Beyond Belief: The American Press And The Coming Of The Holocaust, 1933- 1945 Read online

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  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: Shaping the News

  PART I: LAYING THE FOUNDATION

  Chapter 1: Dateline Berlin: Covering the Nazi Whirlwind

  Chapter 2: Making Meaning of Events

  Chapter 3: The Olympic Games: Germany Triumphant

  Chapter 4: 1938: From Anschluss to Kristallnacht

  Chapter 5: Barring the Gates to Children and Refugee Ships

  Chapter 6: Fifth-Column Fears

  PART II: THE FINAL SOLUTION

  Chapter 7: Deportation to Annihilation: The First Reports

  Chapter 8: Official Confirmation

  Chapter 9: Reluctant Rescuers

  Chapter 10: Witness to the Persecution

  Chapter 11: Against Belief

  Notes

  Index

  To my Father, of blessed memory, and my Mother

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book has its roots in a challenge hurled at me by a student a number of years ago. I had just told my class that during the Nazi years, detailed information regarding the destruction of European Jewry was available to the Allies. “It was no secret,” I proclaimed. From amidst the mass of students came an almost angry voice: “But what did the public—not just the people in high places—know? How much of this information reached them? Could my parents, who read the paper every day, have known?” I began to argue that given all the public declarations, international conferences, and government-authorized information which was released they could have known a great deal. Furthermore, I contended, we had reporters in Germany until America entered the war. They transmitted information on Nazism, and that certainly contained information regarding the persecution of the Jews. “No,” my student responded, “I can’t believe people could have read about all this in their daily papers.” Rather than let the class degenerate into a debating match, I determined that I would prove to my skeptical student—and he probably was not the only one—that I was right. Now, a number of years, numerous students, and many long hours of research later, I wish I could find that angry voice and say, “I was right but so were you.” Therefore, first and foremost, I thank that student who prompted me to examine this issue. His name now eludes me, but his voice still rings in my ears.

  I sincerely appreciate the assistance rendered me by the archival and library staffs at the National Archives and Records Center, American Jewish Archives, American Jewish Historical Society, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, Mass Communications History Center of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, University of Washington Library, UCLA Research Library, and Yad Vashem. The National Foundation for Jewish Culture, the University of Washington Scholarly Development Fund, and the Academic Senate of UCLA all provided essential financial support.

  In the course of my work a number of students and research assistants have been of critical aid to me. They assisted in the tedious task of reading microfilm and aging copies of newspapers and magazines and participated in other ways in this work. My thanks to Jon Schwarz, John Fox, Judith Israel, Arlene Becker Azose, Dorothy Becker, Cindy Fein Straus, Michael Daniels, Melanie Karp, Margaret Hanley, and Esther Leah Weil, all of whom played an important role. A number of other people helped in various ways. The editorial suggestions, technical support, and sage advice of Ann Appelbaum, Bill Aron, Cynthia Chapman, Grace Cohen Grossman, Anne Roberts, Janet Hadda, Bonnie Fetterman, Ahavia Scheindlin, Barb Shurin, and Gerald Warburg were crucial elements in different aspects of the work. Arnold J. Band not only offered critically important editorial suggestions but also pointed out that I had neglected to do the obvious. I am thankful to Fredelle Spiegel for her comments on an early version of the manuscript and for saying the right thing at precisely the right moment.

  My editor Laura Wolff, of The Free Press, has been both exacting and supportive. I value her advice and assistance greatly. Eileen DeWald, also of The Free Press, was responsible for the successful production of this book. Her competence, diligence, and good humor were significant factors in ensuring its timely appearance. Hunt Cole performed a herculean task in the editing of the manuscript. My debt to Sandra E. Smith is enormous. Without her assistance the preparation of this manuscript would have been far more onerous and tedious. She played a vital role in this project.

  I have been blessed to have a set of friends—both here in Los Angeles and in a number of other places—who provided emotional and material support, who nurtured and nourished me and helped me through many difficult moments. They tolerated my erratic schedule and my single-mindedness and were there for me when I needed them. They are like family. My family has always had a deep and abiding faith in me. They have rejoiced in my accomplishments and by so doing have given me the strength to strive to do even more. To thank either my family or my friends seems both superfluous and inadequate.

  Introduction Shaping the News

  The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

  Thomas Jefferson

  In America, the President reigns for four years, but Journalism governs forever.

  Oscar Wilde

  I believe that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the American people will make the right decision—if and when they are in possession of the essential facts about any given issue.

