Article - Jews Failed to Spot Hitler's Menace

[TomCADem]

Interesting article by the author of "Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power.”

http://forward.com/opinion/157832/jews-failed-to-spot-hitlers-menace/?attribution=author-article-listing-1-headline

In the very early 1920s, when Adolf Hitler was still only a local rabble rouser in Munich, two men from Munich’s American consulate made a point of observing his rallies: Robert Murphy, the young acting consul, and Paul Drey, a German employee who was a member of a distinguished Bavarian Jewish family. “Do you think these agitators will ever get far?” Murphy asked his colleague. “Of course not!” Drey replied. “The German people are much too intelligent to be taken in by such scamps.”

Since the recent publication of my book “Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power,” many people have asked me why American diplomats and journalists were often slow to recognize the threat that Hitler represented. It’s a legitimate question, requiring more than a simple answer. But an equally legitimate question is why many German and American Jews were often just as slow in waking up to the Nazi danger.

Or slower. In fact, some Americans living in Germany were more alarmed by what they were witnessing than German Jews appeared to be. In late 1932, as Hitler was close to taking power, Edgar Ansel Mowrer, the Chicago Daily News correspondent who was one of the most perceptive observers on the scene, attended a dinner at the home of a prominent Jewish banker. All the other guests were also Jewish bankers, and Mowrer was startled to hear that some of them had given money to the Nazis at the urging of non-Jewish German industrialists.

When Mowrer expressed his astonishment at his dinner companions’ “strong suicidal urge,” his host insisted that Hitler shouldn’t be taken seriously. The implication: The Nazi leader would never act on his most extreme rhetoric, and besides, the donations would keep him reasonable. To Jews who were more willing to listen, Mowrer’s advice was unequivocal: “Get out, and fast.”

[JI7]

1. anti semitism was a normal part of life

[Bettie]

3. As is virulent racism here

It's all happening again and there will be no one to come and help us.

[treestar]

11. The law protects us

even if laws like the Nuremberg laws were enacted by some state like Kansas - they would be found unconstitutional. Even a Supreme Court full of Scalias would find that.

[Bettie]

13. You have much more faith in the conservative

parts of the court than I do.

I don't think we can assume any protections whatsoever anymore.

[wordpix]

14. don't count on it with this crowd in charge

[s-cubed]

2. Some Jews did recognize the danger.

I know one Jewish family that survived in Berlin. How? A prescient family member bribed a parish priest to issue birth records. Some members of my husband's family, including his father and mother, got out. Many did not and died.

I think that denial was an important factor, one that we are seeing here. But I think the active, organized resistance we are seeing here MAY save us.

[leftynyc]

4. Many foolishly believed

that since their families had lived in Germany - some for three hundred years - they were safe from hitler. They thought they'd be considered German first. Believe me when I say Jews learned their lesson from that.

[COLGATE4]

6. Yep. Not for nothing the saying that

'Jews always keep a suitcase packed'.

[leftynyc]

7. Yup

My grandparents (escapees from Russia, Ukraine and Poland) all said that.

[COLGATE4]

8. So did mine. And, fortunately for

us they not only said it but did it.

[treestar]

5. Luckily for us we have

1. The Bill of Rights
2. We don't have a weak economy like they had
3. Though a majority are still white, we have many non-white people, and they are varied themselves.
4. The group treated the worst, African Americans - we've passed laws and spent a lot of time trying to fix that.

[TomCADem]

9. Many Germans Believed There Were Adequate Checks on Hitler...

...as this contemporary cartoon illustrated.



Likewise, many folks in the U.S. were unconcerned, so long as Hitler's actions only affected foreigners, as this Dr. Seuss cartoon illustrates:

[treestar]

10. Still the Germans never had anything like the

Bill of Rights. That would be so hard to overcome. We are used to saying what we want and criticizing leaders. They couldn't get us to stop criticizing Bush even in "wartime."

[wordpix]

15. Our rights mean nothing to Trumpist international billionaires & Russian crime bosses

We will have to fight for them.

[kairos12]

17. Thanks for posting those images.

[wordpix]

18. trust me, once this gang is in total power, Bill of Rts means nothing unless

we fight for our rights.

I live in a red town in a red region in a blue state. In my town/region, the same old people and their chosen ones rule totally with no democratic rights for us unless we fight.

I am self-representing in a legal case where both state and local laws have been violated. We finally had to go to court b/c the town and state reps kept obstructing anything and everything we did to get them to adhere to the law.

[BSdetect]

12. And now history repeats

America has been dumbed down by too much poor education at all levels and reality TV crap.

Idiots really think jobs are coming back that will make them what? Wealthy? The joke is on them.

Robots will do the majority of any such work 24/7.

[kairos12]

16. I'm always reminded of the statement

that in the 1930s in Germany the pessimists fled to New York and the optimists eventually were sent to Auschwitz.

[LeftInTX]

19. It was very hard to get to New York in the 1930s

US had strict quotas.