Master Thesis
American Studies
Student: Gemma Franke (0337072)
Professor: Maarten van Rossem
Number of Words: 14.859
FDR’s policy towards Hitler in the 1930s
Table of Contents
Introduction
4
Chapter One: Roosevelt’s 1930s
8
-
World War I aftermath
8
-
Economic ties in the 1930s
9
-
Events in Europe
11
-
Response in the U.S.
12
Chapter Two: Roosevelt’s international policy, Appeasement /
Internationalism?
15
-
How to view appeasement
16
-
When did Roosevelt start interfering in international politics?
18
-
FDR and appeasement
22
-
FDR’s relation with Great Britain
26
Chapter Three: Munich: the turning point?
32
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The road to Munich
32
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Roosevelt and Munich
35
-
The aftermath
38
-
A turning point?
40
Chapter Four: The road to war
43
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External challenges and U.S. response
44
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Towards war in Europe
47
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“We are not going to get into war”
48
2
-
From reelection to Pearl Harbor
51
Conclusion
56
Bibliography
62
Attachments
66
3
Introduction
“What if someone had listened to Winston Churchill and stood up to Adolf Hitler
earlier? How many peoples’ lives might have been saved, and how many American
lives might have been saved?” President Bill Clinton, March 23, 1999
“The fundamental reason for the failure of appeasement was that Hitler’s goals lay far
beyond the limits of reasonable accommodation that the appeasers were prepared to
contemplate.” J.L. Richardson, “New perspectives on Appeasement”.
The people of the United States were living in the sunshine of health and welfare
during the Roaring Twenties. Life was made much more comfortable for the
American people by new products of science and technology and belief in material
progress was nurtured. Herbert Hoover, the Republican candidate for the presidency
in 1928, declared in his acceptance speech; “We in America today, are nearer to the
final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.”1 He became
president in 1929. The Great Crash brought the bull market in Wall Street to an
abrupt close and Hoover’s dream of a golden destiny for the American people turned
into a nightmare of global depression.
Amid the acute economic deterioration during the winter of 1932-1933, the nation
had to wait four months before Franklin Delano Roosevelt could take office and
inaugurate his promised program to combat the depression.2 “The somewhat
encouraging signs of the summer had vanished with the autumn leaves, and the
American people had to endure rising unemployment, falling business index figures
Hearden, Patrick J., Roosevelt Confronts Hitler, America’s Entry into World War II, (Dekalb, Northern
Illinois University Press, 1987), 4
2 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, (Boston, Little, Brown and
Company, 1990), 79
1
4
and farm prices dropping to catastrophic levels.”3 By necessity, most of Roosevelt’s
efforts would be devoted to domestic policies and issues. His New Deal program for
economic recovery was very controversial from the outset, forcing him to defend his
legislation from attacks by conservatives and the Supreme Court. In 1935, as a
response to these pressures, he launched the so-called Second New Deal of reforms
and campaigned for reelection in 1936.4 Roosevelt had an abiding interest in
international events, he had served under Wilson as assistant secretary of the navy
during World War I5, but his attention during his first years in office was focused on
the home front.
Throughout the industrial nations of the world, economic conditions were
desperate, from Japan, resorting to imperialist ventures on the Asiatic mainland, to
Germany, where Adolf Hitler became Reichskanzler in January 1933. Some
observers doubted not only whether the American economic system could survive,
but even whether democratic institutions could weather the economic storm.6
After Hitler dissolved the Reichstag and called for new elections, the famous
Reichstag fire occurred on February 27th. The next day Hindenburg signed a decree
that curtailed civil liberties and gave Hitler a pretext to suppress all political
opposition.7 In March the Enabling Law made sure that legislative power was turned
over to the cabinet and gave Hitler the authority to carry out his larger designs. 8
3
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, (Boston, Little, Brown and
Company, 1990), 79
4 Schmitz, David F., Challener, Richard D. et al, Appeasement in Europe, a reassessment of U.S.
Policies, (New York, Greenwood Press, 1990), 85
5 Schmitz, David F., Challener, Richard D. et al, Appeasement in Europe, a reassessment of U.S.
Policies, (New York, Greenwood Press, 1990), 85
6 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 79
7 Offner, Arnold A., American Appeasement, United States Foreign Policy and Germany, 1933-1938,
(Harvard University Press, 1969), 13
8 Offner, Arnold A., American Appeasement, United States Foreign Policy and Germany, 1933-1938,
13
5
To many people, Germans as well as alert foreigners, when Hitler was
appointed chancellor something new, dangerous and sinister seemed to have
happened. “Many others however, assumed that Hitler and the party he headed
amounted to no more than just another transient presence in the kaleidoscope of
German politics.”9 Hitler had ostentatiously rejected an armed seizure of power, been
appointed to office by legitimate means, and was given only two relatively powerless
Cabinet positions for his party. Hitler himself and the movement he headed
possessed a will and dynamism beyond a lot of people’s comprehension. He never
made a secret of his ambitions and thoughts. From the publication of Mein Kampf in
1925, his National Socialist political ideology became clear. He saw war as the
ultimate human endeavor, he publicly showed his hatred of the Jews or nonGermanic peoples and never concealed his intention of becoming an absolute
dictator.10
How did Americans respond to this new threat, and FDR specifically?
Roosevelt, like many Americans, was initially bewildered and bemused by what was
going on in Europe, “by the pace of change, the periodic crises, and the overall
direction of events.”11 Roosevelt himself stated that; “Things are moving so fast, that I
feel my opinion of the situation today may be completely changed tomorrow.”12 This
uncertainty slowly started to evaporate as the decade progressed.
In my thesis I want to write on Roosevelt and his response to the emergence
of Hitler and Nazism in the 1930s. Did he underestimate the power of the Nazis, did
he really know what was going on and what was his exact policy? The main point I
9
Hamby, Alonzo L., For The Survival of Democracy, Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the
1930s, (New York, Free Press, 2004), 44
10 Hamby, Alonzo L., For The Survival of Democracy, Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the
1930s, (New York, Free Press, 2004), 45
11 Casey, Steven, Cautious Crusade, Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War
against Nazi Germany, (Oxford, University Press, 2001), 4
12 Casey, Steven, Cautious Crusade, 4
6
will focus on will be the policy he conducted in the period between 1936 and 1939,
the period of the so-called ‘appeasement’. Can you label his actions as part of a
policy of appeasement or should it be labeled isolationism, or was his policy a
combination of the two. What was his appeasement policy and did it work or were
Roosevelt and the Allies trying to appease a man, who already knew he was going to
war?
7
Chapter One
Roosevelt’s 1930s
Among those who are essentially sympathetic to his presidency, opinion about
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s role in the period leading up to Pearl Harbor is divided.
During the late 1930’s, FDR promised time and time again, that he would not
intervene in any foreign war. Since then, his many defenders have portrayed him as
a leader who only reluctantly was compelled by forces beyond his control to take
action against a world-wide fascist menace.13 Others, while admitting that FDR
played a key role in the anti-Axis coalition even before official U.S. involvement in the
war, have accused him of not doing enough to address the particular concerns of
world Jewry. These critics cite the American refusal to admit hundreds of thousands
of Jewish refugees prior to 1941 as evidence of Roosevelt’s lack of sensitivity. 14
World War I aftermath
After the First World War, revisionist historians won over the American public to their
view that America had entered the war not because Germany committed aggression
against it, but because American bankers and munitions manufacturers plotted entry
for their own profit.15 The thesis provided justification for the return to isolationism.
The people of the United States had rejected the peace drafted at Paris and refused
to join the League of Nations. The American people were determined to keep their
distance, “to insulate themselves from Europe’s troubles”.16 This isolationist impulse
13
Clive, Robert, Review on: Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War, in: The Journal of Historical Review,
Vol. 10, no. 3, p 357
14 Clive, Robert, Review on: Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War, in: The Journal of Historical Review,
Vol. 10, no. 3, p 357
15 Rauch, Basil, Roosevelt From Munich to Pearl Harbor, A study of a Foreign Policy, (New York,
Creative Age Press, 1950), 1
16 Wiltz, John E., From Isolation to War, 1931-1941, (New York, Thomas Y. Cromwell Company,
1968), 4
8
dominated the next decade and a half. But it did not mean that Americans closed
their eyes to what happened in the rest of the world. America’s interwar isolation is
explained by political scientist Samuel Lubell in ethnic terms. “The two factors
primarily responsible for American isolation are: First the existence of pro-German
and anti-British ethnic prejudices. Second, the exploiting of these prejudices by an
opposition political party.”17 This opposition party was the Republican Party. He
writes that Americans felt embittered, for various reasons, over the outcome of the
war of 1914-1918. As a new war threatened in the 1930s the same people saw that
another involvement in Europe’s controversies would find the U.S. once more on the
side of Great Britain, and against Germany and Italy.18
In the economic realm, America was not that isolationist.
Economic ties in 1930s
Arnold A. Offner states in his piece Appeasement revisited: The United States, Great
Britain, and Germany, 1933-1940 that the first major changes in German-American
trade patterns resulted from the world economic collapse of 1929-1932. Major
American exports to Germany virtually ended. Despite this relative decline, the U.S.
still ranked first in value of exports to Germany in 1933, 1934 and 1938.19 The
Germans bought the American products they most wanted; petroleum, fertilizer,
copper, scrap steel and iron. In 1934 the United States refused to renew the
commercial treaty with Germany because of the latter country’s refusal to include the
nondiscriminatory “most-favored-nation clause”. Yet the influential reports against
renewal sent to the State Department by Consul General George Messersmith and
17
Wiltz, John E., From Isolation to War, 1931-1941, 4
Wiltz, John E., From Isolation to War, 1931-1941, 4
19 Offner, Arnold A., Appeasement Revisited: The United States, Great Britain, and Germany, 19331940, in: The Journal of American History, Vol. 62, No.2, September 1977, 374
18
9
commercial attaché Douglas Miller from Berlin emphasized the political aspects of
the German problem. They insisted that the Germans wanted a trade agreement,
credits and raw material primarily for rearmament and political propaganda.20
The Roosevelt administration regarded Nazi Germany as a formidable economic
threat rather than a dangerous military menace.21 New Deal officials and their
business associates feared that a Nazi military victory would close world markets to
American agricultural and industrial surpluses. The attempt of Hjalmar Schacht, the
Reichsbank’s president, to construct a bilateral barter system in which Germany
would purchase commodities from other countries in exchange for their purchase of
selected German manufactured goods, seemed to threaten American exports.22 The
Nazi trade offensive in South Africa since 1934 was equally worrisome.
Even though, American direct investments in manufacturers in Germany rose by 36
percent, from 1936 through 1940. While on the other hand, manufacturers
investments in Great Britain rose only from $271 to $275 million, and declined in
France from $71 to $46 million.23 Key American diplomats often hoped that economic
concessions might appease Germany politically, and they were prepared to hedge
their liberal principles.
During the 1930s the Americans and British constantly denounced each other’s
economic and trade policies. Roosevelt never deviated from his typically American
belief that the British took 80 percent of every deal and “you get what is left”, while
the British view was that “Roosevelt’s New Deal promised to be a raw one for us”.24
20
Offner, Arnold A., Appeasement Revisited: The United States, Great Britain, and Germany, 19331940, in: The Journal of American History, Vol. 62, No.2, September 1977, 375
21 Hearden, Patrick J., Roosevelt Confronts Hitler, America’s Entry into World War II, (Dekalb,
Northern Illinois University Press, 1987), 159
22 Hearden, Patrick J., Roosevelt Confronts Hitler, America’s Entry into World War II, 58
23 Offner, Arnold A., Appeasement Revisited: The United States, Great Britain, and Germany, 19331940, 376
24 Offner, Arnold A., Appeasement Revisited: The United States, Great Britain, and Germany, 19331940, 377
10
Throughout the 30s most American diplomats believed that the primary threats to
Europe’s peace were political, due especially to the restraints that the Treaty of
Versailles placed on Germany. Increasingly, they feared that unilateral German
revision of the treaty would lead to war and they would be inevitably drawn in.