  Adlai Stevenson1

  During the 1930s and 1940s America could have saved thousands and maybe even hundreds of thousands of Jews but did not do so. This is a terrible indictment which carries a heavy burden of responsibility and also raises some difficult questions: If more could have been done, why was it not done? Why were certain rescue options deliberately ignored? And most important, who was most directly responsible for the failure to act? Other historians have grappled with this issue, but most of the previous research on America during the Holocaust has focused on Franklin Roosevelt, the State Department, and Congress.2 They were the ones with the power to rescue, and consequently, what they did and did not do is of seminal importance. But the President, his Cabinet, the State Department, the Congress, and other government offices and officials do not operate in a vacuum. They are political creatures and as such are sensitive to the pressure of public opinion. This was particularly true during the Roosevelt Administration because, as Elmer Roper recalled, the President was “tremendously interested in public opinion” and always “more secure when he felt the public was behind him.”3

  It is possible that Washington’s behavior would have been different if the American public had demanded that this country not “stand idly by” while innocent human beings were destroyed, but throughout the period, whenever it came to rescue, particularly when the victims were Jews, the public favored inaction over action. How can we explain such behavior? Was this a function of callousness or prejudice? Was it a matter of other priorities? Or is it possible that the American public did not really kno
w the full extent of the tragedy underway in Europe? The President knew, the State Department knew, but did the public know? Did it have access to the details? As this study will demonstrate, an astonishing amount of information was available long before the end of the war. There was practically no aspect of the Nazi horrors which was not publicly known in some detail long before the camps were opened in 1945. Can we say therefore that there was no real secret, that there should have been no doubts? Can we assume that Americans firmly knew and consciously chose not to express concern or pressure their representatives to act? No, for it is not enough to say that what was happening was known; we must evaluate how the information was presented to the public.

  In an attempt to understand why the American public reacted as it did, this study turns its attention to the American press, for the press was the conduit of information to the public. How did it transmit this news? Did it treat it as fact or rumor? Was the news accorded the kind of attention that made Americans view it as something important, or was it treated as a “sidebar,” the name given by the press to stories which are ancillary or subsidiary to the main story? Did the press take Hitler’s threats against Jews seriously? Did it consider them perhaps just bombastic rhetoric, or did it grasp that antisemitism was the keystone of Nazism? Did the press understand that what was happening to the Jews was not simply a matter of war—related privations, but something of much greater consequence? Did the source of a report affect the way in which it was treated, i.e., was news released by groups associated with the victims—Jews in particular—treated differently than that released by “impartial” bodies? Did the press believe that America had a direct interest in Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jews? If the existence of the Final Solution was no longer a secret by 1942, why was there so much doubt and confusion in the ranks of the American public regarding what was being done to the Jews? Might the way the press conveyed this news have raised much of the doubt? A reader might well have wondered why, if editors thought a report of a massacre or gas chambers was trustworthy, they placed it in the inner recesses of the paper.

  The press may not determine what the public thinks, but it does influence what it thinks about. If the media pay particular attention to an issue, its importance is enhanced in the public’s eyes, and if the media ignore something, public reaction will be nil, for as Gay Talese has observed, news unreported has no impact.4 The way the press told the story of Nazi antisemitism—the space allocated, the location of the news in the paper, and the editorial opinions—shaped the American reaction. My analysis of the press is an attempt to shed light on that reaction. The press was not a neutral or passive observer—it almost never is. When we study the press, it may appear that we are studying the narrator, but we are really studying an actor. The press became part of the historical process by virtue of the role it played as conduit of information. Just by fulfilling its task, it became a catalyst.5

  This analysis of the press begins with the Nazi accession to power in 1933, for the annihilation of Europe’s Jews essentially began then, not later. As a veteran American journalist who had been stationed in Nazi Germany for many years observed in 1942 upon his release from internment, the Nazis’ annihilation of the Jews had at that time “swept onward for nine years in a series of waves, each exceeding the previous one in ferocity.”6 It is critical that we examine how the press covered and interpreted each of these “waves,” for this helped shape the American reaction to this watershed event in human history.

  Roosevelt, the Press, and the Sources for This Study

  The press is used by policy makers to assess and create public attitudes.7 To succeed at this, a policy maker must know how to deal with the press. At this, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a master. The transcripts of his press conferences demonstrate that he was extremely adroit in his relations with the press corps. A reporter who covered the White House during the Roosevelt years wrote in December 1940, “Every time one goes to a White House press conference, he is made to recognize once again that Franklin D. Roosevelt is without peer in meeting newsmen.” The general consensus among reporters was that Roosevelt was a “newspaperman’s President.” The President had a voracious appetite for news. Arthur Krock described Roosevelt, who read anywhere from eleven to sixteen newspapers daily, as the “greatest reader and critic of newspapers who had ever been in the president’s office.” His concern with the press and what it was saying about his policies was almost obsessional.8 And his interest had its effect on his subordinates. For as James Reston has observed, it is a President’s attitude toward the press that “sets the pattern for the rest of the administration.” If the person occupying the Oval Office carefully reviews the papers, as we know this President did, his aides will do likewise lest they find themselves unprepared for some query from him.9

