Beyond Belief (57 page)

16
.
Literary Digest
, August 14, 1937, p. 17.

17
. “Hitler Speaks and the Bund Obeys,”
Look
, October 10, 1938; McKale, p. 141; Diamond, pp. 286, 306; German Embassy to Foreign Ministry, December 20, 1937,
DGFP
, Series D, I, pp. 642, 659, 661, 696.

18
. Diamond, p. 310; Dies to Roosevelt, August 15, 1942; J. Edgar Hoover to the Attorney General, August 17, 1942, Dies file, 10B, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.
Nation
, October 15, 1938, p. 366; William E. Leuchtenberg,
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal 1932-1940
, (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 280-281; Frye, pp. 140-151;
DGFP
, series D, IX, pp. 625-626.
Providence
(Rhode Island)
Bulletin
, n.d., 1940, by American correspondent of London's
New Statesman and Nation
, in American Jewish Committee clipping file, no. 189, YIVO Institute, New York. The quotation of the U.S. Attorney is from Leon G. Turrou,
Nazi Spies in America
(New York: Random House, 1938), p. 285.

19
. Dieckhoff to Weizsacker, November 8, 1938,
DGFP
, series D, I, p. 368; McKale, p. 143. For the speeches of rally leaders see
Six Addresses on the Aims and Purposes of the German American Bund, Madison Square Garden, February 20, 1939
(New York, 1939), as cited in Diamond, p. 326;
New York Times
, February 21, 1939, p. 1. For reports from German officials to Berlin regarding the rally, see Borches to Berlin, February 27, 1939,
DGFP
, series D, IV, pp. 675-678; Frye, p. 91.

20
.
The Nation
called the meeting a “disgusting exhibition.”
Nation
, March 4, 1939, April 1, 1939, pp. 374-375;
New York Times
, February 26, 1939;
Saturday Evening Post
, May 27, 1939, p. 7; Diamond, p. 328. For additional press reports on Bund activities see citations from the
Baltimore Sun, Cincinnati Times Star, Boston Herald, Atlanta Constitution, Springfield
(Massachusetts)
Union, New York Post
, and
St. Joseph News Press
in
Contemporary Jewish Record
, March-April 1939, p. 54ff. For a lengthy bibliography of materials on the Bund and other fifth-column groups see Thomas Huntington, “The Trojan Horse Bibliography,”
Bulletin of the New York Public Library
, vol. 44 (October 1940), pp. 741-744.

21
. Diamond, p. 306;
New York Times
, November 27, 1940.

22
. David S. Wyman,
Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1968), pp. 185-186; Leuchtenberg, p. 300.

23
. Conference on National Defense, May 30, 1940, Roosevelt Press Conferences, vol. XV, 420-21, as cited in Richard Polenberg,
One Nation Divisible: Class, Race and Ethnicity in the United States Since 1938
(New York: Penguin, 1980), p. 43.

24
. J. Edgar Hoover, “Enemies Within,”
American Magazine
, August 1940, pp. 18-19, 143-145.

25
.
American Magazine
, September 1940, p. 44ff., November 1940, p. 16ff., December 1940, p. 24ff., April 1941, pp. 14-15, 120-121.

26
.
New York World Telegram
, June 4-13, 1940;
Pittsburgh Press
, June 3-4, 1940;
New York Post
, September 16-21, 1940;
New York Journal American
, September 22-30, 1940.

27
. A series by Bruce Catton of NEA Service, Inc., published in
New York World Telegram
, November 27, 28, 29, 1940. A gauge of the panic spreading in America was this statement by Attorney General Frank Murphy in September 1940: “Unless we are pudding headed we will drive from the land the hirelings here to undo the labors of our Fathers.” It is particularly noteworthy that Murphy would make such a statement, since he was considered a strong supporter of civil liberties. J. Woodford Howard,
Mr. Justice Murphy
(Princeton, 1968), p. 207, as quoted in Richard Polenberg,
One Nation Divisible: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States Since 1938
, (New York: Penguin, 1980), p. 44. The State Department was voicing similar arguments: see
FRUS
, 1940, vol. II, p. 242ff.

