Beyond Belief Read online

  Round and round in a dizzying circle of atrocity reports, denials of atrocities, protests, counter-protests, apprehension, boycotts and counter-boycotts, revolve Chancellor Hitler of Germany, his Nazis, German Jewry and Jewish sympathizers abroad.6

  The most vituperative attack on Jews’ protests appeared three days after the April 1 boycott in the lead editorial in the Christian Science Monitor. It accused American Jews of exacerbating the situation by demanding that official bodies such as the State Department and the League of Nations condemn Germany. German people, the editorial argued, had the right not only to be indignant over “atrocity” stories but to punish “rumor mongers.” The Christian Science Monitor not only placed the word “atrocity” in quotation marks, thereby indicating its doubts about the accuracy of the reports, but reiterated almost verbatim the Nazi explanation for the boycott: “Stringent measures against those who spread lies against Germany are easily justified.” In contrast to the Monitor’s justification of the boycott, the New York Times believed the boycott proved that the Nazis were “acting blindly and almost . . . with a touch of insanity.”7

  Relying on Biblical imagery, the Christian Science Monitor accused Jews in America and England of practicing the “ancient code of an ‘eye for an eye.’” Had Jews heeded Jesus’ commandment to “love one another” and Spinoza’s saying that “it is rational to repay persecution with love,” this “misunderstanding” might have been avoided. Who misunderstood whom was not clarified.

  Among the most telling aspects of the editorial was a brief statement that illuminated the Christian Science Monitor’s general attitude toward Jews. It exonerated the non-Jewish world of responsibility for its antisemitism by declaring that it was Jews’ “commercial clannishness which . . . gets them into trouble,” and recommended that Jews both “within Germany and without might give some attention to this problem.”8 The entire editorial reflected the tradition of the modern Protestant critique of Judaism, whose source was in a school of scholarship which portrayed Judaism as a soulless religion of dry legalisms and national particularism.9 The paper revealed a latent hostility toward Jews and Judaism by raising the specter of lex talionis, accusing Jews of failing to adhere to Jesus’ commandment and attributing Jews’ sorrows to their supposed economic propensities and to protests by American and English Jews. The editorial indicated that the Christian Science Monitor’s view of the Jews’ contemporary suffering was refracted through the prism of Christianity’s long-standing theological view of Judaism.

  The Christian Science Monitor was not the only representative of the Protestant press to suggest that Jews were responsible for their suffering or to express a subtle animus toward Jews and Judaism. The Reformed Church Messenger, Lutheran Companion, Moody Bible Institute Monthly, and other publications echoed these views.10 The Christian Century, also suggested that the root of the problem was Jews’ behavior and accused Jews in Germany and abroad of exacerbating the situation. Ironically, whereas the Christian Science Monitor faulted Jews for their commercial activities, The Christian Century faulted them for their radical activities.

  May we ask if Hitler’s attitude may be somewhat governed by the fact that too many Jews, at least in Germany, are radical, too many are communists? May that have any bearing on the situation? There must be some reason other than race or creed—just what is that reason? It is always well to try to understand.

  The Christian Century, the most prominent Protestant journal in the country, had already responded to these questions a few weeks earlier in an article by a German Jew living in America. He accused German Jews of bringing their present suffering on themselves by supporting “reactionary parties,” setting themselves off as aliens, eating particular foods, keeping Saturday as a holiday and doing other things which aroused “suspicion and envy.”11

  A similar view—that Jews had caused their own suffering—was voiced by Walter Lippmann, at the time considered by many to be America’s most influential columnist and commentator. Lippmann had severely criticized Hitler when he assumed power, but his fears were allayed by a conciliatory-sounding speech Hitler delivered in mid-May 1933. Convinced that the German leader was intent on pursuing peace, he dismissed claims that Hitler was insincere and described Hitler’s speech as the voice of a civilized people coming through “fog and the din, the hysteria and the animal passions of a great revolution.” He urged his readers not to judge Germany on the basis of the Nazi radicals and argued that people possessed a “dual nature”: they could be good and evil. “To deny,” he argued in defense of Germany, “that Germany can speak as a civilized power because uncivilized things are being said and done in Germany, is in itself a deep form of intolerance.” He bolstered his argument by citing other peoples’ defects.

