L5+Yeomelakis+Jenna

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, HEALTH AND REHABILITATION LESSON PLAN FORMAT
 * UNIVERSITY OF MAINE AT FARMINGTON

Teacher’s Name:** Ms. Jenna Yeomelakis **Date of Lesson:** #5
 * Grade Level:** Grade 9-Diploma **Topic:** Has the United States Kept its Promise?

__**Objectives**__

 * Student will understand that** the Holocaust impacted the world's perception of humanity and morality.
 * Student will know** the following key terms, people, and events: Franklin Roosevelt, the Great Depression, the Versailles Treaty, Harry Truman, U.S. involvement in World War II and the Holocaust, Great Britain's struggle, and the defeat of France.
 * Student will be able to** consider the U.S. role in the Holocaust and why it took so long to intervene.

__**Maine Learning Results Alignment**__
Maine Learning Results: Social Studies. E. History E1. Historical Knowledge, Concepts, Themes, and Patterns Grade 9- Diploma "Holocaust" Students understand major eras, major enduring themes, and historic influences in the United States and world history, including the roots of democratic philosophy, ideals, and institutions in the world. b. Analyze and critique major historical eras, major enduring themes, turning points, events, consequences, and people in the history of the United States and world and the implications for the present and future.


 * Rationale:** My lesson meets the needs of the Maine Learning Results because covering this lesson will give students knowledge of a major era, major events, and important people of World War II and the Holocaust. The lesson also covers the perspective of the United States and its role in World War II and the Holocaust. The students will uncover why it took the U.S. so long to intervene in World War II, whether or not the United States is still a superpower, and whether or not the U.S. should intervene in global affairs. The lesson also provides the students an opportunity to address the questionable morals of humanity and whether or not it is right for the U.S. to not come to the aid of those in need.

__**Assessment**__
Students will organize class discussion notes into a Persuasion Map so that the learners can organize the reasons of why the United States took such a long time to intervene in the Holocaust using facts and examples to back up the point of views. This particular graphic organizer will also help set up students for success when the time comes for the class debate on whether or not the U.S. is still a superpower today and whether or not the U.S. should intervene in world affairs like the Holocaust. The students will participate in a Numbered Heads activity to fill out the Persuasion Maps because it enables the students to address every issue and come to a conclusion collaboratively. After the Numbered Heads activity, each group will be assigned to a specific country involved in World War II and the Holocaust. Students will have to research the role that their country played in World War II and the Holocaust. Gathering all of the research and materials gathered in class, the groups will collaborate to conduct a role-play/debate. Students in groups with countries like England, France, and Russia have to persuade Team America to intervene in World War II and the Holocaust. Team America will then have to decide whether or not they will provide aid and give the other countries their reasoning for their actions. After the role-play/debate, students will write an essay addressing whether or not they believe that the U.S. was right in taking so long to intervene in the Holocaust, and, using reasoning and facts, students must address whether or not the United States should intervene in global affairs. Each student needs to post their essay up on the class wiki. As a conclusion to the essay and role-play/debate, students will write comments on the class wiki about each other's essays.
 * Formative (Assessment for Learning)**

Wiki Essay Paper. Students will consider the Holocaust's impact on the world's perception of humanity and morality. After the students have been given a lesson on the role of the U.S. in World War II and the Holocaust, they will then be given links and outside resources to provide further expansion on the of the U.S. (and other countries) role in World War II and the Holocaust. Students will compile all of the information and role-play/debate into a persuasive essay paper that will be posted up on the class wiki. For: Remembering the Holocaust. Product: Wiki Persuasive Essay Paper. The students will hand in a hard copy of their persuasive essays which will be graded based on the formative essay plan improvements made by the individual students, along with a checklist of requirements created by the teacher.
 * Summative (Assessment of Learning)**

__**Integration**__

 * Technology:** I will use the class wiki for students to post up their persuasive essay papers and comments. Students will be using the internet to find the information about the role of the U.S. and other countries in World War II and the Holocaust.


 * Other Content Areas:** I will be integrating the aspect of formal writing with the persuasive essay papers about U.S. involvement in World War II and the Holocaust that the students are required to turn in after teaching the class a lesson about their particular topic. Students are also able to use their mathematical and logical skills to complete the Persuasion Map graphic organizer. Students will also be integrating a theatrical/physical aspect by conducting a role-play/debate between countries involved in World War II and the Holocaust.

__Groupings__
Students will be placed in groups of five which will be determined by the students getting up, standing in a straight line, and counting off. The teacher will assign each group a country that was involved in World War II and the Holocaust. The students will sit with their groups and fill out their Persuasion Maps during the teacher's lecture. After the lecture, students will complete their Persuasion Maps by researching with their groups about their particular country and the role it played in World War II and the Holocaust. Using the list of websites, resources, and materials gathered in class, the groups will start preparing for the role-play/debate. In each group, each student will be assigned a role: President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, Foreign Administrator, and Security Administrator. The President is responsible for being the spokesperson of each country. The Vice President will be responsible for speaking and working with the other foreign countries. The Secretary of State is responsible for recording down essential facts and statements made during the role-play/debate. The Foreign Administrator is also responsible for collaborating and working with the other countries to persuade Team America to get involved. The Foreign Administrator must also research the other wars and foreign affairs that their particular country is involved in. The Security Administrator is responsible for researching the implications and dangers of what will happen if Team America decides not to intervene. All roles will work collaboratively to outline their reasoning, facts, and opinions of why they think that the U.S. should intervene in World War II and the Holocaust. Team America will work collaboratively to outline their reasoning, facts, and opinions of why or why not they will or will not intervene. Team America's President will act as the spokesperson for the country. The Vice President of Team America will talk with collaborate with other countries to gain perspective of how they could benefit from intervening. The State Secretary is responsible for outlining and recording the pros and cons of intervening. The Foreign Administrator of Team America will research how being involved in other foreign affairs will affect the decision of whether or not they will or will not intervene in World War II and the Holocaust.

__**Differentiated Instruction**__

 * Strategies**
 * Logical:** Students will research, expand on, and organize information, facts, opinions, and reasonings for why the U.S. took so long to intervene in the Holocaust.
 * Verbal/Linguistic:** Students will participate in a role-play, class discussion, and class debate. Students will also participate in the Numbered Heads activity to share ideas, perspectives, and discoveries with their peers.
 * Visual:** Students are able to watch the role-play activity play out in a sequenced order.
 * Aural:** Students will listen in on group activities and class discussions. Students will also listen to opposing teams' views and perspectives on the topic.
 * Intrapersonal:** Students will work individually to reflect and write their essays.
 * Interpersonal:** Students will participate in a Numbered Heads activity, role-play, class discussions, and the class debate.
 * Physical/Bodily Kinesthetic:** Students will actively participate in the role-play.

I will review students' IEPs, 504s or ELLIDEPs and make the appropriate modifications and accommodations.
 * Modifications/Accommodations**

The students will participate in a pre-assessment so that the teacher can gain perspective of what the students already know so that the appropriate accommodations and modifications can be made. If students are absent, they are responsible to get the appropriate information from the class wiki. I will have the description of the assignment as well as giving a brief overview of how to post papers up on the class wiki. All of the daily notes will be made available on the class wiki as well as any worksheets that were handed out that day. Absent students will have one extra day past the due date to hand in the assignment. If they fail to do so, they will not receive credit for the completed assignment.

Students will work collaboratively to learn about the role of the U.S. and other countries in World War II and the Holocaust through internet research and then will produce a persuasive essay paper that will be posted up on the class wiki. Wiki Persuasive Essay Paper: Students will create a persuasive essay paper that addresses the U.S. and other countries involvement in World War II and the Holocaust. Students will consider the U.S. role in the Holocaust, why it took so long to intervene, and whether or not U.S. should intervene in world affairs. The advanced students will also have the opportunity to create a PowerPoint or iMovie campaign to persuade the American people whether or not the U.S. should intervene in global affairs.
 * Extensions**

__**Materials, Resources and Technology**__
Laptops (with wireless internet connection) Projector Projector screen Essay Requirements Checklist

__Source for Lesson Plan and Research__
Information on Franklin Roosevelt http://www.fdrheritage.org/vanden_heuvel.htm http://www.savingthejews.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/franklindroosevelt/ http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/fdrbio.html

Information on the Great Depression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/about.htm http://www.42explore2.com/depresn.htm http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/peopleevents/pandeAMEX05.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html

Information on the Versailles Treaty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/text/versaillestreaty/vercontents.html http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWversailles.htm http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/treaty_of_versailles.htm http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/versailles.htm

Information on Harry Truman http://www.trumanlibrary.org/teacher/hcaust2.htm http://www.adl.org/ADL_Opinions/Anti_Semitism_Domestic/truman_op_07182003.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/HarrySTruman/ http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAtruman.htm

Information on Churchill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1953/churchill-bio.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/churchill_holocaust_01.shtml http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=109 http://www.theholocausttimeline.com/winston-churchill-and-the-holocaust/

Information on Russia during the Holocaust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_was_Russia_during_the_Holocaust http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/holocaust.htm http://www.cyberessays.com/History/99.htm http://library.thinkquest.org/19092/ http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/revision-hitler.html http://www.historyguide.org/europe/lecture10.html

Information on U.S. involvement in World War II and the Holocaust http://www.historywiz.com/worldwartwo.htm http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/hitler.htm

__**Maine Standards for Initial Teacher Certification and Rationale**__
Rationale:** This lesson demonstrates Maine Standard for Initial Teacher Certification by providing different ways for students to learn and develop. The students will use the knowledge that was taught to them at the start of the lesson and expand on it. They will use their knowledge of the internet to search for more information relating to the roles of the U.S. and other countries during World War II and the Holocaust. They will also be given a brief review on how to post their persuasive essay papers up on the class wiki. The class agenda will be posted on the wiki ahead of class so that students will always know what we will be doing and what will follow each activity. This will help students who need to have organization in the classroom. Students can go as in depth as they want in their analysis of U.S. involvement in World War II and the Holocaust. For the creative students, essay papers may be created into PowerPoints or iMovies campaigning to the American people their views on whether or not the U.S. should be involved in global affairs. Student can also work in teams of five and work individually on the essays for an equal balance of interpersonal and intrapersonal preferences.
 * //Standard 3 - Demonstrates a knowledge of the diverse ways in which students learn and develop by providing learning opportunities that support their intellectual, physical, emotional, social, and cultural development.//

Rationale:** This lesson demonstrates Maine Standard for Initial Teacher Certification by pre-assessing the students' prior knowledge of U.S. and other countries' involvement in World War II and the Holocaust. Students will be asked to participate in a class discussion of what they know about the U.S. as a superpower and whether or not they believe that the U.S. should hold the responsibility of being the "World Police". The lesson can be modified to fit the knowledge of the students about U.S. and other countries' involvement in World War II and the Holocaust, The backward design model was used in designing this unit. Students' IEPs, 504s, and ELLIDEPs will be reviewed and the appropriate modifications and accommodations will be made. The facet of understanding that I use in this unit is Consider. In this lesson, students will consider the U.S. role in the Holocaust, why it took them so long to intervene, whether or not the U.S. is still a superpower today, and whether or not the U.S. should intervene in global affairs. This ties into the MLR because it reiterates the fact that World War II and the Holocaust impacted the world's perception of humanity and morality. Please see attached content notes for more specific material.
 * //Standard 4 - Plans instruction based upon knowledge of subject matter, students, curriculum goals, and learning and development theory.//

Rationale:** This lesson demonstrates the Maine Standards for Initial Teacher Certification in a variety of ways. A pre-assessment will be done to determine the current knowledge that the students have of U.S. and other countries' involvement during World War II and the Holocaust, so that the lesson may be modified to meet the students' learning needs. The students will be placed into groups of five that is determined by the teacher counting off. The students will then work together in their groups in a Numbered Heads activity to complete their Persuasion Maps and to do some research on the internet about their particular country's role in World War II and the Holocaust. The Numbered Heads activity will enable the students to work collaboratively to come to a conclusion on every issue. The role-play/debate will allow the students to gain a broader perspective on the countries' involvement in World War II and the Holocaust. The students will then be required to write a persuasive essay paper about whether or not they believe that the U.S. was right in taking so long to intervene in the Holocaust, and, using reasoning and facts, students must address whether or not the United States should intervene in global affairs as a formative assessment. Students will be given a brief overview of how to post their persuasive essay papers up on the class wiki. The students will also have the opportunity to set up a time with me to receive constructive feedback on their essay papers.
 * //Standard 5 - Understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies and appropriate technology to meet students’ needs.//
 * Logical:** Students will research, expand on, and organize information, facts, opinions, and reasonings for why the U.S. took so long to intervene in the Holocaust.
 * Verbal/Linguistic:** Students will participate in a role-play, class discussion, and class debate. Students will also participate in the Numbered Heads activity to share ideas, perspectives, and discoveries with their peers.
 * Visual:** Students are able to watch the role-play activity play out in a sequenced order.
 * Aural:** Students will listen in on group activities and class discussions. Students will also listen to opposing teams' views and perspectives on the topic.
 * Intrapersonal:** Students will work individually to reflect and write their essays.
 * Interpersonal:** Students will participate in a Numbered Heads activity, role-play, class discussions, and the class debate.
 * Physical/Bodily Kinesthetic:** Students will actively participate in the role-play.

Rationale:** This lesson addresses the Maine Standards for Initial Teacher Certification by documenting the students' progress in the following ways: A pre-assessment of the students' prior knowledge and a class discussion when the topic begins, so that the lesson can be modified to accommodate the students' learning needs. The teacher will make herself available to all teams so that the students are able to receive constructive feedback on their persuasive essayv papers before they have to turn in the hard copies. Rough drafts of the students' papers will be edited by peers in their group. The final wiki product and a hard copy of the students' persuasive essay paper will be used as a formative assessment to show the students' mastery of the information provided to them in class and in their research.
 * //Standard 8 - Understands and uses a variety of formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and support the development of the learner.//

__Teaching and Learning Sequence__
The students will enter the classroom and sit down at their desks, which are arranged in the standard lecture arrangement (circles). At the end of the lecture, students will be placed into groups of five which is determined by the teacher having the students stand up in a straight line and count off.


 * Students will consider and write down their ideas of the posed question (5 min).
 * The students will briefly talk about prior knowledge of U.S. and other countries' involvement in World War II and the Holocaust (10 min).
 * Give a lecture/discussion on U.S. and other countries involvement in World War II and the Holocaust (25 min).
 * Briefly review with students how they can post their essay papers up on the class wiki (10 min).
 * Select groups by counting off (5 min).
 * Send students to their groups to start research on topic while filling out the Persuasion Maps during the Numbered Heads activity (25 min).
 * Day 2: Students will get together with their groups to make last minute debates, and then will participate in the role-play (80 min).
 * Day 3: Allow the students to peer edit their papers, make revisions, and allow the groups to meet with me one-on-one (80 min).
 * Day 4: Students will pass in a hard copy of their persuasive essay papers along with their edits.

