American History Hit - FDR vs Hitler

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

The leaders of the two most powerful nations fighting in the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler, never met. They never even spoke.In this episode, we explore the war of words between them, the involvement of each of their allies and when it became certain that war would break out between their two nations.Don is joined by Charlie Laderman, Senior Lecturer in International History at King's College London. Charlie is the author of 'Hitler's American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and the German March to Global War'.Edited by Sophie Gee. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds/All3 Media.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries, with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. We're in the White House, December 1940. The diplomatic reception room hums with activity.

Men are positioned at tables crammed with bulky radio equipment, whirring and buzzing, dials aglow. At the center of all the activity is President Franklin Roosevelt at ease behind a desk, anticipating his cue. A moment later, the room quies as FDR speaks. His words are captured by the microphones arrayed. before him, then amplified and carried forth by cables, sent out to a world far-flung, awaiting his message. In Iowa and Hawaii, Oregon, in the Pacific, elsewhere across the

globe, his words will be translated and broadcast to an occupied Paris, to fascist Italy, and communist Russia. But above all, the signal reaches Nazi Germany and the Fuhr's own radio set, where Hitler himself would hear FDR's grim declaration. Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now. He went on. For on September 27th, 1940, this year, by an agreement signed in Berlin, three powerful nations, two in Europe and one in Asia, joined themselves together in the threat that if the United States of America interfered with or blocked the expansion program of these three nations, a program aimed at world control, they would unite in ultimate

action against the United States. The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world. Roosevelt means to be utterly clear. There was not a world in which the United States and the Third Reich could possibly coexist. One of them was bound to go. be with you. Thanks for clicking through. This is American History Hit, and I'm Don Wildman. World War II destroyed so much and killed so many. It would seem to be fiction if the facts weren't so real. Its leaders are like characters drawn from graphic novels. Adolf Hitler,

the evil tyrant obsessed with world domination, bent on revenge for his nation's previous humiliation, or was it his own? And far away on the other side of the Atlantic, his opponent, Franklin Roosevelt, a man born of towering privilege. struck down by disease. His legs now braced, he conceals his inward agony with a bon vivant exterior. These two men, polar opposites in every way, never met. But the fateful intersection of their lives and outlooks and the warring countries they represented largely determined the fate of human civilization in the 1940s and beyond, creating the world order we still live with today. What do they know of each other? What do they think of each other? How much? How much

much of the measure they took of one another figured into their calculations leading to such staggering consequence. For this, we're joined today by a friend of the show, Charlie Laterman. Charlie Laterman is a senior lecturer in international history at King's College London. We discussed Woodrow Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles in a previous episode. Check the archive. Charlie is the co-author of Hitler's American Gamble, all about the days between Pearl Harbor and Germany's Declaration of War on the U.S. Hello, Charlie. Welcome back to the show. Thanks, Don. It's a pleasure to be back with you. Let's start with Hitler.

And back to his beginnings in the 1920s. How did America help shape his ideology, the worldview he was shaping for himself coming out of that war? Yes. Well, for a long time, the perspective on Hitler was that the U.S. was really an afterthought in his makeup of his worldview. That Hitler really saw the U.S. as this sort of diseased, mongrel nations, sort of racially degenerate, that they were materialistic. They couldn't really sort of stick it in a fight. that was a sort of orthodox perspective on Hitler's view of the US, but I think that's become harder to sustain in recent years

as more and more evidence has come to light, that Hitler really saw the United States as very central to his worldview, at least his geopolitical worldview. And really that's not particularly surprising when you think about Hitler's experience in the First World War. As you mentioned, coming out of the First World War, Hitler had been on the Western Front. It had been this really sort of massive experience for his political development and in terms of the emergence of his ideological views.

And the fact that he's on the Western Front and it's the United States' intervention in 1917 that really turns the tide on the Western Front, that has a major impact on Hitler because he understands the immense power of the United States. He could not be blase about the industrial potential of the United States. And so we see that really from an early point in his surviving writings, particularly in his second book, which for many years was, people were unaware that Hitler had written a second book towards the end of the 1920s after Mine Camp. It's never published. And he writes it at an amount of time where his political career is in the doldrum,

so there's not that much interest in publishing it. But what we see in that book is that the US, figures really prominently because Hitler envisages a world where there are five dominant powers, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, China, the United States and a German dominated Europe. And the United States, he recognizes, is potentially the greatest of all of those powers, at least industrially, that it has huge economic strength and that can show the capacity for military power as well. So that's one part of Hitler, sense of the US. The other side is racial, because he sees the Germans who leave the Reich in the 19th century,

wherever they go, Hitler says that they remain Germans, other than when they go to the United States, where they become Americans. And so when Hitler's fighting on the Western Front in 1918, he comes up against Americans of German descent who are fighting against Germany. And for him, that is a catastrophic situation. So his idea is that you need to increase German. Germany's landmass, you need to make it that Germans don't emigrate because of his concern that they're only enriching other nations rather than the Reich. And then the third part, which is

fundamental to his view of the United States, is his conspiratorial paranoid anti-Semitism. Because he sees New York as the world seat of Jewish financial power, which he believes after the First World War has turned Germany into a colony, essentially, that they have enslaved Germany in a financial system where Germany is weak, and he really blames this based around his sort of conspiratorial worldview on world jury everywhere, but the United States in particular as the sort of the seat of their power. I want to pluck out a few details of what you've said there, which is really worth underscoring. At this point, and we're talking about the 1920s, for a good 50 years, Germans have been emigrating to the United States and have taken hold of that culture in so