American ambassador to Britain, Robert Bingham, wrote from London in March 1935
that he was “more than doubtful whether we can keep out of a great European
conflagration. We tried hard once before, with no success. Therefore the question
arises as to what we can do in our own interest to aid an appeasement in Europe.”25
Bingham noted that moral leadership was ineffective and direct involvement in
Europe would create a furor. The American diplomats’ Wilsonian belief in the
“pacific effect of arms limitation, reduced trade barriers, and increased equality of
access to markets and resources led them to conclude that political appeasement in
Europe could be achieved through economic appeasement, which was conceived as
both a diplomatic tactic and a legitimate, publicly acceptable end.”26
Events in Europe
When Hitler came to power at the end of January 1933 there certainly was cause for
alarm, but not for panic. Keith Robbins mentions some obvious questions that were
asked concerning Hitler at the time; was he sane? Was he a man of the left or the
right? Would there be a ‘new beginning’ in German foreign policy or would there be
continuity? Was he a careful planner or did he respond to events intuitively and
inspirationally? Was Mein Kampf an early folly or a textbook for the future?27
In his speech at the Reichstag on March 7th 1936 Hitler claimed that in the
national, political and economical areas the position of the Germans had become
25
Offner, Arnold A., Appeasement Revisited: The United States, Great Britain, and Germany, 19331940, 378
26 Offner, Arnold A., Appeasement Revisited: The United States, Great Britain, and Germany, 19331940, 378
27 Robbins, Keith, Appeasement, (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1988), 50
11
better.28 Germany’s honor was restored and it could be proud of itself again. In
contrast to the Depression-wracked democracies, the German economy boomed,
only in part due to warp-speed rearmament. Autobahns and strength-through-joy
vacations began to be plentiful. The German birthrate also climbed, a sign of
confidence in the future. Most German people supported the remilitarization of the
Rhineland, which was in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the spirit of the
Locarno Pact. This was one of Hitler’s triumphs, within Germany and abroad.29 His
triumph demonstrated the weakness of the dominant powers within Europe thus far:
France and Great Britain. He violated the treaties of Versailles and Locarno, thereby
showing he was not planning to take them seriously, and showing that Germany was
a force to be taken seriously.30
Meanwhile, Hitler’s power in Germany was absolute. His position as a dictator
was undisputable and was not threatened by any opposition. On June 30 th 1934, in
the so called “Night of the Long Knives” Hitler had at least 85 people assassinated for
political reasons. Among them were members of the SA, especially its leader Ernst
Röhm. Meanwhile, other horrendous things were happening in Germany. Kershaw
states that Hitler had a dual ideological goal: the destruction of the Jews, who were
enemy number one, and by destroying them, he would rule the whole European
continent, which would be the platform for ruling the world.31
Response in the U.S
In his book Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War, Edwin Herzstein describes the
struggle for control over American public opinion toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s,
28
Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1936-1945 Nemesis, (Penguin Press, 2000), 27
Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1936-1945 Nemesis, 27
30 Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1936-1945 Nemesis, 28
31 Kershaw, Ian, Hitler, 1936-1945 Nemesis, 33
29
12
when the nation was mired in the Depression and attracted to isolationist sentiment.
Individual anti-Semites, like the “radio priest” Father Charles F. Coughlin, and such
fascist groups as the German-American Bund and the Silver Shirts, exploited the
situation.32 Anti-Semitism and isolationism formed a powerful coalition. He argues
that Roosevelt eventually broke the hold of powerful American anti-Semites and
fascists by convincing the public that these nativist factions represented a Trojan
horse, a “fifth column” introduced by the Nazis.33 Herzstein offers a different
perspective on the argument whether or not Roosevelt abandoned the Jews of
Europe to the Nazis. While acknowledging Roosevelt’s mishandling of the Jewish
refugee question in refusing to defy Congress and public opinion by requesting
changes in the immigration quotas, Herzstein issues an appeal for perspective.
Roosevelt’s policy toward the victims must not be separated from his bold anti-fascist
policies that eventually isolated anti-Semitism at home and destroyed the Nazi
regime in Europe.34 Hitler’s war against Jewry revolutionized Roosevelt’s view of
Germany and American foreign policy. Roosevelt used J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal
Bureau of Investigation and the mass media in subtle and even devious ways to
convince Americans that the Nazis abroad were dangerous to Americans at home,
and that anti-Semites, fascists, and even anti-interventionists were disloyal and
treasonous.35 Roosevelt’s opposition to Nazi espionage became clear in a massive
public relations campaign. He used wiretaps, intercepted mail, encouraged state and
federal authorities to harass the Bund, leaked information to journalists and ordered
the investigation of hundreds of individuals, including Colonel Charles Lindbergh, one
32
Lazarowitz, Arlene, Review on: Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War, In: The History Teacher, May
1992, Vol. 25, No. 3, 380
33 Lazarowitz, Arlene, Review on: Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War, In: The History Teacher, 380
34 Ibidem, 380
35 Herzstein, Robert Edwin, Roosevelt and Hitler, Prelude to War, (New York, Paragon House, 1989),
196
13
of the most famous and controversial isolationists and a leader in the America First
movement which advocated keeping the U.S. out of the world conflict.36
36
Herzstein, Robert Edwin, Roosevelt and Hitler, Prelude to War, 391
14
Chapter Two
Roosevelt’s international policy; Appeasement or Isolationism?
FDR and Hitler came to power within two months of each other. “Though no one
could have predicted it at the time, their fates, and that of their nations, became
inexorably intertwined.”37 Leaning on attitudes and ideas that were first developed
during the 1920s, Roosevelt and his administration developed its policies toward
Germany and European fascism based on the favorable analysis and understanding
gained from relations with fascist Italy. Policymakers and leaders in America had
easily accommodated themselves to Mussolini’s fascist regime.38 When similar
regimes arose in Germany, Spain and Greece, the experience with Mussolini
provided the initial basis for American policy toward these countries. “Employing the
paradigm of moderate and extreme fascists, American leaders did not exhibit great
concern about the dangers of these new dictatorships and found much to favor in
these governments.”39 This because
“the advent of the Great Depression magnified earlier concerns for stability and fear
of the left and Bolshevism. Strong right-wing dictatorships were seen as both
necessary antidotes to unrest and essential bulwarks against communism. However
much liberal democracies were preferred in theory, they were seen in many countries
as too weak to withstand the global economic crisis. In the cases of Spain and
Greece, American officials believed that attempts at self-government failed because
the people were not prepared for the demands such governance created.” 40
Yet the Nazis went beyond restoring stability. Their march to World War II severely
tested the benign views and ideological justifications for supporting right-wing
dictatorships. The question became how the Roosevelt administration could modify
Schmitz, David F., Thank God They’re on Our Side, The United States and Right-Wing
Dictatorships, 1921-1965, (University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 86
38 Schmitz, David F., Thank God They’re on Our Side, The United States and Right-Wing
Dictatorships, 1921-1965, 87
39 Schmitz, David F., Thank God They’re on Our Side, The United States and Right-Wing
Dictatorships, 1921-1965, 87
40 Ibidem, 87
37
15
or contain the German challenge, without relying on the Soviet Union and
augmenting the influence of the European left.41
In this context the Roosevelt administration moved from accommodating the Nazis to
appeasing them.
How to view appeasement
“Since the Munich conference in 1938, “appeasement” as a policy has been in
dispute and has been regarded as inappropriate under every conceivable set of
circumstances. This is unfortunate, because there are historical examples in which
appeasement has succeeded. Contending states have not only avoided conflict but
also achieved a relationship satisfactory to both.” Robert Gilpin, War and Change in
World Politics
For the present era, it is critically important to understand how appeasement can
succeed or fail, without being swayed by false lessons from the 1930s.” Fred Iklé,
Every War Must End
Appeasement has had a bad press for a long time. Appeasement was not a ‘success’
for long enough to allow contemporaries to praise its merits in any depth. In 1938
itself, the year of the Munich conference, there were historians who believed that
government policy was broadly on the right lines.42 Comments in Newspapers
pointed in the same direction. But with the outbreak of war in September 1939 the
view on appeasement changed. It was tempting to believe that appeasement had
produced this catastrophe.
Schmitz, David F., Thank God They’re on Our Side, The United States and Right-Wing
Dictatorships, 1921-1965,87
42 Robbins, Keith, Appeasement, 1
41
16
Appeasement, it is generally agreed, stemmed from the particular
circumstances of British domestic politics in the years after 1919. Britain stood at the
half-way point between the signing of agreements with Japan, France and Russia in
the years from 1902 to 1907, and a dissolving Empire and fumbling towards ‘Europe’
in the late 1960s. Appeasement can be understood better if it were seen as a central
episode in a protracted retreat from an untenable ‘world power’ status. Appeasement,
on such an analysis, was neither stupid nor wicked; it was merely inevitable.43
Several policies can be described as forms of appeasement, which together
make up appeasement. There is economic appeasement, military appeasement,
political appeasement and social appeasement. Appeasement is perhaps better
conceived as “an underlying attitude of mind deriving variously, in particular
instances, from fear, guilt, superiority, insecurity or hope of economic advantage. It
can be summarized as a disposition to anticipate and avoid conflict by judicious
concession and negotiation.”44 In his book Appeasement in International Politics,
Stephen Rock mentions that appeasement, in the language of classical European
diplomacy, referred to “the reduction of tension between [two states] by the
methodical removal of the principal causes of conflict and disagreement between
them.”45 Ideally, appeasement represented the culmination of a process of tensionreduction, which began with détente and progressed trough rapprochement and
entente before reaching its final stage.46
Appeasement may appear to be a particularly British phenomenon of the 20 th
century; a fusion of moral values, political constraints, economic necessities and
military exigencies. There was scarcely a British government that did not appear
43
Robbins, Keith, Appeasement, 6
Robbins, Keith, Appeasement, 8
45 Rock, Stephen R., Appeasement in International Politics, (The University Press of Kentucky, 2000),
10
46 Rock, Stephen R., Appeasement in International Politics, 10
44
17
conciliatory in its general stance. Nevertheless, appeasement can be seen as a
phenomenon of the 1930s and ‘appeasers’ can be described as those who were then
responsible for both the formulation and the execution of foreign policy.47 It might be
tempting to believe that appeasement ought to have worked and would have done
so, but for the disagreeable reaction of Hitler, but a foreign policy which misjudges
Hitler’s likely responses, is apt to fail.48
When did Roosevelt start interfering in international politics?
In his book Cautious Crusade, Steven Casey describes Roosevelt as a master
politician who likes to maneuver and use tactics, a ‘cautious crusader.’ He describes,
how over time, FDR gradually came to recognize the threat that Hitler posed. FDR
recognized that the Nazis initially had little power to do any real damage outside
Germany’s borders. As FDR recalled later, “when this man Hitler came into control of
the German Government, Germany [was] busted, ….a complete and utter failure, a
nation that owed everybody, disorganized, not worth considering as a force in the
world”.49 For a large part of the 1930’s Roosevelt was not entirely sure whether the
Führer could really revive the economy and increase German power sufficiently to
start spreading his “pernicious and violent influence”50 beyond German borders.
Against the backdrop of an American public reluctance that initially
misunderstood the danger of militaristic Germany, Roosevelt sought to carve an
approach that was a step ahead of public opinion but not so far ahead as to appear
inconsistent with public sentiments. While Roosevelt was concerned about the Nazi
47
Robbins, Keith, Appeasement, 9
Ibidem, 9
49 Casey, Steven, Cautious Crusade, 5
50 Casey, Steven, Cautious Crusade, 5
48
18
threat prior to 1941, the public was, by and large, isolationist or almost pro-German.51
Numerous public figures during this time, Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh,
spoke in favor of Germany. Because of this isolationism Roosevelt did not really act
within international politics from the time Hitler came to power until 1936.
Historian Robert Dallek claims that it was not necessarily isolationism, but
general indifference of the American people to outside events, that actually gave
Roosevelt the power to seek expanded American ties abroad. Indeed, in 1933-34
Roosevelt’s policies of economic self-protection and political detachment from other
nations represented only one side of his foreign policy. But on the other hand he also
moved toward greater cooperation abroad.52 Roosevelt undertook several attempts
at international cooperation, but most of them were obstructed by Congress. These
impediments seemed minor compared to the political news Roosevelt heard from
Europe in the summer and fall of 1934. A recess in June of the Geneva disarmament
talks after only two weeks, an abortive Nazi coup in Austria and the murder of
Austrian Prime Minister Dollfuss in July, the assassinations of King Alexander from
Yugoslavia, French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou in October and a succession of
reports from American envoys and travelers abroad suggested that Europe was well
on the way to another war.53 The absence of any means to reverse this trend
disturbed Roosevelt, he wrote American ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, in
August that he too was “downhearted about Europe, but I watch for any ray of hope
or opening to give me an opportunity to lend a helping hand. There is nothing in sight
at present.”54
51
Kiewe, Amos, Review on: Cautious Crusade, Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and
the War against Nazi Germany, In: Rhetoric and Public Affairs, December 2002, Vol. 5, Issue 4, 765
52 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, (New York, Oxford
University Press, 1979), 91
53 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-194, 91
54 Ibidem, 91
19
While Roosevelt pointed to foreign attitudes that militated against international
cooperation, he failed to mention American policy did little to resolve, or may even
have added to, world problems. When implementing the Trade Agreements Act in
1934-35 Roosevelt saw more reason to apply George N. Peek’s (Adviser on Foreign
Trade) nationalistic philosophy than Hull’s multilateral idea.55
A change can be noted a few years later. Most historians regard Roosevelt’s
speech of October 5, 1937, the so-called Quarantine Speech in Chicago (see
attachment 1), as a turning point or milestone, the beginning of Roosevelt’s active
interest in foreign policy and of his inclination to engage the United States against the
aggressive dictators.56 He said that “when an epidemic of physical disease starts to
spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to
protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease.”57 He also
hinted at the message he had earlier tried to convey to Chamberlain by emphasizing
the need for peace-loving nations to make a concerted effort to uphold laws,
principles and to oppose treaty violations and inhumane action that created
international anarchy and instability58 “from which there is no escape through mere
isolation or neutrality.”59 Responses were mixed. The Hearst newspapers and others
with a similar outlook assailed the speech, while many other papers were
enthusiastic. Roosevelt’s advisers, including Hull were pleased with the strong tone.
