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Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War Hardcover – January 1, 1989

by Robert Edwin Herzstein (Author)

4.5 9 ratings

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This absorbing history of America on the eve of World War II offers a bold reassessment of the forces that led to American engagement. Robert Herzstein presents dramatic and compelling evidence that Franklin D. Roosevelt was an early, decisive, and masterful opponent of Hitler, who foresaw the true extent of the Nazi threat, both at home and abroad, and waged a brilliant battle against German propaganda. Using documents culled from Nazi archives and from information seized by the U.S. Department of Justice, Herzstein shows that extensive pro-Nazi activities in pre-war America were supported by the Nazi government. He paints a vivid portrait of Roosevelt working relentlessly to immobilize domestic fascists and anti-Semites and to alert a sleeping nation to the Nazi peril. The compelling narrative is supplemented with more than 50 illustrations - including shocking German propaganda posters published in the United States.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a study that provides a new perspective on U.S. policy toward Nazi Germany, Herzstein ( The War That Hitler Won ) argues that one of President Roosevelt's major accomplishments was the political castration of American anti-Semites, fascists and far-righters during the 1930s. He managed this, according to the author, by convincing the public that these factions represented a Trojan horse introduced by the Nazis. The book brings into focus the strength of anti-Semitism during the pre-war years and explains how it was exploited by such groups and individuals as the German-American Bund and "radio priest" Charles Coughlin. Herzstein writes that FDR, fearing congressional reaction and anti-Semitic backlash, may have been guilty of "timidity and even cowardice" in denying sanctuary to Jewish refugees, but he also contends that the president earned an exalted place in history as "the most purposeful and consequential" of the anti-Nazi statesmen. The excluded refugees, according to the persuasive evidence presented here, were tragic pawns sacrified to a grand strategy that ensured American hegemony in a world free of National Socialism. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The numbers are in: Michael and Jessica are the most popular baby names in North America. Using birth records from the United States and Canada to establish a frequency of occurrence standard, the author has compiled a list of the 100 most popular names overall and by geographic region. The title is misleading, since meanings and popularity ratings are given for only 3000 names. The remaining 47,000 make up the list of unusual (less frequently occurring) names. Many of these are simply variant or phonetic spellings of popular names, or combinations (Sean Michael) of names. Parents looking for a unique name or unusual spelling may find the book helpful. Those looking for a comprehensive list of names accompanied by origin and meaning will be satisfied with a less ambitious source.
- Marlene M. Kuhl, Baltimore Cty. P.L.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Paragon House (January 1, 1989)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 500 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1557780218
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1557780218
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #210,186 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #328 in German History (Books)
- #3,975 in Military History (Books)
- #5,093 in United States History (Books)

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Mark Mason

A Compelling Read

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2013

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I often checked this book out of the library when I was younger, fascinated with the rise of fascist and Nazi-inspired demagogues/organizations in the United States in the 1930s and the resistance to them, and bought this book recently to relive the very in-depth, scholarly but lively prose of Herzstein. It's a book that helped inspire my admiration of FDR and his place in history, and I highly recommend it.

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Thomas Dunskus

FDR, the blind president

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2018

A potential reader of this book should keep in mind that the outcome of WW2, on the European theater, was a catastrophy for Britain and a highly problematic situation for the Western powers as a whole: the Red Army stood a stone's throw from the North Sea, the Communist party in France, in the 1947 elections, received 30 percent of the votes cast, the Soviet Union, in 1948, reached for Berlin and but for the allied air-lift would have walked away with it. By 1955, West Germany had surpassed Britain in foreign trade and Germans had to be recruited to keep the Red Army at bay. Furthermore, Poland and Czechoslovakia - for whose independence the UK and France had gone to war in the first place, back in 1939 - had been handed to the Soviet Union on a silver platter. It would take the rest of the 20th century to set things right, more or less.

