Part 31

He visited many places on the continent, but the visits to Germany and the Soviet Union were decisive. Here were crystallized the political ideas which had been fermenting within him ever since he felt the thrill that came with the first taste of power over the throngs of Americans gathered to adore him. In Russia he found the object of his political hatred: the poverty, squalor, dirt, inefficiency, and cruelty of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. He was treated well by the Bolshevik authorities, who as Russians regarded him as an artist, a genius of the air, a man who, like a great singer, could be considered outside of politics.

His political slate was up to that time blank. The Russians often welcome foreign celebrities supposed to be without politics. They gave Harpo Marx a cordial reception. Lindbergh was shown the Red Army, its Air Corps, the aviation factories, and no doubt the Bolsheviks thought he was impressed. A layman traveling through Russia is shocked at the wretched state of the people, their poor clothing, bad food, their brutal overcrowding. You may be sure that this was not the prime object of Lindbergh’s attention. Lindbergh is not interested in human beings. He is interested in machines. In Russia he saw the poorest machine he had ever seen. He observed that the ponderous Bolshevik society operated with an unparalleled waste of man power and with unmatched inefficiency. He saw the Soviet Air factories, and declared he detected the slovenly workmanship which mars all Soviet production. He reviewed portions of the Red Army Air Corps and registered his opinion that most of the planes were obsolete or obsolescent.

In Nazi Germany Lindbergh found the object of his political admiration, even affection, for here at last he had found the perfect machine. Not only was it the antithesis in every material respect of the Soviet Union, a streamlined, chromium-plated, eighteen-jewel model of totalitarian clockwork, compared with the dilapidated Soviet jalopy, but the Nazi machine also promised to banish the Soviet menace from the face of the earth. Lindbergh had in Germany first an aesthetic delight in the efficiency of the machine, then a moral satisfaction in the thought that it would eradicate the blot of Bolshevism.

Finally a personal consideration came to him. The kidnaping and death of his baby could never have happened in Nazi Germany. Common crime was almost unknown in Nazi Germany. He failed to reflect that under the dictators crime is reserved as the monopoly of the State, and that from any normal human standpoint there is more crime committed in Nazi Germany in a year than in America in ten years of its most besotted gangster period, only in Germany it is all committed by the State. Lindbergh loved Germany.

He saw the great Army, then in the last stages of readying itself to spring upon Europe and set out to conquer the world. He saw the great Luftwaffe, and Goering himself “surprised” him by pinning the Service Cross of the Order of the German Eagle with Star on his breast before he could help himself. Lindbergh has not yet divested himself of his Nazi decoration. He laid down his commission because he quarreled with the President of the United States, but he has no quarrel with Hitler.

Lindbergh was so delighted with the whole atmosphere of this perfectly functioning totalitarian machine that he was contemplating making his residence in Berlin, where an American news agency reported that the apartment of a Jew, liquidated in the monster pogrom of November 1938, had been offered him. He stayed long enough to become convinced that the Nazis were the wave, which, whether we liked it or not, would eventually engulf the world. Lindbergh liked it. Here were no democratic gangsterism, corruption, private crime. Here were no Bolshevik slackness, squalor, waste. Here was the New Order, of superior men, like himself, of tall, blond, blue-eyed Aryans, like himself, of Nordics, like himself. He felt among his own kind.

The Terror, the concentration camps, the murderous persecution of the Jews and political opponents, the suppression of free speech, of the press, of worship, even of thought and conscience! What of it! This was only the scum on the wave of the future, and as for the suppression of the press, _that_ at least was no scum, that was sheer progress. The literal enslavement of a whole population! Well, they like it, don’t they? What of the fact that the entire machine and every part of it was built for war, and for war which if successful in Europe would eventually reach and thrust at the heart of America? Nonsense, the Germans could whip Europe all right, indeed Lindbergh declared his conviction they would, but they intended no harm to America. He knew, because hadn’t they been nice to him, an American? Anyway, he wouldn’t say anything about it in public, but if the truth be known, America could go a long way and do worse than by emulating some of the Nazis’ virtues.

Liberty? Bah, Lindbergh would take order and efficiency any day ahead of liberty and inefficiency. Besides, Lindbergh was one of the class of superior men, superior in talent, ability, and comprehension of what society needs, who in a totalitarian state would enjoy all the freedom he wanted since his ideas would conform with those of the rulers and he would belong to the company of masters of the New Order. He had nothing to fear from a Nazi conquest.

With these thoughts in mind Lindbergh returned first to England and told them they had better give up because the Russians were no good and the Germans knew it, and the Germans were strong enough to conquer all Europe, and the proof was in the air forces he had just inspected. His advice was believed to have had something to do with the disaster of Munich, when Britain and France, convinced their cause was hopeless, lost a war without fighting it. In every point of his argument Lindbergh had agreed with Hitler, and in every point Lindbergh and Hitler were correct, save in one point. They made a mistake about England.

