The History Book Club discussion
THE SECOND WORLD WAR
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WE ARE OPEN -WEEK SIX - MILITARY SERIES: HANNS AND RUDOLF - June 16th - June 22nd - Chapter(s) Ten and Eleven: 10: Hanns, Normandy, France, 1945 and 11: Rudolf, Berlin, Germany, 1943 - (148 - 169) - No Spoilers, Please
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However if we discuss folks outside the scope of the book or another book is cited which is not the book and author discussed then we do have to do that citation according to our citation rules. That makes it easier to not disrupt the discussion. Thought that I would add that.
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Chapter Ten - 10: Hanns, Normandy, France, 1945
As early as 1942, eyewitness accounts of the atrocities taking place in Germany and Poland were filtering back to the Allied Powers. In October 1943, Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States along with the governments in exile, had established the United Nations War Crimes Commission. However, minimal effort was directed to establishing a comprehensive war crimes policy. In 1944, a report landed on government desks in London, Moscow and Washington, stating that thousands of Jews were being gassed in Nazi-run concentration camps in Poland.
Many questions were posed including - a) What constituted a "war crime"? b) How many people could realistically be brought to justice? c) And which specific individuals should be targeted? d) What was to be done with the criminals once caught? e) Should they be shot or tried according to Western law? f) And if a trial, where should it be held? However even the chairman of the commission could not answer basic questions from the press.
In the meantime, Hanns was working as his commander's adjutant in a newly created Allied headquarters in Normandy. Hanns was being pressured by Ann and Dr. Alexander suffered a mild heart attack. Hanns was concerned about his long term future and wondered if the British would offer him and his brother citizenship. Hanns was elected to serve on the first ever British war crimes investigative team.
Chapter Eleven - 11: Rudolf, Berlin, Germany, 1943
In the spring of 1943, Heinrich Himmler was anxious about the corruption epidemic in the concentration camps, and particularly about gold flowing into private hands - something expressly forbidden by the Reichsfuhrer - which should have been delivered to the country's war coffers. In order to determine the extent of the problem he appointed SS judge Konrad Morgen to investigate the camps.
Himmler was displeased with Morgen's findings and instructed the SS judge to arrest those involved with the unauthorized killings and the gold smuggling. Rudolf was removed from his post and would take up a desk job at the Concentration Camp Inspectorate while Hedwig and the children would remain at the Auschwitz villa.
Rudolf was asked to visit the camps and ascertain their condition. Rudolf concluded that those running the camps were failing to use prison labor effectively in support of the war effort. Rudolf was asked to make sure that Auschwitz was once again running smoothly.
Rudolf returns to Berlin and is greeted by the shocking news that the war had arrived at the doorstep of the German capital. Time had run out and Rudolf began to make preparations for the family's hurried departure from Berlin.
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BACKGROUND
The chapter begins with the Allied Forces being informed by eyewitness accounts of the atrocities taking place in Germany and Poland. An unclassified telegram was passed between the consul general in Geneva to the State Department in the United States which by now was in the war. London was notified. So now Winston Churchill and FDR knew full well what Hitler was planning for the Jewish population. They may have been able to discount Nazi persecution before 1942 - but by the middle of 1943 there was no doubt what was happening.
Questions and Topics
Why did the Allied Powers not try to do something to save more of the Jewish population when they had the opportunity before and why did they not do more when all doubt of the Nazi's "executed actions and objectives" were fully revealed? What are your thoughts?
Was establishing the War Crimes Commission just "too little and too late"? There was minimal effort directed to establish a comprehensive war crimes policy - which if such a policy existed at that time may have been a deterrent. Do you agree or disagree and why?
By the time in 1944 - when Roosevelt made a statement to the press - the Nazis had been allowed to carry out their mandate. Could any lives have been saved sooner or at all? Was their anything that FDR should have done differently at any time considering this situation and what he knew and when he knew it? Why do you think he acted in the way that he did? Do you feel that he was in the right or in the wrong? Explain your rationale.
Some of the questions that came up through the media and the public announcements by August 1944 were the following:
What constituted a "war crime"?
How many people could realistically be brought to justice?
Which specific individuals should be targeted?
What was to be done with the criminals (once they determined who was a criminal and who was not)?
Should they be shot or tried?
If tried, where should the trial be held? (An Allied capital city or in the country where the crimes were committed?)
And how could Sir Cecil Hurst chairman of the United Nations War Crimes Commission not be able to answer the question whether the person who had ordered the executions be on the list or not? And how could Hurst respond "that the list of war criminals is not a very long one but meager"?
How do you feel about the trials that ensued and how they were carried out? Do you feel that there was any way that the folks accused would be able to get a fair trial given the environment and the circumstances?
Do you feel that "two wrongs do not make a right"? Do you feel that numbers should have been attached to the Nazis who were on trial? Or do you feel that this action was degrading?
Would we be able to place a number pinned to the front of a person's clothing on trial today and get away with it?