Many foreign officials responded favorably. The German ambassador, Dieckhoff,
asked for an “exact interpretation”, he was told by Welles that it spoke for itself, but
that he might wish to emphasize the last paragraph, in which Roosevelt stated that
55
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-194, 91
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-194, 71
57 Offner, Arnold A., American Appeasement, United States Foreign Policy and Germany, 1933-1938,
188
58 Offner, Arnold A., American Appeasement, United States Foreign Policy and Germany, 1933-1938,
189
59 Ibidem, 189
56
20
America hated war and was searching for peace.60 Dieckhoff informed his superiors
that the speech was Roosevelt’s idea and that it was “aimed principally at Japan”.61
Another criticism was that the speech was “wrapped in Wilsonian generalities”62 and
that Roosevelt made no mention of who the aggressors he was talking about were.
The speech could just as well be interpreted as aimed at Japan rather than Germany.
Though Roosevelt had no plan for Asia or Europe, he was willing to listen to
ideas and Welles had a plan, at least he though so. The day after the quarantine
message under Secretary Welles drew up a memorandum in which he suggested
that Roosevelt ask the other governments of the world if they would participate in a
conference.63 America would call the conference, to set principles in international
relations, laws and customs of land and naval warfare and rights, obligations of
neutrals and to guarantee freedom of access for all peoples to raw materials.64 The
latter category was very important to Welles and he believed German and Italian,
though probably not Japanese, cooperation could be secured at such a conference.
When Welles proposed his plan to Roosevelt, Roosevelt decided to move more
cautiously and wanted to work with a smaller group of powers in elaborating the
principles of international conduct.65 Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State, convinced
Roosevelt not to go through with the congress. He claimed that the “entire project
was illogical and impossible” and that a peace congress would “serve only to lull the
democracies into a feeling of tranquility when efforts should be directed toward
60
Offner, Arnold A., American Appeasement, United States Foreign Policy and Germany, 1933-1938,
189
61 Ibidem, 189
62 Lukacs, John, The Transatlantic Duel: Hitler vs. Roosevelt, In: American Heritage, December 1991,
vol. 42, issue 8, 71
63 Offner, Arnold A., American Appeasement, United States Foreign Policy and Germany, 1933-1938,
189, 191
64 Ibidem, 191
65 Ibidem, 191
21
rearmament”, that the Axis powers “would only laugh at the whole affair.” 66 Hull
claimed that American public opinion needed to be aroused to the dangers abroad,
not turned toward disarmament, which was a completely collapsed movement. 67
Roosevelt has been characterized as “cautious, optimistic, a master politician who
loved political maneuvers and a consummate tactician who was not trapped by
ideological principles”.68 Roosevelt can be seen as an optimist, yet one who was
cautious, clear about his policies, and possessing a keen understanding of how far
he could push them in public. Above all else, “Roosevelt mastered the art of timing,
pursuing his policies and their public pronouncements with patience.”69
FDR and appeasement
Historian F.W. Marks states that “one of the outstanding questions still to be settled in
the field of modern history concerns America’s role in the appeasement of Nazi
Germany.”70 Roosevelt knew more about Germany than did his predecessor
Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt disliked certain traits of German character, but he
wished to cultivate good relations with Germany, even after Hitler had come to
power. That day 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.” The next day: “Hitler Puts Aside
Aim to Be Dictator.”71 According to Marks current controversy centers on two interrelated issues. First of all, there is Sumner Welles’ tour of European capitals in early
66
Offner, Arnold A., American Appeasement, United States Foreign Policy and Germany, 1933-1938,
193
67 Ibidem, 193
68 Kiewe, Amos, Review on: Cautious Crusade, Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and
the War against Nazi Germany, 766
69 Ibidem, 767
70 Marks, Frederick W. III, Six between Roosevelt and Hitler: America’s Role in the Appeasement of
Nazi Germany, in: The Historical Journal, December 1985, Vol. 28, No.4, p 969
71 Lukacs, John, The Transatlantic Duel: Hitler vs. Roosevelt, In: American Heritage, 70
22
1940. It is argued that Roosevelt’s principal purpose in sending his under secretary
abroad was to split the Rome-Berlin Axis. A secondary object was to buy time for the
Allies by forestalling a German spring offensive.72 Other accounts, earlier as well as
later, have assumed that Roosevelt was genuinely prepared, if not anxious, to reach
an understanding with the Führer.73 The second topic is FDR’s prior role in events
leading to the Munich Conference of 1938. Marks states that
“One scholar concludes that the president leaned heavily towards appeasement.
Another maintains that he shunned the soft line in private but felt tactically bound to
yield, thus propelling France headlong into surrender. Some have suspended
judgment altogether, while others have held that he ‘dabbled’ in appeasement.”74
At the outset, Roosevelt felt neither kinship nor sympathy with Germany. As
president, he lashed out time and again at the repressive policies of the Hitler regime.
The anti-Christian and anti-Semitic tone of Nazi Germany aroused such universal
revulsion in the U.S. that Roosevelt’s public stance answered the call of politics as
well as personal feeling.
To a large part of the establishment in the western democracies, appeasement
seemed a corollary to rearmament and planning for collective action. If indeed, as
Hitler emphatically claimed, Germany had been wronged by the Treaty of Versailles,
because it ran counter to Wilson’s pledges in the earlier Fourteen Points, then an
overall rectification would remove the causes of war.75 Roosevelt had already
accepted that if the United States abandoned its neutral rights on the high seas and
took the profits out of both neutrality and war, America would be less likely to become
involved. The concept of appeasement rested upon the hope that if the aggressors
Marks, Frederick W. III, Six between Roosevelt and Hitler: America’s Role in the Appeasement of
Nazi Germany, in: The Historical Journal, December 1985, Vol. 28, No.4, p 969
73 Marks, Frederick W. III, Six between Roosevelt and Hitler: America’s Role in the Appeasement of
Nazi Germany, 969
74 Ibidem, 969
75 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 258
72
23
received what might rightfully be theirs, they would thereafter respect the rights of
other nations.76
With the exception of FDR’s attitude toward the stillborn Four Power Pact of
June 7 1933, an agreement by Britain, France, Germany and Italy to consult each
other about disarmament and peace, the keynote of his approach to Hitler beginning
in 1933, was appeasement. Even before inauguration, he tried to persuade British
ambassador Sir Ronald Lindsay of the need for political re-settlement to include
compensated retrocession of the Polish Corridor to Germany.77 Roosevelt even tried
to arrange a meeting with Hitler and later with Foreign Minister von Neurath. When
Reichsbank president Schacht came to Washington in May 1933, Roosevelt
reportedly told him that Hitler was the right man for Germany and that no one else
could inspire such confidence.78 In 1935 Roosevelt asked Samuel Fuller, an old
business friend with influential ties, to sound Hitler on what he would require as part
of a comprehensive peace settlement. When the German troops entered the
Rhineland on 7 March 1936, the White House remained silent, despite French pleas
for condemnation. In September 1937, Welles traveled to various European capitals
exclusive of Berlin and returned home to argue that the U.S. should support Hitler’s
demand for colonies as well as ‘European adjustments’.79
Of course, Hitler had a bad press in America by then. Yet as late as October
1938 Roosevelt congratulated Chamberlain for reaching a peaceful settlement with
Hitler at Munich. By the end of that year Roosevelt made certain moves,
surreptitiously though, by confidentially through personal mediaries suggesting that
76
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 259
Marks, Frederick W. III, Six between Roosevelt and Hitler: America’s Role in the Appeasement of
Nazi Germany, 970
78 Ibidem, 971
79 Ibidem, 972
77
24
he approved of London’s and Paris’ cause.80 In April 1939 Roosevelt proposed an
international peace guarantee, but it was ineffective as well as insubstantial. Hitler
dismissed it publicly. When the Second World War broke out in 1939 with Hitler’s
invasion of Poland, Roosevelt spoke to the American people: “This nation will remain
a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as
well.”81 The French government and Churchill were imploring Roosevelt to come into
the war. But this he could not do. For such a commitment he would have neither
Congress, nor the military, nor the American people behind him, and 1940 was an
election year.82
The pressures for appeasement were substantial; a large part of the
establishment spokesmen in London and Paris, encouraged by Berlin, supported
appeasement.83 The American ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, seldom
talked to the Nazi leadership, confining himself to “lengthy Jeffersonian writings to
Roosevelt”84, but other ambassadors to Germany, especially the French and British
were in touch with the “more polished of the Nazi leaders and sent dispatches
sympathetic to their persuasive arguments”.85 The U.S. ambassador to France,
William Bullitt was an influential advocate of accommodation, he was influenced by
leading French conservatives. Bullitt passed on their thoughts to Roosevelt and
urged a strongly isolationist position.86 In 1937 Roosevelt was never as isolationist as
Bullitt wished him to be.
80
Lukacs, John, The Transatlantic Duel: Hitler vs. Roosevelt, In: American Heritage, 71
Ibidem, 71
82 Ibidem, 72
83 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 259
84 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny , 260
85 Ibidem, 260
86 Ibidem, 260
81
25
FDR’s relation with Great Britain
With Britain, the nation Roosevelt most courted, there continued to be irritations and
suspicions, but the threats from Germany and Japan gradually warmed relations.
Lindsay, long the British ambassador in Washington, never ceased to report on
Roosevelt with “mild condescension”.87 That of the British cabinet was even stronger,
Neville Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was no admirer of Roosevelt.
When he was asked to explain New Deal policies to the cabinet in 1933 he reportedly
noted:
“I made a rather humorous story of it representing the Yanks as a barbarous tribe
and Roosevelt as a medicine man whose superiority over other medicine men
consisted in the astonishing agility with which when one kind of Mumbo Jumbo failed,
he produced another….I look upon him as a dangerous and unreliable horse in any
team”88
Britain had been involved in the dealing with Nazi Germany longer that the
U.S. had been. Great Britain, along with France, had been trying to conciliate Nazi
Germany during the late 1930s. After World War I there was an underlying
consensus that British participation in another war was, to say the least, undesirable.
Britain’s primary task was to seek to reduce the likelihood of general war and to
ensure Britain would not be dragged into one if it did occur. Historian Keith Robbins
claims that there were three main zones within which British policy would have to
function to keep out of another war.89 One of these zones of policy concerned the
United States. There was a recognition that American assistance had been vital in
the final stages of the Great War. Without it, Britain and France may have been
defeated. But on the other hand, there remained a certain irritation that in 1914 the
U.S. had been neutral and Wilson had not been able to distinguish between the
87
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny , 260
Ibidem, 260
89 Robbins, Keith, Appeasement, 14
88
26
merits of the opposing sides.90 There was also apprehension that the U.S. would
seek to play a world role commensurate with the strength it had displayed. That
influence might be exerted in ways contrary to British interests.91 This assumption
turned out to be wrong, considering the fact that the U.S. did not seek that role, at
least in a political sense. Several opinions on the U.S. were apparent in Britain: the
nationalists bitterly resented the extent to which the United States had intruded into
what they regarded as the British spheres, neo-imperialists thought the U.S. might be
an obstacle to a rejuvenated empire, the Americophiles saw Britain as an Atlantic
power and the United States as populated by fellow-members of the ‘English
speaking world’ and a large but amorphous group of British politicians who thought
that the U.S. was the most appropriate power to cooperate with.92 These different
views resulted in sometimes confusing policy outcomes. The British understood that,
whether as partner or challenger, the U.S. was the coming power in the world, but
because of it’s relative isolation from world affairs, Britain’s world-power status would
probably last for a little bit longer.
