As I said I am going by memory now many years later but I seem to remember reading that he rendered written reports on the state of the LUFTWAFFE. Did he not befriend Ernst Udet, famed ace of the First War and report on his conversations? I think Udet was, before his suicide, a player in the reorganization of the air arm after the war. Wasn't he also featured in THE LATE WALDO PEPPER? I understand that these reports were quite insightful and it was this intelligence which led him to believe the Europeans could not defeat the Nazis. But, as I said, I am willing to be educated to the contrary.
So what do we have? We have a person who was, from all the evidence, quite taken with Hitler's Germany - so much so that he at one time considered moving
But he did not move there. He moved many places in exile after his son was murdered as long as it was away from the American press. Who can blame him? He lived for a time in England and, I think, France but he chose not to live in Hitler's Germany. Nor did he live in post war Germany to be near his mistress.
and accepted a decoration from Herman Göring.
I have more than once posted that historical characters should be judged on what they knew or reasonably should have known. To judge them in hindsight is simply not fair. This is the position Churchill took and he of all men ought to have been able to take the contrary position. Göring was an authentic hero of the Luftwaffe in the First War. Lindberg was an authentic hero. It was natural that he would be honored in turn by Germany after virtually every other country on earth had honored him. Was he accepting the medal from Göring, the Nazi party, or the German nation? When your man FDR feted, toasted, flattered, smoozed and untimately bent over for Stalin was he pandering to a bank robber, a mass murderer, a chief of state, an ally or the representative of the Soviet Union? At the time FDR was fawning over one of one of the most virulent mass murderers in human history, did he know that Stalin had exterminated up to twenty million Kulaks? Of course he did. He had access to intelligence data available to the President of the United States, data to which Lindberg never had access to regarding Hitler, much less Göring. You expect Lindberg to be clairvoyant and anticipate a halocaust which lay in the future while you apparently excuse FDR's blindness to past and present butchery. Ah, but you no doubt will say that the Nazis were anti-semitic and that is a special kind of evil from which honorable men should recoil. And so they should. But the the Kulaks are just as dead even though they were murdered not for their race or religion but for their independence. They recently built a monument to FDR. But judging these two men according to the knowledge which can fairly be imputed to them at the time, they ought to melt it down and use the material for a monument to Lindberg.
Who fought tooth and nail, to keep America from fighting the Nazi regime
Again men must be judged on facts of the time. Lindberg openly stated his opposition to being sucked into a European war at great cost and to no end. FDR pretended to the electorate that he opposed being sucked into a European war a great cost. He was lying. Lindberg was not. When Pearl Harbor, or rather Hitler's declaration of war against America, made clear that America, like it or not, was in a European war, Lindberg moved heaven and earth to serve his country. FDR vindictively attempted to frustrate him, but, in the end, Lindberg, flying as a civilian, heroically served his country. He fought zeros and I belive has some kills to his credit. He acted as test pilot. He pioneered the concept of disposable fuel tanks thus extending the range of our fighters and helped win the war in the Pacific. Whatever cloud hangs over Lindberg before the war was utterly dispelled by his service in the war.
Finally, I still see no evidence in your materials to support your assertion that Lindberg was a "Hitler - worshiper."
So he did. But not as a spy. His first visits to Germany was as an official observer for the us armed forces. And he crafted his reports in a way calculated to put America off any notion of going to war with Germany.
The "spy" legend seems to be strictly that: a legend designed to give him stature (an effort that seems to have been at the center of his life during the thirties, and which was unremittingly plowed back into propaganda work for the "America First" party).
He lived for a time in England and, I think, France but he chose not to live in Hitler's Germany
Only because of the war. Awfully inconvenient to live where American bombs would be falling, you know ;).
It was natural that he would be honored in turn by Germany after virtually every other country on earth had honored him.
Yeah, sure. The personal friend of Joseph Gõbbels, who got this mention in Göbbels's diary:
"Lindbergh has written a really spirited letter to Roosevelt. He is the president's toughest opponent. He asked us not to give him too much prominence, since this could harm him. We have proceeded accordingly."
When your man FDR feted
Ah. Now we're getting somewhere ;). You're not exactly too kindly disposed towards Roosevelt, are you? You wouldn't be one of those who like to call him Rosenfeld, by any chance?
Lindberg moved heaven and earth to serve his country.
Such a long and spirited rant in defense of this "hero". Lindbergh served as a civilian test pilot, and never lifted arms against Germans. He saw combat against Japanese aircraft, which was, strictly speaking, not something he was supposed to see. Still, it probably didn't do any harm because even if "flying freelance" he wouldn't have had access to any sensitive data (which he might well have had if he'd been let back into the armed forces).
Finally, I still see no evidence in your materials to support your assertion that Lindberg was a "Hitler - worshiper."
All I can say to that is "nuts". And offer up the real Lindbergh:
From an article for "Reader's Digest:
"Aviation is a tool especially shaped for Western hands, a scientific art which others only copy in a mediocre fashion; another barrier between the teeming millions of Asia and the Grecian inheritance of Europe -- one of the priceless possessions which permit the White race to live at all in a sea of Yellow, Black and Brown...
We can have peace and security only as long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against attack by foreign armies and dilution by foreign races."
From a speech in Des Moines, Iowa (where the public seems to have run him off):
"The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Administration.Instead of agitating for war, Jews in this country should be opposing it in every way, for they will be the first to feel its consequences. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government."
There is much more.
Now we have seen Lindbergh as adulterer, if not bigamist. Look for research on the Lindbergh kidnapping case to hit mainstream news in the near future. You have a surprise or two coming your way.