Or do you feel that the situation was an example of "an eye for an eye".
Do you feel that executing the enemy who were guilty of executing the Jewish people as a religious group and/or other opponents of Hitler made the Allied executers just as guilty in the eyes of God as the Nazis? Should the war criminals not have received the death penalty but remained in solitary confinement for the remainder of their lives? What punishments do you feel should have been enacted? Were the trials just and fair?
What do you feel was the moral obligation of FDR, Stalin and Churchill - when they first heard the rumors, first knew that waves of immigrants were trying to escape persecution, first knew that the programs were being carried out and at the end of the war? How do you feel about the Nuremberg and Belsen and other trials carried out by the Allied Powers.
Was the major issue - the war - and winning the war and did they put the "human casualty numbers" of the Jewish people in the same column as those who lost their lives in battle? Was that the right thing to do and do you agree or disagree - explain your rationale.
Do you agree with the actions and the decisions of the three Allied leaders as it pertained to how they handled the knowledge of Hitler's Final Solution plans and the execution of the program?
There is a lot to talk about in these chapters - but let us begin and try to place yourself in the positions of these men and the countries that they represented - before - during - and after the World War. And also what would you have liked for the leaders to have done if you were a prisoner in one of those camps and would that have been possible?
Please feel free to jump into the conversation and discuss these major considerations with civility and respect for each other and for the historical time period when so many lost their lives.
Let us begin the discussion on this thread.
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I'm all caught up now!Why did the Allied Powers not try to do something to save more of the Jewish population when they had the opportunity before and why did they not do more when all doubt of the Nazi's "executed actions and objectives" were fully revealed? What are your thoughts? I always have a problem with this question - is a powder keg. I think there was an awful lot of denial from the allies, in the same way that Jews didn't believe what was going on. Once the allies were well aware of the situation there were problems as well. Part of it was antisemitism of the general populace. Even in this book Hans said that England did have a Jewish problem. Then there was the challenge of what to do? Should they have bombed Auschwitz, Treblinka and so on? That would have killed innocent people. Should the train lines be bombed? It doesn't take a lot to fix train lines, and I think there would have just been more forced marches on the Nazi's part. So the allies took the stance that ending the war was the best way to help the Jews.
Was establishing the War Crimes Commission just "too little and too late"? There was minimal effort directed to establish a comprehensive war crimes policy - which if such a policy existed at that time may have been a deterrent. Do you agree or disagree and why? I've long felt that the allies lack of speed and the initial lack of completeness of a war criminal list was a major embarrassment. Countless Nazi's were able to use this to their advantage to escape, Eichmann and Mengele are just two examples. However, I don't think that any earlier list would have worked as a deterrent. These men were going to do whatever they wanted to do and whatever they could get away with in the climate of Nazi Germany. They knew what they were doing wrong - look at how many ran and even ended their own lives. They just never thought that Germany could lose.
With regard to what constitutes a war crime, in my opinion, anything that involves genocide is a war crime which makes Stalin incredible unsuited to evaluate others on this ground. He did not have an ounce, once again in my opinion, of morality so the issue raised as to whether the Allied leaders had a moral obligation should exclude him.
Joseph Stalin
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One of your key statements certainly is - "They just never thought that Germany could lose".
But then if we look at situations that have occurred in our current timeframe - the world has not jumped into action either and Russia and China often use their veto power to stop anything being done by the UN. And of course Russia should know better considering their past but they are friends with folks like the Syrian President who is obviously responsible for his own peoples' deaths.Then there is the Ukraine (Russia still involved), Iran, genocide in some parts of Africa. The world reports it on the news and there are documentaries made - but nobody seems to want to get involved.
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As far as being excluded - FDR went out of his way in terms of including Stalin at every turn and seemed to almost favor him in many situations of the war. Often found that odd. Of course, by the end of the war - FDR was dead by April 1945 even though the end of the war was in sight.
I think that the Allies just didn't understand the extent of the atrocities, despite the report they were handed in 1944. Page 149 even mentions that the report talked about the thousands of Jews that were dying. I just don't think they realized it was so much more. They were unprepared and ill-equipped to quickly organize a war crime investigation. I assume that they expected that there would only be a few who were involved in the genocide and that their main focal point was on ending the war. Just trying to put myself in that timeframe and as sad as it is that there was a lack of quick response, I think that they did not see the urgency over what they thought was a few thousand deaths.
Then once they did start the investigation, who goes on the list of war criminals? The SS organization overseeing the concentration camps was likely quite large and employed those who may or may not have known what was truly going on, i.e. a pow/war camp vs. a death camp. And as we learned at the end of chapter 11, a lot of paperwork with a lot of orders and entire buildings were removed to try and hide the real story.
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You are being very kind towards our leaders who I suspect had more information than we know. It was a shame.