In his Inaugural Address on January 20, 1937 Roosevelt entirely ignored
foreign policy, which one of his staff members described to one journalist as being
“ticklish stuff to mix into just now”.93 But despite Roosevelt’s eagerness to avoid
foreign-policy questions, the May 1 expiration date of the 1936 Neutrality law
deprived him of his choice. To keep the issue as quiet as possible, he had others
draft a new measure and chose a less controversial “cash-and-carry method of
trading with belligerents than the quota system proposed in 1936. Instead of limiting
trade in raw materials to ‘normal’ prewar levels, the new bill required that such
90
Robbins, Keith, Appeasement, 16
Robbins, Keith, Appeasement , 16
92 Ibidem, 17
93 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 137
91
27
exports to belligerents be paid for in cash and carried away only on non-U.S.
ships.”94 This plan especially appealed to him, because it would both satisfy
Congress and allow Britain to take advantage of its naval power in a war against
Berlin or Rome.95
Roosevelt tried to organize world talks, but the British, German and French
leaders expressed skepticism about this. The British believed that the only immediate
contribution the United States could make, was through a revision of her Neutrality
Law. Chamberlain wrote to Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury, in March 1937
that
“His Majesty’s Government … have no doubt whether that the greatest single
contribution which the United States could make at the present moment to the
preservation of world peace would be the amendment of the existing neutrality
legislation…The legislation in its present form constitutes an indirect but potent
encouragement to aggression, and it is earnestly hoped that some way may be found
of leaving sufficient discretion with the Executive to deal with each case on its
merits”.96
Roosevelt claimed he favored “permissive legislation”, however he appreciated that
he would probably be unable to win flexible restrictions on arms, loans, and travel,
and that the best he could hope for was discretion to embargo raw materials.97
In the spring and summer of 1937 the pressure on Roosevelt by European
leaders continued to increase. British, French, German, Italian and Belgian leaders
separately urged him to take the initiative for peace. Roosevelt told the press that
“people were looking for somebody outside of Europe to come forward with a hat and
a rabbit in it.”98 Well, he said “….I haven’t got a hat and I haven’t got a rabbit in it”.99
But despite his admission he felt obliged to respond. During the first months of 1937
94
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 137
Ibidem, 137
96 Ibidem, 139
97 Ibidem, 140
98 Ibidem, 144
99 Ibidem, 144
95
28
he continued to make suggestions, invite conversations and entertain proposals that
might reverse the downward trend.100 In June, Roosevelt invited Chamberlain to
come to Washington for conversations that could “prepare the way for a broader
move to establish more healthy conditions in the world”101, but the prime minister had
no intention of going. In Chamberlain, Roosevelt saw someone who would spare no
effort for peace. Chamberlain was known for his conviction that he comprehended
“the whole field of Europe and indeed the world. His all-pervading hope was to go
down to history as the Great Peacemaker; and for this he was prepared to strive
continually in the teeth of facts, and face great risks for himself and his country”. 102
Partnership with Great Britain was the central objective of FDR’s foreign policy
and was crucial to his goals in the world, but it was his limitation of American
commitments that most impressed the British.103 What Roosevelt envisioned as a
prudent and constructive relationship providing for abundant mutual support, most
leaders in London shunned as inadequate, unreliable and provocative. The British
did not trust American objectives and especially Chamberlain pursued appeasement
as a way to achieve a European settlement free from American meddling. 104
Roosevelt felt that the peace, to which all democratic leaders were devoted,
depended on the maintenance of a system in which aggression and the violation of
treaties were not tolerated. “While legitimate grievances had to be redressed before
they led to war, it was essential that such changes comply with clear rules for the
behavior of states in a world community.”105 By the summer of 1937, with British
100
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 144
Ibidem, 144
102 Ibidem, 144
103 Harrison, Richard A., The United States and Great Britain: Presidential Democracy and Alternatives
to Appeasement in the 1930s, in: Schmitz, David F., Challener, Richard D. et al, Appeasement in
Europe, a reassessment of U.S. Policies, (New York, Greenwood Press, 1990), 103
104 Harrison, Richard A., The United States and Great Britain: Presidential Democracy and Alternatives
to Appeasement in the 1930s, 104
105 Ibidem, 104
101
29
appeasement in full sail, FDR was discouraged. “The British Tories are still Tories
and in spite of Eden’s denial, want peace at great price.”106 As a response to
Chamberlain’s intensified efforts to come to terms with the Italians and Germans, and
in the wake of an escalating crisis in Asia, Roosevelt finally proposed his peace
conference plan directly to London in January 1938. But without consulting foreign
secretary Eden, Chamberlain rejected it immediately.107
“Determined to secure a new era of peace, Chamberlain was ready to offer
Italy de jure recognition of the conquest of Ethiopia and make substantial colonial
concessions in Africa to the Reich.”108 Although those policies would offend the
United States, Chamberlain told his cabinet that FDR approved his plans for
appeasement. Eden, who knew better, resigned before the end of February 1938.
Chamberlain had a lot of confidence in his policy appeasement and so helped
maintain the distance between him and FDR.109 Roosevelt was frustrated by the proappeasement sentiment in London, and especially by Chamberlain’s dogged
adherence to this policy.110 Roosevelt was at least equally disturbed by the readiness
of some Britons to resign from the circle of great powers “and let the United States
assume the burden of protecting their interests.”111 A morituri te salutamus (we who
are about to die salute you) attitude, FDR is reported to have called it. “If the English
wanted his cooperation”, he warned, “they had to make America believe that they
had enough backbone to retain their position by their own efforts and back the other
guy on their own...What the British need is a good stiff grog.” He was prepared to
106
Harrison, Richard A., The United States and Great Britain: Presidential Democracy and Alternatives
to Appeasement in the 1930s, 124
107 Ibidem, 125
108 Ibidem, 126
109 Ibidem, 126
110 Ibidem, 131
111 Ibidem, 131
30
stand aside if Britain would “cringe like a coward”.112 Roosevelt told an English friend
that he would be able to bring the majority of the Americans with him along the road
to the closest and most urgent cooperation, “if only you British would give me a
lead”113.
It was during the Munich crisis that Roosevelt last proposed an American-led peace
conference.
112
Harrison, Richard A., The United States and Great Britain: Presidential Democracy and Alternatives
to Appeasement in the 1930s, 132
113 Ibidem, 132
31
Chapter Three
Munich: the turning point?
“During the early morning hours of September 30, 1938, the political leaders of
Britain, France, Germany and Italy signed an agreement known to go to history by
the name of the city where their meeting took place: Munich.”114 In itself, the Munich
agreement covered only the procedures by which territorial claims against
Czechoslovakia of Germany primarily, and of Poland and Hungary secondarily, had
to be determined. But the scope and significance of the Munich crisis far transcended
the document’s bare provisions.115 Munich was the product of a diplomatic
earthquake that shattered the pre-existing power structure of Europe and it was the
culmination of an international crisis that brought the great powers to the verge of
war. “Its material and symbolic consequences alike were enormous, and today the
Munich episode appears in retrospect as a nodal point in the course of modern
history.” 116
The road to Munich
In the wake of the Anschluss, Chamberlain reopened negotiations with Mussolini. By
the end of March, Britain had reached an agreement with Italy which traded de jure
recognition of Italy’s control of Ethiopia for the removal of Italian forces from Spain.117
Chamberlain believed this was a major achievement in weakening the relationship
between Mussolini and Hitler. Welles urged Roosevelt to issue a public statement in
support of the British in order to aid in their effort at keeping Mussolini out of Hitler’s
114
Taylor, Telford, Munich, The Price of Peace, (New York, Doubleday & Company, 1979), xiii
Taylor, Telford, Munich, The Price of Peace, xiii
116 Ibidem, xiii
117 Schmitz, David F., Thank God They’re on Our Side, The United States and Right-Wing
Dictatorships, 1921-1965, 120
115
32
orbit. And on April 19, 1938 Roosevelt released a statement that the United States
had “urged the promotion of peace through the finding of means for economic
appeasement” and that the U.S. viewed the Anglo-Italian agreement with
“sympathetic interest because it is proof of the value of peaceful negotiations”.118 The
problem of Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia's western border region, inhabited mostly
by ethnic Germans which Hitler wanted to annex, had been “red hot since late May
1938, when reports of menacing German troop movements had led to a partial
mobilization of the Czech Army”.119 During the following months, resolution of the
crisis by means of an international conference had been suggested by a wide variety
of persons, including U.S. ambassador to France, William Bullitt, the French and
British ambassadors to Germany, André François-Poncet and Sir Neville Henderson,
the German and Italian military attachés in Prague, Colonels Rudolf Toussaint and
Count Valfre di Bonzo and President Roosevelt.120 Hitler had never shown any sign
of interest in such a project and the several proponents of a conference were not of
one mind concerning the number and identity of the participants. Roosevelt proposed
a “conference if all the nations directly interested in the present controversy”.121
The day after the annual Nazi Party Rally at Nuremberg in 1938 Daladier, the
Prime Minister of France, wanted to call Chamberlain to propose that the British and
French governments invite Hitler to confer and work out a Sudeten settlement.
Daladier’s effort to speak directly with Chamberlain was blocked by Permanent
Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office, Sir Alexander Cadogan, who thought such a
conversation would be hopeless and he told Daladier that any message from the
Schmitz, David F., Thank God They’re on Our Side, The United States and Right-Wing
Dictatorships, 1921-1965, 121
119 Taylor, Telford, Munich, The Price of Peace, 2
120 Ibidem, 2
121 Ibidem, 2
118
33
French Premier must be sent through the British ambassador, Sir Eric Phipps.122
Chamberlain was uninterested in any French proposals, because he had already
decided to go to Germany himself and seek a settlement by personal negotiation with
Hitler. “Chamberlain’s intended method was to ascertain Hitler’s price for peace,
return to London to secure French acceptance, and then, by joint Anglo-French
pressure, impose the settlement on Czechoslovakia.”123
The Nuremberg Party Congress ended on September 12, 1938 and the
following day, Hitler went to Munich where he remained for the next two days. The
first news of Chamberlain’s message asking for a meeting came early on September
14. Sir Neville Henderson handed the text to Weizsaecker in Berlin, with the request
that it be forwarded to Hitler immediately through Ribbentrop. Ribbentrop went to
Hitler with the text, and Chamberlain’s move took him completely by surprise.124
Hitler is said to have used the sentence “Ich bin von Himmel gefallen” to describe his
reaction.125 Hitler and Ribbentrop apparently considered proposing that the meeting
take place in England, but that idea was discarded for obvious reasons. They
decided it should take place at the Berghof, Hitler’s home near Berchtesgaden, and
invited Chamberlain to fly to Munich on the morrow. “And so the scene was laid for
the first of the three confrontations that culminated two weeks later at Munich.” 126
On September 15, Chamberlain met the Führer and heard his demands.
Chamberlain then undertook to persuade the French, and pressure the Czechs into
agreeing to them. Having succeeded in both these aims, Chamberlain met Hitler on
September 22 only to discover that he was now also demanding the cession of
territory in which Germans were a minority and insisting that all transfers be carried
122
Taylor, Telford, Munich, The Price of Peace, 7
Ibidem, 7
124 Ibidem, 730
125 Ibidem, 730
126 Ibidem, 731
123
34
out by October 1.127 In reaction to this, French and British public opinion stiffened and
by September 25, it seemed likely that Chamberlain and Daladier would fight rather
than surrender completely to Hitler.128 This was the point were Roosevelt decided to
intervene, first with an appeal to all states involved not to break off negotiations, and
then with a message to Hitler alone proposing that the talks be expanded into a
conference that would include all interested parties.129 After a further intervention by
Mussolini, Hitler issued invitations to Great Britain, France and Italy to meet at
Munich on September 29 and 30.130 This conference
Marked the climax of appeasement. In return for Hitler’s promise not to seek an
additional foot of territory in Europe, Britain and France agreed that Germany should
occupy the Sudeten area in four stages between October 1 and October 7, leaving
the final disposition of a 5th zone to an international commission. The Czechs agreed
to the terms on the morning of September 30, and thus became the sacrificial victims
of the worldwide demand for peace at any price.
Roosevelt and Munich
Barbara Rearden Farnham claims in her book Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis that
the onset of the Munich crisis brought no dramatic change in Roosevelt’s thinking.
His assessment of the likelihood of war varied according to the news from Europe,
his determination to avoid interfering did not.131 Despite his initial uncertainty about
the outcome of the Berchtesgaden meeting between Chamberlain and Hitler, within a
day he was telling Ickes, his Secretary of the Interior, that there would be no general
war in Europe because the democracies would quickly abandon Czechoslovakia:
“The president thinks that Chamberlain is for peace at any price….Czechoslovakia
apparently has resisted pressure from England and France to agree to a plebiscite.