This unexpected and somewhat disappointing outcome of the war meant that Germany as a whole and Hitler's Third Reich in particular had to be depicted in the most ugly manner, with German crimes overshadowing everything else. Furthermore, a policy of re-education had to be imposed on the German people in order to allow them to be reintegrated into the society of free nations, but that policy resulted in such a weakening of the German self-esteem that, at the present moment, there is a serious risk of the country collapsing under the load of "asylum seekers" with the center of Europe becoming a mirror image of the Middle East which may well carry the remainder of Europe into an abyss. Obviously, this situation was unforeseeble when Herzstein wrote his book, back in 1989, but it should be remembered by anyone trying to understand the history of the 20th century.

Herzstein tells us that FDR, who became president at the same time Hitler was nominated Reich Chancellor, considered Germany and Hitler to be enemies of the USA that would have to be defeated, but the author does not really explain why FDR felt that way. Obviously, people will point to Hitler's antisemitism, but then it would have been necessary for the US to go to war against Poland ten years earlier because, in that country, anti-Jewish feeling was much stronger and more wide-spread than it was in pre-war Germany. For example Jozef Beck, Polish foreign minister in the 1930s, states in his book "Dernier Rapport" - published in 1951, after his death - that, for various reasons, Jews had no place in a modern country like Poland; he initiated talks with Paris in an effort to settle the Polish Jews on the island of Madagascar, then a French colony. In the decade before WW2, hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews left the country, most of them by way of Germany.

On the other hand, the relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans is described in these words by Yehuda Bauer in his book "Rethinking the Holocaust" (p. 30 et seq.): "Kershaw's analysis in particular appears to be an excellent starting point [for deciding whether the Holocaust was intended or just happened, TD] … It seems that most ordinary members of the Nazi party were not quite certain of the centrality of antisemistism to their ideology … a high percentage of the Party members were not extreme antisemites … This kind of moderate antisemitism was shared by a considerable part of the German population. … The Jews were a rather unpopular minority … In fact, the situation inGermany was not much different from the situations in other western European countries. In eastern Europe, anti-Jewish feelings were much stronger. … The Nazis suffered a defeat in the last free election in pre-Nazi Germany in November 1932. They lost thirty-four mandates in the Reichstag and two million votes. Those who voted for the Nazis knew they were voting for an antisemitic party, but clearly antisemitism was not foremost in the minds of the voters. Nor did the Nazis put anti-semitism first … No one thoght in terms of an Auschwitz, not the Nazis, not the general German population, and not the Jews. … The intelligentsia, like the working class, the peasantry, and the middle classes, supported the regime not because of its anti-semitism, but because of its success".

As Hitler, at that time, i.e. in the first part of the 1930s, did not carry out any crass anti-Jewish measures and as a later change of policy was not yet apparent, the only reason one can assume for FDR's opinion is that it was based on economic considerations - quite understandable in view of Germany's industrial status.

Herzstein then goes on to describe, in many details, how FDR mounted his war policy. It was not only the general feeling of the American voters and their happiness with the US neutrality that he had to overcome, but also the resistance of the large German-American ethnic group. He did this, as Herzstein tells us, with a great deal of insidiousness and managed to eliminate this resistance by the late 1930s, even though he had to neutralize such popular figures as Charles Lindbergh.

With respect to the necessary mobilization of the armaments industry, FDR was obviously aided by the "Roosevelt depression" of the late 1930s when the US economy dropped back to its level of the depression of 1930; he could now use re-armament as a means to bolster industrial ouput and to lower unemployment.

It is important to note that, in the introduction to his book,Herzstein writes: "Roosevelt's entire European policy from the spring of 1939 was, I believe, predicated upon a commitment to destroying Hitler and all his works. There might have been no war in Europe in September 1939, had it not been for Roosevelt's pressure on London, Paris and Warsaw". In the chapter "Conclusion", Herzstein states: "If Rossevelt had taken the easy way out, there would have been no Grand Alliance, no extermination of Hitler. The most likely outcome would have been a German victory, or a strategic stalemate in Europe". He never gives any thought to the question of whether, in such a case, there would have been no persecution of the Jews in Europe either, because this persecution did not take on its most violent forms until after the entry of the USA into WW2.