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The Allied Powers seemed to drag their heels and progress was slow and manpower slim - in fact the Britain's war crimes strategy was even less ambitious than the 200 people with no investigative experience that the Americans sent. They were only going to get together 40 and only 12 of whom had any prior investigative experience at all. Even by April 1945 - the British had zero war crimes teams in place to handle any interrogations at all.
And then they entered Belsen and a light seemed to go on. Then and only then did they decide that they would try to find a team of 12 suitable men.
Questions:
Were you shocked that the Allied Forces were procrastinating and not taking a more pro active approach to getting the war crimes teams off the ground?
Were they shocked into action?
Did they think that the reports that they had heard were exaggerated? Were they confronted with the truth and then realized that the reality was worse than the reports they obviously had discounted?
What do you think increased the sense of urgency in the British? Where was the disconnect in their thinking?
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What were your feelings about Paul (dabbling in the black market)?
And how did you feel about Hanns' treatment of Ann? Was he dangling her, was he confused about his own feelings, or was he waiting for something better to come along? Was Ann manipulating the family in order to pressure Hanns into marriage? Someone not seeing somebody any more than two weeks in two years does not seem like a strong relationship. Do you think that this situation was more understandable during wartime?
We are learning more about Hanns and Paul - what did you like about each one of them and what characteristics did you question? By now, we are beginning to have more information about their character, personality and outlook. Please feel free to answer and discuss any of the above topic areas or branch out and begin a discussion about another topic in the chapter.
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By the end of chapter 10 what are your thoughts now about Hanns Alexander - do you think that he is empathetic or careless with folks, do you think he is self centered or thoughtful? If you had to write a personality profile of the Alexander brothers at this point in time - what kinds of things would you say?
Hanns is concerned about his long term future - how would you feel if you woke up one day being 'stateless".
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I think that the Allies were somewhat hesitant about holding war crimes trials. After WWI the Kaiser was just sent into exile to live comfortably in Holland with no retribution except for the unrealistic requirements of the Versailles Treaty.. They didn't seem to know exactly how to begin. The shock, horror, and disgust of the death camps probably, as you suggested, Bentley,shocked them into action. I don't think they could grasp the idea of genocide until they witnessed it.
On page 158 is one of the most chilling quotes in the book as far as I'm concerned. When told by Himmler that his command of Auschwitz was "no longer tenable". Rudolf stated "At first I found it painful to tear myself away from Auschwitz.....the difficult tasks I faced had brought me very close to it".That makes the blood run cold.
With regard to Paul and the black market, I was a little bothered by it, but then I tried to put myself in the times and I remembered all the war years museum exhibits I've seen in England and realized that those times were very tough. It is impossible for me to pass judgement, even though the author made Paul seem rather cavalier in his actions. Actually, he also makes Hanns seem cavalier in his dealings with Ann, so maybe that is the way the brothers were raised - with a sense of entitlement. They might have done well in todays world.
Rudolf certainly was an opportunist. He 'worked' the people he was with, or around them, like Glück, and also created a luxury environment for himself and family at Auschwitz. I think that's why he didn't want to leave. The fact that he created an extermination machine was not as important to him as the perquisites he made for himself. He also knew when it was time to get out. He becomes more repulsive as I read each chapter.
Lots of questions here but I'll just throw out a random thought or two. It seems to me that Hanns and Ann must have had a private understanding about their eventual future together and that's why Ann felt fairly confident waiting for so long while also trying to get others to nudge Hanns to make a commitment sooner rather than later. I liked that Harding portrayed Hanns and Paul as the real people they were - warts and all. This makes what Hanns eventually accomplished even more compelling in my opinion.
Were you shocked that the Allied Forces were procrastinating and not taking a more pro active approach to getting the war crimes teams off the ground?Were they shocked into action?
A great question, Bentley, very complex. In the U.S., FDR was getting a lot of pressure from Jewish groups to act by March 1944.
He had a lot on his plate and I suspect this was on the back-burner, and I think he was happy that an international group was handling it, not the U.S. government, which was strained to the max with the war effort.
I really like this paragraph:
"A balanced assessment of Roosevelt's policies with regard to Jewish refugees and the Holocaust must also take into account the overall historical context. Roosevelt was preoccupied by severe economic depression and war, and aware of isolationist, antisemitic, and xenophobic sentiments in Congress and among the American public. His own government bureaucracy was, on balance, an impediment to immigration on any large scale; this opposition reflected general popular sentiment. Though Roosevelt had real sympathies for the Jews and for others subject to Axis-sponsored murder and terror, his involvement in refugee issues and rescue efforts remained low. This reluctance to take political risks in refugee policy contrasts sharply with his boldness as a politician and leader in other spheres."
(Source: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.p...)
More:
by Richard Breitman (no photo)
by Robert L. Beir (no photo)
Great post, Bryan, and of course the issue of FDR's action or lack there of regarding the Jews in Europe is complex and continues to be controversial.