127
Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
(Princeton University Press, 1997), 100
128 Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
100
129 Ibidem, 101
130 Ibidem, 101
131 Ibidem, 101
35
Lacking a plebiscite, Hitler will move in…Because it will not have submitted to the
demands of France and England, Czechoslovakia will be left by these supposed
allies to paddle its own canoe. This will mean a swift and brutal war…[which] will
leave Czechoslovakia dismembered and prostrate …[Then] England and
France…will wash the blood from their Judas Iscariot hands.”132
While Roosevelt did not expect war, he did think that this scenario would have
serious consequences, pointing out to Ickes that “this betrayal of international
obligation” would mark “a further important advance by Germany toward a
predominant international position”.133
And although his assessment of the democracies was harsh, Roosevelt had
not the slightest sympathy for Hitler. Roosevelt stated that, unlike the situation in
1914, “today….ninety percent of our people are definitely anti-German and antiItalian in sentiment, a natural sympathy he would strongly encourage”.134 When on
September 21, Roosevelt heard that the Czechs had “accepted flatly and
unconditionally the British-French proposal” he realized that this development
reduced the likelihood of his expectation of war. The next meeting between
Chamberlain and Hitler would be merely a matter of arranging the details of
implementing what had already been agreed.135 “Unfortunately, Hitler was not to be
so accommodating”.136
Farnham claims that the Munich crisis for Roosevelt, as for other Americans
truly began on September 23.137 The talks between Hitler and Chamberlain on
September 22 and 23, in which the Führer unexpectedly laid down new and
humiliating requirements regarding the Sudetenland, increased expectations of
general war in Europe dramatically. In a cabinet meeting on the afternoon of
132
Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
102
133 Ibidem, 102
134 Ibidem, 102
135 Ibidem, 102
136 Ibidem, 102
137 Ibidem, 103
36
September 23, Roosevelt mentioned a plan for the British to buy and assemble
munitions in Canada, using nonmilitary material purchased in the U.S. and also
declared that “in carrying out our neutrality laws we would resolve all doubts in favor
of the democratic countries”.138
During the next days, alarming reports kept pouring in and Roosevelt wanted
to act. Roosevelt acceded to the objections of Hull and any hint of mediation was
removed from the message. The message, which I mentioned earlier, was sent to
Hitler, Benes, Chamberlain and Daladier. When Hitler’s response to FDR’s message
finally arrived, it was not pleasing. Disclaiming all responsibility should further
developments lead to war, he recited at length German grievances against the
Czechs and ended with the ominous declaration that “the possibilities of arriving at a
just settlement by agreement are….exhausted with the proposals of the German
memorandum. It does not rest with the German Government, but with the
Czechoslovakian Government alone, to decide whether it wants peace or war”. 139
When Hitler invited Britain, France and Italy to meet him in Munich to discuss
the Czech crisis, Roosevelt was very relieved. At 1 p.m. he sent his famous two-word
message to Chamberlain: “Good Man”.140 Although the terms of the settlement were
not made known until September 30 (see attachment 2), emotionally the crisis ended
with the announcement of the agreement to meet. In comparison with that, the
settlement itself had almost come to seem incidental, but ironically, in the widespread
atmosphere of relief that war had been averted, few seemed to notice that the issue
over which it had nearly been fought had been all but forgotten.141
138
Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
110
139 Ibidem, 113
140 Ibidem, 119
141 Ibidem, 119
37
The aftermath
The Munich agreement was generally applauded everywhere except in
Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. The four men of Munich, Chamberlain,
Daladier, Hitler and Mussolini, returned to their respective capitals to be received as
heroes.142 But not everyone considered the outcome a good one, Winston Churchill
described the settlement as a “disaster of the first magnitude”, and in America Rabbi
Stephen Wise, reversing Chamberlain’s proud claim of “peace with honor”, called it
“dishonor without peace”.143
Despite of these critiques, most people felt relieved because war had been averted.
Suddenly, to the amazement of everyone, even his own associates, Hitler had
changed his mind. He could gain all of his ostensible goals without fighting, and
decided to postpone the war that his larger objective, the carving out of Lebensraum
in the east, would certainly require.144 But when he saw Mussolini the next day, he
set forth his view that they must fight France and Great Britain in their lifetime. Freidel
claims that a number of factors both large and small contributed to Hitler’s change of
mind: the British naval mobilization, an indication that it would be a major war, not a
small, easy one of the sort Bismarck had fought.145 Secondly, the less than
enthusiastic response of the German people to his exhortations and to army units
going trough the streets.146 Thirdly, the opposition of some of his top command and
of his chief lieutenants Goering and Goebbels.147 And lastly Mussolini’s plea.148
Mainly, Hitler was only postponing war, his previously mentioned exhortation to
142
Taylor, Telford, Munich, The Price of Peace, xiii
Taylor, Telford, Munich, The Price of Peace, xiv
144 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 302
145 Ibidem, 302
146 Ibidem, 302
147 Ibidem, 302
148 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 302
143
38
Mussolini was a veiled warning that next time there would be no peaceful conclusion
to a crisis.149
The agreement at Munich turned out to be a foregone conclusion. Within less
than six months Czechoslovakia was no more and within less than a year the war
became the Second World War.150 Other horrendous things happened after Munich
too. On November 7, 1939, a young German Jew named Herschel Grynszpan had
shot and mortally wounded the Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris,
Ernst vom Rath.151 The German press immediately laid responsibility on “the
infamous underground activities of Jewish propaganda”, and accused British “warmongering politicians” as instigators of the killing.152 “Early in the morning of
November 10, Goebbels and Heydrich organized a “spontaneous” orgy of looting,
arson, and harassment of Jews, their synagogues, homes, and businesses
throughout the Reich. Some Jews were killed, many injured, and thousands
arrested.”153 New measures were decreed to “eliminate Jews from the economic life
of Germany and Austria” and “Aryanize” their properties.154 The worldwide press
reaction was “shock and horror, especially in Britain and the United States”.155 This
night, labeled Crystal Night, was “a monkey wrench thrown into Chamberlain’s plans,
but what was the British Government to do about it?”156 It clearly showed that since
the Munich settlement, things had developed in a very negative way.
149
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 302
Taylor, Telford, Munich, The Price of Peace, xiv
151 Ibidem, 937
152 Ibidem, 937
153 Ibidem, 937
154 Ibidem, 937
155 Ibidem, 937
156 Ibidem, 937
150
39
A turning point?
Within three months after Munich, Roosevelt completed the change-over from a
political strategy whose primarily emphasis was on “the achievement of domestic
reforms”157 to one whose primary emphasis was “on the achievement of a foreign
policy of collective security”.158 After Munich, Roosevelt was at last able to reach
closure about the German threat to American security. “The uncertainty about how to
evaluate Hitler that had plagued him from 1936 to 1938 had evaporated. The
experience of the crisis had taught him that Hitler had the will, as well as the ability, to
do harm.”159 A traditional source of protection for America, was the British fleet. But if
Hitler were to be victorious in Europe, the U.S. could not count on that protection.
The conclusion Roosevelt drew from this new diagnosis was an obvious one: “Hitler
must be prevented from controlling Europe”.160
Munich was the beginning of a new departure in American foreign policy. 161
FDR had to reexamine the assumptions of American foreign policy and eventually to
develop a policy of “methods short of war”162 to help Europe’s democracies fight
Nazism. In time, Britain developed a stiffer policy as well. After Hitler defied Munich
and his own declared principle of nationality by devouring the rest of Czechoslovakia
in March 1939, Chamberlain reluctantly guaranteed Poland’s independence.163 This
157
Rauch, Basil, Roosevelt From Munich to Pearl Harbor, A study of a Foreign Policy, 80
Rauch, Basil, Roosevelt From Munich to Pearl Harbor, A study of a Foreign Policy, 80
159 Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
172
160 Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
172
161 Vieth, Jane Karoline, Munich and American Appeasement, in: Schmitz, David F., Challener,
Richard D. et al, Appeasement in Europe, a reassessment of U.S. Policies, (New York, Greenwood
Press, 1990), 70
162 Vieth, Jane Karoline, Munich and American Appeasement, 70
163 Vieth, Jane Karoline, Munich and American Appeasement, 70
158
40
new policy committed Britain to positive action in Eastern Europe and seemed to
mean, “if not the end of appeasement, then at least its abatement”.164
Farnham claims, that in the aftermath of the Munich crisis the policy of aiding
Britain and France dominated Roosevelt’s thinking.165 The President was particularly
concerned with air power, and desired to ensure the democracies’ command of an
“overwhelming superiority”.166 Quoting statistics about relative productive capability,
Roosevelt declared:
“that this object would be --- in the event of Great Britain being at war with the
dictatorships, and the United States not being engaged --- to do his best to provide
partly-finished basic materials, which did not come within the Neutrality law, for an
extra 20,000 to 30,000 planes, to give the necessary overwhelming superiority over
Germany and Italy.”
Roosevelt also concluded that America needed a “huge air force so that we did not
need to have a huge army to follow that air force....Sending a large army abroad was
undesirable and politically out of the question”.167
In 1939 Roosevelt told the Senate Military Affairs Committee that he clearly
identified Hitler’s objective as “world domination”.168 “Hitler’s actions during the
Czechoslovak crisis –his obduracy in negotiations, his aggressive speechmaking,
and his decision to ignore the Munich agreement by marching into Prague—also
confirmed that negotiating with such a character was pointless and futile.”169 By 1939,
Roosevelt started to recognize symbiotic relationship between Nazi success and
German power, for Hitler’s every move seemed to bolster his confidence.170 FDR
164
Vieth, Jane Karoline, Munich and American Appeasement, 70
Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
174
166 Ibidem, 179
167 Ibidem, 184
168 Casey, Cautious Crusade, 9
169 Casey, Cautious Crusade, 9
170 Casey, Cautious Crusade, 9
165
41
already concluded in 1939 that the United States would soon enter the war, he was
less certain of his ability to persuade the American public of his view.171
Public opinion, though clearly favoring the Allies’ victory over Germany, did not
translate hatred of Hitler to hatred of German people. Roosevelt had to be cautious in
his public communication, faced with such attitudes as well as the opinion of
prominent columnists such as Walter Lippmann, who had a wide access to the
nation’s decision makers and whose razor-sharp reflections on topical issues
appeared in around 160 newspapers with an estimated circulation of about 8
million.172 Lippman, of Jewish descent, “naturally disliked the new Nazi regime, but
he was nevertheless quick to remind his readers that the Germans were ‘a genuinely
civilized people’”173. Roosevelt maintained a public posture of impartiality while
privately he planned for U.S involvement in the war. And despite the opinions of more
ardent anti-Germany White House officials, such as Harold Ickes and Henry
Morgenthau, he pursued a “cautious crusade” in public.174 After he won the 1940
election, Roosevelt presented more decisive public statements regarding the Third
Reich, references to Hitler and the Nazis were more evident.
171
Kiewe, Amos, Review on: Cautious Crusade, Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and
the War against Nazi Germany, In: Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 765
172 Casey, Cautious Crusade, 21
173 Casey, Cautious Crusade, 21
174 Kiewe, Amos, Review on: Cautious Crusade, Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and
the War against Nazi Germany, In: Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 766
42
Chapter four
The road to war
On March 15, 1939 Hitler completed the occupation of Czechoslovakia by marching
into Bohemia and Moravia. This did not only mark the end of British appeasement,
but also reaffirmed Roosevelt’s commitment to the policy of aiding the democracies
and led him finally to push for neutrality revision.175 Apart from universal
condemnation, Hitler’s brutal act elicited two main responses in the U.S.176 “For some
it triggered a change of diagnosis about German aggressiveness, while for others, it
merely confirmed one made in the aftermath of the Munich crisis. Roosevelt
belonged to the latter group.”177 The likelihood of war just kept growing to Roosevelt,
and he feared major war might be inevitable. There was “fresh proof”178 that
Germany’s aims were unlimited and Britain and France were now willing to stand up
to Hitler. On March 17 Chamberlain announced that “he would not sacrifice British
liberty for peace, and should an attempt be made to dominate the world by force,
Britain would use all its power to resist”.179 Thus, as the American ambassador to
Belgium remarked, “Peace this summer is not now protected by a British policy of
appeasement”.180 Roosevelt himself explained the impact of the Czech takeover and
the British guarantee as
“The hope that the world had last September that the German policy was limited and
would continue to be limited to bringing contiguous German people into the Reich
and only German people….has been dissipated by the events of the last few
weeks…Therefore it is felt by people in every continent that where there was a limit
last autumn, there is no limit today…Now…it seems to have been made clear by
England and France today that they have decided there must be a halt to the
175
Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
202
176 Ibidem, 202
177 Ibidem, 202
178 Ibidem, 203
179 Ibidem, 203
180 Ibidem, 203
43
continuation of a policy seeking to dominate other nations and peoples and,
therefore, by their action; [sic] it has been put squarely up to Germany that if there
should be war it would come only by an invasion of some other nation by
Germany.”181
External challenges and U.S. response
Expectations of war were heightened by new German and Italian moves triggering
what came to be called the April crisis.182 The German occupation of Memel on
March 22, 1939 and German demands on Poland with respect do Danzig, plus the
invasion of Albania on April 7 by the Italians led many to fear that Germany and Italy
would join forces to carry out their aggressive designs in Europe.183 Polish opposition
to these demands and British guarantees to Warsaw produced a threatening speech
by Hitler on April 1. It was clear that Germany and Italy had decided to “rush their
attacks and it was now a question of where and when general war would begin”. 184
Ambassador Bullitt predicted that if war in Europe would occur, the U.S. would be
drawn into it in less than a year, and concluded that it was necessary to immediately
begin to build a large army.185 “Roosevelt’s assessment of the threat, though similar,
led him in a very different direction. His primary response to the dictators’ latest
aggression was, in fact, his first serious attempt to obtain neutrality revision.”186
With an amendment on the Neutrality Law, Roosevelt knew he would be able
to provide the fullest possible aid to victims of aggression in Europe. The State
Department pressed Pittman, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, into introducing a revised Neutrality Bill, the Peace Act of 1939.