The stalemate in Europe came to life immediately after the end of the war: the Cold War with the Soviet Union which was to go on for something like half a century. On this subject, Herzstein states: "One must acknowledge a major lacuna in Roosevelt's thought … He knew of reports predicting a German assault on Soviet Russia, but gave little thoguth to Stalin's role in the post-German world. Unimpressed by communism, he refused to take it seriously." If that was really the case, it is not really possible to call Roosevelt a statesman.

Having read the book, one gets the impression that the author, again and again, tries to blame FDR for the chaotic state of the world after WW2 but does not have the courage to say so explicitly. This, by itself, would be a good reason for anyone interested in history to read this book.

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Anonymous116

How Isolationist Was Congress Prior to World War II?

Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2014

I was listening to a Ken Burns’ episode on the Roosevelts when I heard talk of “isolationist Republican senators” during the period leading up to World War II. This provoked curiosity on my part as to why the views of such senators might even matter, given the considerable preponderance of Democrats in both houses of Congress during that period. Specifically, during the 1933 to 1943 time frame, the Democratic majority in the Senate ranged from 59 to 76 Senators out of a total of 96 Senators. The Democratic majority in the House of Representatives ranged from 262 to 334 out of a total of 435 Representatives. Why would isolationist Republicans have had influence far out of proportion to their numbers?

I read Professor Herzstein’s book primarily to learn the answer to this question. Unfortunately, no direct answer is there to be had. The Congresses during this period remain pretty much a black hole in his account. There is no real discussion of the make-up of pro and anti-isolationist factions within the Congresses or how Congressional rules or procedures might have worked to the advantage of isolationists. This is especially surprising when Professor Herzstein does make a point of mentioning party affiliation from time to time in other contexts. (The views of ex-president Herbert Hoover, a Republican, are worth considering at some length; the views of the sitting Speaker of the House or Senate Majority Leader are not.) I thought significant the omission of the party affiliation of John W. Boehme, an important Indiana Representative, who, at some point, switched to Roosevelt’s internationalist position. Why weren’t we told he was, so far as I could tell from a Google search, a Democrat? How many Democrats remained on the other side? Who were they?

Perhaps it is to be inferred from what Professor Herzstein does tell us that these Congresses (which happened to be decidedly Democratic) simply mirrored the isolationist or anti-interventionist feelings of Americans generally and, unfortunately, widespread anti-Semitic feelings as well, to their eternal discredit. If so, one might understand why Professor Herzstein chose to concentrate on the course of American public opinion and not spend a lot of time on the dynamics within these Congresses. However, should we then single out certain members of Congress whose views now fall on the wrong side of history, to the apparent exclusion of others who either felt the same way or did not want to risk their seats by expressing contrary views?

I noted Professor Herzstein’s approval of President Roosevelt’s efforts to discourage appeasement of Hitler on the Polish question, even though, because of the neutrality legislation passed by the above-mentioned Congresses, he had, unfortunately, nothing to offer beyond words. Roosevelt must have understood the British and French would be unable to save Poland from falling under the heel of Hitler and his army. It could be argued in Roosevelt’s defense that the Hitler-Stalin pact and/or the subsequent collapse of France in 1940 were not entirely foreseeable. And Professor Herzstein may be correct to worry that delaying what was likely inevitable would only have served to give the Nazis more time to grow their military might relative to other powers and, perhaps, to develop jet aircraft, guided missiles, and even an atomic bomb beyond the stages reached by war’s end. Roosevelt may have understood the position of Poland, a country previously been partitioned by the Germans, Austrians and Russians, was strategically untenable. This latter point might also explain Roosevelt’s apparent sacrifice of Poland to Russian interests at Tehran and Yalta, notwithstanding that Hitler’s invasion of Poland had been the casus belli in Europe. Would events have unfolded quite differently if Hitler had been offered all the parts of Poland taken from the German Empire after World War I? Unfortunately, probably not.