I read a book a while ago by H.W. Brands and in it he briefly discussed how Harry Hopkins, Frances Perkins (his Secretary of Labor) and Eleanor Roosevelt did what they could behind the scenes to help Jewish people escape the Nazis. Roosevelt was constrained by any number of issues. Could he have done more? Probably, but through these people, who he did not hinder, he did try to do something. 
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H.W. Brands
http://www.francesperkinscenter.org/r...This link also has some interesting information. Should I move it to the glossary or is it okay here?
Jill wrote: "On page 158 is one of the most chilling quotes in the book as far as I'm concerned. When told by Himmler that his command of Auschwitz was "no longer tenable". Rudolf stated "At first I found it pa..."Yes, he had created quite the little world for himself there and going "down" to a lesser position seemed quite unpalatable for him. Time is running short though and he knows it.
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FDR's Jewish Problem
How did a president beloved by Jews come to be regarded as an anti-Semite who refused to save them from the Nazis?
Laurence Zuckerman July 17, 2013 | This article appeared in the August 5-12, 2013 edition of The Nation.
http://www.thenation.com/article/1753...
Read the article and post some of your thoughts as well as read the article in the next two posts which will present just another frame of reference or two.
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WHEN GEORGE BUSH saw pictures of Auschwitz at Yad Vashem, Israel’s museum of the Holocaust, he said — with “tears in his eyes” — “we should have bombed it.” That’s what The New York Times reported in 2008. Could he have read The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945 by David Wyman? That’s the 1984 book that made the refusal to bomb Auschwitz the lasting symbol of FDR’s failure to help Jews in World War II Europe. Wyman, the grandson of two Protestant ministers and a historian at Amherst College, pointed out that American planes based in Italy were bombing industrial targets not far from Auschwitz in May 1944, and one day even bombed Auschwitz by mistake. Several Jewish groups and leaders had requested the bombing of the gas chambers or the rail lines leading to the death camp. The military opposed it, arguing their priority was defeating Hitler’s armies, not protecting Jews. The request got as high as John J. McCloy, FDR’s Assistant Secretary of War, who rejected it, noting simply, “No reply necessary.”
There’s an entire book about it: The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It? by Michael J. Neufeld and Michael Berenbaum — a debate among 15 historians, including Martin Gilbert, Walter Laqueur, and Deborah Lipstadt, based on a 1993 conference at the Smithsonian Institution, sponsored by the National Air and Space Museum and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Mostly they argue that bombing was feasible, but the US lacked the will to do it.
With their book FDR and the Jews, Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman hope to have the last word on the bomb-Auschwitz debate, as well as the larger one it stands for — whether FDR was a “bystander” to the Holocaust. The book — which would have been unthinkable before the 1960s — is significant not only for its new research and cogent argument, but also for what it reveals about the state of Jewish self-consciousness in America today. The authors’ conclusion is that FDR was not a “bystander.” He did more to help Jews than any other leader anywhere in the world. Although he decided on many occasions to overlook threats to European Jews, those decisions were based on astute political judgments about what the American public and Congress would accept. The bomb-Auschwitz proposal never reached FDR, they point out, so it’s wrong to say the decision was his. But even if the question had been posed to him, they say, he would have followed the advice of the military — especially since “every major American Jewish leader and organization that he respected remained silent on the matter, as did all influential members of Congress and opinion-makers in the mainstream media.” Finally, they argue, even if the Allies had bombed Auschwitz, it wouldn’t have saved very many Jewish lives because the Nazis had other “mechanisms” for the Final Solution, especially shooting Jews.
While the book ends by taking up the bomb-Auschwitz debate, it covers a great deal of other territory, dividing FDR’s responses to Hitler over 12 years into four phases — an approach that is thoughtful and persuasive. During his first term, 1933–37, he was a “bystander to Nazi persecution,” not because he was an anti-Semite or didn’t care, but because fighting unemployment and bank failures and winning a second term took precedence over everything else, including helping the Jews of Europe. After his triumphant reelection in 1936, as Hitler grew more menacing, FDR took action to loosen some immigration restrictions and to work on resettling European Jews elsewhere in the world — including Palestine; he pressured the British to keep it open to Jewish immigrants.
After World War II began, with Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, FDR began a third phase, putting war preparations and foreign policy first and setting aside Jewish anxiety about the millions living in Nazi-occupied Poland. At a time when isolationism was dominant in America, and FDR knew US support for Britain and the USSR was essential to the defeat of Hitler, he avoided any appearance of sympathy to Jewish concerns, believing — correctly — that Americans would oppose going to war to save European Jews. He argued privately that the best way to save Jews was to defeat Hitler.
Late in 1943, as victory came closer, he reversed course and took up Jewish issues, openly denouncing anti-Semitism and establishing a War Refugee Board to help rescue Jews who had not been killed. Again he worked to make Palestine a Jewish homeland, and, despite failing health, personally met with the Saudi king. While he didn’t bomb Auschwitz, he tried to do other things to help Hitler’s Jewish victims.