Eliminating the mandatory arms embargo and placing all trade on a cash-and-carry
181
Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
203
182 Ibidem, 204
183 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 184
184 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 184
185 Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
204
186 Ibidem, 204
44
basis, the law assured that Britain and France would use control of the Atlantic sea
lanes to receive arms and supplies in time of war. 187 Roosevelt was convinced that
the time was ripe for leadership and that Pittman’s bill would victimize the Chinese,
who lacked the funds and ships to use cash-and-carry, he called for full repeal.188
After the German occupation of Memel and the invasion of Albania by Italy,
Roosevelt sought ways both to encourage Neutrality revision and inhibit the dictators.
In press conferences on April 8 and 11, he reiterated the dangers to the U.S. from
unchecked aggression and the need for the country to come out from behind its
“paper guarantees of immunity” and align itself clearly with Britain and France.189
To impress his opposition on Berlin and Rome, and possibly dissuade them
from further aggression, Roosevelt sent Hitler and Mussolini extraordinary public
messages. They were broadcasted to all parts of the world on April 15. Roosevelt
declared that
“people everywhere are living today in constant fear of a new war. The existence of
this fear -and the possibility of such a conflict- are of definite concern to the people of
the United States. Any major war, even if it were confined to other continents, must
bear heavily on them during its continuance and also for generations to come. Are
you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the
territory or possessions of thirty-one specific nations for at least ten years?”.190
If Hitler and Mussolini would comply, Roosevelt offered to transmit their messages
and arrange a conference on disarmament and trade in which the U.S. would take
part. He also suggested that separate political discussions take place at the same
time without the U.S.191
FDR quoted the odds of a positive response as one in five, but the response to
his appeal confirmed his worst fears. “Though it was greeted with widespread popular
187
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 183
Ibidem, 184
189 Ibidem, 185
190 Ibidem, 185
191 Ibidem, 186
188
45
enthusiasm and hailed in some official circles as one of the most important events in
current history, the Italians and Germans contemptuously turned it aside.”192 Goering
as well as Mussolini privately attacked the message as suggesting an “incipient brain
malady of creeping paralysis”.193 Publicly, Mussolini declared his indifference to
“press campaigns…or Messiah-like messages”194 and called the suggestion of a tenyear guarantee absurd. Hitler responded to Roosevelt’s message in a speech to the
Reichstag on April 28. He was very sarcastic, which elicited roars of malicious
laughter from the assembled delegates. He stated that
“if President Roosevelt believed that all problems could be solved at the conference
table, why had the United States rejected membership in the League? If he had
inquired about American intentions in Latin America as Mr. Roosevelt had asked
about German plans in Europe, he, Hitler, would have been told to mind his own
business. Yet, in spite of this, Hitler said he had asked each of the states mentioned
by the President whether they felt threatened by Germany and whether they had
asked Roosevelt to request guarantees. All replies had been negative. Still, he would
gladly give assurances to any of these states if they asked for them, and he would
also include the United States and other American countries in this guarantee, should
they so wish”.
The most effective answer Roosevelt saw to Hitler was not additional words,
but support for Britain and France through revision of the Neutrality Law. The full
repeal he called for was claimed to be “impossible” by Pittman, Pittman claimed that
evidence of committee resistance to even Pittman’s cash-and-carry plan decided
Roosevelt against pressing directly for elimination of the Neutrality Law in the
spring.195 In the end, since the leadership was united in agreeing that legislation
could not be enacted, Roosevelt had no choice but to accept their verdict. Even then,
however, he declared that he would continue the fight.196
192
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 186
Ibidem, 186
194 Ibidem, 186
195 Ibidem, 184
196 Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
208
193
46
Towards war in Europe
The refusal of Congress to reform the Neutrality Law left Roosevelt believing it would
leave Hitler less constrained than ever to make war.197 The “failure of the Senate to
take action now, would weaken the leadership of the United States in exercising its
potent influence in the cause of preserving peace”.198 In the event of another
international crisis he claimed he would have “practically no power to make an
American effort to prevent such a war from breaking out”.199 The limits on FDR’s
influence in Europe matched the constraint on his power in the Far East. During
1938, as Japan extended the war in China, FDR had continued to wrestle with ways
of aiding the Chinese and punishing the Japanese.200 Japanese violations of British
rights in China in June 1939 showed that London operated under similar
constraints.201
With the Nazi threats against Poland becoming more and more serious, the
Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact of August 22, 1939 assured that Hitler would attack
Poland. Roosevelt undertook final peace efforts, on the 23 rd he sent a message to
King Victor Emmanuel of Italy, asking him to exert his influence in behalf of the
American peace proposal of four months before.202 The next day FDR also sent
appeals to Hitler and President Ignacy Mościcki of Poland. He suggested an
immediate settlement of German-Polish differences through “direct negotiation,
arbitration, or conciliation, and indicated his willingness to serve as a mediator if both
sides agreed to respect the other’s independence and territorial integrity”. 203 As
anticipated, “Victor Emmanuel described his government as doing all it could for
197
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 192
Ibidem, 192
199 Ibidem, 192
200 Ibidem, 193
201 Ibidem, 194
202 Ibidem, 196
203 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 196
198
47
peace; President Mościcki declared himself ready for negotiation or conciliation; and
Hitler offered no response”.204
At ten minutes to three on the morning of September 1, 1939 Bullitt
telephoned Roosevelt from Paris relaying word from ambassador Biddle in Warsaw
that German troops were plunging into Poland.205 The call left Roosevelt with “a
strange feeling of familiarity, reminding him of Navy Department days during the First
World War when other tragic messages came to him in the night”.206 He said it was
“like picking up again an interrupted routine”.207 Two days later, Britain and France
declared war on Germany. The sense of America’s powerlessness before these
events reduced some of the President’s advisers to despair. Notifying FDR from
London at a little after 4:00 a.m. on September 3 that Chamberlain would make a war
speech in two hours, ambassador Kennedy declared: “It’s the end of the world, the
end of everything.”208
“We are not going to get into war”
The outbreak of fighting in Europe moved Roosevelt to express strong determination
to keep the country out of war.209 Roosevelt, with forebodings that there was a fiftyfifty chance Britain and France might lose, calmly prepared the American response,
to aid them and protect the United States.210 “He would call a Pan-American
conference to create a security zone against German attacks upon shipping in
American waters, and he would summon Congress into special session to repeal the
204
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 197
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 321
206 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 198
207 Ibidem, 198
208 Ibidem, 198
209 Ibidem, 199
210 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 321
205
48
neutrality legislation that would force an arms embargo.”211 He declared that “this
nation will remain a neutral nation”212 but also acknowledged that “even a neutral
cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience”.213
Developments abroad prompted quick action, in the first week of fighting
Hitler’s forces destroyed the Polish air force, largely broke ground resistance and laid
siege to Warsaw.214 According to one report that reached FDR, Goebbels hoped to
destroy Poland in a few days, smash France and England quickly from the air, and
then conquer the U.S. Bullitt warned that an unrevised Neutrality Law would assure
the rapid defeat of the Allies and force the U.S. to fight Hitler in the Americas.215
At the beginning of November 1939 Congress repealed the arms embargo by
wide margins in each house, freeing Roosevelt to focus upon security. “Already he
was working to establish naval patrols to bar belligerent ships from American waters,
and he thought of seeking bases to help protect the hemisphere.”216 On November
30, the Soviet Union launched the “winter war” against Finland, with the aerial
bombardment of undefended cities.217 FDR was outraged, he described the United
States as “not only horrified but thoroughly angry” at this “dreadful rape of Finland”.218
The Finnish war quickly drew to a close, in March 1940 the Soviets agreed to a
peace that gave them strategic areas and brought Finland into the Russian
sphere.219 Through the dreary months of the Russian-Finnish war, despite continued
alarms over German troop buildups in western Europe, there seemed to be
211
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 321
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 199
213 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 322
214 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 200
215 Ibidem, 200
216 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 323
217 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 324
218 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 209
219 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 326
212
49
depression politics as usual in Washington, heightened by the approach of a
presidential election.220
Roosevelt seemed to be having trouble deciding whether he would retire or
whether he would challenge the no-third-term tradition. If the war of siege had
continued in Europe, perhaps Roosevelt would have opted to retire, but pressure was
coming from seasoned Democrats, who regarded his renomination as the key to
victory at the polls.221 Within several months, the Nazi conquests made the question
obsolete. In the frightful spring of 1940, the German forces struck one lightning blow
after another. The first shock came on April 9, when they invaded Norway and
Denmark, for three weeks the British battled along with the Norwegians against the
Germans, acquitting themselves well at sea but disastrously on land.222 On May 10,
Hitler launched a full-scale land and air attack upon the Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and France and on the eve of the invasion, Roosevelt thinking of
himself as “being of the Netherlands on my Father’s side and Belgium on my
Mother’s side”, informed ambassador Cudahy in Brussels that he was much
depressed.223 By late May, the calamitous German breakthrough was driving a
considerable part of the French army, the Belgian forces and the entire British
Expeditionary Force into a trap with their backs against the English channel.224
Roosevelt was advised to focus more on Britain, and during the blitz, FDR was in
direct, almost daily communication with Britain’s new prime minister, Winston
Churchill.
The French collapse in June was rapid. On June 22, the Pétain government
signed an armistice with Germany in the same railway car in the Compiège forest,
220
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 327
Ibidem, 328
222 Ibidem, 330
223 Ibidem, 330
224 Ibidem, 332
221
50
where the Germans had signed in 1918.225 Before the end of the month, Pétain had
established a government in Vichy for the unoccupied part of southern France, and
General Charles de Gaulle had formed a French National Committee to carry on
resistance from abroad.226
From reelection to Pearl Harbor
Roosevelt’s first crucial proposal after his reelection was the Lend-Lease Act. The
U.S. could supply goods to the British and other opponents of the Axis through a
device he called Lend-Lease. At his White House press conference on December 17,
1940 Roosevelt asserted that “the best immediate defense of the United States is the
success of Great Britain in defending itself, and … it is equally important from a
selfish point of view of American defense that we should do everything to help”.227
With this he proposed to take over British war orders, have manufacturers fill them for
the U.S. and either lease the materials or sell materials subject to mortgage. Then
came his famous exposition:
“Now, what I am trying to do is eliminate the dollar sign….the silly foolish old dollar
sign. All right! Well, let me give you an illustration: Suppose my neighbor’s home
catches fire…if he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may
help him to put out his fire. Now, what do I do? I don’t say to him before that
operation, “Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for
it.”….I don’t want $15 –I want my garden hose back after the fire is over…In other
words, if you lend certain munitions and get the munitions back at the end of the
war,….you are all right.”228
A few weeks later, in his annual message to Congress of January 6 1941, Roosevelt
set forth what came to be heralded as the American war aims229, Roosevelt’s
counterpart to Wilson’s Fourteen Points, the Four Freedoms.
225
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 337
Ibidem, 337
227 Ibidem, 360
228 Ibidem, 360
229 Ibidem, 360
226
51
“In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world
founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression –everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way –everywhere
in the world.
The third is freedom from want –which, translated into world terms means economic
understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its
inhabitants –everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear –which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no
nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any
neighbor –anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world
attainable in our time and generation.”230
The Four Freedoms raised morale and helped solidify a majority of the nation behind
Roosevelt’s moderate, careful position that there need to be no American blood
shed, that it should suffice for the U.S. to serve as the “arsenal of democracy”. 231 It
was the ideological justification for Lend-Lease.