many ways, not least of which is beer. The introduction of Pilsner beer was all German. That's why you have the Budwisers, all these different brand names that we live with today are the result, the legacy of this German immigration to the United States, technology, et cetera. Everything that was happening and booming in the 19th century in Germany has now transferred to the United States. And of course, generations have heard about this since then, certainly Hitler's generation, how successful this world is over there, the resources that are evasive. And So you have to believe that this man is now fighting against these American troops with a great deal of feeling, whatever that feeling is, resentment, perhaps, that this whole nation that is so prosperous, has a lot to do with the people that went there from his own country. Absolutely, and we will see that in the Second World War as well. I mean, the fact that you've got Dwight Eisenhower,

a American commander of German descent, Alfred Nimitz, in the Pacific in charge of the fleet there, again, of German descent. You have a whole range of figures who derive their familiar upbringing from Germany. And this is a really sort of important part of Hitler's conception of this, that Germans had gone. And during the First World War, Germans are not always treated. particularly well in the United States during the First World War, where there's sort of a backlash of anti-German sentiment during the conflict itself. But for the most part, Hitler's perception of this is that they've enriched the United States. He's hoping that sort of strategically he might be able to whip up anti-American sentiment

among those Germans in the United States. But he's also very conscious that the United States has been strengthened by this immigration by Germans into the US. And as I say, a big part of his worldview, is that essentially what Germany needs to do is to expand into the east. It needs new lands in order to compete with the major powers, but also to stop this outward migration of Germans to the new world in particular. This is sort of part of the geopolitical underpinnings of a very racial worldview.

And of course, there's also a sense to which this is also tied up with the idea that from his perspective, some of the best Germans, he says, are leaving for the new world. and he's concerned about that and what that means for Germany's competitiveness on the global stage. The racial ideology, of course, figures in primarily he cites it in Mind Kampf, you know, how much of the Jim Crow laws and the approach to racial segregation in the United States was something that he was modeling his view for Germany upon. I mean, his whole anti-Semitic thing as well, a lot of it is based on what he's seeing in action in the United States. It's crazy.

One geographic thing that's so interesting is that you have Germany at this point has unified. I mean, there was no Germany per se before the mid-1800s. It has unified like Italy did, you know, from being this sort of city-state kingdom world to being its own nation. This is driven largely because of the success of the United States. These European countries are seeing what has happened. When you confederate all these states together, when you bring them all together, you end up with a larger country that can share its resources, these different kingdoms, can share their resources. That's what Germany has sort of done. They did it peacefully, whereas we have

this huge war over it. But anyway, he understands that America is the primary foe that is going to have to be defeated, or Germany will be in subjugation forever. Fair to say? Well, I think in the early days, there's a sense to which he hopes that Germany can throw off the enslavement as he sees it of international capital. And by doing that, Germany could establish itself as a competitor and a co-equal of nations like the United States and the British Empire. So basically what he wants them to do is look the other way while Germany establishes its hegemony over Europe. And at the same time, his racial views are to the fore on this as well. His sense is that he wants to isolate, disenfranchised Jews, who he sees as sort of weakening Germany. And so

he wants to sort of expand into the east and at the same time sort of put to one side, those peoples that he sees as being inferior to the German Volk. And so he wants to establish this German power. And really, that's his initial vision of this. He wants to throw off the economic arrangements that have led to things like the Young Plan, which had underpinned the reparations that Germany was paying to the Western European powers who were then paying back in terms of their war debts to the United States. His sense and those of the Nazis are throw off these economic fetters,

and established Germany again as a power, a strengthening power with respect, that it ultimately walks out of the World Disarmament Conference, it remilitarizes the Rhineland. And this sense is Germany can do this while at the same time not necessarily alienating the British Empire and the United States. But increasingly what we see is that Hitler's vision comes up against opposition as he sees it from those powers that they will not allow Germany to rise unchallenged. This is the mindset of a man who throughout the 20s and into the 30s, he is creating this worldview and then putting it into action, you know, through his joining eventually the Nazi

party, which already exists before he comes along. He takes this up. I'm always wondering whether the gasoline of his engine was his hatred for the United States, especially as we enter into the Depression because, you know, many in the world saw all this as United States's fault, you know, that we had let the whole bottom fall out. Does he carry that same feeling? Well, he has a whole range of visceral hatreds. I mean, this is someone who mixes some aspects of a geopolitical perspective with a underlying conspiratorial racial worldview. And his anti-capitalism coexist with his anti-Bolshevism and his sense to which Bolshevism is sort of weakening and undermining German strength. So he's obviously, his opposition is to the Soviet Union.

as well. But really what Hitler wants is for Germany to be a competitor on the global stage. To a certain extent, that's going to be at the expense of the Soviet Union. He sees the Soviet Union and Bolshevism being used by global jury to sort of undermine Germany. This is sort of part of his sort of conspiratorial worldview and the sense is that they are going to claim Labens round in the East at the expense of the Soviet Union and those nations of Central and Eastern Europe that are the buffer zone between Germany and the Soviet Union as he sees it. And so that really plays into his vision that essentially Germany was rising in the 19th century. It ultimately allows itself to be the victims during the First World War. So his sense is to never again find himself in a two-front war facing conflict

from the East and the West, but that Germany essentially needs to expand. out its space, it needs to, it's not just about reclaiming the territories under Versailles, because there's a sense that wasn't enough during the First World War to make Germany a world power, it needs to essentially expand beyond that, because that's the only way to compete with these major hegemonies like the United States and the British Empire. So yes, the US features quite prominently in his worldview, but at the same time, there is a moment in 30s where he thinks, ultimately, we can potentially coexist with these powers if they just allow us to dominate our sort of near-abrode.

