for help by the Jew-
ish community, failed to file an official protest with the German govern-
ment until the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938, and even then the
protest was not especially strong. in part, the government’s inaction also