  Who that has studied history and cares for the truth would judge the French people by what went on during their terror? Or the British people by what happened in Ireland? Or the Catholic church by the Catholic church of the Spanish Inquisition? Or Protestantism by the Ku Klux Klan or the Jews by their parvenus?12

  Lippmann’s desire to call attention to what he considered legitimate German grievances about the Versailles treaty did not, as his biographer Ronald Steel has noted, require him to describe Hitler’s speech as “statesmanlike” and the “authentic voice of a genuinely civilized people.”* Most disturbing was his gratuitous equation of the French terror, the Ku Klux Klan, and Nazi brutality with Jewish “parvenus.” Coming from one of the most influential opinion makers in America, it was an offensive, if not insidious, comparison. Coming from a Jew, it indicated an ambivalence, if not outright hostility, about his Jewish identity. Most significantly, however, it suggested that Jewish behavior was ultimately the cause of antisemitism.**

  After defending Hitler’s supposed peace-loving qualities, Lippmann never acknowledged that in the weeks immediately following the “conciliatory” speech violence had occurred which, the London Times correspondent in Berlin pointed out, could not be excused as the inevitable accompaniments of “first revolutionary fervor,” as violence in March and April had been excused by many foreign observers. Lippmann simply ignored these subsequent outbreaks.***

  Ultimately Lippmann’s views would be echoed by many Americans, as was evidenced by an April 1938 poll in which approximately 60 percent agreed that the persecution of European Jews was either entirely or partly their own fault. Nevertheless, Lippmann’s column shocked many readers, including Felix Frankfurter, his mentor and supporter, who was so incensed that he did not communicate with Lippmann for over three and a half years.15

  The tendency to find the cause of Jewish suffering in Jewish behavior was not unique to Lippmann and sectors of the Christian press. An analysis of antisemitism which appeared in Harper’s argued that Jews in England “do better” than in most countries in terms of social standing and non-Jews’ attitudes toward them because that country never was “overrun by crowds of them. . . . Any group of people that in the long run seems to be getting more than its share of what is accessible will come in due time to be disliked by observers who are less fortunate.”16

  The belief that Jews were responsible for their suffering was not necessarily indicative of a pro-Nazi or pro-German attitude. Even papers which unequivocally condemned Germany’s action still attributed the persecution of the Jews to something they had done. The Columbus Dispatch, which warned German Ambassador Luther that Americans would not tolerate Germany’s antisemitism, believed that Hitler’s policies were directed against the “large Jewish element in the financial, commercial, professional and official life of present-day Germany.”17 Franklin Roosevelt also succumbed to this kind of reasoning. In January 1943 at the Casablanca conference he proposed that North African resettlement projects restrict the number of Jews allowed to practice such professions as law and medicine. The President argued that “his plan would further eliminate the specific and understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards the Jews in Germany, namely that while they represent
ed a small part of the population, over 50% of the lawyers, doctors, school teachers, college professors, etc. in Germany were Jews.”18

  Defining antisemitism as a quid pro quo for Jewish behavior was one of the ways observers tried to make sense of events in Germany. In reality it only belied the true nature of Nazism and made it more difficult for observers from afar to understand it.

  The Question of Government Responsibility

  During these early years the press struggled to determine if the government had instigated, condoned, or simply been unable to contain these outbreaks. If it was not responsible, what other group—inside the Nazi Party or outside of it—might be held accountable? The more irrational the violence appeared and the more it seemed to contravene German goals, the more the press, particularly the newspapers analyzing the situation from the American side of the Atlantic, was inclined to try to hold some nongovernmental entity responsible.