I never thought of Blitzkrieg, the pace of the German attack, certainly on Western Europe, as being motivated by keeping the United States out. If we did this quickly enough, the United States won't join this war. Is that truth or not? There is a sense to which he's hoping, initially that the British would stay out and that essentially he could turn his attention to Eastern Europe and carve out this space before the British coming, that he could do some sort of deal with the British. And if he does some sort of deal with the British, that also keeps the Americans on the sidelines. And that really that's sort of

something which Churchill rejects. There's others in the cabinet who are willing to take this deal that essentially allows Germany to dominate Europe and Britain to keep its colonies. Churchill sees through this as saying essentially this is going to Britain at the mercy of a German dominated Europe and that this is not a world that Britain wants to exist in. But from Hitler's perspective, he started to see really from about 1937 and Franklin Roosevelt's quarantine speech, which I know we're going to talk about a bit later. But really from that moment on, he starts to recognize that the United States is not going to allow him to rise without challenging him. And really, he starts to see Roosevelt as his greatest, particularly

rhetorical competitor because this is what we see from about 1937 onwards, this massive rhetorical struggle over the shaping of global order that's going on across the Atlantic between Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt. The microphone will figure prominently in this story. Let's bring FDR in here. One of the most remarkable coincidences of history, I suppose, I don't know, is the fact that FDR's career and Hitler's career are perfect images. They reflect each other perfectly in that They both come to power at the same time in 1933, and they both die in the same year in 1945. It's an incredible story. You can't write this kind of stuff. There is a really well-known article that was written by a guy named Gerald Johnson from the Atlantic, 1941.

Let me just read a quote from that. There was a period of approximately 24 hours in the year 1933, more fateful for the destiny of mankind than any other one day in the century. A little afternoon on March 4th in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as President of the United States before midnight on March 5th, 1933. That's how close we're talking about. March 5th and March 4th. The German Reichstag had passed the Enabling Act, putting absolute power into the hands of Chancellor Adolf Hitler. It's a remarkable coincidence of events, isn't it? Yes. They both come to power as a result of the interwar crisis that occurs in 1931.

132 as a result of the aftermath of the Wall Street crash, the Great Depression, which in the United States leads to Herbert Hoover's presidency being essentially torpedoed, a figure who came to office in the election in 1928 with a crushing landslide victory, but then loses in 1932 to Franklin Roosevelt with another crushing landslide this time for Roosevelt. And at the same time, the collapse of the international economic system is something that leads to the rise of Hitler as well in Germany. Now, Roosevelt comes to power with a focus on a domestic agenda for Roosevelt, who'd actually been a very internationalist figure, someone who'd been very interested in geopolitics in the First World War. He'd been assistant secretary of the Navy

to Woodrow Wilson. He was really a Wilsonian internationalist. He believed that the United States should play a major role in international affairs. His first campaign on a presidential ticket, that comes in 1920, where he's the vice-presidential candidate. And at that time, he's a major advocate for America joining the League of Nations. He sees the crushing defeat that occurs for that vision. So when he comes into office in 32, Roosevelt is a very different political animal. He's much more sensitive to the desires of the American public. And he recognizes that the American people do not want to get engaged in global affairs. So in his first term at office, Roosevelt is of anything, even more inward-looking than Herbert Hoover

have been in the four years before. Roosevelt really wants to stay out of what's going on in Europe and in East Asia, and he at least publicly states that he shares that American goal of isolating itself from the possibility of a new great power conflict. So Roosevelt, at this time, is very much in line, at least publicly, with this more isolationist United States. And it's around this time that his...

Hitler, his response to this, as we talked about, was essentially throw off the international economic system and establish Germany as a dominant power within Europe. And this is occurring while the US is on the sidelines and other nations are turning to domestic problems because their concern is in the aftermath of the Depression. They don't want to build up armaments. But for Hitler, that is central to his vision, getting people back to work, getting military respect again. So rearmament becomes a major part of Hitler's vision. So much of this is about the economic contrast between these two countries. I mean, the U.S. going through the roaring 20s would have been a global story. I mean, headlines about skyscrapers, the empire state building eventually going up and so forth.

I mean, it's a big time that decade in the United States. Meanwhile, Germany is suffering terribly largely because of the Treaty of Versailles and all the reparations that are going on there. So these two things are side by side. Meanwhile, communism is rising, as you mentioned, in the East with the Soviet Union. Revolution 1917, that's all going out through that same decade. This is a direct threat to both countries, certainly more immediately to Germany, but the rise of unions and so forth in the United States is a big part of Roosevelt's story as well. He's got to keep all this in check. Yes, although actually one of the interesting things about the German perspective on this is that in the aftermath of the First World War, the Germans like the Soviet Union, have been on the out in the international system. So they had, even though the Weimar government didn't have any ideological affinity with the Soviet Union, they had started to work together through the Treaty of Rapal. And in particular, a lot of German rearmament that has started to occur in the 1920s occurs in the Soviet Union. It occurs. out of the public vision of the League of Nations and the Western powers. So when Hitler comes to power

in 1932, he continues with this program. So even though rhetorically, his attacks on the Soviet Union, his attacks on communists within Germany are stepped up, at the same time, a lot of Germany's remilitarization have been dependent on that close affinity with the Soviet Union. So there's quite a striking element here. Roosevelt, on the other hand, becomes the first American president to recognize the Soviet Union shortly after coming to power. So these are all questions that are going on throughout this period. And for the most part, though, the United States isn't, I mean, as I say, Roosevelt's recognition of the Soviet Union is a bit of an outlier in terms of active engagement in global affairs. When the Japanese, after the Manchurian crisis in 1931, the US doesn't really get

involved in what's going on in East Asia, the Japanese increasing encroachment onto China. It doesn't get involved that much when the Italians move into Abyssinia, and it doesn't get involved that much when the Germans remilitarize the Rhineland. Roosevelt is aware that public opposition to involvement is represented through neutrality legislation that's gone through Congress. The Americans are determined we are going to stay out of any future conflict. And when Roosevelt goes for re-election in 1936, he follows that line. He says, we will isolate ourselves from future wars. But after his re-election victory, and particularly after the Japanese move into China in 1937, and we were on the road towards great power conflict,