The U.S. and other countries' involvement in World War II and the Holocaust greatly impacted the world's perception of humanity and morality. The reason why we are doing this today is to address whether or not the United States is still the world's superpower today, and whether or not the U.S. should intervene in global affairs such as genocides. Students will be able to assess how people and countries reacted to the Holocaust. Students will be able to understand major eras, enduring themes, and historical influences in the Holocaust, the United States, and world history, including the roots of democratic philosophy, ideals, and institutions in the world. To engage the students in the beginning of the lesson, a question ("Because the U.S. is a superpower, should the U.S. come to the aid of every country in trouble? Why or why not?") will be posed on the board and aurally to launch the learners into deeper thinking and evaluation of the Holocaust.
 * Where, Why, What, Hook**, **Tailors: Visual, Aural**, Intrapersonal

Class will begin with a question posed to the students to get them thinking deeply about what they already know about U.S. involvement in the Holocaust. Afterwards, there will be a brief discussion of what the students already know. I will start to instruct the class on U.S. and other countries involvement in World War II and the Holocaust. I will provide students with a list of resources that they can refer to if they need to research about a particular country. The students will then split up into groups of five which is determined by the teacher having the students stand in a straight line and count off. After grouping, the teacher will assign the students a particular country to research for the role-play/debate. The students will move their desks into their small groups so that they may work together during a Numbered Heads activity to complete their Persuasion Maps. Students in the groups will also collaborate ideas and perspectives on the content provided, and they will begin to research their particular country. The students will begin to consider the U.S. involvement in World War II, why it took so long to intervene, and whether or not the United States should act as the "World Police". I will act as a facilitator and walk around the room to answer clarifying questions, assess their progress, and give feedback on the students' brainstorming and idea for their essay papers.
 * Equip, Tailors: Bodily Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal**, **Aural, Linguistic, Logical**

Day 1: The class will begin with a posing question that launches the students into deeper thinking about U.S. involvement in World War II and the Holocaust. From there, the students will participate in a brief discussion of what they thought the answer was to the posed question and their prior knowledge of the topic. I will give the students a background lecture that will help them gather good resources to refer back to when working on their papers. Then, I will introduce to the students the project that they will be working on for this particular lesson. The students will work in groups of five to research about their particular country and complete the Persuasion Maps during a Numbered Heads activity. I will briefly give the students an overview on how to post their persuasive essay papers up on the class wiki. I will hand out a checklist of requirements to the students for the final product (the essay paper) so that students may see what I will be grading them on. I will explain to the students that during the project, they are to continously make edits to their papers and they are to pass the edits in along with the final hard copy. Students should also pass back the checklist so that I may fill them out. I will explain to the students that they need to have a rough script of the research paper for the next class that I see them, so that the next class, their peers can edit the papers for them.

Day 2: Students will begin the class by taking ten minutes to make the last notes that they need for the role-play/debate. The students will have the rest of the eighty minute period to role-play/debate. The students will act out the debate and role-play and each country will be able to consult with each other and come collaboratively together for a conclusion to see whether or not they convinced Team America to intervene in World War II and the Holocaust. After the role-play, if there still is time in class, students will be asked questions to see what they've learned about the role-play, what they liked, disliked, and how they will incorporate the role-play/debate into their essay papers.
 * Explore, Experience, Revise, Rethink, Refine, Tailors: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Linguistic****,** **Bodily-Kinesthetic, Logical**

Day 3: The students will self-assess each others' work by exchanging papers with another peer and providing feedback on them. I will meet with each student to evaluate their progress and build on their peer's feedback on the essay papers. Each student will be allowed to revise their papers and make as many refinements as needed before they have to turn in the hard copies. They may tag links to valuable websites in their [|Delicious] account.
 * Explore, Experience, Revise, Rethink, Refine, Tailors: Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Linguistic**

Day 4: The students will be required to have their persuasive essay papers posted up on the wiki and a hard copy of their papers completed for homework. After turning in their completed assignment, students will post brief comments on the class wiki.
 * Revise, Refine, Rehearse, Tailors: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal****,** **Visual**

__**Content Notes**__


//Keynote address of the fifth annual Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Distinguished Lecture, held October 17, 1996 at Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois. The Franklin D. Roosevelt American Heritage Center is proud to reprint Ambassador vanden Heuvel's keynote address on this important topic of international consequence.// For those who share Winston Churchill's judgment, and I do, that the Holocaust "is probably the greatest and most terrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world," there can be no greater indictment than to allege complicity with that crime. There are some whose legitimate concerns over those grievous events leads them to try and make America and Americans feel guilt and responsibility for the Holocaust. They write and talk with barely a reference to the colossal military struggle known as World War II in which 67 million people were killed, where nations were decimated, where democracy's survival was in the balance. The Holocaust was part of World War II. Any discussion of the Holocaust must put events, values and attitudes in their time and place. The scholarship that informed a documentary presented on the Public Broadcasting System on April 6, 1994, entitled "America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference" made our country and its leaders "accomplices" to the Nazi barbarism. It is such scholarship that has caused many young American Jews to criticize and even condemn their grandparents and parents for being "passive observers" of the Nazi genocide, accepting the inference that they did not want to know what was happening to Europe's Jews, that they were so absorbed in their effort to be accepted or assimilated in American society that they chose silence rather than public outrage at the Nazi crimes, that they gave their overwhelming support to a President who was indifferent to the fate of Europe's Jews despite his knowledge of what was happening to them. Accusing the United States not only of abandoning the Jews but of complicity in the Holocaust, one eminent spokesman for this viewpoint has written: "The Nazis were the murderers but we"--and here he includes the American government, its president and its people, Christians and Jews indiscriminately--"were the all too passive accomplices." I am here today to offer a different point of view.|| Alone among the leaders of the world, he (FDR) stood in opposition to Hitler from the very beginning. || Five weeks after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt became President of the United States. Roosevelt's loathing of the whole Nazi regime was known the moment he took office. Alone among the leaders of the world, he stood in opposition to Hitler from the very beginning. In a book published in 1937, Winston Churchill--to whom free humanity everywhere must be eternally indebted and without whose courage and strength the defeat of Nazi Germany could never have been achieved--described Hitler's treatment of the Jews, stating that "concentration camps pock-mark the German soil..." and concluding his essay by writing that "the world lives on hopes that the worst is over and that we may live to see Hitler a gentler figure in a happier age..." Roosevelt had no such hopes. He never wavered in his belief that the pagan malignancy of Hitler and his followers had to be destroyed. Thomas Mann, the most famous of the non-Jewish refugees from the Nazis, met with FDR at the White House in 1935 and confided that for the first time he believed the Nazis would be beaten because in Roosevelt he had met someone who truly understood the evil of Adolf Hitler.

Before the Holocaust: 1933-1941
To understand those years, we must differentiate between the German Jews who were the immediate and constant subjects of Hitler's persecution and the Jews of central Europe who were the principal victims of the Holocaust. The Jews of Germany numbered about 525,000 in 1933. They were the yeast of Germany's great culture--leaders in literature, music, medicine, science, in its financial and intellectual life. For the most part, they wanted to be thought of as Germans. They had been a proud part of Germany's army in World War 1. Anti-Semitism shadowed their lives but they were citizens who thought of Germany as their country and were deeply rooted in its existence. "We are either Germans, or without a country," said a leading Jewish writer. They witnessed Hitler's coming to power with disbelief and saw Nazi dominance as a temporary phenomenon. In the face of Nazi persecution, those who left Germany did so reluctantly, many seeking refuge in neighboring countries from which they expected to return to Germany when the Hitler madness subsided. In the early years, many--if not most--believed Hitler and his regime could not survive, that the Germany that was their country too, would disown the Austrian corporal who threatened their well being. In his autobiography, Rabbi Stephen Wise--one of the most powerful and respected leaders of the American Jewish community--and a personal friend and close advisor of President Roosevelt who had constant access to the White House throughout the Roosevelt Administration--tells how in October, 1932, he received a report from a scholar whom he had sent to Germany and who had interviewed 30 leading Jews all of whom with one exception had declared that "Hitler would never come to power." They sent a message to tell "Rabbi Wise that he need not concern himself with Jewish affairs in Germany. If he insists upon dealing with Jewish affairs in Europe, let him occupy himself with Jewish problems in Poland and Rumania..." When Rabbi Wise organized a New York rally in March, 1933 to protest Nazi treatment of Jews, he received a message from leading German rabbis urging him to cut out such meetings and in a most insulting way indicating that American Jews were doing this for their own purposes and in the process were destroying the Germany that the German Jews loved. Rabbi Wise, continued to believe that the only option for the Jews was to leave Germany. As the Nazi persecution intensified, as the Nuremberg Laws degraded the Jews as nothing before, as Hitler strove to cause their emigration and confiscated Jewish property and wealth, the prospect of departure continued to be confronted. In 1934, 37,000 Jews fled Germany--but in the relative calm of the next year, 16,000 returned. The good and brave Chief Rabbi of Berlin, Leo Baeck, opposed mass emigration, setting a personal example of not abandoning his community, surviving even the horror of a wartime concentration camp. Every Jewish group affirmed the right of Jews to be German, to live in and love their country; they affirmed the legal right, the moral necessity and religious imperative of not surrendering to the pagan persecutors. As important as any barriers to immigration in western countries was the attitude of not wanting to leave Germany until absolutely necessary. It is crucial to our understanding of these years to remember that at the time no one inside or outside of Germany anticipated that the Nazi persecution would lead to the Holocaust. As Gerhard Weinberg has cogently written, the actions of the German government were generally understood, both by the victims and the bystanders, as a return to the kinds of persecutions and restrictions imposed on Jews in prior centuries, not as steps on the road toward genocide. The annexation of Austria, the appeasement of the Nazis represented by the Munich pact, and especially Kristallnacht in November, 1938, changed the situation dramatically. Especially Kristallnacht. Using as a torch the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by a 17-year-old Jewish youth whose father had been among the thousands of Polish Jews expelled from Germany and dumped across the Polish border just weeks before, Goebbels sparked an orgy of arson and looting in almost every town and city by Nazi thugs. Huge, silent crowds looked on. The police did nothing to contain the violence. Many German Jews for the first time understood the hopelessness of their situation. The America which elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt its president in 1932 was a deeply troubled country. Twenty-five percent of its work force was unemployed--and this at a time when practically every member of that work force was the principal supporter of a family. The economy was paralyzed, despair hung heavy on the land. Disillusion with Europe after the sacrifices of the First World War encouraged profound isolationist sentiments. This is not the time or place to recount the accomplishments of the New Deal nor the daring, innovative leadership that brought about the peaceful social revolution that has earned the bipartisan, contemporary judgment of Roosevelt as the greatest president of this century. Let us rather discuss what was most relevant to Germany's Jews--our immigration laws and American attitudes to events in Europe. The immigration laws of the United States had been established by legislation in 1921 and 1924 under Presidents Harding and Coolidge and by a Congress that had rejected the League of Nations and defined the new isolationism. The Congress controlled the immigration laws and carefully monitored their implementation. A formula assigned a specific quota to countries based on population origins of Americans resident in the United States in 1890. The law was aimed at eastern Europeans, particularly Russia and Poland which were seen as seedbeds of Bolshevik revolution. Italians were a target and Asians were practically excluded. The total number of immigrants that could be admitted annually was set at 153,774. The two countries most benefited were Great Britain (65,721) and Germany (25,957). As the Depression took hold, President Hoover tightened regulations by mandating that no immigrant could be admitted who might become a public charge. The Depression also encouraged an unusual coalition of liberal and conservative forces, labor unions and business leaders, who opposed any enlargement of the immigration quotas, an attitude that Congress adamantly reflected. The overwhelming majority of Americans agreed with the Congress, opposing the increased admission of immigrants, insisting that refugees be included in the quotas of countries from which they were fleeing. Jewish refugees from Germany, because of the relatively large German quota, had an easier time than anti-Communist refugees from the Soviet Union, not to mention the Chinese who were victims of Japan's aggression, or the Armenians or the Spanish fleeing a civil war where 500,000 were killed between 1936-39. Spain's annual quota, for example, was 252. The President and Mrs. Roosevelt were leaders in the effort to help the German Jews fleeing political persecution. Mrs. Roosevelt was a founder of the International Rescue Committee in 1933 which brought intellectuals, labor leaders, and political figures fleeing Hitler to sanctuary in the United States. President Roosevelt made a public point of inviting many of them to the White House. In 1936, in response to the Nazi confiscation of personal assets as a precondition to Jewish emigration, Roosevelt greatly modified Hoover's ruling regarding financial sponsorship for refugees thereby allowing a substantially greater number of visas to be issued. As a result, the United States accepted twice as many Jewish refugees than did the rest of the world put together. As Professor Weinberg has stated, Roosevelt acted in the face of strong and politically damaging criticism for what was generally considered a pro-Jewish attitude by him personally and by his Administration. Hitler's policy never wavered in trying to force the Jews to leave Germany. After the Anschluss in Austria, Roosevelt, on March 25, 1938, called an international conference on the refugee crisis. Austria's 185,000 Jews were now in jeopardy. The conference met in Evian, France. There was no political advantage for Roosevelt in calling for a conference "to facilitate the emigration from Germany and Austria of political refugees." No other major political leader in any country matched his concern and involvement. The Evian Conference tried to open new doors in the western hemisphere. The Dominican Republic, for example, offered sanctuary to 100,000 refugees. The Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) was established, hopefully to pressure the Germans to allow the Jews to leave with enough resources to begin their new lives. The devastating blow at Evian was the message from the Polish and Romanian governments that they expected the same right as the Germans to expel their Jewish populations. There were less than 475,000 German and Austrian Jews at this point--a number manageable in an emigration plan that the 29 participating nations could prepare, but with the possibility of 3.5 million more from eastern Europe, the concern now was that any offer of help would only encourage authoritarian governments to brutalize any unwanted portion of their populations, expecting their criminal acts against their own citizens to force the democracies to give them haven. The German emigration problem was manageable. Forced emigration from eastern Europe was not. The Nazi genocide was in the future--and unimaginable to the Jews and probably at the time unimagined by the Nazis. National attitudes then are not very different than today's. No country allows any and every refugee to enter without limitations. Quotas are thought even now to deter unscrupulous and impoverished regimes from forcing their unwanted people on other countries. By the end of 1938, Kristallnacht had happened. Its impact on the Jews of Germany and Austria was overwhelming. Munich was a tragic reality. Truncated Czechoslovakia would last six months before Hitler broke his promise and occupied the rest of the country. The German Jews at last understood the barbarism of the Nazis--and that Hitler was totally in power. America's reaction to Kristallnacht was stronger than any of the democracies. Roosevelt recalled his Ambassador from Germany. For the first time since the First World War an American president had summoned home an ambassador to a major power under such circumstances. At his press conference then, Roosevelt said: "I myself can scarcely believe that such things could occur in a 20th century civilization." He extended the visitors' visas of all Germans and Austrians in the United States who felt threatened. The reaction of Americans in opinion polls showed overwhelming anger and disgust with the Nazis and sympathy for the Jews. Roosevelt remained the target of the hardcore anti-Semites in America. He welcomed them as enemies and in brilliant maneuvering, he isolated them from mainstream America and essentially equated their anti-Semitism with treason and the destruction of both the national interest and national defense. Recognizing the inertia, frequent hostility, and sometime anti-Semitism in the State Department, he entrusted Sumner Welles, the Undersecretary of State and a person totally sympathetic to Jewish needs, to be his instrument of action. President Kennedy, a generation later, commented to friends that he would order something to happen at the State Department--and frequently nothing would happen. Roosevelt understood as Kennedy and every President learns that there is a bureaucracy in government that can limit the possibilities of executive action. Immigration procedures were complicated and sometimes harshly administered. The immigration laws and quotas were jealously guarded by Congress, supported by a strong, broad cross-section of Americans who were against all immigrants, not alone Jews. Of course, there were racists and anti-Semites in the Congress and in the country--there are today--only now, after 60 years of government based on liberal values, they dare not speak their true attitudes. The State Department, which jealously guarded its administrative authority in the granting of visas, was frequently more concerned with Congressional attitudes and criticisms than in reflecting American decency and generosity in helping people increasingly in despair and panic. Roosevelt undoubtedly made a mistake in appointing and continuing in office Breckenridge Long as Assistant Secretary of State. Many allege Long was an anti-Semite. Others argue "that he was in an impossible situation with an insurmountable task." His presence at State was undoubtedly an assurance to the Congress that the immigration laws would be strictly enforced. On the other hand there were countless Foreign Service officers who did everything possible to help persecuted, innocent people--just as they would today. There was an attitude that there were many sanctuaries available in the world besides the United States, so the Department, controlled by an elite and very conservative officialdom, was quite prepared to make Congressional attitudes the guide for their administration of immigration procedures rather than the attitudes of the White House. Congress looked at the turmoil in Germany as a European problem in which it did not want America to be involved. Nevertheless, between 1933 and 1941, 35 percent of all immigrants to America under quota guidelines were Jewish. After Kristallnacht, Jewish immigrants were more than one-half of all immigrants admitted to the U.S. Of course, there were other countries of refuge--many of them preferred by German Jews who--like everyone else did not foresee the Nazi madness of conquest and extermination--and who wanted to stay in Europe. Public opinion everywhere in the democracies was repelled by the Nazi persecution. Great Britain, for example, after Kristallnacht granted immigration visas essentially without limit. In the first six months of 1939, 91,780 German and Austrian Jews were admitted to England, often as a temporary port en route to the Dominions or other parts of the Empire. Roosevelt from the beginning saw the larger threat of the Nazis. Hitler wanted to present Germany as the champion of a universal struggle against the Jews. Roosevelt would not let him. The President understood that he had to explain the vital interest that all Americans had in stopping Hitler in terms of their own security, at the same time protecting Jews from being isolated as the sole cause of the inevitable confrontation. He pressured the Europeans to respond to Hitler. His speech in 1937 calling for the quarantine of the aggressors was met with political hostility at home and abroad. He was constantly seeking havens for the refugees in other countries knowing that he did not have the power to change the quota system of our own country. His critics refuse to acknowledge limitations on presidential power but clearly the President could not unilaterally command an increase in quotas. In fact, his Congressional leaders, including Representative Dickstein who chaired the House subcommittee on immigration, warned him that reactionary forces in the Congress might well use any attempt to increase the quotas as an opportunity to reduce them. Faulting FDR for not using his political power to urge changes in immigration laws when he knew he could not win--or worse, that the isolationists would work to reduce the quotas, does not make much sense. Seventy-two percent of all German Jews had emigrated before further emigration became impossible with the beginning of the war. Eighty-three percent of all German Jews under 21 emigrated. There are many reasons why the others did not get out--some were too old to leave, some believed it their religious duty to stay, some were in concentration camps and prisons, some just did not know what to do. Emigres were plundered of virtually all of their assets, and not until Jews faced the reality of terrorism and imprisonment were many of them prepared to give up their family's wealth and everything that they had worked for all of their lives. In his painfully eloquent book, //Bound Upon a Wheel of Fire//, John Dipple writes:
 * It is crucial to our understanding of these years to remember that at the time no one inside or outside of Germany anticipated that the Nazi persecution would lead to the Holocaust. ||
 * The overwhelming majority of Americans agreed with the Congress, opposing the increased admission of immigrants, insisting that refugees be included in the quotas of countries from which they were fleeing. ||
 * At his press conference then, Roosevelt said: "I myself can scarcely believe that such things could occur in a 20th century civilization." ||
 * The President understood that he had to explain the vital interest that all Americans had in stopping Hitler in terms of their own security, at the same time protecting Jews from being isolated as the sole cause of the inevitable confrontation. ||