From the fall of 1940 to the summer of 1941, while FDR struggled to aid
Britain against Berlin, the Far East continued to force itself on his attention. Though
he remained eager to keep things as quiet as possible in the Pacific and to divert the
fewest possible resources from the Atlantic and the Middle East, continuing
Japanese pressure on China and Southeast Asia denied him that option.232 On the
morning of June 22, 1941 Roosevelt awoke to the news that Hitler had launched a
massive surprise attack on the Soviet Union. This was another thing for Roosevelt to
think about, he would need to adjust policies towards both Russia and Japan.
Toward Russia, with reason, he was more careful than Churchill, who broadcasted
that the British government would give whatever help it could.233 Freidel claims that
the American people, neither at war nor immediately beleaguered, were at odds over
230
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 361
Ibidem, 361
232 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 269
233 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 373
231
52
the proper response to the invasion of Russia.234 They were, as Walter Lippman
commented, “separated by an ideological gulf and joined by the bridge of national
interest”.235 America Firsters, “viewing the Soviet system as being at least as
repugnant as that of the Nazis, if not more so, hoped that the two great armies would
grind each other to bits”.236 Roosevelt stated that “any defense against Hitlerism from
whatever source will benefit our own defense and security”.
237“Simultaneously
with
his drive to aid the Russians, Roosevelt in the weeks immediately after the Nazi
invasion of the Soviet Union was seeking to contain Japanese expansionist moves,
which the engagement of the Soviet forces against the Germans helped trigger.” 238
On August 14, 1941 Roosevelt and Churchill proclaimed their war aims to the
world, making a commitment and attracting attention well beyond what they might
have expected during their rather hasty meetings.239 The informal fashion in which
Roosevelt with Churchill quickly formulated the Atlantic Charter was effective. The
Charter provided:
“First, their countries (Britain and the U.S.) would seek no aggrandizement, territorial
or other.
Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely
expressed wished of the people concerned.
Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under
which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government
restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.
Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations to further
access on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world.
Fifth, they desire improved labor standards, economic advancement and social
security.
Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a
peace which will afford to all nations the means to dwelling in safety and all the men
in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.
Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans
without hindrance.
234
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 373
Ibidem, 372
236 Ibidem, 374
237 Ibidem, 374
238 Ibidem, 376
239 Ibidem, 387
235
53
Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual
reasons must come to the abandonment of force pending the establishment of a
wider and permanent system of general security, the disarmament of [aggressor]
nations is essential.240
It gave Roosevelt the assurances he sought, it had a long-range effect, raised the
hoped of the conquered peoples, and countered clever, insidious Nazi
propaganda.241
With the prime focus of FDR on the Atlantic and uncertainties at the Russian
front, the relative calm that had followed the Japanese occupation of Indochina had
been deceptive. On September 6, 1941 an imperial conference, with the Japanese
emperor present, once more set forth Japanese conditions for a settlement with the
U.S., terms that would prove neither new nor acceptable to Roosevelt.242 Around
November 25 the Japanese chief of naval operations, Nagano, accepted the
proposal to attack Pearl Harbor, operational orders went out the same day: “War with
the Netherlands, America, England inevitable; general preparations to be completed
by early December”.243 The final weeks of negotiation passed amid pessimism on
both sides, the Japanese gave the appearance of earnestness by sending a new
envoy to join Nomura, the ambassador to the U.S., in the talks.244 Roosevelt tried to
propose a six-month modus vivendi, to serve as a response and modification of the
[unacceptable] Japanese final proposal, but there was a lot of protest.
Little did Roosevelt know that on November 26, the day he scrapped the
modus vivendi, the Japanese attack force slipped out of its harbor, sailing under strict
radio silence, which it never broke.245 On December 6th, the ultimate Japanese reply
240
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 388
Ibidem, 389
242 Ibidem, 395
243 Ibidem, 397
244 Ibidem, 397
245 Ibidem, 400
241
54
to the State Department was arriving at the Japanese embassy, a navy officer
brought Roosevelt the first thirteen parts, the critical fourteenth was to come later, but
the sections FDR read were so negative he exclaimed, “This means war”. 246
When Roosevelt woke up the next day he already was in a troubled mood,
and at 1:50 p.m. he received a message “Air raid on Pearl Harbor. This is not drill”.247
At 2:28 came the confirmation, there had been a severe attack on Pearl Harbor. War
had come, not in the theatre he wished it to be, not in the fashion he would have
chosen, long months of uncertainty were over, FDR became commander in chief, war
leader.248 On December 8 1941, Roosevelt put his war message before the
Congress; “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 –a day that will live in infamy – the United
States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of
the Empire of Japan.”249 Roosevelt declared war on Japan that day and on
December 11, Hitler and Mussolini declared war on the United States.
The inevitable became reality, in spite of all the efforts to keep his country out
of war, Roosevelt and his America were participating in the Second World War.
246
Rauch, Basil, Roosevelt From Munich to Pearl Harbor, A study of a Foreign Policy, 491
Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 404
248 Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Rendezvous with Destiny, 404
249 Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 312
247
55
Conclusion
In my thesis I described the way in which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
responded to the events in Europe and the world during the 1930s. What was his
policy toward Nazism, did he try to appease Hitler the way Britain did, or did he have
his own policy?
During the 1930s the United States had a population of more than 130 million
people, and embraced every imaginable point of view on foreign affairs. 250 American
people favored different foreign policies during the decade, the representatives in
Congress rarely agreed on foreign affairs and even Roosevelt himself could use
different language and different emphases in conversations, speeches, letters, and
other communications at different times and circumstances.251 Therefore it is difficult
to define precisely what the U.S., its people and its government did and did not
believe and do relative to appeasement in the 1930s.252
The term appeasement in itself is very hard to define, I mentioned that
appeasement stemmed from the particular circumstances of British domestic politics
in the years after 1919. Appeasement can be understood better if it were seen as a
central episode in a protracted retreat from an untenable ‘world power’ status.
Appeasement, in such an analysis, was neither stupid nor wicked; it was merely
inevitable.253 Several policies can be described as forms of appeasement, or which
together make up appeasement. There is economic appeasement, military
appeasement, political appeasement and social appeasement. Appeasement is
perhaps better conceived as “an underlying attitude of mind deriving variously, in
250
Cole, Wayne S., American Appeasement, in: Schmitz, David F., Challener, Richard D. et al,
Appeasement in Europe, a reassessment of U.S. Policies, 2
251 Cole, Wayne S., American Appeasement, 2
252 Cole, Wayne S., American Appeasement, 2
253 Robbins, Keith, Appeasement, 6
56
particular instances, from fear, guilt, superiority, insecurity or hope of economic
advantage. It can be summarized as a disposition to anticipate and avoid conflict by
judicious concession and negotiation.”254
Appeasement in the language of classical European diplomacy, referred to
“the reduction of tension between [two states] by the methodical removal of the
principal causes of conflict and disagreement between them.”255 Ideally,
appeasement represented the culmination of a process of tension-reduction, which
began with détente and progressed trough rapprochement and entente before
reaching its final stage.256
The general agreement is that American appeasement policy was different
from that of Great Britain. The United States believed that economic adjustments
leading to a general settlement of all Europe’s problems had to be the first step taken
in dealing with Germany and Italy.257 Britain, on the other hand, followed a policy of
piecemeal readjustments of the Versailles order, particularly in political and territorial
agreements, before a general settlement could be reached.258
Among historians there is no consensus on whether Roosevelt’s policy was
one of appeasement or more isolationism. Because of this isolationism Roosevelt did
not really act within international politics from the time Hitler came to power until
1936. Historian Robert Dallek claims that it was not necessarily isolationism, but
general indifference of the American people to outside events, that actually gave
Roosevelt the power to seek expanded American ties abroad. Indeed, in 1933-34
Roosevelt’s policies of economic self-protection and political detachment from other
nations represented only one side of his foreign policy. But on the other hand he also
254
Robbins, Keith, Appeasement, 8
Rock, Stephen R., Appeasement in International Politics, 10
256 Rock, Stephen R., Appeasement in International Politics, 10
257 Rock, Stephen R., Appeasement in International Politics, xiv
258 Rock, Stephen R., Appeasement in International Politics, xiv
255
57
moved toward greater cooperation abroad.259 Roosevelt undertook several attempts
at international cooperation, but most of them were obstructed by Congress. Most
historians regard Roosevelt’s speech of October 5, 1937, the so-called Quarantine
Speech in Chicago as a turning point or milestone, the beginning of Roosevelt’s
active interest in foreign policy and of his inclination to engage the United States
against the aggressive dictators.260
Roosevelt, just like the other Western powers, was very relieved when he
heard that Hitler invited Britain, France and Italy to talk in Germany. The common
feeling was that war had been averted. But the agreement at Munich, turned out to
be a foregone conclusion. Within less than six months Czechoslovakia was no more
and within a year The Second World War had started.261 Within three months after
Munich, Roosevelt completed the change-over from a political strategy whose
primarily emphasis was on “the achievement of domestic reforms”262 to one whose
primary emphasis was “on the achievement of a foreign policy of collective
security”.263 After Munich, Roosevelt was at last able to reach closure about the
German threat to American security. “The uncertainty about how to evaluate Hitler
that had plagued him from 1936 to 1938 had evaporated. The experience of the crisis
had taught him that Hitler had the will, as well as the ability, to do harm.” 264 The
conclusion Roosevelt drew from this new diagnosis was an obvious one: “Hitler must
be prevented from controlling Europe”.265
259
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 91
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, 71
261 Taylor, Telford, Munich, The Price of Peace, xiv
262 Rauch, Basil, Roosevelt From Munich to Pearl Harbor, A study of a Foreign Policy, 80
263 Rauch, Basil, Roosevelt From Munich to Pearl Harbor, A study of a Foreign Policy, 80
264 Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
172
265 Farnham, Barbara Rearden, Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis, A study of political decision making,
172
260
58
Munich was the beginning of a new departure in American foreign policy, so to
say a turning point. FDR had to reexamine the assumptions of American foreign
policy and eventually to develop a policy of “methods short of war”266 to help
Europe’s democracies fight Nazism. After Hitler defied Munich and his own declared
principle of nationality by devouring the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939,
Chamberlain reluctantly guaranteed Poland’s independence.267 This new policy
committed Britain to positive action in Eastern Europe and seemed to mean, “if not
the end of appeasement, then at least its abatement”.268
In 1939 Roosevelt told the Senate Military Affairs Committee that he clearly
identified Hitler’s objective as “world domination”.269 Roosevelt was initially very
pessimistic about fighting Nazi Germany, but that pessimism was modified after the
British successes in neutralizing the French fleet as well as their ability to fend off the
German Luftwaffe. Though Roosevelt already concluded in 1939 that the United
States would soon enter the war, he was less certain of his ability to persuade the
American public of his view.270
The end of British appeasement of Germany did not mark the end of American
appeasement as well. The European war started on September 3, 1939 and the
United States did not enter the war until December 1941. In the two years in
between, Roosevelt did as much as he could to help the Allies, with the Lend-Lease
Act as best example. Still, Roosevelt could not do as much as he wanted to, the
isolationist sentiment was still very apparent in the U.S. Up until Pearl Harbor
Roosevelt tried to avoid war by hosting or organizing conferences and talking to
266
Vieth, Jane Karoline, Munich and American Appeasement, in: Schmitz, David F., Challener,
Richard D. et al, Appeasement in Europe, a reassessment of U.S. Policies, (New York, Greenwood
Press, 1990), 70
267 Vieth, Jane Karoline, Munich and American Appeasement, 70
268 Vieth, Jane Karoline, Munich and American Appeasement, 70
269 Kiewe, Amos, Review on: Cautious Crusade, Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and
the War against Nazi Germany, In: Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 765
270 Ibidem, 765
59
people. He knew that war was hardly avoidable, but he wanted to protect his country
as good as he could. Pearl Harbor was needed to prove to the Americans this was a
war they could not stay out of. Unfortunately this decision was not made based on
the sufferings the Europeans were dealing with, but with an attack on their own,
American soil.
Roosevelt hoped that Chamberlain’s appeasement policies might produce
enduring peace in Europe and the world, but he did not really believe it would. 271And
after the war started in Europe, he knew America would get involved at some point.
