Author : Robert Edwin Herzstein
Publisher : Paragon House Publishers
Page : 584 pages
File Size : 45,46 MB
Release : 1989
Category : Fascism
ISBN :
This controversial review of history challenges accepted notions of FDR's behavior on the eve of World War II by depicting him not as a blind follower reluctant to act, but as the most cunning anti-Nazi statesman of his time.
Author : David McKean
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 48,38 MB
Release : 2021-11-09
Category : History
ISBN : 1250206987
A gripping and groundbreaking account of how all but one of FDR's ambassadors in Europe misjudged Hitler and his intentions As German tanks rolled toward Paris in late May 1940, the U.S. Ambassador to France, William Bullitt, was determined to stay put, holed up in the Chateau St. Firmin in Chantilly, his country residence. Bullitt told the president that he would neither evacuate the embassy nor his chateau, an eighteenth Renaissance manse with a wine cellar of over 18,000 bottles, even though “we have only two revolvers in this entire mission with only forty bullets.” As German forces closed in on the French capital, Bullitt wrote the president, “In case I should get blown up before I see you again, I want you to know that it has been marvelous to work for you.” As the fighting raged in France, across the English Channel, Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy wrote to his wife Rose, “The situation is more than critical. It means a terrible finish for the allies.” David McKean's Watching Darkness Fall will recount the rise of the Third Reich in Germany and the road to war from the perspective of four American diplomats in Europe who witnessed it firsthand: Joseph Kennedy, William Dodd, Breckinridge Long, and William Bullitt, who all served in key Western European capitals—London, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and Moscow—in the years prior to World War II. In many ways they were America’s first line of defense and they often communicated with the president directly, as Roosevelt's eyes and ears on the ground. Unfortunately, most of them underestimated the power and resolve of Adolf Hitler and Germany’s Third Reich. Watching Darkness Fall is a gripping new history of the years leading up to and the beginning of WWII in Europe told through the lives of five well-educated and mostly wealthy men all vying for the attention of the man in the Oval Office.
Author : Richard Breitman
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 410 pages
File Size : 16,25 MB
Release : 2013-03-19
Category : History
ISBN : 0674073673
Nearly seventy-five years after World War II, a contentious debate lingers over whether Franklin Delano Roosevelt turned his back on the Jews of Hitler's Europe. Defenders claim that FDR saved millions of potential victims by defeating Nazi Germany. Others revile him as morally indifferent and indict him for keeping America's gates closed to Jewish refugees and failing to bomb Auschwitz's gas chambers. In an extensive examination of this impassioned debate, Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman find that the president was neither savior nor bystander. In FDR and the Jews, they draw upon many new primary sources to offer an intriguing portrait of a consummate politician-compassionate but also pragmatic-struggling with opposing priorities under perilous conditions. For most of his presidency Roosevelt indeed did little to aid the imperiled Jews of Europe. He put domestic policy priorities ahead of helping Jews and deferred to others' fears of an anti-Semitic backlash. Yet he also acted decisively at times to rescue Jews, often withstanding contrary pressures from his advisers and the American public. Even Jewish citizens who petitioned the president could not agree on how best to aid their co-religionists abroad. Though his actions may seem inadequate in retrospect, the authors bring to light a concerned leader whose efforts on behalf of Jews were far greater than those of any other world figure. His moral position was tempered by the political realities of depression and war, a conflict all too familiar to American politicians in the twenty-first century.
Author : Wolfgang Schivelbusch
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 47,89 MB
Release : 2007-04-01
Category : History
ISBN : 1429900873
From a world-renowned cultural historian, an original look at the hidden commonalities among Fascism, Nazism, and the New Deal Today Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal is regarded as the democratic ideal, the positive American response to an economic crisis that propelled Germany and Italy toward Fascism. Yet in the 1930s, shocking as it may seem, these regimes were hardly considered antithetical. Now, Wolfgang Schivelbusch investigates the shared elements of these three "new deals" to offer a striking explanation for the popularity of Europe's totalitarian systems. Returning to the Depression, Schivelbusch traces the emergence of a new type of state: bolstered by mass propaganda, led by a charismatic figure, and projecting stability and power. He uncovers stunning similarities among the three regimes: the symbolic importance of gigantic public works programs like the TVA dams and the German autobahn, which not only put people back to work but embodied the state's authority; the seductive persuasiveness of Roosevelt's fireside chats and Mussolini's radio talks; the vogue for monumental architecture stamped on Washington, as on Berlin; and the omnipresent banners enlisting citizens as loyal followers of the state. Far from equating Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mussolini or minimizing their acute differences, Schivelbusch proposes that the populist and paternalist qualities common to their states hold the key to the puzzling allegiance once granted to Europe's most tyrannical regimes.