28
. “The Five Columns and Mrs. Crowley,”
America
, July 6, 1940, pp. 345-346; “What the Nazis Want Us to Believe,”
America
, September 14, 1940, p. 623; “Hunting for Hitlers Can Become a Mania,”
America
, September 21, 1940, p. 651.

29
. “America vs. Fifth Columnists: A Symposium,”
Survey Graphic
, November 1940, pp. 545-550.

30
. J. Edgar Hoover, “Big Scare,”
American Magazine
, August 1941, p. 24ff.

31
.
McCall's
, November 1940, reprinted in
La Notizia
, November 22, 1940.

32
.
Fortune
, July 1940, insert, as cited in Wyman, p. 185;
New York World Telegram
, June 4-13, 1940;
New York Mirror
, July 3, 1940;
New York Herald Tribune
, July 6, 1940;
New York Journal American
, September 30, 1940.

33
. “Is There a Führer in the House?”
New Republic
, August 12, 1940, pp. 212-213; Heywood Broun, “I Can Hear You Plainly,”
New Republic
, October 10, 1939. Coughlin was known to use Nazi materials for his broadcasts. A six—page illustrated article in
Look
in September 1939 argued that Coughlin not only parroted Nazi preachings but was intimately connected with Kuhn and the Bund. The article was written by William Mueller, who was identified by
Look
as an “investigator—journalist, authority on the German-American Bund, and a Catholic.” “Father Coughlin and the Nazi Bund,”
Look
, September 26, 1939;
Public Opinion Quarterly
, October 1939, p. 604; Charles Herbert Stember et al.,
Jews in the Mind of America
(New York: Basic Books, 1966), pp. 127-128.

34
. Donald Drummond,
The Passing of American Neutrality
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1955), pp. 372-376.

35
. “Who Is the Fifth Column?”
Survey Graphic
, October 1940, pp. 503-508;
Nation
, June 22, 1940, pp. 745-746, June 29, 1940, July 27, 1940, p. 73, August 24, 1940, p. 153, August 31, 1940, pp. 103-104; Polenberg, p. 42;
Congressional Record
, 76th Cong., 3d sess., 76,
part I
, 680 part 6, 6773.

36
.
New York Herald Tribune
, October 10, 1940, p. 24.

37
.
Saturday Evening Post
, May 29, 1941, pp. 12, 89; Wyman, p. 190.

38
.
Life
, June 17, 1940.

39
.
Los Angeles Times
, September 15, 1941.

40
. Edwin James, as cited in
Milwaukee Journal
, April 25, 1940. For similar attitudes
see Augusta
(Maine)
Kennebec Journal
, April 25, 1940;
Tulsa
(Oklahoma)
World
, April 25, 1940;
Springfield
(Illinois)
Journal
, March 19, 1941.

41
. Heinz Pol, “Spies Among Refugees?”
New Republic
, August 31, 1940, p. 167.

42
.
New York Journal American
, September 23, 1940; “What Is the Fifth Column?”
Survey Graphic
, October 1940, pp. 503-508.

43
.
Congressional Record
, 76th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 84, part 10, 10455-10456;
Congressional Record
, 76th Cong., 3d sess., vol. 87, part 8, 8347, 9036; Wyman, pp. 185-190, 269;
New York Journal American
, May 23, 1940;
Nation
, July 5, 1941, p. 3, July 19, 1941, p. 45.

44
.
Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States: Hearings Before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives
, 77th Cong., 1st sess., part 14, 8481, 8489-8490; Wyman, p. 191;
Dayton Journal
, February 27, 1941.

45
.
New York Herald Tribune
, June 19, 1941;
Philadelphia Bulletin
, June 19, 1941.

46
.
New York Journal American
, June 28, 1941 (emphasis added).

47
.
Philadelphia Record
, June 19, 1941.