  The tendency of some of the press to blame ancillary entities was graphically illustrated in 1933 when the earliest outbreaks were described by various editorials as the “unauthorized sallies of irresponsible mobs of youthful Nazis” and the work of “overenthusiastic and poorly disciplined followers.”19 By designating those engaged in violence as “mobs” or “followers,” the press not only exonerated Hitler but differentiated between him and those who indulged in such behavior. The press also exonerated Hitler by claiming that Nazi violence was a reflection of strife between party moderates and radicals. Generally the proponents of this internecine-warfare theory placed Hitler in the ranks of the moderates and surmised that the violence was committed over his protests or unbeknownst to him. United Press believed that it reflected the extremists’ displeasure with Hitler’s attempt to pursue a moderate course and proof that that the radical elements had “gained the upper hand for the time being.” United Press representatives in Germany subscribed to the idea of this moderate-versus-radical dichotomy and dismissed the entire Nazi antisemitic campaign as “just a side show” organized and tolerated for the benefit of extremist elements. Catholics and Jews, they explained, were bearing the “brunt of the Nazi party struggle between conservatives and extremists.” The United Press theory, which appeared in numerous papers, apparently shaped many editorial responses to the riots. Readers of the Canton (Ohio) Repository were told that “Chancellor Hitler, personally, is committed to a policy of moderation” and that events such as the July 1935 riots were proof of the difficulty he was experiencing in “controlling the action of subordinates.”20 The Boston Post wondered if such outbreaks were a sign that Hitler was “in trouble.”21The Boston Evening Transcript speculated that the rioters were able to work unhindered because “the Government . . . did not dare to interfere with the lawless among its followers.” Literary Digest also believed that the outbreaks reflected “divergence in high Nazi circles” regarding the drive against Jews.22

  Other papers did not totally exonerate Hitler but only held him responsible for creating the climate that produced the outbreak. His rhetoric started something which was now being carried along “by the force of its own momentum.” The proof of this was that despite the fact that “officialdom . . . frowned” upon the riots, they had persisted.23 A similar explanation was posited by the Trenton (New Jersey) Times Advertiser in an editorial entitled “Hitler’s Frankenstein.” The monster created by Hitler had grown “out of control.” The riots were the product of “subordinates who, apparently, disobeyed orders and did exactly what they wanted to do.” News of the riots, the paper informed its readers, “brought dismay to Hitler,” who, another paper believed, remained “on the sidelines.” The New York Herald Tribune echoed this view and blamed “violently worded anti-Jewish” propaganda for creating the atmosphere for these “cruel excesses.” A Dallas Times Herald editorial also cast Hitler as the passive actor in this scenario. It praised him for having many of the good qualities a dictator must have in order to prevent the country from “suffering all the ill effects of tyranny,” but could not overlook the fact that “the Nazi leader permits a defenseless minority to be persecuted.”24 Once again Hitler was cast not as instigator, but as bystander, the one who failed to prevent persecution.

  This inability to believe that Hitler was directly responsible was a manifestation of the press’s difficulty in accepting that his antisemitism was not rhetoric, but a deep-seated ideology. This difficulty persisted as late as Kristallnacht, when the Atlanta Constitution and the Hamilton (Ohio) Journal News both surmised that Hitler must have been “deceived by those around him because no man possessed of sanity would have brought upon his nation the condemnation of the world.”25

  Some papers which subscribed to the notion that the government was not directly involved changed their minds when immediately after the 1935 riots Count Wolf von Helldorf, who was known as a “violent antisemite” and a “pogrom leader,” was appointed Berlin’s chief of police.26 The Baltimore Sun, which had previously absolved the government of at least a portion of the responsibility, now implicitly admitted that it had been wrong. His appointment, the Sun observed,

  removes from serious consideration the idea that the recent beating and kicking of Jews in the Kurfursten-damm was the result of young men getting out of hand.27