Roosevelt starts to change his perspective on this, at least publicly, and is very clear that the United States has got to support those Western powers who are standing up against what he sees as this axis of aggression. What did he think of Hitler in these early years? What did he think of Hitler in these early years. Is there a record of that? I mean, ultimately, Roosevelt is very opposed to Nazism. From an early point, we see Roosevelt's aversion, his hostility to the Nazi system of government. But at the same time, he doesn't actually tell his ambassadors to do much with regards to, say, the German disenfranchisement and isolation of its Jewish population.

Roosevelt is telling his ambassadors essentially to stay out of German internal affairs during this period. And as I say, he's very much aware of the possibilities of German revanchist militarism. I mean, going back to his childhood, Roosevelt would spend a couple of years in Germany as a young boy. And he never really loses that sense of his opposition to German militarism. But at the same time, he is a very savvy political figure at this time. So whatever his private feelings, his sense is that his political fortunes are best served by keeping the US out of what's going on in Europe. Was he tempted to visit the Olympics?

I mean, that was such a big deal. 1936, the Berlin Olympics, such a showcase for the Nazi government. FDR didn't think of showing up at that? Well, we have to remember FDR's disability, obviously, prevents his travel. I mean, even during the Second World War, he doesn't travel to the same extent as someone like Winston Churchill, who's constantly on the move during the Second World War. I mean, there's a famous story at one of the wartime conferences where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin are sort of sitting around and sort of describe each other as the father, son and the Holy Ghost. And Stalin says, well, Churchill's got to be the Holy Ghost because he's always flying around everywhere.

And that was the sort of sense to which Churchill was constantly traveling. He went to the US repeatedly after the Americans came into the war in 1941. But Roosevelt doesn't travel that much. I mean, and I think that's actually really important for his vision of international politics. His understanding of Germany is very much fixed from what he had seen on the Battlefront on the Western Front during the First World War, which he had visited as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He never loses that suspicion of German militarism that comes out of that. And so, no, there's no real sense that he would travel to Germany in 1936.

This is still an era where American leaders don't tend to travel much to Europe, Woodrow Wilson, to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, notwithstanding. So we've mentioned several times a famous oration that FDR gives in Chicago. It's called the quarantine speech, 1937. So we're pushing on here towards World War II. He says the time will come when America must act. I'm going to read an excerpt from this thing. Imagine this is FDR speaking, which I can't do.

It goes like this, quote, We foresee a time when men exultant in the technique of homicide will rage so hotly over the world that every precious thing will be in danger. Every book and picture and harmony, every treasure garnered through two millenniums, the small, the delicate, the defenseless, all will be lost or wrecked or utterly destroyed. If those things come to pass in other parts of the world, let no one imagine that America may expect mercy, that this Western hemisphere will not be attacked and that it will continue tranquilly and peacefully to carry on the ethics and the arts of civilization.

He's, this is his warning shot across the bow. There is a war coming and we have a role to play. Exactly. For Roosevelt, he's really challenging that established national security perspective that essentially the U.S. can keep itself isolated behind these big moats that come with the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean, these sort of this hemispheric defense. His sense increasingly is that in the modern world, that is not going to be possible. and as he puts it in another speech later on, that he does not want to live in a world

dominated by the philosophy of force. And we've seen that with the Italians going into Abyssinia, with the Japanese attack on China, and increasingly with German aggression. We've got the Spanish Civil War with German intervention in that. We will have the following year, the German Anschlis with Austria, and then the move into the Sedating Land. So Roosevelt is aware of the way in which the world is going. And as I say in his first, term, he had been very careful about his foreign policy pronouncements. He was aware about this neutrality legislation that Congress has put through. But what we see at this point, and as you say, speaking in Chicago, there's no coincidence about that. This is a bastion of isolationism in the Midwest.

Roosevelt is challenging that American tradition. And his sense is essentially that the US cannot be indifferent to this. And as he says in this quarantine speech, that this is a disease. effectively and the US needs to be able to isolate those powers. But what happens in the aftermath of that speech is there is a huge domestic backlash against what Roosevelt says. There's a sense to which Roosevelt is talking about the US joining the League of Nations economic sanctions on these powers and Roosevelt has to walk this back. But it's an indication into his worldview and it's very much picked up in Berlin. Hitler, here's that speech and for him this is a a clarion call, an alarm bell going off that the United States is going to be resisting his

aggression. So in years to come, Hitler starts to ask his underlings in the foreign office to sort of gather together evidence of Roosevelt's animosity towards Germany. And the first instance that they point to is the quarantine speech. And so this is the beginnings of this rhetorical and increasingly military clash between the United States and Germany. There is a video that everyone must look up, which is Hitler ridiculing FDR in front of, I guess it's the Reichstad, right? Is that where he's speaking? You have all these military uniforms behind him. You've got all this huge crowd in front of him. And he literally goes through a routine. He names off all the places that FDR in his quarantine speech has warned Germany not to take over. And he lists the entire thing. It's a comedy bit in which he rouses this audience into laughter and applause. because he's just dismissing everything that has been worn to him through FDR. That's how present FDR was in Hitler's mind at this moment. Yes, and if you look through German political cartoons at this time as well,