Of course FDR, like all leaders, acted not just on the basis of his own beliefs and feelings, but in response to political pressure. FDR and the Jews addresses the conflicting demands put forward by Jewish organizations, but from my perspective there’s not enough here about how Jewish leaders and organizations organized rallies and found allies — how they engaged in public persuasion and political pressure that got FDR to act. There is some damning material about the refusal of some Jewish organizations to engage in popular politics, but to their credit, Rabbi Stephen Wise and the American Jewish Congress organized rallies in March 1933 in Madison Square Garden, and Columbus Circle, and Brooklyn, and tens of thousands participated. But the American Jewish Committee and B’nai B’rith condemned “boycotts, parades, mass meetings and other similar demonstrations” on behalf of Jews in Germany. They argued that “agitation serves only to furnish the persecutors with a pretext to justify the wrongs they perpetuate,” and that quiet diplomacy and lobbying was the best approach. Others countered with an argument that has become familiar in more recent times in another context: silence equals death.
It’s fascinating to see what moved Rabbi Wise to organize mass rallies: “If we do not,” he wrote, “there will be Socialist Jewish meetings [and] Communist Jewish demonstrations.” This brief quote strongly suggests that the left was a key to mobilizing the center, if only to preempt them on this key issue.
The Madison Square Garden rally — March 27, 1933 — was a great one. It featured the Catholic Al Smith and prominent Protestants including an Episcopalian bishop and a Methodist bishop, along with Senator Robert F. Wagner, the president of the AFL, and the Republican who ran against FDR for governor in 1930 — a truly impressive interfaith lineup. Smith, who had been the first Catholic to run for president, said “the only thing to do with bigotry,” whether anti-Catholic or anti-Jewish, “is to drag it out into the open sunlight and give it the same treatment that we gave the Ku Klux Klan.” Thousands more attended rallies in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Newark, and Washington, DC — the United Press estimated that a million people had participated in hundreds of protests, “one of the largest political demonstrations to date in American history.”
Jews could organize and campaign and appeal and negotiate, but they lived in a world of limited possibilities and counter pressures and bureaucratic inertia and open hostility. It was FDR’s task to assess those possibilities and deal with those hostilities. This book is very much about politics as “the art of the possible,” rather than an exercise in what Max Weber criticized as “the politics of ultimate ends.”
There’s no question that a lot of Americans didn’t care about the fate of the Jews in the 1930s, including some of FDR’s top advisors. But the authors remind us that a lot of people don’t care about the fate of Darfur today and didn’t care about Kosovo or Rwanda in the 1990s. Jews are among them. It’s hard to get people to do something to help strangers.
Could FDR have done more? Breitman and Lichtman’s answer is “certainly yes.” He could have taken in Jewish children as refugees; he could have filled — or even enlarged — immigration quotas for Jews from Europe; he could have pressed the British harder to let more Jews enter Palestine. Maybe he would have succeeded. But it’s hard for us to be sure. As the authors show, FDR was the master politician of his time, so his judgment of what was possible counts for quite a bit. And given that, the people second-guessing him today are probably wrong.
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There was a time, not so long ago, when American Jews were not obsessed with the Holocaust. For 25 years after World War II, a book like FDR and the Jews was unnecessary — indeed unthinkable. American Jews loved and revered FDR for leading the Allies in defeating Hitler. Before the 1960s, few thought of the Holocaust as a singular historical event. Yes, American Jews spoke of “the six million.” But for Jews and non-Jews alike, it was the deaths of 50 million people that defined the war. Jews understood themselves to be one group among many that suffered immense and heartbreaking losses. Anne Frank was often quoted on this theme: “we’re not the only people that have had to suffer,” she wrote; “sometimes it’s one race, sometimes another.”
In the years following World War II, 1946–48, as Peter Novick showed in his crucial 1999 book The Holocaust in American Life, the leading Jewish organizations unanimously rejected the idea of a Holocaust memorial in New York City. The American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress, and Jewish War Veterans all opposed a monument — on the grounds that it would be “a perpetual memorial to the weakness and defenseless of the Jewish people” and thus would “not be in the best interests of Jewry.” Again Anne Frank was quoted: she wrote that she longed for a time “when we are people again, not just Jews.” That was pretty much the story for 25 years after the war.
Jewish thinking about World War II was transformed by the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961. That trial, Novick shows, marked the first time that what we call the Holocaust was presented to the American public as a historical event in its own right, distinct from Nazi barbarism in general. The word “Holocaust” came into common usage only at that point, as the official Israeli translation of the term they use at Yad Vashem — “shoah.” The next big step in what we can call “Holocaust consciousness” came with the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which suggested briefly the vulnerability of Israel, and the final step came in 1993 with the opening of the official United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Its theme is that Jews were victims, and gentiles were either persecutors or guilty bystanders. Wyman’s Abandonment of the Jews placed FDR firmly in the latter camp.