  In contrast to many other papers, the New York Post was not ambivalent about the source of the riots or, for that matter, the entire range of antisemitic policies. In an editorial entitled “Not Hooligans but Hitler,” the Post designated anyone who believed that the riots were “spontaneous” and “unofficial” either a “Nazi sympathizer or a fool.”28 Other papers offered similar arguments. “Hitler’s hand appears only indirectly in the latest campaign to suppress the Jews . . . . He is its source, one may be sure.” “Hitler is wholly and completely responsible for it [antisemitic violence] and . . . since it persists, it must represent his personal views.”29 “There is every reason to view them [the riots] as having been of official origin. They could not have happened without the knowledge and consent of the Chancellor.”30 American Ambassador Dodd shared the conviction that the riots, as well as other antisemitic incidents, were sanctioned by the government, which dispatched agents provocateurs to do the work.31

  However, unequivocal association of the governmental leaders—Hitler in particular—with the violence and brutality was the exception to the rule during the first years of Nazi rule. Generally the press remained confused, recognizing that someone with power was behind these attacks but not quite believing that it was Hitler or those around him. After the Nuremberg rally of 1934 William Shirer was convinced that the west in general and “our newspapers above all had underestimated Adolf Hitler.” Yet while the press generally refrained from pointing the finger of blame directly at Hitler, it did not accept the government’s protestations of innocence. When German authorities told journalists that thanks to the “cooperation of the police” the riots had been stopped, their claims were dismissed with derision. Numerous eyewitness reports were cited telling of studied police disinterest while rioters had free reign over one of Berlin’s most fashionable boulevards. Time and Newsweek both informed their readers that the Berlin police took “little interest in the Jew hunt” and just “looked on calmly” as the rioters proceeded with their work.32

  Seeking a Moderate Hitler

  This confusion regarding Hitler’s responsibility for the campaign of terror was reflective of a broader debate then being conducted in the United States and Europe. Many people, including those responsible for formulating policy, could not decide how committed Hitler was to realizing his threats to nullify the Versailles treaty, rearm Germany, expand its borders, and fulfill his numerous other objectives. During these years there were many optimists who counseled that once the Nazi leader solidified his rule, eased Germany’s economic crisis, and redressed the balance of power, he would moderate his tone, abandon his extremist and hyperbolic rhetoric, and assume a respected role as a head of state.

  The isolationist Chicago Tribune and
some other papers, including the New York Times, were optimistic about Hitler’s ability, in the words of the Christian Science Monitor, to act like the month of March—“come in like a lion” and soon become a “lamb.” Once Hitler “becomes more used to his job,” the Los Angeles Times predicted, he would surely become less “theatrical.”33 In his frontpage column “March of Nations,” the Monitor’s Rufus Steele reassured readers that “power tempers the Chancellor’s ready tongue.” Steele reached this conclusion in the same column in which he cited Hitler’s Reichstag announcement that the German government “will attempt to exterminate communism, . . . ruthlessly punish treason . . . not tolerate adherence to a religion or race that [was not] lawful,” and give the German people a “moral purging.” Somehow Steele managed to extrapolate from this that Hitler was becoming more moderate.34 In mid-March 1933 Frederick Birchall, who was then serving as New York Times Berlin bureau chief, was in the United States. In a nationally broadcast CBS radio speech he denied that Hitler was a dictator. He described him as a “bachelor and a vegetarian and he neither drinks nor smokes. His whole life, his whole thought are given to this National Socialist movement and he has taken upon himself the hardest job that ever a man could undertake.” He also urged listeners to dismiss the thought that the Nazis would engage in “slaughter of the[ir] enemies or racial oppression in any vital degree.”* On March 12 the Times ran an editorial complimenting Hitler for urging his followers to “refrain from acts of individual terrorism.” In July Times columnist Anne O’Hare McCormick offered readers a benign, almost enraptured description of her interview with the Chancellor. She described his “curiously childlike and candid” blue eyes, his voice which was “as quiet as his black tie,” and his frequent smile, and concluded that when he talked he was “undubitably sincere.” In his conversation with her, Hitler declared that acts of discrimination were not directed primarily against Jews, but “against the Communists and all elements that demoralized and destroyed us.”35