Yes, there were tight restrictions on entering into the United States and other countries, but were Germany's Jews really blocked by them before 1938? Most evidence suggests that the Jews could have circumvented these obstacles in greater numbers if they had wanted to escape Germany badly enough, if they had grasped the desperateness of their plight earlier on. But they had not. Despite everything, Germany was still their home. And, despite almost everything they were prepared to stay there... It is important to say over and over again that it was a time and a place when no one foresaw the events that became the Holocaust. Given the reality of the Holocaust, all of us in every country--and certainly in America--can only wish that we would have done more, that our immigration barriers had been less, that our Congress had had a broader world view, that every public servant had reflected the attitudes of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. If anyone had foreseen the Holocaust, perhaps--possibly--maybe--but no one did. Nevertheless, the United States, a nation remote from the world in a way our children can hardly understand--the United States accepted twice as many Jewish refugees than did the rest of the world put together. Among the events that cause despair and anguish when we read about it is the fate of the ship, the S.S. St. Louis of the Hamburg-America line which left Germany and arrived in Cuba on May 27, 1939, with 936 passengers, 930 of them Jewish refugees. This was three months before the outbreak of the war, and three years before the establishment of the death camps. Other ships had made the same journey, and their passengers disembarked successfully, but on May 5th the Cuban government had issued a decree curtailing the power of the corrupt director general of immigration to issue landing certificates. The new regulations requiring $500 bonds from each approved immigrant had been transmitted to the shipping line but only 22 passengers of the St. Louis had fulfilled the requirements before leaving Hamburg on May 13th. The 22 were allowed to land but intense negotiations with the Cuban government regarding the other passengers--negotiations in which American Jewish agencies participated--broke down despite pressure from our government. It was not an unreported event. Tremendous international attention focused on the St. Louis, later made famous as the Voyage of the Damned. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and others, including Eleanor Roosevelt, worked to avoid the harsh reality of the immigration laws, for example, by attempting to land the passengers as "tourists" in the Virgin Islands. Despite the legal inability of the United States to accept the passengers of the St. Louis as immigrants, our diplomats were significantly helpful in resettling them. None--not one--of the passengers of the S.S. St. Louis were returned to Nazi Germany. They were all resettled in democratic countries--288 in the United Kingdom, the rest in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. The Nazi genocide was in the future, unforeseen and unimaginable by the Jews and those who wanted to help them. What were Franklin Roosevelt's own attitudes toward Hitler and the Jews? Did he reflect the social anti-Semitism that was endemic in the America of that era? Contemporary Jews knew that they had never had a better friend, a more sympathetic leader in the White House. Roosevelt opened the offices of government as never before to Jews. Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Samuel Rosenman, Felix Frankfurter, Benjamin Cohen, David Niles, Anna Rosenberg, Sidney Hillman, and David Dubinsky were among his closest advisors in politics and government. Rabbi Stephen Wise, the pre-eminent spokesman for American Zionism, and his daughter Justine Polier, were personal friends of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt with as much access to the White House as anyone. Rabbi Wise described FDR by saying "No one was more genuinely free from religious prejudice and racial bigotry..." He recalls in March, 1933 how "Roosevelt's soul rebelled at the Nazi doctrine of superior and inferior races..." and how in March, 1945, days before his death, Roosevelt spoke movingly of his determination to establish "a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth in Palestine."
 * Roosevelt opened the offices of government as never before to Jews. ||

