U.S. BRANDS AS FALSE NAZI DOCUMENTS CHARGING WE FOSTERED WAR IN EUROPE (3/30/40)

Microfiche-New York Times archives, Cabrillo College Library | 3/30/40 | Bertram D. Hulen

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Evolution of Plan Yellow, October 1939-January 1940
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941 – The Imperial Powers, 1 September 1939

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm

[Homer_J_Simpson]

‘Propaganda’ Seen – 2-3
Gen. Gamelin Visits Canadian Regiments – 3
The International Situation – 3
Berlin Accuses Us – 4-5

[ohioman]

The anti-American press today would be siding with the Germans.

[abb]

http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/mar40/f30mar40.htm

Respected politician governs for Japanese
Saturday, March 30, 1940 www.onwar.com

Wang Ching-weiIn China... A Japanese-sponsored Chinese government is established in Nanking. The Japanese have been able to persuade Wang Ching-wei, formerly a respected Nationalist politician, to lead this body.

[abb]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/30.htm

March 30th, 1940

UNITED KINGDOM: In a broadcast, Churchill says that Britain has no quarrel with the Russians but vows to “follow this war wherever it leads.”

IRAQ:Habbaniya airfield: Shortly before sunrise, Hugh MacPhail took off with his co-pilot, Flg Off Burton, and two RAF photographers who were detailed to take additional photographs of the target zone using hand held cameras. They flew over the Iranian plateau and came out over the Caspian Sea near Resht. After they had been flying for an hour, the outlines of the Baku Peninsula, a vast oil-rich industrial area, appeared below them wreathed in clouds of smoke. For an entire hour MacPhail circled the target at an altitude of 23,000 feet. The Lockheed flew over the Soviet oil supply centre six times, unmolested either by fighter planes and anti-aircraft artillery, and took dozens of photographs. That afternoon they were back in Habbaniya after the ten hour mission.

GERMANY: Hitler publicly orders priority to be given to transporting arms to Russia, while privately planning to attack the USSR next year.

CHINA: Nanking: A breakaway group of Chinese Nationalists led by the expelled foreign minister, Wang Ching-wei, today established a rival Kuomintang in Japanese-occupied Nanking. The Reformed Kuomintang gained immediate recognition from Japan, Germany and Italy, but none from the Allies. The new government has agreed to Japanese troops remaining in China. Persuading a politician of Wang Ching-wei’s stature to lead the new government is a propaganda coup for Japan, which has now dissolved its two much ridiculed puppet governments in China and placed them under his control.

U.S.A.: Washington: The US refuses to recognise the Japanese regime in Nanking.

[abb]

http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/

Day 212 March 30, 1940
To foil Prime Minister Reynaud’s aggressive plans, French Minister of Defense Édouard Daladier (and ex-PM) persuades the French War Committee not to ratify British plans to lay mines in the River Rhine (Operation Royal Marine). The British respond by threatening to suspend the laying of mines in Norwegian coastal waters (Operation Wilfred).

Japan, under pressure to hold onto conquered territories in China, establishes a puppet government for China under the leadership of Wang Jingwei. The Government of National Salvation of the collaborationist “Republic of China”, based in Nanking, is based on the Three Principles of pan-Asianism, anti-Communism, and opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. Wang will maintain contact with German and Italian officials, an attempt to link China with The Tripartite Pact between Japan, Germany and Italy.

[BroJoeK]

"The anti-American press today would be siding with the Germans."

Indeed.
And note how the article keeps mentioning Ambassador Kennedy, however tangentially.
Kennedy was strongly opposed to FDR's efforts to support the allies or prepare for war.

But it strikes me as odd that Nazi propaganda, even this early in the war, already claims America intends to enter it on the side of the allies.

Question: did Nazis actually believe their own propaganda?
If they did, don't you suppose it would give them reason for pause -- do they really want to invade all of Europe, if it means the US will enter the war against them?

And note that Roosevelt doesn't really deny the basic charge -- only says it must be taken with "three grains of salt."
FDR knew the US was not yet ready for war, but he was working hard to make it so.

Keep this in mind when the question arises: why did Hitler declare war on the US in December 1941?
Answer: because in Hitler's mind war with the US was always inevitable, it was only a matter of when, and December 1941 seemed like a good time to declare it.

We see that already in Nazi propaganda of March 1940, imho.

[magslinger]

Then, as now, the left was blaming the US for all wars.Yes, I mean the National SOCIALISTS are leftists.

[PzLdr]

By the end of 1941, Hitler had more than enough reason to believe war with America was inevitable. And the Germans were correct in their assumptions in the article.