Author : James P. Duffy
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 41,68 MB
Release : 2010-09-27
Category : History
ISBN : 1596981679
Was aviation pioneer and popular American hero Charles A. Lindbergh a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite? Or was he the target of a vicious personal vendetta by President Roosevelt? In Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt, author James Duffy tackles these questions head-on, by examining the conflicting personalities, aspirations, and actions of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charles A. Lindbergh. Painting a politically incorrect portrait of both men, Duffy shows how the hostility between these two American giants divided the nation on both domestic and international affairs. From cancelling U.S. air mail contracts to intervening in World War II, Lindberg and Roosevelt’s clash of ideas and opinions shaped the nation’s policies here and abroad. Insightful, and engaging, Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt reveals the untold story about two of history’s most controversial men, and how the White House waged a smear campaign against Lindbergh that blighted his reputation forever.
Author : Friedrich Engelbert Schuler
Publisher : UNM Press
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 23,30 MB
Release : 1998
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780826321602
Mexico's relationship with the world during the 1930s is revealed as a fascinating series of calculated responses to domestic political changes and international economic shifts.
Author : Michael R. Beschloss
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 420 pages
File Size : 47,71 MB
Release : 2003-10-07
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780743244541
As Allied soldiers fought the Nazis, Franklin Roosevelt and, later, Harry Truman fought in private with Churchill and Stalin over how to ensure that Germany could never threaten the world again.
Author : Rafael Medoff
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 497 pages
File Size : 34,51 MB
Release : 2019-01-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0827618301
Based on recently discovered documents, The Jews Should Keep Quiet reassesses the hows and whys behind the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration's fateful policies during the Holocaust. Rafael Medoff delves into difficult truths: With FDR's consent, the administration deliberately suppressed European immigration far below the limits set by U.S. law. His administration also refused to admit Jewish refugees to the U.S. Virgin Islands, dismissed proposals to use empty Liberty ships returning from Europe to carry refugees, and rejected pleas to drop bombs on the railways leading to Auschwitz, even while American planes were bombing targets only a few miles away--actions that would not have conflicted with the larger goal of winning the war. What motivated FDR? Medoff explores the sensitive question of the president's private sentiments toward Jews. Unmasking strong parallels between Roosevelt's statements regarding Jews and Asians, he connects the administration's policies of excluding Jewish refugees and interning Japanese Americans. The Jews Should Keep Quiet further reveals how FDR's personal relationship with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, American Jewry's foremost leader in the 1930s and 1940s, swayed the U.S. response to the Holocaust. Documenting how Roosevelt and others pressured Wise to stifle American Jewish criticism of FDR's policies, Medoff chronicles how and why the American Jewish community largely fell in line with Wise. Ultimately Medoff weighs the administration's realistic options for rescue action, which, if taken, would have saved many lives.
Author : Vance Stewart
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,76 MB
Release : 2002-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9781632934857
The Second World War was caused by one man--Adolph Hitler. This tormented personality brought death and destruction over most of the world. Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin were called on by history to stop this menace.In this book, which includes new material, the background, attitude and personalities of these men are explored in detail: Hitler, the penniless artist of 25 in Vienna; Churchill, the young prisoner of war in South Africa; Roosevelt, stricken and crippled by polio in the prime of his life; and Stalin the seminarian of fourteen studying for the priesthood.By his attack on Poland in September 1939, Hitler brought Churchill against him. Stopped by Churchill and the R.A.F., Hitler moved east to strike Stalin and the Red Army. Not satisfied, he then took on Roosevelt, the leader of the largest industrial power in the world. In spite of all this Hitler, backed by the strongest armed forces of any country in the history of the world, came close to winning. This book tells the story of these incredible events.
Author : Steven Casey
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 28,91 MB
Release : 2001-11-15
Category : History
ISBN : 0199881502
America's struggle against Nazism is one of the few aspects of World War II that has escaped controversy. Historians agree that it was a widely popular war, different from the subsequent conflicts in Korea and Vietnam because of the absence of partisan sniping, ebbing morale, or calls for a negotiated peace. In this provocative book, Steven Casey challenges conventional wisdom about America's participation in World War II. Drawing on the numerous opinion polls and surveys conducted by the U.S. government, he traces the development of elite and mass attitudes toward Germany, from the early days of the war up to its conclusion. Casey persuasively argues that the president and the public rarely saw eye to eye on the nature of the enemy, the threat it posed, or the best methods for countering it. He describes the extensive propaganda campaign that Roosevelt designed to build support for the war effort, and shows that Roosevelt had to take public opinion into account when formulating a host of policies, from the Allied bombing campaign to the Morgenthau plan to pastoralize the Third Reich. By examining the previously unrecognized relationship between public opinion and policy making during World War II, Casey's groundbreaking book sheds new light on a crucial era in American history.