When England recovered from the shock of Munich, she began to throw off her weakness and get tough. But Lindbergh had left for America. He did not have time to see England recover the manhood which seemed lost when he was there. Lindbergh came home now bursting with a message, eager to lead, anxious to play a political role, and resolved as he has been all his life to be content with nothing less than the greatest role. “Lindbergh will be the next President of the United States. He is our man.” So said the Belgian friend of the Nazis. The British Lindbergh, Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, is on the political bottom; he is in Brixton prison. Mosley is no less sincere a man than Lindbergh. Vidkun Quisling is on the political top; he is Hitler’s man in Norway. The political future of Lindbergh will obviously depend largely upon whether Germany or our side wins the war.

Q. _Why did Lindbergh attack the Jews?_

A. Because anti-Semitism is an integral part of Hitlerism. If you are not against Hitler you are for him, and if you are for Hitler you will be compelled, sooner or later, and whether you intend it or not, to become an anti-Semite. Every country now under Hitler’s heel has officially sponsored and promoted anti-Semitism. It was easy to read Lindbergh’s anti-Semitism between the lines of his references to the “foreign” influences at work in America. He waited only until he thought the time ripe for his public announcement, but the results proved his calculation wrong. His statement against the Jews brought a roar of repudiation from all creeds and classes of the nation, and the only approval came from the group around Lindbergh who constitute what might be called the America First’s Quisling Committee. Lindbergh’s anti-Semitism could be sufficiently explained on the ground of temperament. He admires, he understands, and loves only machines and he could hardly be expected to understand or appreciate, much less approve, the spiritual values which for thousands of years have upheld the Jews through adversities which would have annihilated scores of more numerous but less faithful communities.

Q. _What is to be the fate of the Jews?_

A. If Hitler’s power is not destroyed, if Hitler were to win, all Jews under his domination would be condemned to slow death. Why slow? Why doesn’t Hitler kill them all at once? Because he enjoys watching them suffer, has a sadistic pleasure in it; because he needs their labor power for the menial tasks to which he assigns them; and because he probably feels that until he conquers the whole world it would be wiser not to outrage what there is left of world opinion.

Besides, Hitler finds the Jews useful wherever he wishes to divide a conquered population, as in France where the hostages he shoots are for the most part called Jews or Communists. Every time he shoots a Jewish hostage he says to the non-Jews, “You see, if it were not for your Jews, you and I could get along perfectly together!” By this device of making the Jew the scapegoat, he works to arouse anti-Semitism among the vanquished and anti-Semitism in any form anywhere is the most faithful handmaid of Hitlerism.

Therefore, he has not completely eliminated the Jews from any part of his territories, but has allowed to remain, under conditions of the most abject servitude, 200,000 out of the original 660,000 in Germany proper; 40,000 out of the original 190,000 in Austria; 100,000 out of 380,000 in Czechoslovakia; 20,000 out of 156,000 in Holland; 30,000 out of 63,000 in Belgium; an estimated 380,000 native and foreign Jews in France, occupied and unoccupied; 750,000 in Hungary, including everyone with one-quarter Jewish blood; 300,000 in truncated Rumania; 97,000 in Latvia; 177,000 in Lithuania; 5,000 in Esthonia; and 100,000 in Greece. These figures are cited by _The American Hebrew_. Poland must come in a separate category since there Hitler has apparently set out to exterminate the 3,000,000 Jews without the restraint he seems to have put on himself elsewhere.

Nobody knows how many of the Polish Jews have died; their fate is only more dreadful than that inflicted upon the entire Polish population. Sober observers believe that twenty per cent of the Polish population as a whole have been killed or have died as a result of the two years of German and Russian occupation. If this is true, then of the 6,000,000 dead, one must reckon that at least 1,000,000 are Jews. Whether this figure is too high or too low, the obvious intent of the Germans in Poland is to wipe out the Jews altogether, and the wonder is that any at all are living today.

In Soviet Russia the 5,000,000 Jews are not subject to any official discrimination, but suffer as the rest of the population from the generally wretched conditions of life aggravated by the war. These conditions of life in the Soviet Union would be intolerable under normal circumstances, especially since the Jews, like other faiths, have been deprived of the facilities formally to practice their religion, but now that Europe under the Nazis has become a charnel house for Jews, the Soviet Union must seem like a haven of refuge. There seems to be no alternative for the Jews except that they suffer death at the hands of Hitlerism, or that Hitlerism be destroyed. It can be destroyed better with the outspoken, avowed help of the Jews of the world, and especially the Jews of America.