The Holocaust: 1941-1945
The persecution of the Jews and their emigration from Germany were the prelude to the Holocaust. Nazi policy changed radically after the outbreak of war. The possibility of emigration ended. Germany's Jews were now prisoners. The Holocaust--the systematic killing of 6 million Jews--took place between 1941-45. The likelihood is that Hitler did not expect Britain and France to go to war over Poland. The Hitler-Stalin pact announced on August 24, 1939, stunned the world. The Soviets were enemies of Hitler, the rallying point for millions around the world who saw in them the only military force that might confront the Nazis. Suddenly, the Soviets and Germany ended their threats to each other, they divided Poland, Hitler gaining lebensraum and Stalin gaining a buffer zone from the Nazi armies he never trusted. Also in the package were more than 3 million Polish Jews, caught between Nazi brutality and Soviet degradation. Seemingly at peace on his eastern flank, occupying Austria, Czechoslovakia and Western Poland, essentially dominant in central Europe through satellite fascist movements, Hitler moved to the west, occupying Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands--and again stunning the world by conquering France in a six weeks blitzkrieg. France surrendered in June, 1940. Mussolini's Italy had become Hitler's active ally. Franco in a Spain prostrated by horrendous civil war owed his victory to Hitler's support. England stood alone. Its new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, expressed the defiance of Britain and its empire, but Britain facing invasion, desperately in need of arms, shaken by devastating Nazi bombings, looked to America for help and hope. Our debt to the British can never be adequately expressed. It was their "finest hour"--they held and salvaged the fate of freedom. In 1939, Roosevelt met with Albert Einstein and understood that new scientific discoveries would allow the development of atomic power, threatening a force that could destroy the world--or at least win the war for whichever nation first became its master. Roosevelt's decision to launch the Manhattan Project, giving it whatever resources it needed for success, began the nuclear age. It was as fateful a decision as any President has ever made. Hitler had the same option. German scientists were certainly capable of producing atomic weapons. Hitler had all of the necessary resources but he failed to pursue his option, not comprehending as Roosevelt did that the future of the world was at stake. As Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term as President, he--better than any American--understood what lay ahead. He had confronted the economic collapse of the United States--but recovery was slow and painful. Now he faced the political collapse of Europe, the military collapse of China--and totalitarian governments in Germany and Japan that threatened America as never before. Nazi Germany, possessed of the most modern, best trained, best equipped military force in recorded history, occupied western and central Europe, confident that Hitler's dream of conquest would soon include Great Britain, the Soviet Union--and ultimately the United States itself. Roosevelt's priority was to repeal the Neutrality Act, so that he could provide help to Britain. In 1940--with Europe under Hitler's boot--U.S. military strength ranked as 7th in the world--behind Portugal. We led the world in the production of automobiles but had practically no munitions industry. Whereas Hitler had invaded Belgium and the Netherlands supported by 136 fully equipped divisions, America could barely muster five divisions. Nevertheless, isolationist sentiment remained powerful, fully reflected in the Congress. Three months before Pearl Harbor, the continuation of the Selective Service program was sustained by a single vote in the House of Representatives. Roosevelt undid the public image that the isolationists had projected of themselves as peace-loving patriots. His persistent attacks on them turned the tide of public opinion and they came to be seen as "narrow, self-serving, partisan, anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi, fifth columnist, and even treasonous." At great political risk in the midst of the presidential campaign, Roosevelt engineered the deal that sent 50 desperately needed overage destroyers to Britain, a deed which helped save its lifeline from the unremitting attacks of German submarines. Hitler called it a belligerent act. It was. Roosevelt proposed Lend Lease--and built a bipartisan coalition to gain its Congressional approval. He announced the Four Freedoms as the goal that would justify the terrible sacrifices that lay ahead. He met with Winston Churchill, and together they announced the Atlantic Charter, the blueprint for the survival of democracy, and together they created the partnership that we hail today as the most important alliance of this troubled century. All this--and America was not yet at war. Nor had the genocide of Europe's Jews yet begun. America's isolationists continued to believe that the United States was protected from harm by the two vast oceans that separated it from Hitler's Europe and Japan's militarism. President Roosevelt believed otherwise. Pearl Harbor would prove Roosevelt's judgment correct--and give him a united country to mobilize for victory. Hitler's conquest of the European continent let loose the full force of his psychopathic obsession about Jews. With the start of the war on September 1, 1939, emigration from Germany was prohibited. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of German Jews escaped across borders into Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland. But by June, 1940, with the fall of France, Europe became a prison for the Jews. Unoccupied France was still an escape route. Despite intense criticism from the political Left, FDR continued to maintain diplomatic relations with Vichy, France--which allowed the escape route to remain open. The International Rescue Committee--a group in which Eleanor Roosevelt remained very supportive--sent a team headed by Varian Fry which helped countless refugees--mostly Jews--find sanctuary in Spain and Portugal. But the vise was tightening. With the invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941, the lock was put on the most terrible dungeon in history. Special squads of the German SS--the Einsatzgruppen--began the slaughter of 1,500,000 Jews behind the German lines in Russia. The Wansee conference was held in the suburbs of Berlin in January, 1942. The administrative machinery was put into place for the Final Solution. The Jews of central Europe, the Jews from the occupied nations of western Europe, the Jews of the Soviet Union--the principal victims of the Holocaust--were not refugees either before or after 1939. They were prisoners in a vast dungeon from which there was no escape and no possible rescue. They were not subject to Nazi rule or persecution prior to the war and few imagined that they ever would be, let alone that they would be murdered in history's greatest genocide. Just as German Jews imagined that Hitler and the Nazi rule would pass quickly, Jews outside of Germany did not imagine themselves in mortal danger. Zionism was not a dominant force in their communities. In 1936, in the Jewish community elections in Poland--the most highly organized Jewish community in Europe--the Social Democratic Bund won a sweeping victory on a pledge of "unyielding hostility to Zionism." Their leaders wanted Polish Jews to remain in Poland. The policies of the Soviet Union forbid emigration. In the Netherlands--a country whose Jewish population suffered a greater percentage of loss in the extermination camps than any other in western Europe--not more than 679 individuals, Jews and Gentiles, migrated in any one year before 1940--far less than the Dutch quota would have allowed. The assumption was that Hitler would respect Dutch neutrality just as the Kaiser had in the First World War. Once Hitler's armies marched, the Jews of Nazi-occupied Europe no longer had the possibility of being refugees. Now it was too late. They were prisoners. And only the physical liberation of their prisons--the extermination camps of central Europe--could save their lives. The doors had been closed, not by the United States or its allies, but by Hitler. In November, 1940, the Nazi government in Poland, announcing a ban on Jewish emigration, said: "continued emigration of Jews from eastern Europe would allow a continued spiritual regeneration of world Jewry--a process urgently needed by American Jewish organizations. It is America's Jewry forcing the struggle against Germany." Similar edicts followed in all countries under Nazi control. Jews were now prisoners of a psychopath who was also the absolute dictator of Europe. On January 30, 1942, Hitler, speaking to the Reichstag, said: "This war can end in two ways--either the extermination of the Aryan peoples or the disappearance of Jewry from Europe." Since the mid-1920s, Hitler had never voluntarily spoken to a Jew. He allowed himself no contact with them. He was the most determined ideologue of racial superiority and racial conflict who ever led a country--and Germany in 1940 was the most powerful country on earth. He was more extreme than anyone around him--he was a psychopath with total power over the psychopaths who served him. Lucy Dawidowicz said it well: "The Jews inhabited Hitler's mind. He believed that they were the source of all evil, misfortune and tragedy, the single factor, like some inexorable law of, nature, that explained the workings of the universe." His central obsession, the life's mission of this deranged, monomaniacal psychopath, was to kill as many Jews as he could. Nothing diminished this mission--not the defeat of his armies, not the destruction of his country. As Germany lay in ruins, as the demented dictator prepared to end his life in his bunker in Berlin, his Nazi acolytes continued his mission above all else, diverting even urgently needed reinforcements for his retreating armies to complete the assignment of the Final Solution. The extermination camps were the efficient mechanisms of these disciplined lunatics--but 2 million Jews were murdered before Auschwitz was opened--and after it was closed in November 1944, hundreds of thousands more were shot, strangled or starved to death. Professor William Rubinstein whose forthcoming book //The Myth of Rescue//, in my judgment the most important new contribution to the history of the Holocaust, states categorically that "not one plan or proposal. made anywhere in the democracies by either Jews or non-Jewish champions of the Jews after the Nazi conquest of Europe could have rescued one single Jew who perished in the Holocaust." Like all categorical statements, there are undoubtedly exceptions to what Professor Rubinstein argues but reviewing all of those proposals made between 194145, I believe his conclusion to be essentially correct. The prisoners of Hitler could only be saved by the total, unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany--and that was a task that required four years and the unprecedented mobilization of all of the resources, human and material, of Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States. The critics of America and President Roosevelt say the news of the annihilation of Europe's Jews was deliberately kept secret so that our people would not know about it--and if Americans had been aware of the Final Solution, they would have insisted on doing more than what was done. They suggest that anti-Semitism in the State Department--or elsewhere or everywhere in our government and in our country--determined that the news of the extermination process be kept secret. That is totally untrue. President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, General Eisenhower, General Marshall, the intelligence services of the Allied nations, every Jewish leader, the Jewish communities in America, in Britain, in Palestine, and yes, anyone who had a radio or newspaper knew that Jews in colossal numbers were being murdered. They may have received the news with disbelief. There was no precedent for it in human history. But the general information of the genocide was broadly available to anyone who would read or listen. The Riegner telegram in August, 1942, was not even the first knowledge that a Death Camp later to become known as Auschwitz with its gas chambers and ghastly crematoria had been built--but Auschwitz, like every extermination camp, was treated as a top secret project by the Nazis. We publicized what we knew but the Nazis tried to keep as much information as possible away from everybody. As Martin Gilbert points out, the details and even the name of Auschwitz were not confirmed until the escape of two prisoners in April, 1944--two years after its murderous processes had begun. The names, locations and procedures of the death camps may not have been known--some not until the end of the war--but the fact of the genocide and the Nazi determination to carry it out were not in doubt. When Rabbi Wise was given the Riegner telegram, Sumner Welles asked him not to publicize it until its information could be confirmed by sources available to the Czech, and Polish governments in exile. There was no video of this original version of "ethnic cleansing" such as we had available to us in Bosnia. There were no enterprising reporters who could photograph the butchery of the Nazis or report the workings of their brutality as we had in Rwanda. Of course, everyone with any sense of decency was incredulous--and many remained so as fragments of what was happening trickled across Nazi borders carried by brave messengers who frequently were not eyewitnesses but rather reporting what they had heard. The experience of World War I where atrocities attributed to the Germans turned out to be wrong--or Allied propaganda--caused many to wonder whether the incredible reports coming from the continent of Europe would ultimately prove false as well. Tragically, the reports were true. Even the men, women and children being loaded into the boxcars taking them to certain death in uncertain places generally described as "locations in eastern Europe" did not know Auschwitz or Dachau or Maidanek by name or purpose. When Sumner Welles confirmed the truth of the Riegner telegram to Rabbi Wise, the Rabbi wept--as countless Jews and non--Jews would do in those terrible years when the Nazis were beyond the reach of the armies that would defeat them. Rabbi Wise and his colleagues met with the President. On November 28, 1942, Rabbi Wise held a press conference. His announcement of the Nazi plan to annihilate Europe's Jews was widely reported. Joined by Jewish leaders from all over the country, he asked the President to warn Hitler and the Germans that they would be held individually responsible for what they were doing to the Jews. Roosevelt agreed immediately. An announcement to that effect in the name of the United Nations was made in the Congress and in Britain's Parliament on December 17, 1942. It was repeated many times throughout the war. In Washington, in America, in London, in Great Britain, the reports of the Nazi atrocities against the Jews were heard in stunned incredulity. The Parliament for the first time in its history stood in silence to mourn what was happening to the Jews, to pray for the strength needed to destroy the Nazi barbarians. In America, the labor unions led the nation in a ten-minute period of mourning for the Jews of Europe. Who can possibly argue that there was a conspiracy of silence regarding the fate of Europe's Jews when America's most popular broadcaster, Edward R. Murrow, listened to by millions, on December 13, 1942, reported: "Millions of human beings, most of them Jews, are being gathered up with ruthless efficiency and murdered... It is a picture of mass murder and moral depravity unequaled in the history of the world. It is a horror beyond what imagination can grasp... The Jews are being systematically exterminated throughout all Poland... There are no longer 'concentration camps'--we must speak now only of 'extermination camps'." Six months earlier, on June 30, 1942, the //New York Times// had already carried a report from the World Jewish Congress that the Germans had by that date already massacred one million Jews, that the Nazis had established a "vast slaughterhouse for Jews" in eastern Europe. The world knew, our government knew, Roosevelt and Churchill knew that Hitler's genocide had begun. American Jewry was not a passive observer of these events, cowering in silence for fear of letting loose waves of anti-Semitism in America. Despite issues that bitterly divided them, primarily relating to Palestine, the Jewish community in America spoke the same words in pleading to do whatever was possible to reach out to Europe's Jews. Plan after plan was produced to rescue the Jews of Europe. Jewish leaders lobbied the Congress. Mass rallies were held across the country with overflow crowds throughout those years, praying, pleading for action to stop the genocide we now know as the Holocaust. The unremitting. remorseless massacre of the Jews--carefully concealed by top secret arrangements of the Nazi murderers--continued because no one, no nation, no alliance of nations could do anything meaningful to close down the Death Camps--except, as Roosevelt said over and over again, by winning the war and destroying the Nazis with absolute determination as soon as possible. If Roosevelt had followed the national will, Japan would have been our military priority, but understanding the Nazi threat to civilization, he ordered Nazi Germany to be the focus of our efforts. If Roosevelt had listened to General Marshall and his military advisors, he would not have sent the few tanks we had to help General Montgomery win at E1 Alamein, thereby probably saving Palestine from the same fate as Poland. Roosevelt gave frequent audience to Jewish leaders--he sent messages to rallies of Jews across the country--he listened to every plea and proposal for rescue that came to him--but he knew that the diversion of resources from the unyielding purpose of defeating the Nazi armies might satisfy the desperate anguish felt by so many but that no one would be rescued and the rescuers in all likelihood would themselves be killed. As Richard Lichtheim, a representative of the World Jewish Congress in Switzerland and a hero in informing the world of the genocide, said in December 1942: "You cannot divert a tiger from devouring his prey by adopting resolutions or sending cables. You have to take your gun and shoot him." Franklin Roosevelt understood that and he mobilized in America an arsenal of such strength that the world would still marvel fifty years later at how the miracle was accomplished. The only meaningful way to save the survivors of Hitler's murder machine was to win the war as quickly as possible. Professor Weinberg answers the cynics who question America's policy by suggesting to them that they consider how many more Jews would have survived had the war ended even a week or ten days earlier--and conversely, how many more would have died had the war lasted an additional week or ten days. Given the determination of the Germans to fight on to the bitter end, and knowing what Roosevelt understood then and that all of us should know now--that Hitler would never let the Jews go, that until his dying day his obsession was their destruction, that the slaughter of the Jews went on into the final moments of the Third Reich, that every day until the final surrender there were thousands of deaths by murder, starvation and disease, we should know with certainty that the number saved by winning the war as quickly as possible would be vastly greater than the total number of Jews who could be saved by any rescue efforts proposed by anyone from 1941-45. The proposal to bomb Auschwitz has become the symbol of American indifference and complicity in the Holocaust. The War Department's rejection of this proposal on the ground that it would divert air support from the war effort was, according to David Wyman, the author of The Abandonment of the Jews merely an excuse. "The real reason," Professor Wyman writes, was that "to the American military, Europe's Jews represented an extraneous problem and an unwanted burden." Is there any doubt as to what George Marshall or Dwight Eisenhower would say to that indictment of America and its armed forces. For America's Jews today, I find there is nothing that disturbs them more, that causes them to question Jewish admiration of FDR more, that permits them to accept the judgment that America's passivity and anti-Semitism makes us complicitous in history's worst crime than the so-called refusal to bomb Auschwitz. Nothing is more important therefore than to review the facts. The polemicists would have us believe that many American Jewish groups petitioned our government to bomb Auschwitz. That allegation is thoroughly wrong and discredited. The focal center of the Holocaust Museum's exhibit on bombing Auschwitz is a letter from Leon Kubowitzki, head of the Rescue Department of the World Jewish Congress, in which he forwarded, without endorsement, a request from the Czech State Council (in exile in London) to the War Department in August, 1994 to bomb Auschwitz. Much is made of John McCloy's response to Mr. Kubowitzki explaining the War Department's decision not to undertake such a mission. What is not on display and rarely mentioned is Leon Kubowitzki's July 1, 1944, letter to the executive director of the War Refugee Board arguing against bombing Auschwitz because "the first victims would be the Jews" and the Allied air assault would serve as "a welcome pretext for the Germans to assert that their Jewish victims have been massacred not by their killers, but by Allied bombers." Informed Jewish opinion was against the whole idea of bombing Auschwitz. The very thought of the Allied forces deliberately killing Jews--to open the gates of Auschwitz so the survivors could run where?--was abhorrent then as it is now. The Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem voted against even making the bombing request--with Ben-Gurion the most outspoken opponent of all. Although only President Roosevelt or General Eisenhower could have ordered the bombing of Auschwitz, there is no record of any kind that indicates that either one was ever asked or even heard of the proposal--even though Jewish leaders of all persuasions had clear access to them both. Every study of the military problems related to bombing Auschwitz makes one wonder what its proponents are talking about. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Powell, an ULTRA intelligence officer in World War II, when asked in 1985 about the judgment of Allied military commanders that innocent Jews should not be deliberate victims of American attacks, was incredulous that anyone would even suggest that Allied forces bomb Auschwitz. "I am perfectly confident," he responded, "that General Spaatz would have resisted any proposal that we kill the Jewish inmates in order to temporarily put Auschwitz out of operation. It is not easy to think that a rational person would have made such a recommendation." We are talking about the summer of 1944. American forces were fully engaged with Japanese aggression across the total expanse of the Pacific Ocean. In Europe, the invasion of Normandy began on June 6th. Despite the fact that two-thirds of the Nazi armies were on the Russian front, D-Day and an Allied success were by no means assured. The German armies were holding our forces at bay in Italy, causing heavy casualties, making us fight for every road and hill--just ask Senator Dole or Senator Inouye what was happening on the Italian front. The Allies were planning the invasion of southern France for August 15th. America and our allies were stretched dangerously across western and southern Europe. The Allied bombing strategy was totally directed toward destroying Nazi fuel supplies, their synthetic oil industries, the oil fields of Rumania, and their communication and transport lines wherever possible. James Kitchen and Richard Levy have written separate analyses of the Auschwitz bombing proposal that have caused the Holocaust Museum this past June to revise considerably its original exhibition on the question. We are grateful to them and to the Holocaust Museum. With Richard Levy, I continue to hope that the Holocaust Museum will change its Exhibit at least one more time by displaying both of Leon Kubowitzki's letters which would essentially cancel the meaning of the so-called request to the War Department regarding the bombing of Auschwitz. It is often noted that American bombers were carrying out raids in the summer of 1944 on industrial targets only a few miles away from Auschwitz. The allusion by America's critics is that this shows how easy it would have been to bomb the gas chambers. They point to the huge blow-ups of reconnaissance photographs that show not only the Farben synthetic fuel plant--the target of the raids--but the outlines of Auschwitz and columns of prisoners. In truth, however, all such strategic raids on military-industrial bases proceeded only after months of preparatory intelligence work, entailing the creation of a target folder with specific information about the size, hardness, structure placement, and defenses, of the target and detailed aerial photography. These were costly, dangerous raids against heavily protected, frequently remote targets. The losses in men and planes were tragically heavy. The Allied Air Forces totally lacked the intelligence base necessary to plan and execute a bombing raid against the Auschwitz extermination camp. It would have been a nonmilitary mission. Only Roosevelt or Eisenhower could have ordered it. No one--no one proposed it. Jewish leaders would have excoriated them for doing it then--and now. Also, the aerial photographs of Auschwitz on display were not developed until 1978--and their details were only readable then because advanced technology, developed by the CIA more than 20 years after the end of World War II, made it possible. If we had bombed Auschwitz with the inevitable consequence of killing hundreds, perhaps thousands of Jewish prisoners, I have no doubt that those who defame America for inaction would denounce us today for being accomplices in the Nazi genocide. Certainly Hitler and Goebbels would have justified their madness by claiming that the Allies, by their deliberate bombing of Auschwitz, had shown their own disdain for the value of Jewish lives. The War Refugee Board was created in January, 1944, by President Roosevelt immediately upon presentation of the case for doing so by Henry Morgenthau. There were thousands of refugees stranded on the outer peripheries of Nazi Europe. With the invasion of Italy in 1943, thousands more sought safety in camps in the south. Tito's success in Yugoslavia enabled many to escape from Croat fascism and Serb hatred. But these were refugees who were already saved. These were not escapees from the Death Camps. Under pressure from Roosevelt and Churchill, Spain kept open its frontiers, stating as its policy that "all refugees without exception would be allowed to enter and remain." Probably more than 40,000 refugees, many of them Jewish, found safe sanctuary in Spain. Makeshift transit camps in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and North Africa housed them in abysmal conditions. Those who fought for these refugees to come to America were right to do so. I have been part of the International Rescue Committee all of my adult life and have worked with refugees in Berlin, Hungary, Angola, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cuba and Cambodia. Refugees are generally powerless and voiceless. Governments have to be reminded constantly of our humanitarian responsibilities. But perhaps the allied nations can be forgiven in the midst of a war for survival for not doing more for refugees whose lives had already been saved. Perhaps not. In remembering what we did not do, perhaps we can measure our response to today's tragedies and ask whether we--now the richest, most powerful nation in history--have responded adequately to the "ethnic cleansing" of Bosnia, to the genocide in Rwanda, to the Killing Field of Cambodia. Roosevelt's intervention with the government of Hungary, (which by then understood that Nazi defeat was inevitable), the actions of the War Refugee Board such as retaining Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest whose heroism we will always gratefully acknowledge, the bombing of the Budapest area--all played roles undoubtedly in the rescue of one-half of the Jewish community in Hungary. President Roosevelt was deeply and personally involved in the effort to save the Jews of Hungary. Listen to his statement to the nation on March 24, 1944: "In one of the blackest crimes of all history--begun by the Nazis in the day of peace and multiplied by them a hundred times in time of war--the wholesale systematic murder of the Jews of Europe goes on unabated every hour. As a result of the events of the last few days hundreds of thousands of Jews who, while living under persecution, have at least found a haven from death in Hungary and the Balkans, are now threatened with annihilation as Hitler's forces descend more heavily upon these lands. That these innocent people, who have already survived a decade of Hitler's fury, should perish on the very eve of triumph over the barbarism which their persecution symbolizes, would be a major tragedy. It is therefore fitting that we should again proclaim our determination that none who participate in these acts of savagery shall go unpunished. The United Nations have made it clear that they will pursue the guilty and deliver them up in order that justice be done. That warning applies not only to the leaders but also to their functionaries and subordinates in Germany and in the satellite countries. All who knowingly take part in the deportation of Jews to their death in Poland or Norwegians and French to their death in Germany are equally guilty with the executioner. All who share the guilt shall share the punishment. In the meantime, and until the victory that is now assured is won, the United States will persevere in its efforts to rescue the victims of brutality of the Nazis and the Japs. In so far as the necessity of military operations permit this Government will use all means at its command to aid the escape of all intended victims of the Nazi and Jap executioner--regardless of race or religion or color. We call upon the free peoples of Europe and Asia temporarily to open their frontiers to all victims of oppression. We shall find havens of refuge for them, and we shall find the means for their maintenance and support until the tyrant is driven from their homelands and they may return." Although one had read about the Final Solution and heard witnesses who had seen the camps and read the accounts of the War Refugee Board of three eyewitnesses to Auschwitz published in November 1944, no one understood what really had happened until they could see it for themselves. On the day on which Franklin Roosevelt died, April 12, 1945, General Eisenhower visited Ohrdruf Nord, the first concentration camp liberated by the American army. "The things I saw beggar description," he wrote General Marshall. According to his biographer, Stephen Ambrose, "Eisenhower had heard ominous rumors about the camps, of course, but never in his worst nightmares had he dreamed they could be so bad." He sent immediately for a delegation of Congressional leaders and newspaper editors. He wanted to be sure that Americans would never forget the depths of the Nazi horror. Five months later he dismissed his close friend and brilliant army commander, General George Patton, for using former Nazi officials in his occupation structure and publicly likening "the Nazi thing" to differences between the Republicans and Democrats. Patton had visited the Ohrdruf camp with Eisenhower and had become physically ill from what he had seen. Anne O'Hare McCormick, the renowned foreign affairs reporter of the //New York Times//, wrote in December, 1944, of a visit of a congressional delegation to the war front in Italy. The Congressmen expressed shock at the rigors of the Italian campaign, of its inhuman conditions. They were quoted as saying that this was one of the toughest battles of the war--and Americans were not being told about it. Miss McCormick wrote: "The stories have been written and have been printed. They have even been overwritten and printed so m, any times that readers don't see the mud or blood anymore. They don't hear the screams of the shells or the thunder of the rockets. Congress either didn't read the accounts of the war in Italy or they couldn't take in the meaning of what they read. They had to see it. It is not their fault. It is because the thing is indescribable..." How much more true is this insight regarding the Death Camps. In the last seven months of the war, more than 80,000 Dutch citizens starved to death because the German occupiers of northern Holland wanted to punish the Dutch for insurrection and strikes following the failed Market Garden assault on Arnhem, the fabled Bridge Too Far. The Allies knew what was happening. Allied armies were everywhere around this occupied segment of the Netherlands; air rescue, or at least the capacity for organizing food drops, was minutes away. Still, 80,000 men, women and children--for the most part non-Jews--starved to death and the forces that could have saved them remained intent on their objective of military engagement with the Germans that would lead to victory in the shortest possible time. Perhaps these military commanders were wrong but their decisions were not made because of hatred or bias against the Dutch--nor, regarding Auschwitz, because of anti-Semitism. The events that we are talking about--the genocide of six million Jews--was not referred to generally as "the Holocaust" until some years after the War. No one of us, including scholars and historians, can review the bestial crimes of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi thugs and all those who carried out their orders to kill innocent men, women, and children without hanging our heads in sorrow. But we must never forget that it was the Nazis who committed this most terrible crime led by a psychopath, Adolf Hitler. America--this wonderful and generous country--was a reluctant participant in the world of the 30s. Our parents and grandparents were not fools. It was their courage and strength that made America the leader of the Free World. We should be so brave and strong--we should do so well--in our own time, with our own problems. Had Israel existed in 1939 with the military strength that it has today, the terrible story of the Holocaust might have had another outcome. Because of the Holocaust, Israel was born and America has been its unfailing supporter. How ironic that our greatest president of this century--the man Hitler hated most, the leader constantly derided by the anti-Semites, vilified by Goebbels as a "mentally ill cripple" and as "that Jew Rosenfeld," violently attacked by the isolationist press--how ironic that he should be faulted for being indifferent to the genocide. For all of us, the shadow of doubt that enough was not done will always remain, even if there was little more that could have been done. But it is the killers who bear the responsibility for their deeds. To say that "we are all guilty" allows the truly guilty to avoid that responsibility. We must remember for all the days of our lives that it was Hitler who imagined the Holocaust and the Nazis who carried it out. We were not their accomplices. We destroyed them. Those who write about the Holocaust have an obligation to write in a context, a context that reflects the standards, the political realities, the value systems of the years that surrounded it--not to impose the reality of the present with a self-righteous morality that condemns others for what happened generations ago but allows us to remain silent and passive in the crises of our own time. Winston Churchill once said that Franklin Roosevelt was the greatest man he had ever known. President Roosevelt's life, he said, "must be regarded as one of the commanding events of human destiny." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, more than any other American, is entitled to the historical credit for mobilizing and leading the forces that destroyed the Nazi barbarians and so saved western civilization. In the years of his leadership, he gave Jews dignity and self-respect as did no one before in American history. He understood and shared the anguish of the Holocaust as it unfolded. Let us reflect for a moment on who he was and what he did. Franklin Roosevelt was the voice of the people of the United States during the most difficult crises of the century. He led America out of the despair of the Great Depression. He led us to victory in the Great War. Four times he was elected President of the United States. By temperament and talent, by energy and instinct, Franklin Roosevelt came to the presidency, ready for the challenges that confronted him. He was a breath of fresh air in our political life--so vital, so confident and optimistic, so warm and good humored. He was a man of incomparable personal courage. At the age of 39, he was stricken with infantile paralysis. He would never walk or stand again unassisted. The pain of his struggle is almost unimaginable--learning to move again, to stand, to rely upon the physical support of others--never giving into despair, to self--pity, to discouragement. Just twelve years after he was stricken, he was elected President of the United States and took command of a paralyzed nation. He lifted America from its knees and led us to our fateful rendezvous with history. He embraced a desperately troubled world and gave it hope. He transformed our government into an active instrument of social justice. He made America the arsenal of democracy. He was Commander-in-Chief of the greatest military force in history. He crafted the victorious alliance that won the war. He was the father of the nuclear age. He inspired and guided the blueprint for the world that was to follow. The vision of the United Nations, the commitment to collective security, the determination to end colonialism, the economic plan for a prosperous world with access to resources and trade assured to all nations--such was the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt. In these autumn days of 1996, more than 50 years after his death, we remember the triumph of his life, confident that those who seek to undermine that triumph now will be no more successful than those who vilified and hated him then.
 * If Roosevelt had followed the national will, Japan would have been our military priority, but understanding the Nazi threat to civilization, he ordered Nazi Germany to be the focus of our efforts. ||
 * Informed Jewish opinion was against the whole idea of bombing Auschwitz ||