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Thomas Dunskus

FDR, der blinde Präsident

Reviewed in Germany on March 13, 2018

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Der Autor dieses recht umfangreichen Werkes war ein amerikanischer Historiker, der an der Universität von South Carolina lehrte. Sein Buch hat mittlerweile dreißig Jahre auf dem Buckel, ist jedoch weiterhin eine interessante Schilderung der Vorbereitungen des amerikanischen Eintritts in den zweiten Weltkrieg, besonders, wenn man berücksichtigt, dass die politische Laufbahnen von Franklin Delano Roosevelt und Adolf Hitler praktisch parallel verliefen: beide traten als Hauptfiguren im Januar 1933 auf die politische Bühne und beide raffte ein Dutzend Jahre später, im April 1945, der Tod hinweg.

Herzstein schreibt, dass Roosevelt vom Beginn seiner Präsidentschaft an (und vermutlich schon vorher) Hitler und das damalige Deutsche Reich als Feinde Amerikas ansah, die es niederzuschlagen galt; Roosevelt war sich jedoch auch darüber im klaren, dass die USA aus diversen Gründen dazu gar nicht in der Lage waren und zunächst langsam in einen kriegsfähigen Zustand hineingeführt werden mussten, den man vielleicht im Jahre 1942 erreichen könnte. Warum FDR die Welt in dieser Weise sah, sagt der Vf. nicht. Natürlich kann man auf Hitlers Antisemitismus verweisen, jedoch hätten die USA in einem solchen Fall eigentlich gegen Polen vorgehen müssen, denn der dortige Antisemitismus war viel krasser als der deutsche; so sagte etwa Jozef Beck, in den 1930er Jahren polnischer Außenminister, dass Juden aus diversen Gründen keinen Platz in Polen hätten; er versuchte in Gesprächen mit Frankreich, Madagaskar als Auffanggebiet für die polnischen Juden einzurichten. Hunderttausende von polnischen Juden verließen damals Polen, die meisten mit Deutschland als Zwischenstop.

In Bezug auf die Beziehungen zwischen jüdischen und nichtjüdischen Deutschen schreibt Yehuda Bauer in seinem Buch “Rethinking the Holocaust” auf S. 30ff [in meiner Übersetzung]: "Speziell Kershaws Anayse scheint mir ein guter Ausgangspunkt zu sein [für die Klärung der Frage ob der Holocaust nun beabsichtigt war oder einfach so passierte, TD]. Es scheint, dass die meisten einfachen Mitglieder der Nazipartei sich nicht über die Bedeutung des Antisemitismus als Mittelpunkt ihrer Ideologie im klaren waren … Ein hoher Prozentsatz der Parteimitglieder waren keine extremen Antisemiten. Ein gewisser Antisemitismus fand sich in vielen Bereichen der deutschen Bevölkerung … Die Juden waren eine ziemlich unbeliebte Minderheit … Die Situation in Deutschland war nicht viel anders als in anderen westeuropäischen Ländern. In Osteuropa waren antijüdische Gefühle viel stärker.

Die Nazis erlitten eine Niederlage in den letzten freien Wahlen … im November 1932. Sie verloren 34 Sitze im Reichstag und zwei Millionen Stimmen. Wer für die Nazis stimmte, wusste, dass er für eine antisemitische Partei stimmte, aber es ist klar, dass Antisemitismus nicht das Hauptmotiv dieser Wähler war. Auch die Nazis stellten den Antisemitismus nicht heraus … Niemand dachte an Auschwitz: die Nazis nicht, die deutsche Bevölkerung im allgemeinen nicht, und die Juden auch nicht. … Die [deutsche] Inteligenz, wie auch die Arbeiterklasse, die Bauern und die Mittelklassen unterstützten das [Nazi]Regime nicht wegen dessen Antisemitismus, sondern wegen dessen Erfolgs."

Da Hitler in dieser Zeit, also in der ersten Hälfte der 1930er Jahre, keinerlei krasse antijüdische Maßnahmen durchführte, und eine spätere Verschärfung auch noch nicht absehbar war, kann man eigentlich nur annehmen, dass sich FDRs Einstellung auf wirtschaftlichen Interessen gründete, wie dies ja angesichts der deutschen Wirtschaftskraft auch durchaus berechtigt war.