It is shocking, indeed, to observe the names of a few Jews on isolationist committees, and one wonders what mental processes have brought them there. Do they imagine that if America remains aloof and Hitler wins the rest of the world, that the Jews, or any other Americans, will be safe? No, if Hitler wins the rest of the world, the Lindberghs of America will boldly put their anti-Semitism to work, and the fate of the Jews in America will approximate that of their brothers abroad. There is no choice for the Jews of America but to put all the strength of their bodies and souls and purses to work against the enemy of all mankind. There is no reason for them to apologize for fighting the universal scourge. The anti-Semite is a friend of Hitler. The friend of Hitler is the enemy of the United States.

Q. _I would like to read you a passage from a speech of Lindbergh delivered shortly after the German invasion of Russia, and ask you what you think of it, as it is quite confusing to me. The passage reads: “The longer this war in Europe continues, the more confused its issues become. When it started Germany and Russia were lined up against England and France. Now, less than two years later we find Russia and England fighting France and Germany. Winter before last, when Russia was fighting Finland, the interventionists demanded that we send all possible aid to Finland. Now, when Russia is fighting Finland again they demand that we send all possible aid to Russia.... Finland and France are now our enemies; Russia our friend. We have been asked to defend the English way of life, and the Chinese way of life. We are now asked to defend the Russian way of life.... Judging from Europe’s record, if we enter this war, we can’t be sure whether we will have Germany or Russia for a partner by the time we finish it. We don’t even know whether we will end up with France or England on our side. It is quite possible that we would find ourselves alone fighting the entire world before it was over.”_

A. The confusion is of Lindbergh’s own making. There is a simple key to all the apparent contradictions he brings out. The key is that Hitler Germany was, is, and will remain the enemy until Hitlerism is destroyed. The correct way to express the relationships which Lindbergh has put so confusingly is: All nations fighting Germany are fighting on our side; all nations fighting on the side of Germany are fighting against us. When a nation, for any reason, switches sides, for or against Germany, it automatically switches sides for or against us. The question of friendship, of liking for any of these nations, or of approval of their “way of life” does not decide the matter. The matter is decided solely by the effect the particular nation is having on Germany’s war.

Let us examine each of Lindbergh’s statements in turn. He says the longer the war continues, the more confused its issues become. Not at all--the longer it lasts the more plain it becomes that the issue is: Germany against the world. Do not be confused by the fact that some countries which were fighting Germany, now come out on Germany’s side. As Germany conquers one country after another, she attempts to force them into fighting for her, as in the case of France. No matter what Hitler’s puppet government in France does, we know that the true France is no friend of Germany, but an implacable enemy. Napoleon at one time had half a dozen armies raised from among the peoples he had conquered, marching under his banners. But the moment Napoleon suffered reverses, they revolted. So it will be with Hitler.

Finland’s position is easy to understand if you reflect that she was so much subject to Hitler’s coercion that she had to behave almost as though she too had been conquered. It would have been suicide if Finland, resisting Germany’s demands that she join the German side, should have had to fight both the German and the Russian armies. That way Poland was torn to pieces. It would have been unthinkable that Finland, so recently mutilated by Russia, should have admitted the Red Army to her territories. It was inevitable that Finland should choose the lesser of two evils. And so we, understanding Finland’s plight, must classify her on Germany’s side and embargo goods to her. But we can still think of her as a friend, and only as a technical enemy by force of circumstances.

The position of Russia is equally clear. Bolshevik Russia, the Soviet Union, is nobody’s friend, and never pretended to be. She, like Germany, is “against the world,” and by making the pact with Germany at the beginning of the war she expected to see the world eventually collapse and become her loot. Now that Germany has forced Russia to fight, Russia should enjoy every material aid we can give her. As long as she continues to fight Germany, we should do all we can to help her blows injure our enemy. So it is only in order to confuse us that Lindbergh phrases it the way he does: “Finland and France are now our enemies; Russia our friend.”

Lindbergh says we are asked to defend the English, the Chinese, and now the Russian way of life. It would not make any difference to us if the English, the Chinese, and the Russians lived like lizards, crocodiles, and alligators, so long as they were aiding directly and willingly as the British, or directly though unwillingly, as the Russians, or indirectly as the Chinese, to protect us by opposing our enemies. We are only helping ourselves when we help them.

Lindbergh ends: “It is quite possible that we would find ourselves alone fighting the entire world before it was over.” No, it is not just “quite possible,” it is absolutely certain that we will find ourselves fighting the entire world if we do not intervene to save some part of the world to fight on our side.