//William J. vanden Heuvel's expertise comes from his service as President of the International Rescue Committee and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. From 1977 to 1979, he was United States Representative to the European Office of the United Nations, and from 1979 to 1981, Deputy United States Permanent Representative to the U.N. He also served as Chair of the Board of Governors of the United Nations Association, and co-chair of the Council of American Ambassadors. His appointed offices have included Assistant to General William J. Donovan, Special Counsel to New York Governor Averell Herriman, and Assistant to United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Ambassador vandel Heuvel has also served as the President of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in Hyde Park, New York.// ||  ||  ||   **The Great Depression**
 * People & Events
 * People & Events

During the economic boom of the "Roaring Twenties," the traditional values of rural America were challenged by the Jazz Age, symbolized by women smoking, drinking, and wearing short skirts. The average American was busy buying automobiles and household appliances, and speculating in the stock market, where big money could be made. Those appliances were bought on credit, however. Although businesses had made huge gains -- 65 percent -- from the mechanization of manufacturing, the average worker's wages had only increased 8 percent.

The imbalance between the rich and the poor, with 0.1 percent of society earning the same total income as 42 percent, combined with production of more and more goods and rising personal debt, could not be sustained. On Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression, the worst economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world. It spread from the United States to the rest of the world, lasting from the end of 1929 until the early 1940s. With banks failing and businesses closing, more than 15 million Americans (one-quarter of the workforce) became unemployed.

President Herbert Hoover, underestimating the seriousness of the crisis, called it "a passing incident in our national lives," and assured Americans that it would be over in 60 days. A strong believer in rugged individualism, Hoover did not think the federal government should offer relief to the poverty-stricken population. Focusing on a trickle-down economic program to help finance businesses and banks, Hoover met with resistance from business executives who preferred to lay off workers. Blamed by many for the Great Depression, Hoover was widely ridiculed: an empty pocket turned inside out was called a "Hoover flag;" the decrepit shantytowns springing up around the country were called "Hoovervilles." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the rich governor from New York, offered Americans a New Deal, and was elected in a landslide victory in 1932. He took quick action to attack the Depression, declaring a four-day bank holiday, during which Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act to stabilize the banking system. During the first 100 days of his administration, Roosevelt laid the groundwork for his New Deal remedies that would rescue the country from the depths of despair.

The New Deal programs created a liberal political alliance of labor unions, blacks and other minorities, some farmers and others receiving government relief, and intellectuals. The hardship brought on by the Depression affected Americans deeply. Since the prevailing attitude of the 1920s was that success was earned, it followed that failure was deserved. The unemployment brought on by the Depression caused self-blame and self-doubt. Men were harder hit psychologically than women were. Since men were expected to provide for their families, it was humiliating to have to ask for assistance. Although some argued that women should not be given jobs when many men were unemployed, the percentage of women working increased slightly during the Depression. Traditionally female fields of teaching and social services grew under New Deal programs. Children took on more responsibilities, sometimes finding work when their parents could not. As a result of living through the Depression, some people developed habits of careful saving and frugality, others determined to create a comfortable life for themselves.

African Americans suffered more than whites, since their jobs were often taken away from them and given to whites. In 1930, 50 percent of blacks were unemployed. However, Eleanor Roosevelt championed black rights, and New Deal programs prohibited discrimination. Discrimination continued in the South, however, as a result a large number of black voters switched from the Republican to the Democrat party during the Depression.

The Great Depression and the New Deal changed forever the relationship between Americans and their government. Government involvement and responsibility in caring for the needy and regulating the economy came to be expected. ||

The Treaty of Versailles was the peace settlement signed after [| World War One] had ended in 1918 and in the shadow of the [|Russian Revolution] and other events in [|Russia]. The treaty was signed at the vast Versailles Palace near Paris - hence its title - between Germany and the Allies. The three most important politicians there were [|David Lloyd George], [| Georges Clemenceau] and [| Woodrow Wilson]. The Versailles Palace was considered the most appropriate venue simply because of its size - many hundreds of people were involved in the process and the final signing ceremony in the Hall of Mirrors could accommodate hundreds of dignitaries. Many wanted [|Germany], now led by [|Friedrich Ebert], smashed - others, like [|Lloyd George], were privately more cautious. ** Background ** || World War One had left Europe devastated. Those countries that had fought in it, had suffered casualties never experienced before:

** France ** : 1,400,000 soldiers killed; 2,500,000 wounded ** Belgium ** : 50,000 soldiers killed ** Italy ** : 600,000 soldiers killed ** Russia ** : 1,700,000 soldiers killed ** America ** : 116,000 soldiers killed Those who had fought against the Allies suffered heavy casualties as well:
 * Britain ** : 750,000 soldiers killed; 1,500,000 wounded

** Austria-Hungary ** : 1,200,000 soldiers killed ** Turkey ** : 325,000 soldiers killed ** Bulgaria ** : 100,000 soldiers killed The total deaths of all nations who fought in the war is thought to have been 8.5 million with 21 million being wounded. Alongside these statistics, was the fact that vast areas of north-eastern Europe had been reduced to rubble. Flanders in Belgium had been all but destroyed with the ancient city of Ypres being devastated. The homes of 750,000 French people were destroyed and the infrastructure of this region had also been severely damaged. Roads, coal mines, telegraph poles had all been destroyed and such a loss greatly hindered the area's ability to function normally. The victors from World War One were in no mood to be charitable to the defeated nations and Germany in particular was held responsible for the war and its consequences. During mid-1918, Europe was hit by Spanish flu and an estimated 25 million people died. This added to the feeling of bitterness that ran through Europe and this anger was primarily directed at Germany. **The attitude towards Germany of the "Big Three"** || The treaty was signed on **June 28th 1919** after months of argument and negotiation amongst the so-called "Big Three" as to what the treaty should contain. Who were the "Big Three" and where did they clash over Germany and her treatment after the war ? The "Big Three" were **[|David]**[| **Lloyd George**] of Britain, **[|Clemenceau]** of France and **[|Woodrow]** [| **Wilson**] of America.
 * Germany ** : 2,000,000 soldiers killed

His public image was simple. He was a politician and politicians needed the support of the public to succeed in elections. If he had come across as being soft on Germany, he would have been speedily voted out of office. The British public was after revenge and Lloyd George's public image reflected this mood. "Hang the Kaiser" and "Make Germany Pay" were two very common calls in the era immediately after the end of the war and Lloyd George, looking for public support, echoed these views. However, in private Lloyd George was also very concerned with the rise of communism in Russia and he feared that it might spread to western Europe. After the war had finished, Lloyd George believed that the spread of communism posed a far greater threat to the world than a defeated Germany. Privately, he felt that Germany should be treated in such a way that left her as a barrier to resist the expected spread of communism. He did not want the people of Germany to become so disillusioned with their government that they turned to communism. Lloyd George did not want Germany treated with lenience but he knew that Germany would be the only country in central Europe that could stop the spread of communism if it burst over the frontiers of Russia. Germany had to be punished but not to the extent that it left her destitute. However, it would have been political suicide to have gone public with these views.
 * [|David Lloyd George] of Great Britain ** had two views on how Germany should be treated.