Thus, starting in the 1970s, official Judaism made the Holocaust in general and Auschwitz in particular the center of Jewish self-consciousness in America. That has meant that Jewish organizations have emphasized the status of Jews as victims. The criticism of FDR has been part of this larger phenomenon, in which Jewish organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center bombard Jews with scare stories about renewed threats of anti-Semitism from neo-Nazis in America. The central question was a frightening one: if FDR wouldn’t stop the genocide of the Jews in the 1940s, would anybody do anything different today? The implication is that, when adversity threatens, the Jews have had no friends, which means that constant vigilance and suspicion of others are necessary, along with unquestioning support for an Israel that is mighty and uncompromising.
Continued on next post:
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It’s this context that gives the book FDR and the Jews its significance today. It poses a challenge to the theme that American Jews have no friends, that the gentile world has been at best indifferent to the survival of the Jewish people. It shows that, while there were some anti-Semites in the State Department, the best friend Jews had anywhere in the world in the 1940s was the government of the United States and its president FDR; that, while FDR put domestic political factors ahead of rescuing European Jews, he did far more than any other head of government to act to protect Jews facing death.
But a survey of the response to FDR and the Jews suggests that the authors have not succeeded at changing minds. Even though it’s the most responsible, reasoned, well-documented assessment of FDR’s role, many official and semi-official spokespeople continue to argue that Jews had in FDR a president who didn’t care whether they lived or died. Moment Magazine, founded by Elie Wiesel, declared in a review by Marc Fisher: “Roosevelt’s inaction was an amoral decision to put politics and pragmatism ahead of even a symbolic effort to rescue Europe’s Jews.” Richard Cohen wrote in The Washington Post that Roosevelt’s “triumph in possibly saving the American free enterprise system [. . .] cannot negate the fact that he did not confront the biggest crime in all history with everything at his disposal.”
Meanwhile on the other side, those who would be expected to agree with Breitman and Lichtman, do agree: Michael Kazin, editor of the socialist magazine Dissent says, “This splendid book should banish forever the notion that Franklin Roosevelt was a blinkered anti-Semite who made little effort to stop the Holocaust.” In The New York Times Book Review, David Oshinky argued that “an even stronger case might be made” for FDR “than the one put forth in this eminently sensible book. Roosevelt masterfully prepared a skeptical nation for a war against global tyranny. […] And the final defeat of Germany, costing hundreds of thousands of American lives, ended the Holocaust for good.”
Despite the alarms raised by Jewish voices and groups on the right, the fact is that Jews in America since World War II have not been facing hostility or threatened or under siege. American Jews have become the best-educated and wealthiest ethnic group in American society, and among the most politically effective. There’s hardly been a time or place in history when Jews have been so secure. Indeed another theme of official Judaism is that Jewish identity in America today is threatened by this very security and prosperity: American Jews are not particularly religious and are intermarrying in increasing numbers, and thus, the argument goes, Judaism in America faces extinction because of successful assimilation.
Meanwhile, the bomb-Auschwitz issue has been given a new life by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last year cited FDR’s failure to bomb Auschwitz as a justification for a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. He gave the speech not in Jerusalem but in Washington, at a conference of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself “America’s pro-Israel lobby.” The Jerusalem Post summarized Netanyahu’s message: “You can’t trust the United States of America” to help the Jews.
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John Wiener is a contributing editor to The Nation and hosts a weekly afternoon drive-time interview show on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles.
The article above is from the Los Angeles Times Book Review:
Jon Wiener on FDR and the Jews
FDR: Good for the Jews?
May 12th, 2013
by Richard Breitman (no photo)The following is a book which does not think that FDR did enough:
by David S. Wyman (no photo)
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by Michael J. Neufeld (no photo)
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by Peter Novick (no photo)This book is dismissive of FDR's rationale:
by David S. Wyman (no photo)Note all books and articles mentioned in posts above have been placed in the Bibliography thread. This is the thread where they should be posted.
Only because they are an integral part of this discussion are they also posted above.
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This link also has some interesting information. Should I move it to the glossary or is it okay here?"
Thank you G - it is fine here because it is an integral part of the discussion but also place it on the glossary thread as a reference point as well. Thank you.
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Were they shocked into action?
A great quest..."
Great post Bryan - well thought out and well cited.
As I mentioned above - there are heated arguments on both sides - I think it depends what your personal belief system happens to be when determining what side of the argument you might find yourself on. It does seem they could have collectively done more; but then bombing Auschwitz may also have had fall out at the time in terms of public opinion either when it was done or even after the war and FDR was always cognizant of public opinion. Could they have bombed the crematorium without additional loss of life - that would have been hard to predict.