Take a look at 1940. Destroyers for bases [incidentally relieving the Brits of garrisoning those bases]], lend lease, dividing the Atlantic with the Brits into two defense zones, convoying ships for Britain in the U.S zone, tracking and radioing U-boat positions to the Brits, depth charging German U-boats. The last four [at least] made the U.S a co-belligerent under international law]. And the co-pilot of the British PBY that spotted BISMARCK on the 26th of May had an American co-pilot.

By the time in 1941 German U-boats sank at least one U.S destroyer, the REUBEN JAMES [and maybe two or three], while they were engaged in anti-submarine ops, there was no great outrage in the U.S populace, because what was happening in the North Atlantic was common knowledge. Raeder had been urging Hitler to declare war for over a year by then.

[henkster]

That’s exactly what I thought when I read the story. Today, there is no way that the Slimes brands this as “Nazi Propaganda” or today “Moslem Propaganda.”

Our national institutions have been hijacked by the enemy.

[BroJoeK]

"By the end of 1941, Hitler had more than enough reason to believe war with America was inevitable. And the Germans were correct in their assumptions in the article."

Agreed.
The Roosevelt administration denied details of today's report, but not it's basic idea -- that the US would eventually come to the allies' side.

So the US claim of "neutrality" was a technicality at best, but one in which Hitler to some extent participated -- i.e., by ordering his U-boat commanders not to sink American ships.

Still, it's obvious from "today's" Nazi propaganda that they don't believe this technicality will remain in effect forever.
Even in early 1940, Nazis considered the US, if not an immediate enemy, a certain future one.

And all of this well before Hitler has invaded Scandinavia, or Western & Southern Europe, Russia, the Baltics or Africa.

So my question remains: why did the thought of eventually going to war against the US (and Russia!) not give the Nazis pause to think before embarking on their conquests?

[Homer_J_Simpson]

So my question remains: why did the thought of eventually going to war against the US (and Russia!) not give the Nazis pause to think before embarking on their conquests?

Hitler had a screw loose?

[C19fan]

Did Howard Zinn use these Nazi documents in his book because he makes the same exact charge????

[Ditto]

Hitler had a screw loose?

He thought Americans were a race of mongrels who could not stand up to his Ayran Supermen. Here's one of his quotes.

don't see much future for the Americans... It's a decayed country. And they have their racial problem, and the problem of social inequalities... My feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance... Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it's half Judaized, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together?

[CougarGA7]

If there even were any doubts by Hitler that he would have to fight the United States, the last shreds of it were cast aside on December 4th 1941 when the Chicago Tribune leaked the Rainbow 5 War Plan. In the article it specifically lays out the “Germany First” plan to defeating the Axis powers, with an emphasis on containing Japan until this is accomplished. This leak would likely have grown into a scandal had the Japanese not attack a mere 3 days later.

Hitler though saw what the plan said and I feel that is what prompted him to declare war on the 11th. This was a great error on his part because he was under no obligation to do so and had he not, the United States probably could not have declared war on Germany. The isolationists were still strong enough, despite the Japanese attack to for FDR to declare war on Japan only. It is one of the reasons there is no mention of Germany in his Day of Infamy speech. If FDR felt he could tie all of this together, I’m certain there would have been at least some reference to “Axis” powers in that speech.

[Cheburashka]

But it strikes me as odd that Nazi propaganda, even this early in the war, already claims America intends to enter it on the side of the allies.

---

Hitler wrote a second book after Mein Kampf, which was never published, and was discovered after the war during the Allied occupation of Germany. My understanding is that Hitler believed that the “final struggle” of the war would be between the Third Reich and the United States of America, “a mongrel nation”. Not having actually read the book I cannot personally vouch for the accuracy of that information. But is is possible that Hitler was expecting a confrontation with the U.S., and that is why he so lightly declared war on the U.S. on December 11, 1941, days after Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. His alliance with Japan was defensive only, and did not require him to join Japan's offensive war.

[ohioman]

Sad but true. This only weakens the country.

[henkster]

Well Hitler did have a screw loose, and became more loose with the passage of time. And he did look down on Americans as a “degenerate” nation, for all his various bizarre notions of race, etc...

He also discounted the extent of our industrial capacity, and ability to mobilize and project that power into Europe.

But in the end, I think his final calculations were skewed by being a victim of his own success. When he declared war on the United States, he had quickly conquered Poland, Scandinavia, the Low Countries and France. Britain was expelled from the Continent and isolated. The Wehrmacht was in sight of the Kremlin (the Soviet Counter-Offensive, from which the Wehrmacht would never fully recover, had only just begun).

Hitler thought at the time he was unbeatable.