Roosevelt starts to feature far more prominently, and he starts to feature in sort of classic Nazi stereotyping of him as this sort of disabled figure. This is obviously at a time where much the American public was being shielded from any sort of view of Roosevelt and his disability, but the Nazi propaganda machine is making a major element of this, of ridiculing Roosevelt's disability, but also a big emphasis on what they see as Roosevelt's Jewishness. There's a constant theme that underpins this. Hitler behind the scenes talks about this idea of exposing Roosevelt as being actually of Jewish birth and that all of these Jewish advisors

around him, that Roosevelt is the sort of plaything of international capital. And if you look at German political cartoons, there's this constant sense in these cartoons that Roosevelt is almost being tempted by the Jewish serpent in the garden, essentially. These are the sort of stereotypes in imaging. So, as I say, it's part of hit a stick, his sort of ridiculing of Roosevelt, but underlying it is this very conspiratorial, very dark vision that comes with the way in which Roosevelt and the United States is depicted as being degenerate, weak, and essentially Jewish. But as we've established before, he knows the danger that America presents in this scenario.

That's why I ask about the Blitzkrieg, you know, the creation of this idea of how fast and mechanized this war will be. How aware were they that this had to be this way? Because otherwise America gets right in and we haven't taken enough land at that point. So what we start to see in the aftermath of the quarantine speech is that Roosevelt does start to move towards an increasing American rearmament program. So in 1938, we get an act that goes through Congress, the idea of a Navy second to none. And it's clear from the German perspective that America's industrial potential can support a Navy on a different scale to anything else that they face. And increasingly, as the late 30s go on, we get the American withdrawal of its ambassador from Berlin in the

aftermath of Christenacht. The European nations don't do this, but Roosevelt withdraws his ambassador, from Berlin, the Germans withdraw their ambassador in response. But we also get this sense that Roosevelt is pushing this idea of a military rearmament program and he sees it particularly in war planes that the British and the French can buy in order to sort of stiffen their resolve to stand up against the Germans. And that's really the way in which Roosevelt sees this. At the same time, he's also being rebuffed by the Congress, who are unwilling to sort of revise neutrality legislation,

there's all sorts of political constraints under which he's operating. But Roosevelt is starting to think, how can I strengthen the allies? And as soon as war breaks out, we start to see a move towards economic support. There's no sense that we saw during the First World War of the US being neutral, as Woodrow Wilson had put it, in thought as well as in action. Roosevelt is very clear. The support of the United States, the support of the US government, is with the allied powers against the aggressors.

And in particular, what we see in 1939 are things like the cash and carry provisions so that the British are able to come to American ports and pick up weapons which they can then bring back because of the power of the British Navy. That's not going to be possible for the Germans to do. So this is something which is sort of tilted towards the Allies and towards the British. But the big real shift from the American point of view, and you mentioned Blitzkrieg, what happens with the fall of France in the summer of 19. has a massive impact on the American psychological consciousness. There's a real sense from that moment onwards that American national security has been changed. The Germans are able to do this and dominate the European continent. Then there's a strong chance that Britain might fall.

And if so, then that is a threat to America, the control of the Atlantic sea lanes. And that is the threat to the US. So this becomes a big debate in the United States after this period. how much support do we give to the British and the French? But increasingly there's a sense that the German, essential, as you say, Blitzkrieg of Europe has really changed the game for American national security. But how prominently FDR figures into this? I mean, I'm speculating psychologically,

but it seems that as we tilt towards, you know, further and further into Hitler's madness, which truly comes to pass as the war develops, FDR becomes this symbol of this insidious world conspiracy that's pitted against him. Yeah, because from Hitler's perspective, this idea that the United States is neutral is a facade, and don't get me wrong, I support the increasing engagement of the United States in support of the Allied powers.

But there is something to Hitler's critique of the United States as being neutral. The US has not been neutral in the late 30s and early 40s. Increasingly, as we say, economic support for the allied powers. We've seen this with Cash and Carrey, we see this with the idea of the US as the arsenal of democracy, and then with the lend lease provisions, which provide the storehouses of the United States or the British to defend themselves against Germany. And particularly after the 1940 election, which Roosevelt wins, he then feels much more able to sort of step up his support of the ally powers. We get economic support on a different scale with the lend lease provisions, and then increase. underclared naval warfare in the Atlantic where the US and German fleets are firing on each other,

and then the Atlantic Charter in the summer of 1941, where Roosevelt and Churchill look forward to a world after the Nazis have been defeated. And remember, this is while the US is still a neutral power. So from Hitler's perspective, Roosevelt is becoming his greatest enemy. He's constantly, the two men are constantly attacking each other in rhetorical speeches. So from Hitler's perspective, U.S. intervention in the war seems like a matter of time. Yeah, very dramatic. So FDR's been speaking to the American public in the fireside chats throughout the 1930s, educating them about the New Deal and so forth. As we tilt more towards the 1940s, it becomes about World War II. And in May of 1941, now we're six months out from Pearl Harbor at this point, he says this in this fireside chat. Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been inside.