Wow, a lot to deal with here. First: I don't think there was foot dragging initially with the atrocities. We are talking about the most destructive, all-encompassing and deadliest war in recorded history being fought buy a guy who wanted to fight to the last man on one side, and the other side who most members had been nearly bled out by four years of brutal fighting, and the US fighting on two fronts. There was little that the Allies could do until the Germans were defeated. Second: As far as the War Crimes situation, I think there are several reasons for the initial lack of effort. First is obviously war weariness. Everyone was beaten down and worn out, strained to the limit. There was the huge shock to the enormity of the atrocities. 400,000 Hungarian Jews wiped out in less than two months is very difficult to get your head around. And lastly, this was a very new construct in international law. Atrocities have gone nearly hand-in-hand with war. From Greece, Tamerlane, Vietnam to Iraq just this weekend, horrifying actions occur, but this may have been the first attempt to punish those who commit non war-related attacks on humanity. With anything new, there will be a learning curve. Once the depth of the atrocities had been revealed, I do think Britain and the world were shocked into doing what was right. Well, except for Stalin. He was probably jealous of the Nazi's ability to take care of their "problems". From pogroms, decapitating the military hierarchy, political enemies and the Katyn Massacre, Stalin's hands were at least as bloody as the Nazis.
Bentley wrote: "There’s an entire book about the debate over FDR and FDR's administration: The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It? by Michael J. Neufeld and Michael Berenbaum — a debate amon..."Of course it was feasible, but at what purpose? Death of thousands of people who survived the horrors? Possibly to destroy evidence that it actually occurred? What would the gain be of such an attack? I may have to read this book to get a better idea of the arguments.
Mod
The meticulous precision of the Nazis...65 people per car, 45 cars per train, four trains per day...(page 163)...surely condemns them and confirms that all that happened in the camps was carefully planned and carried out with careful decision making on their part.
Mod
I agree Bentley and Brian, I now want to read more on this topic; it is very interesting.One thing comes to mind, Rudolf was pretty efficient; if the Allies bombed the crematorium, couldn't he rebuild? Maybe the materials were getting harder to find, but I'm sure the authors talk about this...
Another fact I did not know: Jews were forced to write home and to outside contacts that everything was fine. Another chilling moment.
Mod
Of course, if he was bent on continuing the killing en masse - he could have gone with the firing squad option that he sometimes used. But it might have slowed him down a great deal.
It may have saved some lives I think. But hindsight is 20/20.
Well, first of all, thanks so much for adding to my shopping spree at Amazon. I have to read all the books mentioned!After I finished these two chapters, I just had to sit quietly for a while...no matter how much I read about the Holocaust, it still fills me with horror and sadness. How can people let these things happen...
The mention of the telegram from August, 1942, (page 148) was new to me...the world knew about the atrocities being committed. Otherwise, why create a War Crimes Commission? As to the commission's "lack of ambition" in preparing for trials of war criminals, I do think they could have done more - but there was a war going on. As Brian said in his message, this was an unbelievably bloody war and the Allies had other things to deal with that required immediate attention.
It seems that I learn more about Rudolf than Hanns...perhaps because the things Rudolf does are so much more horrible. Hanns seems like a more normal person; Rudolf is a monster hiding behind a normal mask.
Mod
I know how you felt Tomi because I have felt the same way when reading this account or any account about the Holocaust.
Yes - they did Tomi and you had to know that the leaders more than likely had a heads up even before that point in time.
True - Tomi - but if they could have bombed the crematoriums and kept bombing them - it possibly might have slowed them down - but you have to wonder about the collateral damage and how targeted, selective and accurate the bombing actually could be. And of course heaven forbid if any of the inmates were killed by the bombing in spite of the Allies' attempts at trying to stop the exterminations - then there would still have been fallout. There is a saying - "No good deed goes unpunished".
These chapter are getting harder and harder to read in terms of emotional overload. I wonder if the early reports about the Holocaust received by the Allies had a similar effect, they were just so sensational that the reports were virtually unbelievable. And the dragging of feet on the Allies side for the War Criminals Investigations -- had the Allies had enough of war and just wanted it all to go away, or were they hoping that the reports were a bit exaggerated?
And the Nazi's took pictures. What did they hope to prove with these? Did they believe that they were winning and that the victor gets to write not only history but the morals of society too?
This book gives one of the strongest visuals of the atrocities present that I have ever read. I wish that we as humans could remember and not repeat this -- but unfortunately in our more recent history horrors are still occurring.
I can't say that I have enjoyed these last few chapters, but I think the book gives us an important view of ourselves as humans and our reactions to what is right. Well done to make me ponder on humanity so.
Mod
I thought that this was pertinent to our discussions and decided to add it. A guard at Auschwitz who has been living in Philadelphia has been arrested and held for an extradition hearing for deportation to Germany How do you all feel about this situation and other's like his? Should someone face imprisonment for what went on at Auschwitz if he was not involved with the gassings (if he is being truthful of course)all these years later?
My take is that he should be thoroughly investigated and held accountable if found to have been an active participant of these heinous crimes. The hard part would be proving it. Unless he was on a War Crimes list, implicated by a survivor or some other proof of abetting these activities, I don't see him being convicted. Thoughts?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/na...