This reflected the views of the French public but it was also what Clemenceau himself believed in. He had seen the north-east corner of France destroyed and he determined that Germany should never be allowed to do this again. "The Tiger" did not have to adapt his policies to suit the French public - the French leader and the French public both thought alike.
 * [|Georges Clemenceau] of France ** had one very simple belief - Germany should be brought to its knees so that she could never start a war again.

In [|America], there was a growing desire for the government to adopt a policy of isolation and leave Europe to its own devices. In failing health, Wilson wanted America to concentrate on itself and, despite developing the idea of a League of Nations, he wanted an American input into Europe to be kept to a minimum. He believed that Germany should be punished but in a way that would lead to European reconciliation as opposed to revenge. He had already written about what he believed the world should be like in his "[|Fourteen] [| Points]" The main points in this document were: 1) no more secret treaties 2) countries must seek to reduce their weapons and their armed forces 3) national self-determination should allow people of the same nationality to govern themselves and one nationality should not have the power to govern another 4) all countries should belong to the League of Nations. Linked to the "Big Three" was **[| Italy]** led by **[|Vittorio]**[| **Orlando**]. He was frequently left on the sidelines when the important negotiations took place despite Italy fighting on the side of the Allies. Why was Italy treated in this manner? At the start of the war in 1914, [| Italy] should have fought with Germany and Austria as she had signed the Triple Alliance which dictated that if one of the three was attacked, the other two would go to that country's aid. Italy did not join in on Germany's side but waited until 1915 and joined the side of Britain and France. This association with Germany was enough to taint Italy in the eyes of the "Big Three". Also Italy had not played an overwhelming part in the war. Her army had been beaten at the battles of Caporetto. Her strategic importance to central Europe was minimal whilst Britain dominated the Mediterranean with naval bases in Malta and Gibraltar. Italy's potential military clout in 1919, should the need arise to put pressure on Germany and Austria, was limited. Therefore, the three main nations in the lead up to the treaty were far from united on how Germany should be treated. The eventual treaty seemed to satisfy everyone on the sides of the Allies. For France, it appeared as if Germany had been smashed; for Britain, [| Lloyd George] was satisfied that enough of Germany's power had been left to act as a buffer to communist expansion from [| Russia] ; [| Wilson] was simply happy that the proceedings had finished so that he could return home. So what exactly did the treaty do to Germany?
 * [|Woodrow Wilson] of [| America] ** had been genuinely stunned by the savagery of the Great War. He could not understand how an advanced civilisation could have reduced itself so that it had created so much devastation.

**The terms of the Treaty of Versailles** || The treaty can be divided into a number of sections; territorial, military, financial and general.

Territorial The following land was taken away from Germany : Alsace-Lorraine (given to France) Eupen and Malmedy (given to Belgium) Northern Schleswig (given to Denmark) Hultschin (given to Czechoslovakia) West Prussia, Posen and Upper Silesia (given to Poland) The Saar, Danzig and Memel were put under the control of the League of Nations and the people of these regions would be allowed to vote to stay in Germany or not in a future referendum. The [| League of Nations] also took control of Germany's overseas colonies. Germany had to return to [| Russia] land taken in the [| Treaty of] [|Brest-Litovsk]. Some of this land was made into new states : Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. An enlarged Poland also received some of this land.

Military Germany’s army was reduced to 100,000 men; the army was not allowed tanks She was not allowed an airforce She was allowed only 6 capital naval ships and no submarines The west of the Rhineland and 50 kms east of the River Rhine was made into a demilitarised zone (DMZ). No German soldier or weapon was allowed into this zone. The Allies were to keep an army of occupation on the west bank of the Rhine for 15 years. Financial The loss of vital industrial territory would be a severe blow to any attempts by Germany to rebuild her economy. Coal from the Saar and Upper Silesia in particular was a vital economic loss. Combined with the financial penalties linked to reparations, it seemed clear to Germany that the Allies wanted nothing else but to bankrupt her. Germany was also forbidden to unite with Austria to form one superstate, in an attempt to keep her economic potential to a minimum. General There are three vital clauses here: 1. Germany had to admit full responsibility for starting the war. This was Clause 231 - the infamous "War Guilt Clause". 2. Germany, as she was responsible for starting the war as stated in clause 231, was, therefore responsible for all the war damage caused by the First World War. Therefore, she had to pay reparations, the bulk of which would go to France and Belgium to pay for the damage done to the infrastructure of both countries by the war. Quite literally, reparations would be used to pay for the damage to be repaired. Payment could be in kind or cash. The figure was not set at Versailles - it was to be determined later. The Germans were told to write a blank cheque which the Allies would cash when it suited them. The figure was eventually put at £6,600 million - a huge sum of money well beyond Germany’s ability to pay. 3. A [| League of Nations] was set up to keep world peace.

In fact, the first 26 clauses of the treaty dealt with the League's organisation.

** The German reaction to the Treaty of Versailles ** || After agreeing to the Armistice in November 1918, the Germans had been convinced that they would be consulted by the Allies on the contents of the Treaty. This did not happen and the Germans were in no position to continue the war as her army had all but disintegrated. Though this lack of consultation angered them, there was nothing they could do about it. Therefore, the first time that the German representatives saw the terms of the Treaty was just weeks before they were due to sign it in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles on June 28th 1919. There was anger throughout Germany when the terms were made public. The Treaty became known as a Diktat - as it was being forced on them and the Germans had no choice but to sign it. Many in Germany did not want the Treaty signed, but the representatives there knew that they had no choice as German was incapable of restarting the war again. In one last gesture of defiance, the captured German naval force held at Scapa Flow (north of Scotland) scuttled itself i.e. deliberately sank itself. Germany was given two choices: 1) sign the Treaty or 2) be invaded by the Allies. They signed the Treaty as in reality they had no choice. When the ceremony was over, Clemenceau went out into the gardens of Versailles and said "It is a beautiful day".

** The consequences of Versailles ** || The Treaty seemed to satisfy the "Big Three" as in their eyes it was a just peace as it kept Germany weak yet strong enough to stop the spread of communism; kept the French border with Germany safe from another German attack and created the organisation, the [| League of Nations], that would end warfare throughout the world. However, it left a mood of anger throughout Germany as it was felt that as a nation Germany had been unfairly treated. Above all else, Germany hated the clause blaming her for the cause of the war and the resultant financial penalties the treaty was bound to impose on Germany. Those who signed it (though effectively they had no choice) became known as the "November Criminals". Many German citizens felt that they were being punished for the mistakes of the German government in August 1914 as it was the government that had declared war not the people. Were the terms of the Treaty of Versailles actually carried out? ** Land had to be handed over the Poland, France, Belgium and Denmark. ** This did happen - all the land Germany was required to hand over, was handed over. Territory put under League of Nations control was handed over to the League. ** All overseas colonies were to be handed over to the League. ** This did happen. ** All land taken from Russia had to be handed back to Russia. ** This did happen though land in the western area became Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in keeping with the belief in national self-determination. ** Germany’s army had to be reduced to 100,000 men. ** On paper this happened. The fact that Germany side-stepped the rule did not mean that she literally broke it - though what she did was a deliberate attempt to break this term. German soldiers in the 1920’s were signed on for a short contract of service and then put in the reserves once their time had finished. Therefore, Germany never had more than 100,000 soldiers serving at any one time though she certainly had substantial reserve soldiers which boosted Hitler when he renounced the clauses of Versailles. ** Germany’s navy was reduced to 6 battleships with no submarines. ** This happened. Germany could not afford battleships in the aftermath of the war and most navies were now moving to smaller (by degrees), faster ships that could also carry weapons that carried a punch - such as cruisers. Aircraft carriers were also being developed with greater commitment. Submariners were trained abroad - Versailles did not cover this, so it did not break the terms of Versailles - only the spirit. ** No air force was allowed **. This happened but as with submariners, potential pilots were trained abroad or using gliders in Germany to educate them in the theory of flying. This did not break Versailles. ** Western Germany was to be demilitarised. ** This happened. ** Germany was forbidden to unite with Austria. ** This happened. ** Germany had to accept the "War Guilt Clause" and pay reparations. ** The former happened in the sense that Germany signed the Treaty which meant that she accepted this term on paper - if not in fact. Germany did try and pay reparations when she could do so. She did not refuse to pay in 1922. She simply could not produce what was needed that year and this led to the French invasion of the Ruhr. In the 1920’s it was the Allies who took the decision to reduce reparations and eased Germany’s plight in so doing. The first instance of refusal to pay reparations came in 1933 when Hitler announced that Germany would not pay - and the Allies did nothing. Therefore, throughout the 1920’s, in nearly all parts of the Treaty, the terms were carried out. It was after 1933, that there was a systematic breaking of the terms when the Nazis came to power. **The other peace settlements** || It is often forgotten, that with the energy put into the punishment of Germany, other countries fought on her side and, equally, had to be dealt with. These countries were **Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey**. Austria-Hungary had to sign two peace settlements, indicative of the fact that this state was shortly to be divided into two. Austria signed the **Treaty of Saint Germain**. Hungary signed the **Treaty of Trianon**. Austria and Hungary were treated as two completely new countries after these treaties were signed. Both lost land to neighbouring countries; the new state of Czechoslovakia was effectively created out of this carve up of land; large blocks of land went to Poland, Roumania and Yugoslavia. Part of Austria went to Italy. Both new countries had to reduce their military capability and both states had to pay reparations for war damage. However, the figures involved were nowhere near as high as the figure imposed on Germany. Bulgaria had to sign the **Treaty of Neuilly**. Bulgaria lost land to the new state of Yugoslavia, had to reduce her military capability and had to pay reparations. Turkey - or the Turkish Empire to be precise - had to sign the **Treaty of** **Sevres**. This was a very harsh treaty. Why was Turkey treated this way? Memories were still clear to many people on the Allied side of what had happened at Gallipoli when the ANZACS suffered appalling losses at the hands of the Turks in what was one of the the Allies greatest defeat of World War One. To an extent, there was an element of revenge on "Johnny Turk" who had had the audacity to inflict defeat on one of the major powers of the world - Great Britain. Turkey lost: most of her land in Europe. Turkey was left with but a toe hold on what is considered Europe. the Turkish Straits was put under the control of the League of Nations at a time when it was dominated by Britain and France. the land held by Turkey in Arabia was made into a mandate - the land was ruled by the British and French until the people of the areas were ready to govern themselves. Syria and Lebanon went to France while Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine went to Britain. Armies from Britain, France, Greece and Italy occupied what was left of Turkey - the area known as Asia Minor. The treaty only served to anger the nationalist Turks who sought to overturn it. This they started to do in 1921. **Truman and the Holocaust**
 * The ** [|League of Nations] **was created.** This did happen even if Germany was initially excluded from it.

Introduction
Although the Nazi concentration camps were being liberated when Harry Truman inherited the presidency in April 1945, the effects of the Holocaust lasted throughout his two terms in office. The prosecution of German war criminals, the Jewish refugee crisis in Europe after the war, the reparation dilemma for victims of Nazi crimes and the creation of the Jewish state of Israel are all issues that grew out of the Holocaust. The following documents and questions provide an introduction to the Truman administration and the Holocaust.

Document 1: [|Political Cartoon of Discovering Caves of Nazi Loot]
 The eastward advance of Allied troops into Germany uncovered both the horrors and the secrets of the Nazi regime. Though the most infamous of the concentration camps lay east of Berlin and were liberated by the Soviet Red Army, the Allied Forces in the west also encountered the horrors of the "final solution." But concentration camps were not the only findings of the Allied armies. Protected deep in caves from Allied bombs and shells, American and British troops discovered Nazi mines filled with confiscated valuables including rare books, priceless works art, jewelry and bars of gold. Often times, these valuables were seized from Jews prior to their deportation to concentration camps. The largest of these storage facilities was found in southcentral Germany at Merkers Mine. In this cave alone, American troops discovered 830 tons of art, jewelry and foreign currencies and 569,726 pounds of gold. The following cartoon comments on the uncovering of stored, Nazi loot.

Document Survey: Questions

 * 1) Who are the soldiers in the cartoon?
 * 2) Why is the cartoon set in a cave?
 * 3) What items have the soldiers found?
 * 4) Who does the gold most likely belong to?
 * 5) What do the words in the bottom, left corner of the cartoon imply?
 * 6) In what ways is the name of the cartoon, "Life's Darkest Moment," appropriate?

Follow-up Questions

 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The discovery of mines and caves filled with valuables confiscated by the Nazis is far from a funny matter. Yet cartoons typically make light of the subjects that they concern. In what ways, if any, is this cartoon funny? Discuss the pros and cons of using humor to approach issues as sensitive and serious as war crimes.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reparations to victims of the Holocaust is still unresolved. Victims seeking repayment of their confiscated assets from banks that dealt with the Nazis prompted President Clinton to launch a State Department inquiry into the disposition of holdings looted by Nazi Germany during World War II. This report revealed that only a small fraction of the estimated 5.6 billion dollars seized during the war was returned. Visit the [|National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Holocaust web-site] to learn more about this critical issue. What course of policy has been pursued by the United States, Switzerland and many other nations to return seized assets to their pre-war holders? What else, in your opinion, should be done?
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have you ever had another person forcibly take your possessions and not return them? What were your feelings? What actions, if any, did you take? Relate such an experience to the war reparations delimma.

<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Document 2: [|Press Release of President Harry Truman]
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anticipating the defeat of Germany in October of 1943, the Allies established a United Nations War Crimes Commission to collect evidence that could be used to prosecute Nazi war criminals. After the surrender of Germany, President Truman appointed Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson as chief counsel to investigate and try Nazi war criminals. From November 1945 until October 1946, the International Military Tribunal, in the former Nazi stronghold of Nuremberg, heard cases against 22 senior, Nazi leaders. The court sentenced twelve to death and three to life sentences. Hundreds of other lesser figures in the Nazi conspiracy (what Truman called "second stringers") were tried from January 1946 to April 1949. The Office of Military Government found 185 more Nazis guilty of war crimes. [|The following statement of President Truman relates to the Nuremberg Trials.]

<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Document-Survey: Questions

 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who made this statement?
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who was this statement made to?
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When was this statement made and how does it fit into the chronology of the Nuremberg Trials?
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is the tone of the statement?
 * 5) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can one judge Truman's emotions by this statement?