danger as now. I mean, it doesn't get any clearer than this. The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world. It was only three weeks ago that their leader stated this, quote, he is quoting. There are two worlds that stand in opposition to each other. And then in defiant reply to his opponents, he said this, others are correct when they say, with this world, we cannot ever reconcile ourselves. I can beat any other power in the world. So said the Nazi leader. This is Franklin Roosevelt just sort of laying down the gauntlet. We have to not only help in this war,

but prepare to be involved. Exactly. But there is still, to be remembered, that Roosevelt is very much a politician at this time. And he's aware of the residual American opposition to entrance into a full-scale conflict. Most opinion polls at this time suggest that no more than about a quarter of Americans want a declaration of war on Germany. Many more Americans than not are saying that even if Britain is in danger, we should not intervene in a European conflict. We shouldn't again send military forces to the European continent. And Roosevelt's aware of what happens to Woodrow Wilson after the First World War. Roosevelt writes all of those speeches that you're talking about there with a picture of Woodrow Wilson above him, a portrait of him.

And so constantly in Roosevelt's mind is the fate of Wilson. He got too far ahead of the American public and was destroyed by it. So Roosevelt is constantly aware. He's trying to push the American public as far as they will go, but any time he feels opposition or resistance, he pulls back. He's concerned about getting too far. And so from the British perspective, Churchill publicly is talking about this idea of give us the tools and we will finish the job.

If you give us this economic support, that will be enough. Churchill privately knows that's not going to be enough. He needs the Americans to be on a war footing in order to get the full amount of economic goods. But also increasingly, he is aware that American belligerents is going to be necessary. And increasingly, there's a sense, are the Americans going to do this? I mean, what we see is that American ships are being fired on in the Atlantic by the Germans, and Roosevelt doesn't move towards a declaration. of war. And so one advisor says to Churchill, Roosevelt's a bit like Hamlet. He's hesitating. He won't

make a decision. He won't come into this. And Churchill's writing as late as November 1941 to Harry Hopkins, Franklin Roosevelt's chief advisor, saying there's waves of depression throughout the cabinet because we think that the Americans aren't going to come in at the end. And we need American support in order to win this war. So it's a very challenging situation. Rosabat, as you say, stepping up is a rhetorical attacks on Germany, stepping up economic support for the Allies, and Hitler seeing war as being inevitable. But Roosevelt also aware of the political constraints

and the British aware of the political constraints and thinking, well, how is this going to play out? Are the Americans going to come in when we need them? So there's a huge amount of uncertainty throughout 1941. So this is so interesting. This is this critical tipping point. Pearl Harbor happens on December 7, 1941. on. War between the U.S. and Japan, that is definite. That's going to happen. But the USA and Germany don't go to war until December 11th when Hitler declares it. So it seems so inevitable now. But if you'd been FDR in those four days, everything was still in the balance. You wouldn't know where this was going for sure.

Yes, so the tripartite pact that Germany has entered into with Japan and Italy essentially says that they will go to war if one of those powers is attacked by another power. It doesn't say anything about what will happen if they are the aggressor. So the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, as you say, brings the United States into war with Japan. But Roosevelt, as we've been talking about, his main threat, as he's recognized, is Nazi Germany. But he's also aware that the American public will look at what's happened with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and think, well, we've been left unprepared in the Pacific. People like Charles Lindbergh and other sort of America First spokespeople are saying, we've been left unprepared because we've been giving too much away to the British and the Soviets. So don't you dare try and get us involved in another war in Europe now? And the America First Committee on the night of Pearl Harbor put out this statement that says, we support the war with Japan, but privately, they say to all of their committee chapters, our arguments against the war with Germany remain exactly the same. And the British are aware of this. The ambassador in Washington,

Lord Halifax writes back to Churchill saying there is a distinction in the American public mind between war with Germany, war with Japan. German diplomats are saying the same things to Hitler. It's not clear that American Declaration of War is forthcoming. And even the Japanese can't be certain either. They are talking about the ideas behind closed doors of racial abandonment. Essentially, the Germans will take this opportunity to sort of join with the other Anglo-Saxon powers and gang up on the Japanese. This is a remarkably uncertain moment. George Kennan, the great American diplomat who will go on to write the containment strategy with regard to the Soviet Union. At this time, he's in the Berlin embassy and he's aware that what happened with the

declaration of war on Japan, but he is in the embassy and he says that we are living in excruciating uncertainty. We've got no idea what's going to come between a war between Germany and the United States. So all of this is up in the air. And the only person who really knows how this is going to play out is Adolf Hitler, because when he hears about the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he's surprised because he would have been hoping for a Japanese attack but couldn't be certain. He's also absolutely ecstatic because from his perspective, this means that Germany will not be left to face the United States unaided, which is essentially his fear that the Americans are coming into the war. And so his sense is the Japanese have got this remarkable navy, they're extremely

strong, they can essentially tie down the United States. Or we dominate Europe, we push back the Soviet Union into Siberia, we can sort of cut the supply line for the British in the Suez Canal, and we can dominate this European space. So from Hitler's perspective, he knows, from the moment the Japanese attack Polar Harbor, he's going to declare war on the United States. What is important to remember is that no one else can know in those few days after Polarver. So it's a very sort of uncertain moment, but it's one where Hitler has absolute murderous clarity about what he's going to do. But you're saying something that I think most people would find surprising. Germany knows nothing

about Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor. This was as a biggest surprise to them as it was to the Americans. Well, ultimately, there have been discussions between the Germans and the Japanese, but the Japanese do not release this information about the sort of timing of this attack ahead of the strike.