Mod
I don't see him being convicted either because of American Law and the facts that a) he was only a guard b) he was a minor c) in 2003 an American court ruled he could remain here because he had enlisted in the SS at age 17 and was not legally culpable for any of the atrocities.
And I think at this point - we need to move forward rather than to be stuck in the past since we are talking about a guard who was a minor. At some point we need to talk about the zealotry of those who will not put down the sword and move forward. This guy is at the end of his life and he went through the court system in 2003 and there was a ruling made. End of story. Leave the guy alone.
Revenge never brought anybody back and he was an underaged bit player.
Mod
Discussion Topics:
It was amazing to me that the judge was investigating two kilos of dental gold sent home by an Auschwitz medic and wrote a report that concentrated on the corruption epidemic among the guards and the unauthorized killings of the Polish and Russian inmates; but implied at some point that he realized the futility of any attempts to stop the killing of the Jews - so he did not put it in his report. Did you believe the story that allegedly Rudolf stated to Morgen about how they maintained secrecy - "Jewish prisoners with good connections abroad were forced to write to their contacts saying that they were alive and that there was nothing wrong with the conditions in Auschwitz."
Did any of you wonder what became of these prisoners and if writing these letters kept them alive?
Despite the other documentation about Morgan - I wondered about his story. And why would the Germans and Hitler be so concerned that they called in the Judge to investigate corruption when there were mass murders going on right under his nose.
The lack of concern for the Jewish inmates was shocking.
How did you feel about Morgan? And his story?
Bentley wrote: "Focus on Hanns and Paul - Discussion Topics:What were your feelings about Paul (dabbling in the black market)?
And how did you feel about Hanns' treatment of Ann? Was he dangling her, was he co..."
Hanns and Paul at this point seem to be Hollywood characters cast as entertaining young men dealing with the harshness of the times.
I do not hold Paul's dabblings in the Black Market against him at all given that he sent many of these items home to his family.
I find Hanns to be subtly empathetic and thoughtful; his thoughts and worries when his father had a heart attack as his writing on pg 153 notes "Army life is hard enough as it is when you can't go home when something goes wrong it is bloody awful." In his relationship with Ann, there was a war going on, and he like all the others in the war, were sick of it. Add his unknowing status of English citizenship to the mix, and I fully do not blame him for being vague in regards to Ann.
I did find that England's lack of forthcoming about Hann's citizenship status and indecisiveness towards the Jews that had fled there to be cruel.
Part of me thinks that one thing factoring into the Allies procrastinating on war crimes investigations was the behavior of themselves. England detained Jews for a period of time as well; if any incidents of cruelty and mistreatment were revealed, did the Allies want to prosecute their own? Because if they did not, any trials would fail to have an recognition. Add to that America's internment of Japanese, and Stalin's heavy hand...I think they needed a shock and awe event to move forward.
I do believe that certain Jewish prisoners were forced to write letters about the "work camps" to allay suspicions. Remember the phrase Arbeit macht frei (Work will make you free) was placed over the gates of Auschwitz to indicate that is was a work plant and not a killing factory.
The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Heart of Darkness (other topics)The Holocaust in American Life (other topics)
The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945 (other topics)
The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It? (other topics)
FDR and the Jews (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Joseph Conrad (other topics)David S. Wyman (other topics)
Peter Novick (other topics)
Michael J. Neufeld (other topics)
David S. Wyman (other topics)
More...
For the week of June 16th - June 22nd, we are reading Chapters Ten and Eleven of Hanns and Rudolf..
The sixth week's reading assignment is:
Week Six - June 16th - June 22nd
10: Hanns, Normandy, France, 1945 and 11: Rudolf, Berlin, Germany, 1943
(148 - 169)
We will open up a thread for each week's reading. Please make sure to post in the particular thread dedicated to those specific chapters and page numbers to avoid spoilers. We will also open up supplemental threads as we did for other spotlighted books.
This book was kicked off on May 12th.
We look forward to your participation. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other noted on line booksellers do have copies of the book and shipment can be expedited. The book can also be obtained easily at your local library, local bookstore or on your Kindle. Make sure to pre-order now if you haven't already. This weekly thread will be opened up on June 16th.
There is no rush and we are thrilled to have you join us. It is never too late to get started and/or to post.
Bentley will be leading this discussion and back-up will be Assisting Moderators Jerome, Kathy and Libby.
Welcome,
~Bentley
TO ALWAYS SEE ALL WEEKS' THREADS SELECT VIEW ALL
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Notes:
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If you need help - here is a thread called the Mechanics of the Board which will show you how:
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Introduction Thread:
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Table of Contents and Syllabus
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Q&A with Thomas Harding (the author):
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Glossary
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Book as a Whole and Final Thoughts - SPOILER THREAD
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Directions on how to participate in a book offer and how to follow the t's and c's - Hanns and Rudolf - What Do I Do Next?
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