<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Follow-up Questions
====<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Document 3: Personal Letter of Kathrine Fite Lincoln ([|page 1]) ([|page2]) ==== <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Katherine Fite Lincoln was an assistant to Justice Robert Jackson in the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality for the last six months of 1945. As part of the prosecution at Nuremberg, Lincoln was instrumental in constructing the case against Nazi war criminals. In the letters she wrote home to her parents, Lincoln revealed her views of the trials, the war criminals and Germany itself. The following letter illustrates both these views and the value of a personal letter to the historian.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The last paragraph of the press release mentions the refugees that survived the Holocaust. Nearly all of the Jews who remained after the war years were left with no home in Europe. Zionism, or the Jewish belief in returning to their homeland in Palestine, inspired many of these displaced persons to seek refuge in the Middle East. Does this document shed any light on the Truman administration's attitude to the creation of the state of Israel? If so, under what circumstances was this future policy pursued. Visit the Harry Truman Library Student Research File regarding the [|recognition of Israel] to learn more about this topic.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Press secretaries are vital parts of every president's administration. The preceding document was a public statement of President Truman. Assume the role of a press secretary and write a press release for the President concerning the discovery of Merkers Mine (see Document 1).

<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Document-Survey: Questions

 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who is the letter written to and when was it written?
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is the letter about? Or does it change content and tone too often to be characterized?
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is the author's view of Frick, Himmler and other Nazi leaders?
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How would you characterize the author's attitudes toward Germans? How is the word "Krauts" used? Why might the author feel this way?
 * 5) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is being "alone and without a gun" mentioned? Why might a gun be necessary?
 * 6) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why was the author stumped when asked if she was enjoying Nuremberg?

<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Follow-up Questions:

 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One challenge in using personal letters as historical sources is distinguishing between fact and opinion. This letter is certainly no exception. As a group activity, reread Lincoln's letter and underline what is a fact and circle what is an opinion. Next, draw up a list of advantages and disadvantages of this document as a piece of historical evidence. Each group should then present their list to the class and explain their choices.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is one of the many letters Katherine Fite Lincoln wrote to her parents while she was in Europe. How might writing to her parents determine what she wrote? How would the letter be different if it was addressed to her boss or a group of high school students? Write a 200 word summation of the letter if it were to appear as a guest column in a major newspaper.

=Churchill and the Holocaust= By Sir Martin Gilbert Winston Churchill The Allied governments and their leaders have often been accused of failing to respond quickly enough to Nazi persecution of the Jews. In this article, Martin Gilbert focusses on the attempts made by Winston Churchill to respond to the crisis, both in private and as Britain's Prime Minister. Page 1 of 5
 * [|1. Unspeakable evils]
 * [|2. The Moscow Declaration]
 * [|3. The biggest outcry]
 * [|4. Liberation of the camps]
 * [|5. Find out more]
 * [|Print entire article]

Unspeakable evils
From the start of the persecution of the Jews in Germany, Churchill took the Jewish side of supporting a boycott of German goods, writing in 1937 of 'a perfectly legitimate use of their influence throughout the world to bring pressure, economic and financial, to bear upon the governments which persecute them'. After he became Prime Minister in 1940, Churchill opposed the prevention of Jewish refugees reaching Palestine, telling the Colonial office that the government had 'to be guided by sentiments of humanity towards those fleeing from the cruellest forms of persecution'. When his son Randolph drew his attention to the imminent deportation to Mauritius of 793 illegal refugees intercepted off Palestine, he immediately instructed his officials to allow them to remain there. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 was the start of the Holocaust as we know it. Messages reaching Churchill through his intelligence services told of the murder, in groups, of thousands of Jews. He made powerful reference to these killings when he broadcast on November 14 1941:

'None has suffered more cruelly than the Jew the unspeakable evils wrought upon the bodies and spirits of men by Hitler and his vile regime. The Jew bore the brunt of the Nazi's first onslaught upon the citadels of freedom and human dignity. He has borne and continued to bear a burden that might have seen beyond endurance. He has not allowed it to break his spirit; he has never lost the will to resist. Assuredly in the day of victory the Jew's suffering and his part in the struggle will not be forgotten.' '... 4000 Jewish children had been deported.' The deportations from France to Auschwitz began in the summer of 1942. Their destination was unknown at the time, but the fact that the deportations were taking place was reported from Paris, //The Times// reporting in September that 4000 Jewish children had been deported. On the next day Churchill, speaking about the Nazi regime in the House of Commons, castigated:

'... the most bestial, the most squalid and the most senseless of all their offences, namely, the mass deportation of Jews from France, with the pitiful horrors attendant upon the calculated and final scattering of families. This tragedy fills me with astonishment as well as with indignation, and it illustrates as nothing else can the utter degradation of the Nazi nature and theme, and degradation of all who lend themselves to its unnatural and perverted passions.'

//We live, not feeling the country beneath us, Our speech inaudible ten steps away, But where they're up to half a conversation -- They'll speak of the Kremlin mountain man.// //His thick fingers are fat like worms, And his words certain as pound weights. His cockroach whiskers laugh, And the tops of his boots glisten.// //And all around his rabble of thick-skinned leaders, He plays through services of half-people. Some whistle, some meow, some snivel, He alone merely caterwauls and prods.// //Like horseshoes he forges decree after decree -- Some get it in the forehead, some in the brow, some in the groin, and some in the eye. Whatever the execution -- it's a raspberry to him And his Georgian chest is broad.// ---Osip Mandelstam, //We Live, Not Feeling//, 1934? The Age of Anxiety, the age of the lost generation, was also an age in which modern Fascism and Totalitarianism made their appearance on the historical stage. By 1939, liberal democracies in Britain, France, Scandinavia and Switzerland were realities. But elsewhere across Europe, various kinds of dictators reared their ugly heads. Dictatorship seemed to be the wave of the future. It also seemed to be the wave of the present. After all, hadn't Mussolini proclaimed that this century would be a century of the right? Of Fascism? And this is what bothered such writers as [| Arthur Koestler] (1905-1983), Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937), [|Aldous Huxley] (1894-1963), [| Karel Capek] (1890-1938) and [|George Orwell] (1903-1950). It was a nightmare world in which human individuality was subsumed under the might of totalitarian collectivism. The modern totalitarian state rejected liberal values and exercised total control over the lives of its subjects. In this way, totalitarianism became a new [|POLITICAL RELIGION] for the Age of Anxiety. How this indeed occurred is the subject of this lecture. It goes without saying that the governments of Europe had been conservative and anti-democratic throughout their long histories. The leaders of such governments -- whether monarch or autocrat -- WERE the government, and by their very nature, prevented any incidence of social or political change that might endanger the existing social order. Of course, there have been enlightened monarchs but few of them would have been so enlightened to have removed themselves from the sinews of power. Before the 19th century these monarchs legitimized their rule by recourse to the divine right theory of kingship, an idea which itself appeared in medieval Europe. Such was the case in France until the late 18th century when French revolutionaries decided to end the Bourbon claim to the throne by divine right by cutting off the head of Louis XVI. Of course, France ended up with [|Napoleon] who also claimed the divine right of kingship. Only this time, divine right emanated from Napoleon himself. In a country such as England, on the other hand, twenty years of civil war in the 17th century as well as the [|Glorious Revolution of 1688], produced a constitutional monarchy. In the 19th century, it was the dual revolution -- the Industrial and [|French Revolutions] -- which created the forces of social change which monarchs, enlightened or not, could not fail to take heed. A large middle class had made its appearance in the 18th century but lacked status. Now, in the 19th century, this large class of entrepreneurs, factory owners, civil servants, teachers, lawyers, doctors, merchants and other professionals wanted their voices heard by their governments. They became a force which had to be reckoned with and the government began to utilize its talents by creating large, obedient bureaucracies. In this way, government seemed to reflect the interests of all when in actual fact, they represented the interests of the bourgeoisie. So European governments maintained order by giving the middle classes a stake in the welfare of the nation. Governments also built strong police forces and armies of loyal soldiers. Meanwhile, the great mass of people, the "swinish multitude," lay completely unrepresented. And radicals were either imprisoned or exiled because of their liberal, democratic, socialist, communist or anarchist inclinations. Despite these measures, and there were others as well, traditional authoritarian governments were not completely successful. Their power and their objectives were limited. These governments lacked modern communications and modern transportation. They lacked, in other words, the ability to totally control their subject populations. The twentieth century -- thanks to improved technology -- would change all that. In fact, it can be said that true totalitarian regimes are limited only by the extent to which mass communications have been made a reality. And, of course, with mass communications comes mass man, and the capability of total control. Following World War One, there was a revival of traditional authoritarian regimes, especially in Eastern Europe. By 1938, of all the central and eastern European countries, only Czechoslovakia remained true to liberal political ideals. It has been remarked that the reason for this development was the perception that liberal democracy was a failure. It was not "made" for Eastern European nations. These nations lacked a tradition of self-government but they did have lengthy traditions of ethnic conflict as well as a steady growth in nationalism. As agrarian nations, the large landowners and the Church opposed any efforts at land reform. These countries also contained a small and relatively weak middle class. In a way, the 18th century seemed to have ignored these countries. Finally, for nations such as Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria and Estonia, it was the Great Depression that dashed any hopes for a liberal government based on the western model. Although many of these central and eastern European countries would adopt fascist characteristics, their general aim in doing so was not to become fascist themselves. Instead, their aim was to maintain the established order. They wanted to avoid revolution and more important, they wanted to avoid another world war. Modern totalitarian regimes made their appearance with the total effort required by the Great War. The reason for this is quite simple -- war required all institutions to subordinate their interests to one objective at all costs: victory. The individual had to make sacrifices and so their freedoms, whatever they might have been, were constantly reduced by increasing government intervention. The invisible hand of Adam Smith had to be replaced by the visible hand. Governments could not longer remain idle hoping that some "laissez-faire" mentality would carry them through the day. No. Governments had to intervene and the great event which made this notion of intervention a necessity, was the Great War. Beyond this, the crucial experience of World War I was [|Lenin], the Bolsheviks and the [|Russian Civil War]. Lenin had shown how a dedicated minority -- the Bolsheviks -- could make a dedicated effort and achieve victory over a majority. This was as true of the Revolution as much as it was of the Civil War when the Bolsheviks overcame the White Army who were numerically superior. Lenin also clearly demonstrated how institutions and human rights might be subordinated to the needs of a single party and a single leader. So, Lenin provided a model for a single party dictatorship, i.e. the Bolsheviks. It was Lenin, who provide the model for Stalin as well as Hitler and Mussolini. Totalitarian regimes -- thanks to technology and mass communications -- take over control of every facet of the individual's life. Everything is subject to control -- the economy, politics, religion, culture, philosophy, science, history and sport. Thought itself becomes both a form of social control as well as a method of social control. Those of you familiar with Orwell's premonitionary novel, //Nineteen Eighty-Four//, should have an easy time understanding this development. The totalitarian state was based on boundless dynamism. Totalitarian society was a fully mobilized society, a society constantly moving toward some goal. Which begs the question: Is democracy the means to an end or the end itself? Paradoxically, the totalitarian state never reached its ultimate goal. However, it gave the illusion of doing so. As soon as one goal was reached, it was replaced by another. Such was the case in Stalin's Russia. Stalin implemented a series of Five Year Plans in an effort to build up the industrial might of the Soviet Union. Production quotas were constantly announced well before they had been reached in order to supply the illusion that the Five Year Plan was working. But before the Five Year Plan had run its course, another Five Year Plan was announced. Hopefully, you can intuit the psychological necessity of such an act on Stalin's part. In the end, totalitarianism meant a "permanent revolution," an unfinished revolution in which rapid and profound change imposed from above simply went on forever. Of course, a permanent revolution also means that the revolution is never over. The individual is constantly striving for a goal which has been placed just a hair out of reach. In this way, society always remains mobilized for continual effort. The first example of such a permanent revolution the "revolution from above," instituted by [|Joseph Stalin] in 1927 and 1928. After having suppressed his enemies on both the left and the right, as well as the center, Stalin issued the "general party line." Anyone who deviated from that line was condemned to either exile or execution -- in most cases, execution. Stalin's aim was to create a new kind of society and a new human personality to inhabit that society: socialist man and socialist woman -- //Homo Sovieticus//. At the same time, a strong army would have to be built as well as a powerful industrial economy. Once everything was owned by the State, Stalin believed, a new kind of human personality would emerge. The Soviets under Stalin were by no means successful. Just the same, the Soviets did build a new society, one whose basic outlines survived right down to the late 1980s. However, Stalinist society did have its frightening aspects and none was more frightening than the existence of brutal, unrestrained police terrorism. First used against the wealthy peasants or kulaks during the 1920s and 1930s, terror was increasingly used against party members, administrators and ordinary people. No one would ever be above suspicion -- except Stalin, of course. Some were victims of terror for deviating from the party line -- others were victims for no apparent reason other than Stalin's moodiness. One Soviet recalled that in 1931, "we all trembled because there was no way of getting out of it. Even a Communist can be caught. To avoid trouble became an exception." As we now know, Stalin's second wife also publicly rebuked Stalin for the destruction the terror famine was working and she committed suicide in 1932. And on December 1, 1934, Sergei Kirov, the man who in some circles was rumored to be Stalin's heir, was assassinated in Leningrad on Stalin's orders. Using Kirov's death as an excuse, Stalin systematically purged the Communist Party of his opponents. Hundreds of party members were shot for their alleged complicity in Kirov's death. Kirov was a full member of the ruling Politburo and leader of the Leningrad party apparatus as well as an influential member of the ruling elite. His overt concern for the welfare of the Leningrad workers and his skill as an orator earned him considerable popularity. It is doubtful that Kirov represented a serious threat to Stalin, however, Kirov did disagree with Stalin on several key issues. But Stalin had already begun to doubt the loyalty of the Leningrad party and he looked for a pretext to begin a broad purge. The murder of Kirov was necessary. Although it was Leonid Nikolaev who committed the assassination, it is now clear that the whole episode had been, over a period of two years, crafted by Stalin and the NKVD. Stalin, of course, then used the crime as an excuse to introduce severe laws against all political crimes. So, following the death of Kirov at the end of 1934, there began the Soviet witch-hunt which culminated in the Great Terror of the years 1935-1939. In 1936, Stalin brought his old comrades [|Zinoviev] and Kamenev to a staged public trial. An international press corps was invited to lend a sense of legitimacy to the proceedings. When their trial had ended Zinoviev, Kamenev and fourteen other old Bolsheviks either admitted involvement in the [|Kirov Affair] or signed confessions that had been fabricated for them. These men had not been conspirators but they did satisfy Stalin's paranoia. As to be expected, they were all executed. The confessional process was helped by the black jack, continuous interrogation and the swan dive, where towelling was put between the jaws and the feet and tightened, arching and breaking the back. But often, the confession was voluntary because the Party demanded it. As one survivor recalled, "serving the party was not just a goal in life but an inner need." In January 1937 a second great show trial was held in which seventeen leading Bolsheviks declared that they had knowledge of a conspiracy between [|Trotsky] and the German and Japanese intelligence services by which Soviet territory was to be transferred to Germany and Japan. A crowd of 200,000 packed Red Square in frigid weather to hear Nikita Khrushchev read out the death sentences. All seventeen were executed. Then on June 11, 1937, the cream of the Red Army, stripped of their medals and insignia, were ushered into the courtroom. They included Marshal Tukhachevsky, the most brilliant soldier of his generation and the pioneer of armored and airborne warfare. The generals were accused of spying for the Germans, found guilty, shot and dumped in a trench on a construction site, all within eighteen hours. Six of the officers who condemned them were soon shot. Of 85 corps commanders 57 disappeared within a year. Of the 100,000 Red Army officers on active duty in 1937, perhaps 60,000 were purged. The last of the public trials took place in March 1938, as twenty-one leading Bolsheviks, including [|Nikolai Bukharin] (1888-1938), confessed to similar charges and were executed. Also to go was Yagoda, Stalin's hand-picked head of the NKVD. These public show trials and the secret trials of the generals provide only a faint idea of the extent of the Great Terror. Every member of Lenin's Politburo except Stalin and Trotsky were either killed or committed suicide to avoid execution. A partial list of those who ceased to exist would include:

--two vice-commissars of foreign affairs --most of the ambassadors in the Soviet diplomatic corps --numerous members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party --almost all the military judges who had sat in judgment and had condemned --the Red Army generals --two successive heads of the NKVD --the prime ministers and chief officials of all the non-Russian Soviet republics --the director of the Lenin Library --the man who had led the charge against the Winter Palace in 1917 --a 70 year old schoolteacher who owned a book which included a picture of Trotsky --an 85 year old woman who made the sign of the Cross when a funeral passed --a man who took down a portrait of Stalin while painting a wall

Not since the days of the Inquisition had the test of ideological loyalty been applied to so many people. And not since the days of the French Revolution had so many died for failing the test. Arrests multiplied tenfold in 1936 and 1937. Anything was used as an excuse for an arrest: dancing too long with a Japanese diplomat, not clapping loudly enough or long enough after one of Stalin's speeches, buying groceries from a former kulak. People went to work one day and simply did not return -- they were either killed immediately or sent to the [|GULAG]. The NKVD employed millions of secret informers who infiltrated every workplace. Most academics and writers came to expect arrest, exile and prison as part of their lives. A historian could be sent to exile for describing Joan of Arc as nervous and tense just when the general party line wished her described as calm in the face of death. When a linguistic theory that held that all language was derived from four sounds was accepted as official, professors who opposed this view had their books confiscated. By 1938 at least one million people were in prison, some 8.5 million had been arrested and sent to the GULAG and nearly 800,000 had been executed. In fact, before the KGB was dissolved in 1991, it was revealed that 47 million Soviet citizens had died as a result of forced collectivization and the purges. That figure, of course, represents the recorded tally. How many more people died without being recorded is a matter of conjecture. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Stalin wanted to destroy any possibility of future conspiracies. So he trumped up charges against anyone who could conceivably become a member of a regime that might make the attempt to replace his own. He did this to maintain his power. He also did this, as his biographers are quick to point out, because he was paranoid. Despite the upheaval of the constant purge trials, the Soviet state did not break down. New bureaucrats were found to replace the old. New Stalin-trained officials filled all top-level posts and terror became one of the principal features of the government itself. In the end, the purgers were also purged. They were the scapegoats used by Stalin to carry out the Great Terror. Meanwhile, Trotsky had been out of Russia for years but he continued to use his pen to attack Stalin in his journal, //The Bulletin of the Opposition//. In Stalin's eyes, Trotsky could not be left free. Stalin's purges baffled nearly all foreign observers. He saw threats everywhere. Were they real? Leading Communists confessed to crimes against the State they never committed. Some were brainwashed, others tortured. Still others, like Nikolai Bukharin, were shot in the head. And eventually, even Trotsky was murdered in Mexico City in 1940, an ice pick to the head. Soviet life in the 1930s, purge trials aside, was one of constant propaganda and indoctrination. Party members lectured to workers in factories and peasants in the field. Newspapers, films and radio broadcast endless socialist achievements and capitalist evil. Art, literature, film and science were politicized -- sovietized. The intellectual elite of the 1930s were ordered by Stalin to become "engineers of human souls" or, as Maxim Gorky put it, the "[|CRAFTSMEN OF CULTURE]." Russian nationalism had to be glorified. Capitalism was portrayed as the greatest of evils. Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great were resurrected and depicted as the forerunners of Stalin. History had to be rewritten. "Who controls the past, controls the future; who controls the present controls the past," wrote Orwell. Stalin rarely appeared in public but his presence was everywhere: portraits, statues, books, films and quotations from his idiotic books surrounded the Soviet man and woman. Life was hard inside Soviet Russia and the standard of living declined in the 1930s, despite Stalin's claim that the Five Year Plans had modernized the nation. Black bread and shabby clothes came to represent the Russian masses. There were constant shortages of food although heavily taxed vodka was always available. Housing was poor and in short supply. Although life was hard, the Soviet people were by no means hopeless. The average Russian saw himself heroically building the world's first socialist society while capitalism was crumbling in the west. On the positive side, the Soviet worker received social benefits such as old age pensions, free medical services, free education and even day care facilities. Unemployment was technically non-existent and there was the possibility of personal advancement. The key to advancement was specialized skills and a technical education. Rapid industrialization under the Five Year Plans required massive numbers of experts, technocrats, skilled workers, engineers and managers. So the State provided economic incentives for those people who would faithfully serve the needs of the State. But for the unskilled, low wages were the rule. But, the State dangled high salaries and special housing to those members of the growing technical and managerial elite. This elite joined forces with the "engineers of the human mind" to produce a new social class -- and all this in a supposedly classless society. Stalin's ego mania and paranoia eventually contributed to the near destruction of Soviet Russia. His perpetual and pathological lying and deception, culminating in the infamous purge trials of the 1930s, took the Soviet Union down a road out of which it is now slowly recovering, if, in fact, it ever will recover. I am reminded of the political history of the Roman Empire following the death of Augustus Caesar in 14 A.D. First Caligula, then Nero, Commodus, Severus and so on -- 250 years of military assassinations, strangulations and poisoning. In the 1770s, Edward Gibbon sat down to complete his major work of historical scholarship, [|//The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire//]. In it, he says, "The story of Rome's ruin is simple and obvious and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it had subsided for so long.... The stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight." Now, I don't mean to take the position that Soviet Russia was identical to the Roman Empire, but I do think that we should be surprised that Stalinist Russia existed for so long. In retrospect, however, we should acknowledge the terror, criminality and totalitarian regime of Joseph Stalin. This is indeed what Nikita Khrushchev did in his [|SECRET SPEECH] of 1956, three years after Stalin's death. Despite all that has been said, popular memory reveals that of all the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, none was more terrifying than that of Nazi Germany. As a product of Hitler, Germany's social and political situation, and the general attack on liberalism, Nazi Germany emerged rapidly after 1933 when Hitler came to power. The Nazis smashed all independent organizations, mobilized the economy and began the systematic extermination of the Jewish and other non-German populations. The story of Hitler is well-known -- there is an entire Hitler //industry// of book publishing these days, unmatched only by books on the JFK assassination. Why this might be the case is rather obvious. Hitler seemed to be evil incarnate. So too was Stalin. But then again, the west did not fight a war, not a hot one, at least, against Stalin. We also have more information regarding the Nazis than we do Stalin, whose regime was always clouded in secrecy. The Nazis, on the other hand, kept good records. In his now classic work, //The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich//, William Shirer mentions that in 1945 the U.S. First Army seized 485 tons of records of the German Foreign Office in the Harz Mountains as they were about to be burned on orders from Berlin. Such a figure, it must be added, represents only part of the whole. Hitler was born in Austria in 1889 (for more on Hitler, see [|Lecture 9]). He dropped out of school at age 14 and then spent four years as a tramp before he left his home for Vienna to become an [|artist]. He applied to the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts and was denied admission. He was told he had no artistic talent. Back on the streets, the tramp Hitler began to absorb a nationalist ideology. In Vienna he discovered that the Germans were a superior race of people and the natural masters of the inferior races of Europe. He also learned his anti-Semitism, racism and hatred of all Slavic people. An ex-monk by the name of Lanz von Liebenfels inspired Hitler's twisted Darwinism. Liebenfels stressed the superiority of the Germans, the inevitability of racial conflict and the inferiority of the Jews. The master race, by its very nature, had to grow. Selective breeding and the systematic sterilization of inferior races was the answer. When [|war] broke out in 1914, Hitler believed he had found salvation. The struggle and discipline of war gave meaning to Hitler's life. Life was struggle and so too was war. What better atmosphere for Hitler to further develop his nationalist and social Darwinist sentiments. But when defeat came in 1918, Hitler's world was shattered. The war had been his reason for living. What could have happened? Well, for Hitler, the Jews and Marxists had stabbed Germany in the back. Therefore, these parasitic intellectuals ought to be removed. Back home following the war, Hitler began to make wild speeches to small audiences in the streets. He didn't care if many people heard him out, only that he could articulate his message of anti-Semitism and German nationalism. And people did listen to Hitler. And they began to take seriously what he gesticulated on the streets. By 1921, Hitler had become the leader of a small but growing political party. It is interesting to note that Hitler shared very little of the interests of this party, instead, he simply took it over because he needed a party of his own. The [|German Workers' Party] denounced all Jews, Marxists and liberals. They promised national socialism. They used propaganda and theatrical rallies. They wore special badges and uniforms and as they marched, robotlike, through the streets of Münich, they rendered their special salute. Most effective of all their tools was the mass rally -- a rally made for mass man. Songs were sung, slogans were cast about. It was a revivalist movement, or at least it had the atmosphere of a religious revival. Hitler was a charismatic speaker and easily worked his audiences up into a frenzy. Party membership began to grow. In 1923, Hitler launched a [|plot] to march on Münich, a plot that eventually failed and sent Hitler to prison for five years. At his trial, Hitler presented his own program to solve Germany's problems. The audience listened and he began to attract their attention. He dared utter what everyone knew all along but were afraid to express. A new wave of converts began to side with the German Workers' Party. While in prison, Hitler wrote [|//Mein Kampf//]. Its basic themes were German racial superiority, virulent anti-Semitism, the concept of //Lebensraum//, or living space, pan-Germanism and the necessity of yet another war. The Nazis now had their Bible. By 1928, the Nazi Party now had 100,000 members and Hitler had absolute control. The Nazis were still a marginal political group but world events in 1929 and 1930 produced a new mania for the Hitler program. Unemployment stood at 1.3 million in 1929. The following year, it had risen to 5 million while industrial production in 1932 fell by more than 50%. In that same year, 43% of all Germans were unemployed. Hitler now began to promise Germany economic salvation as well as military and political restitution for the "[|war guilt clause]" specified at Versailles. He focused on the middle and lower middle classes---the office workers, civil servants and teachers. These were the people who had barely survived through the period of wild inflation following World War One. These were the people who were begging for salvation. The Nazis also made their appeal to [|GERMAN YOUTH]. Hitler and his aides were, in general, much younger than other leading politicians. In 1931, for instance, 40% of all Nazis were under thirty years of age, 70% were under 40. This is quite different from what we would find in Stalinist Russia at the same time. National recovery, rapid change and personal advancement formed the main appeal of the Nazi Party. By 1932, Hitler had gained the support of key people in the army and in big business. These individuals thought they could use Hitler for their own financial interests. So, they accepted Hitler's demand to join the government only if he became Chancellor. Since the government was a coalition consisting of two Nazis and nine conservatives, they reasoned that Hitler could be used and controlled. And so, on January 30th, 1933, Hitler legally became the [|Chancellor of Germany]. Hitler moved quickly to establish a dictatorship. He used terror to gain power while maintaining an air of legality throughout. He called for new elections to Parliament and then had the Parliament building [|burned to the ground]. He blamed the Communists for this act thus helping to get them out of the way and out of any possible public following. He convinced President Hindenburg to sign an emergency act that [1] abolished the freedom of speech and [2] abolished the freedom of assembly. On March 23, 1933, the Nazis pushed the [|Enabling Act] through Parliament, thus making Hitler dictator for a period of four years. Communist Party members were arrested, the Catholic Center Party withdrew all opposition and the Social Democratic Party was dissolved. So it was that Germany, like Soviet Russia under Stalin, became a one party State. In the economic sphere, all strikes were made illegal and unions were abolished. The members of professional organizations such as doctors, lawyers, professors and engineers were swallowed up in Nazi-based organizations. In the cultural sphere, the press now feel under total state control. Blacklisting became the rule, books were burned, modern art was prohibited and anti-intellectualism became the rule of the day. Hitler promised the German people work and bread and he delivered both. As most shrewd politicians are capable, Hitler gave the people what they wanted the most. He launched a massive public works program to pull Germany out of the Depression. Superhighways, office buildings, huge stadiums and public buildings were constructed at a rapid pace. By 1936, however, government spending was now being directed almost entirely to the military, necessary for the coming war Hitler had already specified in //Mein Kampf//. Meanwhile, unemployment dropped steadily. In January 1937, unemployment stood at 7 million. Twelve months later it had fallen to 1 million and by 1938, Germany witnessed a shortage of labor. The standard of living increased by 20% and business profits were finally increasing. What all this recovery showed was that Hitler was more than show -- he was no Mussolini who made the trains run on time. No, Hitler had accomplished something for Germany and the German people. For those Germans who were not Jews, Slavs, Gypsies or communists, liberals, non-Germans, or insane or weak, Hitler's government meant greater opportunity and greater equality. Older class barriers were replaced by individuals who, like Hitler, were rootless and had risen to the top. The Nazis tolerated privilege and wealth, but only when it served the Party. Big business was constantly ordered around thus making, once again, the invisible hand of Adam Smith, a thing of the past. Of course, you can identify a similar tendency in the United States with the New Deal and Stalin's Five Year Plans in Soviet Russia. Planning was, in other words, essential. Although economic recovery and increased opportunity won Hitler support, Nazism was totally guided by two main ideas: //Lebensraum// and race. As Germany regained economic strength and built up its military, Hitler formed alliances with other dictators and began to expand. Meanwhile, western Europe simply sat back and tried to appease Hitler in order to avoid another World War. War did break out in 1939 for one specific reason -- Hitler's ambitions were without limit. The Nazi armies scored impressive victories until late in 1942. Hitler's aggression was so strong that a mighty coalition of nations was needed to destroy his growing empire. By the summer of 1943, the tide had turned and two years later, Germany lay in ruins, utterly defeated. The one thousand year Reich was decidedly short-lived. The Second World War marked the climax of the Age of Anxiety. Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany rejected all liberal ideas. They tried to subordinate everything to the State. Basic human rights were subjected to brutality and to terror. Whereas Stalin, however, was content to extend his control over the Soviet Union, it was Hitler who aimed at unlimited territorial and racial aggression of a master race. Hitler made war inevitable: first with France, then with Britain and Russia and ultimately with the United States.

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