And you've got to remember how little trust there was between the two sides. When Germany attacks the Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa, he doesn't tell the Japanese. The Japanese government falls over the German attack on the Soviet Union because the Japanese had basically thought

that their strategic plans would rely on keeping close relations with the Germans and with the Soviet Union. So there's not much trust between the two sides. And there's sort of discussions around sort of an update of the tripartite pact. But Hitler cannot be sure with regards to this. And as I say, the Japanese can't be certain either.

And there's a wonderful line by Roosevelt speechwriter, Robert Sherwood, who writes afterwards. And he says that we knew, that there were pledges that the Germans had made, that they would essentially join any war that Japan fought. But how could you be sure that this figure, who was so untrustworthy, would abide by what Sherwood calls these bourgeois pleasures, this idea that just because you've said you're going to do something, you're going to do something. I mean, in the aftermath of Munich and the German invasion of Czechoslovakia, how could anyone trust Hitler's word? And this is the Japanese and

Hitler's allies in Rome as well were just as unsure as how the Germans might act. So, yeah, the untrustworthiness of Hitler was obviously legendary at this time. Ooh, dark days. I mean, one has to keep in mind how bad it really looked in early December 1941. The Germans own pretty much all of Western Europe. The Japanese have taken out our Navy in Honolulu. It's an incredible stack deck against the Allied forces. December 11, 1941, Hitler declares war. Just a few days. I mean, you're talking about this period of time that's pretty short. But what has informed his decision is all of what you just talked about. This is going to be an advantage for Germans in the end. Japan's going to tie them down out there.

It looks like a pretty good fight for him. Yes. And as you said, one of the other things that's so important in these few days is that the United States immediately embargoes lend lease aid to the British and the Soviets on the night of the day. December the 7th, 1941. So this is also, it's not yet the case that the US is this massive behemoth that it will become as the conflict goes on. It's not clear that the US has enough resources to fight wars in multiple theatres. Roosevelt says to Eleanor Roosevelt on the night of Pearl Harbor, I don't know what we're going to do. We don't have enough Navy to go around. You've got to remember, it's unclear just how much destruction the Japanese have inflicted

on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. So this is a really important part of the calculation. And from Hitler's perspective, Len Lees looms very large in his mind as well. And so, as I say, to direct American resources towards the Pacific, to mean that they don't have the resources to send to the British and the Soviets, and that the Nazis take advantage of that opportunity to essentially wage submarine warfare on the American fleet in the Atlantic. and then to strike against the British and the Soviets.

And you've got to remember as well what's also, as you say, this very dark moment in early December 1941, the Germans are at the gates of Moscow as well. And the Soviets at this time are receiving quite a substantial proportion of lend lease aid, particularly from the British, who are then having their stocks replenished by the Americans. So the way in which the resources play out is very important. And so there is a very real possibility that the Germans are able to sort of strike and to take advantage of this moment.

And really what Hitler is doing, he's gambling that essentially he strikes at this point because in the long term, from his perspective, he's going to lose this conflict if he doesn't change the situation. As I say, it looks very dark from the ally perspective, but from Hitler's perspective, the American industrial power is so great that ultimately that is going to be directed against Germany. So what you need to do is direct that initially against the Japanese, the Germans create this essentially blockade proof space in Europe, and essentially the Americans and the British have to come to terms with a German-dominated Europe, which, going back, as we say to the 1920s, had always been Hitler's vision of the second book,

of Germany dominating Europe and being a great power on the same level as these other major powers. So this is all part of this very sort of dicey strategic situation. It plays to his advantage, FDR's advantage. The declaration of war by Hitler was actually helped FDR in his efforts strategically anyway. I mean, not a good day, but definitely it helps him articulate and master the forces within his own country to create this war effort. Absolutely. So politically, it would have been very difficult for FDR to preempt a declaration of war on Germany. And as we say, there are many people in the U.S. much of the island.

Esolationist press are still very suspicious of this idea that Roosevelt is going to take advantage at this moment to again get into a war in Europe. So that's not to say that over the course of a number of weeks and months, that there wouldn't have been an incident in the Atlantic that would have brought the US directly into the war with Germany. What I'm saying is that there is a very uncertain period of time where for a few weeks, the fact that Americans had embargoed lend lease aid to the British and the Soviets, the possibility of the Germans pushing the Soviets back into Siberia of defeating the British in North Africa meant that America was faced with a really challenging political position. Roosevelt was faced with this idea that he couldn't preempt a declaration of war, he couldn't start sending all of these supplies to Europe when he wasn't effectively at war with Nazi Germany and with the American public saying the focus has got to be on the Japanese,

they've attacked us. We're not even at war with Germany. Why are you sending all these suppliers to the British and the Soviets? That's what's got us into the situation in the first place. So he's in a really challenging political situation. So Hitler's declaration of war really helped him resolve that really dicey political dilemma because at that point it's clear that the United States is in the fight full scale against all of the Axis powers and as a result the Germany first strategy can be implemented because Germany is seen as the great to threat. But it would have been very politically difficult for him to do this when the U.S. wasn't formerly at war with Germany. So Hitler's declaration of war really resolves many of

his dilemmas. It's so incredible that these two foes, in all these years before, never met, never communicated directly. As you call it, a rhetorical battle was fought before, even before the war. But that's an amazing fact, isn't it? That for all these years, these two men never shook hands, never saw each other, never talked through interpreters, however. And now we're at war. It's not going to happen. Yes. And as you say, it really dominates this period from 1933 to 1945. These two figures are really the dominant actors on their sides of the coalition. Obviously, there are other big players within this Stalin, Winston Churchill. But the thing about Roosevelt and the economic power that he's able to sort of harness means that even while the