48
. The headlines accompanying the story generally reinforced the State Department's charge.
The Washington Post:

U.S. BARS REFUGEES NAZIS CAN COERCE

Acts to End Espionage Forced by Threats to Torture Relatives

The
Post
, by using the phrase “end espionage” in its headline, made it appear as if the State Department acted because of actual cases of refugees spying and not because it wanted to prevent a potential problem from being realized. The
Washington Times Herald
did a somewhat similar thing:

REFUGEES TERRORIZED INTO SPYING

FOR GERMANY TO SAVE KIN, CHARGE

The
Philadelphia Inquirer
used refugees and spies as synonymous terms:

STATE DEPARTMENT ACTS TO BAR ENTRY OF FOREIGN AGENTS

The
Baltimore Sun's
headline was more reserved. It described the move as a “precaution” against espionage and sabotage.
Washington Post
, June 19, 1941;
Washington Times Herald
, June 19, 1941;
Philadelphia Inquirer
, June 19, 1941;
Baltimore Sun
, June 19, June 20, 1941.

49
.
Nation
, July 19, 1941, p. 45.

50
.
New Republic
, August 19, 1941, p. 208;
PM
, February 11, 1941. Some journals showed far greater sympathy for political refugees than they did for “racial” or “religious” refugees, particularly if they were Jews.
Christian Century
, which even in the immediate aftermath of
Kristallnacht
stood firmly against increased immigration of Jews to the United States, came out strongly in favor of the entry of British children and the immigration of “Spanish and German
political
refugees.”
Christian Century
, November 30, 1938, June 3, August 21, 1940, February 5, 1941.

51
.
Fortune
, July 1940, insert; William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason,
The Challenge to Isolation, 1937-1940
(New York: Harper & Row and Council on Foreign Relations, 1952), p. 51; Frye, pp. 31, 140-144.

52
. Dieckhoff, March 10, 1941,
DGFP
, series D, XII, pp. 258-259; Thorn-sen to Berlin, May 4, 1940,
DGFP
, series D, IX, p. 282. See also Thomsen to Berlin, September 18, 1939,
DGFP
, series D, VIII, p. 89, and May 22, 1940,
DGFP
, series D, IX, p. 410. For earlier reports of German sensitivity to German-American Bund activities and American public opinion see Dieckhoff to Berlin, June 2, 1938,
DGFP
, series D, I, p. 454ff., and Dieckhoff to State Secretary Weisz-acker, November 8, 1938,
DGFP
, series D, IV, p. 638; Frye, p. 156.

53
. Frye, p. 156.

1
. The book which propelled both the discussion of American policy during the war and the question of “When did they know?” into the public arena was Arthur Morse's
While Six Million Died
(New York: Hart Publishing, 1967). Yehuda Bauer took issue with Morse's contention that the information was kept from Wise in “When Did
They Know?”
Midstream
, April 1968, pp. 51-58. Most recently the question of the “secrecy” of the Holocaust has been examined in Walter Laqueur's
The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth About Hitler's “Final Solution”
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1980).

2
. Martin Gilbert,
Auschwitz and the Allies
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981).

3
.
Saturday Evening Post
, April 5, 1941, p. 12;
Illustrated
, February 15, 1941;
Collier's
, February 27, 1943, p. 29ff.;
New York Times
, October 30, 1941. In February 1942 German editors were told not to report on the “Jewish question” in Eastern Europe. They were also not to even reprint official communiqués which had already been published in newspapers in occupied territories.
Zeitschriftendienst
, February 27, 1942, as cited in Laqueur, p. 215. Although the Germans devoted an overwhelming percent of their propaganda activities to making antisemitic charges, they assiduously tried to prevent mention of the issue of the
Endlösung
, or Final Solution. Michael Balfour,
Propaganda in War, 1939-1945: Organizations, Policies and Publics in Britain and Germany
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 302.

4
. Interview with Percy Knauth, February 18, 1985.

5
.
New York Times
, October 24, 1941;
Washington Star
, October 23, 1941.

6
. George Creel, “Beware the Superpatriots,”
American Mercury
, September 1940, pp. 33-41;
Time
, September 18, 1939, p. 59;
Peoria Journal Transcript
, March 9, 1940.

7
. Harold Lavine and James Wechsler,
War Propaganda in the United States
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), pp. 241-243, 270.