Q. _In one of Lindbergh’s speeches he made the statement that “the only reason we are in danger of becoming involved in this war is because there are powerful elements who desire us to take a part.” Is this true?_

A. There are powerful elements who desire us to take part, namely all the intelligent patriotic Americans who wish to defend their country while there is yet time, but that is not what Lindbergh meant. He is using veiled language to express what his admirers, the Nazi Bundists, the Fascists, and the Kluxers say openly when they charge that America is being “driven into war by the Jews, the international bankers, and the armaments manufacturers.” It is a rule of the politics of this era, as Alexander Woollcott pointed out, that if you are not against Hitler, you are for him, and sooner or later, willingly or unwillingly you become lined up for all the things he stands for, some of which you may not have wished to embrace, as racial hatred, anti-Semitism, and the rule of the man with the gun.

The rich men in the America First Committee of Lindbergh and General Wood, fancy they are protecting their investments by lining up against beating Hitler, but if they permit him to win they will lose their wealth as surely as if they had helped run up the Red Flag.

Q. _Can you give us a brief, objective resumé of Lindbergh’s argument against our entering the war?_

A. Yes, he has set it forth very clearly in his “Letter to America” published in _Collier’s_ magazine, where his principal ideas are summed up, without any omission save the fact of his contempt for the democracies and his admiration for the totalitarian system. It runs as follows: England and France have only themselves to blame for their defeat. (He takes for granted that England is defeated.) First, because they did not make a reasonable adjustment with Germany while there was still time. Second, because they made the Versailles treaty too harsh to appease Germany and too lenient to hold her down. Third, because when Germany rose under Hitler they did not take advantage of the last chance to stop him when they could, at his reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936. They were always too late, and now we in America are too late to stop him. We are unarmed and unable to fight. We have not as many thoroughly modern fighting planes in our Army and Navy combined as Germany produces in a single week. “If we enter the war now, it would mean humiliation and defeat.” It is impossible for us to invade Europe. On the other hand, it is impossible for Germany to invade us. They cannot invade us by air over Greenland because it is too cold, nor by way of South America because it is too far, and the South Americans with our aid could prevent them from constructing landing fields. We can stay out of the war, make ourselves impregnable, and afterward force other nations to trade with us. That should be our policy.

Counterattacking, he demands to know if we enter the war, first, how are we to defeat Germany? Second, how are we to “impose our ideology” on our enemies? Third, what would it cost to win the war in American lives and how long would the war last? Fourth, what are our war aims? But he always comes back to the question: “How could we win the war if we entered it?”

Q. _How can we win?_

A. I have an answer. There are too many surprises in warfare--witness the German attack on Russia--for anyone, including the military experts, to be sure of anything, and I am not a military expert. But I should like to preface my reply to Lindbergh’s whole argument by remarking that he assumes we have a choice in the matter, and that we can avoid going to war if we want to. I do not believe we have any choice except in the matter of timing. I should like to ask Lindbergh if he believes that by adopting his complete program, even withdrawal of all aid to Britain, thus insuring British defeat, we could thereby induce Hitler to grant us better terms? Leaving aside all national honor and pride, suppose we were to switch our policy completely and not only abandoned Britain but like Vichy France made clandestine war upon her, or openly stabbed her in the back with a declaration of war à la Mussolini. Even in that case can anyone believe we would receive any better treatment than Hitler has in store for Vichy France or his ally Italy? It is plain that all we should gain by such conduct would be an increase in the unbounded contempt he already has for us.

We have not the choice of war or isolation. We have only the choice of war or surrender.

Let us take his points one by one. First, that England and France have only themselves to blame for their defeat. But England is not defeated, and I am convinced that she can be defeated only by our defection on the lines advocated by Lindbergh. She was to blame for her refusal to see her danger in time, and for the same reason France was to blame for her defeat. I agree to this, but to waste time now in such recriminations is folly. Lindbergh says England and France were always too late and that now we in America are too late to save England. But it is our Lindberghs who are making us late. We are still not armed, agreed, but how can we win the time to arm? We can gain the time to arm only by upholding Britain, keeping her fighting, and keeping the Germans out of control of the Atlantic. We can do that now by going to war with Germany and reinforcing Britain with all the force at our disposal, which is adequate when ranged beside the present strength of Britain but inadequate to fight alone. Only our entry into the war now, before it is too late, can guarantee that Britain stands, and as long as Britain stands we can build our arms in perfect security until the combined British and American might is strong enough to defeat Germany. Lindbergh’s argument is that if we fight beside Britain now we lose; if we fight alone later, we win.

He says we cannot be invaded: “I believe that we can build a military and commercial position on this continent that is impregnable to attack.” But in the preceding paragraph he says that for us to win a war we must prepare for it “not for one year, or for two, but for ten years or for twenty as Germany has done.” Does he imagine that Hitler would give us twenty years to prepare for war, or ten, or two, or even one after he had beaten Britain?