United States is fighting this war in the Pacific, they are also essentially providing the economic backing for both the British and the Soviets to fight their struggles as well. And Hitler's very aware of American industrial power. That's a major reason why he devotes a huge proportion of his strategic resources to air and naval power, because he knows that it's the American destruction of German facilities, its ammunition supplies. That is going to essentially turn the top of the in this conflict. The Soviets are incredibly reliant on those lend-lease provisions that they get from the United States. So this is really a major part of this struggle. That's not to say that the Soviets and the, particularly the Soviet soldiers who die on the Eastern Front in those battles

are not absolutely integral to this victory. It's just to say that the United States is critical with its industrial and economic power to the ultimate allied victory. And Hitler is very aware of this. And he knows, essentially, he can't combat this. He does not have the economic strength to do so. And then, again, as if a novelist is writing this, we have this incredibly stressful war being fought, and the stress takes its toll on both men.

How much did their awareness of each other evolve during this war? Did they see what toll it was taking in each other? Well, Roosevelt is very clear, say that the strategy has to prioritize Germany and Hitler. The destruction of Hitler's Germany has to be the sort of essence of the struggle. From Hitler's perspective, he's quite candid about this to his advisors. He doesn't know how he's going to beat the United States. So this plays a major role within their clashes. And from Roosevelt's perspective, his sense is that once Germany falls, then Japan will fall as well.

ultimately, as I say, even while Hitler is fighting this sort of devastating conflict on the Eastern Front, the fact that he's directing so much of his production towards air and naval power against the United States is an awareness of the stakes of the struggle in the West as well. So both are aware of how important this clash is between the two of them. I think ultimately Winston Churchill puts this very sort of effectively in his memoirs on the Second World War. The moment that the United States comes into the war, he says, and he says that he says this on the night of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,

I think it's more likely that he felt like this after America came into the war against Germany. But once the US is in the war up to the neck and into the death, then Britain had won after all. I think from the moment that the US is in that conflict, the economic and industrial discrepancy between the two sides means that Germany is going to be ground down to destruction. And it's a matter of time as Churchill sees it from that moment onwards. Four years later, FDR will die on April 12th of a stroke.

Weeks later, in his suicide note, written 29th of April, 1945, Hitler comes back to America, lamenting that the war happened and blaming statesmen who were either Jewish or worked for Jewish interests. I mean, is he blaming FDR for everything here? What we see with regard to Hitler's obsession, his paranoid obsession with Jewish industrial power. We saw this in the lead-up to the American intervention in the war,

from the late 1930s onwards, is that Hitler is constantly sending these coded messages that essentially says that if the U.S. comes into the conflict, then those who he thinks are behind American power, which he sees as World Jury. He says, if there is another World War, then that will inevitably lead to the destruction of world jury. And what we see in this suicide note is the sort of the sense to which he is sort of putting these things together again. And that what we see throughout the conflict is a ratcheting up of Hitler's aggression, his violence, his genocidal intent against first Europe's Jews,

and then ultimately his hope is that he can extend this to global jury as well. But initially, the focus is on Eastern European jury, it then turns to Western and Central European jury, but he's also sort of targeting what he says as the New York financiers who are behind Franklin Roosevelt. So his sense is that the war has come because of this sort of, of economic power of world jury. And as I say, this is Hitler's sort of paranoid conspiratorial obsession that underpins all of this. There's an element, and I think this is what makes it so hard

to study Hitler, because you have to get into his mind without allowing him to sort of make you rationalize some of his most irrational and conspiratorial views. We see elements of a geopolitical vision that says, okay, we essentially, we need to strike now because the economic forces are going against us. So there's an element of rationality about that decision. But it's encased in this irrational conspiratorial worldview that sees Jews at the bottom of everything. So his targeting of Roosevelt is as much about his targeting and his obsession with world jury and that he sees essentially attacking Jews as a way of getting at Roosevelt. But ultimately, this is post-hop ex facto justification. I mean, it's his rabid anti-Semitism that is motivating everything here.

It's the crazy thing about Hitler. You're in a therapist seat the whole time you're trying to understand the historical implications of this guy. Did FDR finally write him off as a fanatic? Did he understand that man that way? Yes, I think there's very much a sense to which Roosevelt sees Hitler as a fanatic, but he also, and as we see, his sense is that, and he goes back and forth on the idea of what to do with Germany after this. Is it just essentially you need to destroy Adolf Hitler or do you essentially need to destroy this German militarism that has fed into this? And so the famous Morgantau plan by his secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgantel, which essentially looked at the idea that you needed to pastoralize Germany. You needed to sort of

reduce it to sort of just agriculture. You couldn't allow Germany to have the sort of that the Prussian military backing, you couldn't allow it to have these sort of industrial heartlands, because if so, Germany would again turn to aggression in the near future. So Hitler was this sort of, this extreme variant of German militarism, but underpinning this in Roosevelt's mind, coming out of both world wars, was the sense that what underpinned global conflicts in the first half of the 20th century was German militaristic aggression, and that needed to be crushed. Well, we did it with bases. We stuck a bunch of bases there. And that's how the 20th century played out, along with a wall right down the middle of Berlin.

What a fascinating period of time you've identified with this book. It's called Hitler's American Gamble. Charlie is the co-author of this book. Really important to understand that there was this tipping point that came with the Declaration of War from Germany on to America. It was an incredible question that you're addressing. Thank you so much, Charlie. It's been nice to meet you again. We'll see you in the future. I hope so.

It's been a pleasure of Don. Hello, folks, thanks for listening to American History Hit. Each week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of great content, like mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements, to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on.

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