Herzstein beschreibt dann mit vielen Einzelheiten, wie FDR seine Kriegspolitik aufbaute. Dabei hatte er nicht nur das allgemeine Gefühl der amerikanischen Wähler gegen sich, die an der bisherigen Neutraliätspolitik festhalten wollten, sondern auch den Widerstand der großen deutsch-amerikanischen Volksgruppe. Hier ging er, wie Herzstein des längeren ausführt, mit großer Hinterhältigkeit vor, sodass es ihm in der zweiten Hälfte der 1930er Jahre gelang, diesen Widerstand, der u.a. auch von dem sehr beliebten Flugpionier Charles Lindbergh unterstützt wurde, nach und nach auszuschalten.

Bei dem notwendigen Aufbau der Rüstungsindustrie und einer schlagkräftigen Armee kam ihm natürlich auch die sog. "Roosevelt-Depression" zu Hilfe, die die amerikanische Wirtschaft damals praktisch auf das Niveau in der Depression von 1930 zurückgeworfen hatte und die nun als wirtschaftliches Mittel benutzt werden konnte.

Es ist bemerkenswert, dass Herzstein in seiner Einleitung zu diesem Buch sagt: "Roosevelts gänzliche europäische Politik vom Frühjahr 1939 an beruhte m.M.n. auf einer Verpflichtung [commitment], Hitler und dessen ganzes Werk zu zerstören. Ohne Roosevelts Druck auf London, Paris und Warschau wäre es möglicherweise im September 1939 nicht zu einem Krieg in Europa gekommen." Am Ende seines Buches sagt der Vf.: "Wenn Roosevelt gekniffen hätte, … wäre das Ergebnis ein deutscher Sieg gewesen, oder eine Pattsituation in Europa"; er diskutiert in keiner Weise die Frage, ob dadurch nicht die Verfolgung der Juden in Europa ebenfalls nicht stattgefunden hätte, denn diese nahm ja erst lange nach dem Beginn des deutsch-amerikanischen Kriegszustands ihre extremen Formen an.

Die Pattsituation in Europa kam praktisch sofort nach dem Ende des Krieges zustande - der Kalte Krieg mit der SU, der fast ein halbes Jahrhundert andauern sollte. Der Vf. sagt hierzu: "Roosevelt war komplex, hinterhältig und lag in vielen wichtigen Fragen falsch. Er verrechnete sich schwer im sowjetischen Fall … mit tragischem Resultat". An anderer Stelle sagt der Vf., dass FDR zwar von den deutschen Plänen in Bezug auf einen Angriff Deutschlands auf die SU wusste, sich aber keinerlei Gedanken über eine Rolle der SU in der Nachkriegszeit machte - er nahm den Kommunismus nicht ernst. Wenn das der Fall war, kann man Roosevelt eigentlich auch nicht als echten Staatsmann ansehen.

Der Hauptteil des Buches befasst sich mit Roosevelts Politik in den Jahren bis zum Ausbruch des deutsch-amerikanischen Krieges Ende des Jahres 1941. Die Kriegserklärung ging zwar von Deutschland aus, jedoch hatten die USA zuvor die Situation, vor allem durch die Unterstüzung Großbritanniens so verschärft, dass diese praktisch einem Kriegszustand gleichkam. Angesichts der Tatsache, dass Hitler nicht einmal die britischen Inseln besetzen konnte, kann man eine Bedrohung der USA als völliges Hirngespinst verwerfen, das nur dazu diente, die amerikanische Bevölkerung zu verängstigen, sodass sie einen Krieg akzeptierte.

Wenn man das Buch gelesen hat, hat man den Eindruck, dass der Vf. wieder und wieder versucht, dem US Präsidenten die Schuld an dem Nachkriegschaos in der Welt zuzuordnen, jedoch nicht den Mut hat, dies auch explizit zu sagen. Schon dieser Eindruck sollte Leser, die an Geschichte interessiert sind, ermutigen, diesen umfangreichen Text zu lesen und sich eine eigene Meinung über die Ereignisse in der Mitte des vergangenen Jhs. zu bilden.

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Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War Hardcover – January 1, 1989

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