Why was hitler praised in 1935

He was of German descent, but had grown up in the United States. Right after Hitler took power, there were attacks on Americans who failed to give the Hitler salute. Kaltenborn went over with the attitude that these reports were greatly exaggerated.

Then his teenage son got beaten up for exactly the same reason. The Nazis apologized profusely and said, "I hope you won't write about this. Talk a bit about the Lindbergs. Their sympathy with Hitler is famous now, but you have a slightly different take on it.

The Lindbergs were definitely among the American people who tried to say, "Hitler is bringing Germany back to its feet. Look how orderly this place is now. He saw a Herald Tribune article about how Lindberg had toured French airplane factories and military facilities. So he suggested to the German air ministry that they invite Lindberg over as a guest.

Sure enough, once Lindberg got there, the Germans wanted to show off everything to him. They took him to the factories that were producing the most modern fighters and bombers. Lindberg really knew his stuff, so he could turn to the American diplomats next to him and say, "This one is more advanced than French model but less advanced than American model.

He played this role very willingly, knowing this intelligence was being transmitted to Washington -- probably because he thought the more his government knew about the power of these weapons, the less likely they'd be to get involved in another war. He later became part of the America First movement, which tried to keep America out of war at all costs. But he provided valuable intelligence. For me, that was the most interesting part of the story.

Lindberg was also notoriously anti-Semitic -- and so were a lot of other Americans at that time. Did that make it easier for American journalists and diplomats in Germany to brush off the warning signs they saw? When the controversy over the Berlin Olympics took place, one of the American Olympic Committee members who went to check out the place said at a certain point, "Well, my men's club in Chicago won't accept Jews either.

His best contact in the Cabinet, Lord Halifax who had replaced him as Lord Privy Seal, and would become foreign secretary in February was polite and diplomatic in his frequent correspondence with Londonderry, but that was all. Frustrated by the lack of response, Londonderry published in April a short book, Ourselves and Germany , in which he defended the German annexation of Austria that had just taken place.

In the tense summer of , he went on to support German ambitions on the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. By the time an updated, second edition of his book was published in October, the western allies had ceded the Sudetenland to Germany at the Munich Conference. For Londonderry, and the minority which thought as he did, however, Munich did not represent political and moral humiliation for Britain, but the crowning glory of a policy which ought to have been followed earlier and held out hope of a future of close cooperation between Britain and Germany.

The following months brought swift disillusionment. In November, as the German synagogues burned during the Kristallnacht pogrom throughout Germany and in the newly acquired territories in Sudetenland and Austria, Londonderry, though latently anti-semitic, could not comprehend the savagery. The scales finally fell from his eyes: the German entry into Prague in March was a plainly imperialist act of aggression which could no longer be justified as nationalist integration.

He admitted that he now had no arguments left, but was still offering to go to Germany in the last-minute hope of avoiding calamity. But the last thing that Lord Halifax and the Foreign Office wanted was an amateur diplomat and German sympathiser sending the wrong signals to Hitler. Once war began, Londonderry retreated in the main to Northern Ireland. Londonderry voiced staunch support for the war effort, which he saw as a fight for freedom against thraldom under Nazi rule.

He lived out the war in relative seclusion, and in the political cold. Londonderry had wanted to couple friendship with Germany with an intensive programme of rearmament. That could only have been achieved while Germany was still militarily weak. But the possibility of a preventive strike was ruled out by both the British and the French governments. Given American isolation, Anglo-French divisions, and the feebleness of the League of Nations, coordinated action against Germany was out of the question.

An Allied commitment to military action could have stopped Hitler in his tracks when his troops entered the demilitarised zone of the Rhineland in March But hardly anyone in Britain at the time favoured military intervention. Nor, as Hitler knew, were the French prepared to move.

He was prepared to place trust in German friendship down to and beyond Munich in autumn By then, with Britain inferior to Germany in armed strength, any hope of backing kind words by strong action had long since gone. Even if willing alliance with Nazi Germany, such as Londonderry and others wanted, was correctly ruled out as a policy option, could the other form of appeasement, based on reluctant acknowledgement of weakness, have been avoided?

Given the rejection of a policy of friendship, or a pre-emptive strike to bring about regime change, the British government was left with the alternatives of containing or deterring Hitler.

One would not call someone they despised picturesque, a word with a positive connotation. The fact that Hitler swore allegiance to the constitution is also an important statement to report, as it indicates that Hitler was fulfilling the normal, natural role of any new leader of a country. Based on news coverage at this time, the general population of Seattle was unaware of many of the ideas of German Nazism, making them very susceptible to whatever slant the newspapers gave their coverage.

In February of the same year, The Seattle Times released its first article that showed the first signs of Nazi aggression and violence. In this editorial, C. Blethen reassures readers that "there is no organized mistreatment of Jews in Germany" and warns "good Jewish citizens of other countries" not to be mislead by propaganda.

The editorial explains that "Communism has been permitted to thrive" in Germany and that Hitler's brutal suppression of the left is necessary. The first event was non-violent, yet still devastating for those involved. On March 17th, Nazi lawyers adopted a resolution that banned all Jewish and Marxist lawyers from practicing in German courts.

While there was no documentation as to whether or not this was a direct protest of the ban of Jews in German courts, it was an attack of the same manner. While the non-violent battle between the Nazis and the Jews was taking off, Hitler was gaining more ground in Germany. Got a story? Contact us. Register Sign In. My Profile Subscribe Sign Out. Most read UK. Subscribe to our Newsletters The JC offers several email newsletters to keep you updated with our news, features and comment.

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