The Neutrality Act of 1939 was a perfect expression of the contradictory mood of the
American people.272 They strongly favored the cause of England and France, yet
they did not want to risk American involvement in the European conflict. “Unwilling to
resolve this dilemma, they backed a policy whereby they could render aid to the
Allies without directly committing themselves to intervention in the war. Cash-and
carry neutrality was an illogical policy, yet it was exactly what the nation wanted.”273
In the course of the next two years, the American people, “reacting to the succession
of German triumphs in the battlefield, moved closer and closer to war, but they still
maintained their fierce determination to avoid the final plunge.”274 Roosevelt knew
that even if he would want to participate in the war, he could not get Congress to
accept it. He had to avoid getting into war, but he wanted to aid the Allies as much as
possible. I think he knew deep down, that America would join the war at some point,
the question was when. And with the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt
271
Cole, Wayne S., American Appeasement, in: Schmitz, David F., Challener, Richard D. et al,
Appeasement in Europe, a reassessment of U.S. Policies, 19
272 Divine, Robert A., The Illusion of Neutrality, (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962), 334
273
Divine, Robert A., The Illusion of Neutrality, 335
274
Divine, Robert A., The Illusion of Neutrality, 335
60
claimed the “Japanese took the question of war and peace entirely out of his hands,
they had made the decision for him”.275
Appeasement has had a bad press for a long time. Appeasement was not a
‘success’ for long enough to allow contemporaries to praise its merits in any depth. In
1938 itself, the year of the Munich conference, there were historians who believed
that government policy was broadly on the right lines.276 Comments in newspapers
pointed in the same direction. But with the outbreak of war in September 1939 the
view on appeasement changed. It was tempting to believe that appeasement had
produced this catastrophe. Some historians claim that although the critique of
appeasement is deeply ingrained in American consciousness, there is surprisingly
little evidence to support it. They claim that there is no reason to believe that
concessions never work. One thing is certain, Hitler was not ‘appeasable’, everybody
tried, because they wanted to avoid war, but Hitler only took advantage of this.
Eventually, the Allies realized that appeasement did not work, Hitler was not to be
stopped.
I found it very interesting to get into more detail on the American way,
particularly Roosevelt’s way, of governing during the 1930s. It was very interesting to
see the transition of policies throughout the 1930s. It took Roosevelt a long time to
start interfering in international politics. His country was not ready for that. And even
up to the moment the U.S. was attacked by Japan, there were people who thought
they could stay out of the war. Unfortunately appeasement did not work and luckily
for Europe the U.S. had to quit their isolationist policy and intervene in the war.
Because who knows what world we would have lived in, if America had not aided the
Allies.
275
Dallek, Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, (New York, Oxford
University Press, 1979), 311
276 Robbins, Keith, Appeasement, 1
61
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65
Attachments
Attachment 1
Quarantine Speech
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
October 5, 1937
I am glad to come once again to Chicago and especially to have the opportunity of
taking part in the dedication of this important project of civic betterment.
On my trip across the continent and back I have been shown many evidences of the
result of common sense cooperation between municipalities and the Federal
Government, and I have been greeted by tens of thousands of Americans who have
told me in every look and word that their material and spiritual well-being has made
great strides forward in the past few years.
And yet, as I have seen with my own eyes, the prosperous farms, the thriving
factories and the busy railroads, as I have seen the happiness and security and
peace which covers our wide land, almost inevitably I have been compelled to
contrast our peace with very different scenes being enacted in other parts of the
world.
It is because the people of the United States under modern conditions must, for the
sake of their own future, give thought to the rest of the world, that I, as the
responsible executive head of the Nation, have chosen this great inland city and this
gala occasion to speak to you on a subject of definite national importance.
The political situation in the world, which of late has been growing progressively
worse, is such as to cause grave concern and anxiety to all the peoples and nations
who wish to live in peace and amity with their neighbors.
Some fifteen years ago the hopes of mankind for a continuing era of international
peace were raised to great heights when more than sixty nations solemnly pledged
themselves not to resort to arms in furtherance of their national aims and policies.
The high aspirations expressed in the Briand-Kellogg Peace Pact and the hopes for
peace thus raised have of late given way to a haunting fear of calamity. The present
reign of terror and international lawlessness began a few years ago.
It began through unjustified interference in the internal affairs of other nations or the
invasion of alien territory in violation of treaties; and has now reached a stage where
the very foundations of civilization are seriously threatened. The landmarks and
traditions which have marked the progress of civilization toward a condition of law,
order and justice are being wiped away.
Without a declaration of war and without warning or justification of any kind, civilians,
including vast numbers of women and children, are being ruthlessly murdered with
bombs from the air. In times of so-called peace, ships are being attacked and sunk
by submarines without cause or notice. Nations are fomenting and taking sides in
civil warfare in nations that have never done them any harm. Nations claiming
freedom for themselves deny it to others.
66
Innocent peoples, innocent nations, are being cruelly sacrificed to a greed for power
and supremacy which is devoid of all sense of justice and humane considerations.
To paraphrase a recent author "perhaps we foresee a time when men, exultant in the
technique of homicide, will rage so hotly over the world that every precious thing will
be in danger, every book and picture and harmony, every treasure garnered through
two millenniums, the small, the delicate, the defenseless ‹all will be lost or wrecked or
utterly destroyed."
If those things come to pass in other parts of the world, let no one imagine that
America will escape, that America may expect mercy, that this Western Hemisphere
will not be attacked and that it will continue tranquilly and peacefully to carry on the
ethics and the arts of civilization.
If those days come "there will be no safety by arms, no help from authority, no
answer in science. The storm will rage till every flower of culture is trampled and all
human beings are leveled in a vast chaos."
If those days are not to come to pass‹ if we are to have a world in which we can
breathe freely and live in amity without fear-the peace-loving nations must make a
concerted effort to uphold laws and principles on which alone peace can rest secure.
The peace-loving nations must make a concerted effort in opposition to those
violations of treaties and those ignorings of humane instincts which today are
creating a state of international anarchy and instability from which there is no escape
through mere isolation or neutrality.
Those who cherish their freedom and recognize and respect the equal right of their
neighbors to be free and live in peace, must work together for the triumph of law and
moral principles in order that peace, justice and confidence may prevail in the world.
There must be a return to a belief in the pledged word, in the value of a signed treaty.
There must be recognition of the fact that national morality is as vital as private
morality.
A bishop wrote me the other day: "It seems to me that something greatly needs to be
said in behalf of ordinary humanity against the present practice of carrying the
horrors of war to helpless civilians, especially women and children. It may be that
such a protest might be regarded by many, who claim to be realists, as futile, but may
it not be that the heart of mankind is so filled with horror at the present needless
suffering that that force could be mobilized in sufficient volume to lessen such cruelty
in the days ahead. Even though it may take twenty years, which God forbid, for
civilization to make effective its corporate protest against this barbarism, surely
strong voices may hasten the day."
There is a solidarity and interdependence about the modern world, both technically
and morally, which makes it impossible for any nation completely to isolate itself from
economic and political upheavals in the rest of the world, especially when such
upheavals appear to be spreading and not declining. There can be no stability or
peace either within nations or between nations except under laws and moral
67
standards adhered to by all International anarchy destroys every foundation for
peace. It jeopardizes either the immediate or the future security of every nation, large
or small. It is, therefore, a matter of vital interest and concern to the people of the
United States that the sanctity of international treaties and the maintenance of
international morality be restored.
The overwhelming majority of the peoples and nations of the world today want to live
in peace. They seek the removal of barriers against trade. They want to exert
themselves in industry, in agriculture and in business, that they may increase their
wealth through the production of wealth-producing goods rather than striving to
produce military planes and bombs and machine guns and cannon for the destruction
of human lives and useful property.
In those nations of the world which seem to be piling armament on armament for
purposes of aggression, and those other nations which fear acts of aggression
against them and their security, a very high proportion of their national income is
being spent directly for armaments. It runs from thirty to as high as fifty percent. We
are fortunate. The proportion that we in the United States spend is far less- eleven or
twelve percent.
How happy we are that the circumstances of the moment permit us to put our money
into bridges and boulevards, dams and reforestation, the conservation of our soil and
many other kinds of useful works rather than into huge standing armies and vast
supplies of implements of war.
I am compelled and you are compelled, nevertheless, to look ahead. The peace, the
freedom and the security of ninety percent of the population of the world is being
jeopardized by the remaining ten percent. who are threatening a breakdown of all
international order and law. Surely the ninety percent who want to live in peace under
law and in accordance with moral standards that have received almost universal
acceptance through the centuries, can and must find some way to make their will
prevail.
The situation is definitely of universal concern. The questions involved relate not
merely to violations of specific provisions of particular treaties; they are questions of
war and of peace, of international law and especially of principles of humanity. It is
true that they involve definite violations of agreements, and especially of the
Covenant of the League of Nations, the Briand-Kellogg Pact and the Nine Power
Treaty. But they also involve problems of world economy, world security and world
humanity.
It is true that the moral consciousness of the world must recognize the importance of
removing injustices and well-founded grievances; but at the same time it must be
aroused to the cardinal necessity of honoring sanctity of treaties, of respecting the
rights and liberties of others and of putting an end to acts of international aggression.
It seems to be unfortunately true that the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading.
When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and
joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community
68
against the spread of the disease.
It is my determination to pursue a policy of peace. It is my determination to adopt
every practicable measure to avoid involvement in war. It ought to be inconceivable
that in this modern era, and in the face of experience, any nation could be so foolish
and ruthless as to run the risk of plunging the whole world into war by invading and
violating, in contravention of solemn treaties, the territory of other nations that have
done them no real harm and are too weak to protect themselves adequately. Yet the
peace of the world and the welfare and security of every nation, including our own, is
today being threatened by that very thing.
No nation which refuses to exercise forbearance and to respect the freedom and
rights of others can long remain strong and retain the confidence and respect of other
nations. No nation ever loses its dignity or its good standing by conciliating its
differences, and by exercising great patience with, and consideration for, the rights of
other nations.
War is a contagion, whether it be declared or undeclared. It can engulf states and
peoples remote from the original scene of hostilities. We are determined to keep out
of war, yet we cannot insure ourselves against the disastrous effects of war and the
dangers of involvement. We are adopting such measures as will minimize our risk of
involvement, but we cannot have complete protection in a world of disorder in which
confidence and security have broken down.
If civilization is to survive the principles of the Prince of Peace must be restored.
Trust between nations must be revived.
Most important of all, the will for peace on the part of peace-loving nations must
express itself to the end that nations that may be tempted to violate their agreements
and the rights of others will desist from such a course. There must be positive
endeavors to preserve peace.
America hates war. America hopes for peace. Therefore, America actively engages
in the search for peace.
69
Attachment 2
Munich Agreement
Map of Hitler's demands at Munich
The lightly shaded areas were to be handed over by 1 October 1938, the darker
areas were to be subject to plebiscites.
Munich Pact September 29, 1938
Agreement concluded at Munich, September 29, 1938, between Germany, Great
Britain, France and Italy
GERMANY, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, taking into consideration the
agreement, which has been already reached in principle for the cession to Germany
of the Sudeten German territory, have agreed on the following terms and conditions
governing the said cession and the measures consequent thereon, and by this
agreement they each hold themselves responsible for the steps necessary to secure
its fulfilment:
(1) The evacuation will begin on 1st October.
70
(2) The United Kingdom, France and Italy agree that the evacuation of the territory
shall be completed by the 10th October, without any existing installations having
been destroyed, and that the Czechoslovak Government will be held responsible for
carrying out the evacuation without damage to the said installations.
(3) The conditions governing the evacuation will be laid down in detail by an
international commission composed of representatives of Germany, the United
Kingdom, France, Italy and Czechoslovakia.
(4) The occupation by stages of the predominantly German territory by German
troops will begin on 1st October. The four territories marked on the attached map will
be occupied by German troops in the following order:
The territory marked No. I on the 1st and 2nd of October; the territory marked No. II
on the 2nd and 3rd of October; the territory marked No. III on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of
October; the territory marked No. IV on the 6th and 7th of October. The remaining
territory of preponderantly German character will be ascertained by the aforesaid
international commission forthwith and be occupied by German troops by the 10th of
October.
(5) The international commission referred to in paragraph 3 will determine the
territories in which a plebiscite is to be held. These territories will be occupied by
international bodies until the plebiscite has been completed. The same commission
will fix the conditions in which the plebiscite is to be held, taking as a basis the
conditions of the Saar plebiscite. The commission will also fix a date, not later than
the end of November, on which the plebiscite will be held.
(6) The final determination of the frontiers will be carried out by the international
commission. The commission will also be entitled to recommend to the four Powers,
Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, in certain exceptional cases, minor
modifications in the strictly ethnographical determination of the zones which are to be
transferred without plebiscite.
(7) There will be a right of option into and out of the transferred territories, the option
to be exercised within six months from the date of this agreement. A GermanCzechoslovak commission shall determine the details of the option, consider ways of
facilitating the transfer of population and settle questions of principle arising out of the
said transfer.
(8) The Czechoslovak Government will within a period of four weeks from the date of
this agreement release from their military and police forces any Sudeten Germans
who may wish to be released, and the Czechoslovak Government will within the
same period release Sudeten German prisoners who are serving terms of
imprisonment for political offences.
Munich, September 29, 1938.
ADOLF HITLER,
NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN,
EDOUARD DALADIER,
BENITO MUSSOLINI.
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