  In addition to the papers he read on a daily basis, the President received numerous articles and editorials from friends and opponents throughout the United States. Perusal of the President’s files at the Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park reveals multitudes of press clippings that various correspondents sent him. He often passed these on to his subordinates and other government officials. He also had available to him a systematic and comprehensive analysis of American press opinion. One of the most important White House barometers of public attitudes was a daily digest of press reactions prepared by the Division of Press Intelligence, which had been established by the President in July 1933 at the instigation of Presidential Secretary Louis Howe. Its task was to read and clip articles from 500 of the largest American newspapers and prepare a daily Press Information Bulletin which classified news reports and editorials according to their opinions on foreign and domestic matters. In the 1930s there were approximately 2,000 daily newspapers published in the United States. Thus the collection of clippings in the Division of Press Intelligence archives constitutes a sample from 25 percent of those newspapers. The Bulletins, designed for use by all government offices and departments, often contained a “box score” recording the number of editorials which supported or opposed certain policy decisions. These mimeographed multipaged releases “digested and summarized” the nation’s editorial opinion. Each item in the Bulletin was assigned a number so that government officials could consult the articles directly. The Division of Press Intelligence continued this daily press service until the middle of 1942, when many of its functions were taken over by other government agencies, including the Office of War Information. The President, his press secretary Stephen Early, and key figures in the Administration “relied heavily” on this clipping and digest service.10

  Much of the material in this book is based on news stories and editorials collected for the Bulletin. By tapping this rich lode, it was possible to survey a broad spectrum of press opinion and reports, the same spectrum examined by the White House, State Department, and other government offices. For those events that occurred before or after the Division of Press Intelligence was in operation, major metropolitan dailies were examined. These included the New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York Journal American, New York Sun, PM, New York World Telegram, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Examiner, Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, Christian Science Monitor, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Constitution, Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Washington Star, and Washington Post. A number of popular and influential magazines and journals were also reviewed, including Collier’s, Harper’s, Life, Literary Digest, Look, The Nation, The New Republic, Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, The Saturday Evening Post, Time, The Christian Century, and Commonweal. In addition, the files of the American Jewish Committee as well as those of a number of government agencies besides the Division of Press Intelligence, including the War Refugee Board and the Office of War Information, yielded important newspaper clippings. (In those cases where an article was found in situ, it was possible to analyze page location. Clippings from the files of the Division of Press Intelligence, the other gov
ernment agencies, and the American Jewish Committee did not indicate page number.) Finally, interviews with a number of reporters who were stationed in Berlin in the 1930s and 1940s as well as those who covered some aspect of this story from other places, e.g. Moscow, helped provide additional perspective on what it was like to tell the story of this whirlwind.

  In 1942 the State Department also began a systematic analysis of public opinion on foreign affairs and used the media as one of its major sources of information. The Department prepared comprehensive analyses of the public’s views based on newspaper reports, editorials and columns, radio programs, and public opinion polls. In 1943 it contracted with the Office of Public Opinion Research of Princeton to prepare studies on the public’s attitudes regarding foreign policy. Wherever possible this work considers these studies and other public opinion polls.11

  The Germans and the American Press

  American officials were not the only ones who used the press as a barometer and cultivator of American public sentiment. Foreign countries did the same. From 1933 on the Germans resolutely sought ways to enhance Nazi Germany’s image in America. Concerned about that image, they even hired American public relations firms and assigned them the task of fostering a “good press.” (When the identity of the firms was revealed in the course of Congressional hearings, their usefulness to the Germans came to an end and they were fired.) Throughout the 1930s Germany continued to attempt to influence the press because of the key role it played in the battle to win public support.12

  Reports by German embassy officials in Washington often discussed the attitude of the American press toward Germany. The German embassy monitored the American press on a regular basis and kept Berlin informed about how the news conveyed by particular reporters was greeted. In 1939, after the beginning of the war, the German Chargé d’Affaires in the United States informed Berlin that the “most effective tool of German propaganda in the United States is, as heretofore, the American correspondents in Berlin who give detailed descriptions of their courteous treatment in Germany.”13 On other occasions the embassy suggested that certain American correspondents in Germany be rewarded and others more severely censored or expelled. Naturally, reporters studiously tried to avoid expulsion because it angered their employers and seriously disrupted their own careers. American reporters, some of whom were present in Germany until 1942, witnessed the brutalities inflicted on the Jews, the effect of the Nuremberg Laws, the expropriation of Jewish wealth, and the forcing of Jews to wear an identifying mark. Some reporters accompanied Polish Jews who were expelled from Germany in 1938. They traveled with them to the border and witnessed their treatment by German officials. In 1941 America correspondents watched as Jews were loaded onto trains for “resettlement” in the east. On other occasions they heard soldiers on leave from the Russian front describe the massacres of civilians there. But fearing the impact of such news on themselves and their informants, reporters did not always transmit what they saw and heard. Moreover, the news they did transmit was not necessarily the story Americans read at the breakfast table, for reporters do not work alone. They pass the news to editors, who decide whether to print it at all, where to place it, and whether to publish it in its entirety or in an abridged form. At times, editors excised portions of reports they considered unreliable or unbelievable.