The Holocaust and the Allies: United States--President Roosevelt's Leadership


Figure 1.--

The growing scholarship on the Holocaust has in recent years become increasingly critical of President Roosevelt's leadership on the Holocaust. Some authors, including authors that are generally sympathetic to the President have faulted his leadership on opsing the Holocaust and saving Eyropan Jews. Some believe that given the fact that the Holocaust was the great moral outrage of modern times was the major failure of President Roosevelt. (Civil rights was the other notable failure, but here FDR may have been correct that his efforts have had a limited imapact and woud have jepordized achievements in other areas that were obtainable.) The charges against the President seem to fall into three categories: 1) First, the President is charged with a failure to change U.S. imigration law and provide sanctuary to refugees. Here the tragedy of the St. Louis is often given as an example of the President's failure to act. 2) Second, the President is charged with not speaking out forcifully on the issue to condemn the NAZI attrocitites. 3) Third, the Ptrsident is criticised for not ordering the bombing of the death camps. These are all serious charges and much more complicated than tghey may initially appear. I have not fully formed my opinion on this. I certanly think that America should have done more, but that is to some extent a different question than evaluating President Roosevelt's leadership. In study this topic, one fact becomes immediately apparent. That is that many of those critcising the President with today's benefit of hindsight have a very poor understanding of the political situation at the time or the reality of the military situation, especially the Air War. For many criticising the President, the fact that the NAZIs succeeded in killing 6 million Jews is sufficent reason for condemning the President. The fact is, however, that the President's war leadership was an important factor in the Allied victory. And without that leadership the NAZIs migght well have succeeded in killing the 6 million Europeans Jews that managed to survive the War.

Criticism

The growing scholarship on the Holocaust has in recent years become increasingly critical of President Roosevelt's leadership on the Holocaust. Some authors, including authors that are generally sympathetic to the President have faulted his leadership on opsing the Holocaust and saving Eyropan Jews. Some believe that given the fact that the Holocaust was the great moral outrage of modern times was the major failure of President Roosevelt. (Civil rights was the other notable failure, but here FDR may have been correct that his efforts have had a limited imapact and woud have jepordized achievements in other areas that were obtainable.) The charges against the President seem to fall into three categories: These are all serious charges and much more complicated than tghey may initially appear. I have not fully formed my opinion on this. I certanly think that America should have done more, but that is to some extent a different question than evaluating President Roosevelt's leadership. In study this topic, one fact becomes immediately apparent. That is that many of those critcising the President with today's benefit of hindsight have a very poor understanding of the political situation at the time or the reality of the military situation, especially the Air War.

1. Immigration

First, the President is charged with a failure to change U.S. imigration law and provide sanctuary to refugees. Here the tragedy of the St. Louis is often given as an example of the President's failure to act. Here there is no doubt that America failed. The NAZIS created a huge refugee crisis and American and the rest of the world did not step up to crisis. America did take in more refugees than any other country, but this was not adequate given the enormity of the problem. But America's failure does not make President Roosevelt responsible are constitute a failure of his Administration. This is the most patently fletious critism of the Presdent's leadership. Critics who blame the President lack even the most basic understanding of the American Government or the politcal situation at the time. First, the President did not have the executive power to change the U.S. immigration quotas. These quotas were enacted by Congress and only Congress could change the quotas to allow more refugees to enter the country. There was great public support for the restrictions on immigration imposed during the 1920s from both politucal parties. And in 1937-39 when the refugee problem reached crisis levels, two events occurred. First a recession occurred, the so-called Roosevelt Recession, which increased unemplyment. Second, the Congrssional mid-term elections in 1938 resulted in the defeat of many New Dealers ad rhe election of both Rpublicans and conservative Southern Democrats. The President would not have been able to pass new quotas even before the 1938 mid-term election. With the new Congress and rising unemployment any change in the quotas was a political non-starter. And any effort by the President to attemo to change the quota law would have had disastrous consequences for European Jews. This is because the President at the time was locked in a struggle with the isolationists to first increase military spending and then after the War broke out in Europe to support Britain and France and then in effect save Britain. Many of the major actions like anending the Neutrality Laws, increased expenditures for the army, naby, and air force, the draft, Lend Lease and other measures passed with very narrow votes. The stakes could not have been higher. If the President has used his political capital in a quiotic effort to increase immigration, he could well have alienated the southern Democrats he needed to pass these important measures. It would have also cost him in the court of public opinion. President Roosevelt must have been politically senitive to the canard that Charles Lindburg and other isolationists raised that the War was a war to save Jews. He surely was aware that raising the immigration quota issue publically would have given creedence to the charges by isolationists that the President was drawing America into a war to save Jews. While this may seem unrealistic today, anti-semitism was widespread in America during the 1930s. A strong case can be made that America before the NAZIs was more anti-semitic than Germany, it certainly was more racist. In many ways it was the scenes from the concentratiin camps after the War that showed many Americans the evil of anti-semitism and racism. America was unprepared when war finally came with the Japanese attack on Oearl Harbor. But the military preparation bills that the President managed to narrowly push through Congress enabled America to initiate a ground offensive (1942) and an air offensive (1943) and to crack the Atlantic Wall (1944). Without these measures it would have taken 2-3 more years to defeat the NAZIs or we might have actually failed. Winning the War when we did saved the 6 million Jews that survived the War.

2. Speaking out

Second, the President is charged with not speaking out forcifully on the issue to condemn the NAZI attrocitites and specifically the widespred killing of Jews. This criticism we think is valid. The question then arises as to why the president did not do so. And for that matter to what extent he even considered doing so. One historian suggests that more was involved in Roosevelt's lack of action on the Holocaust. He seems to have had the idea that special pleases should not be made by ethnic groups during the war, including blacks, Jews, Irish, Poles, and others. He appears to have the idea that this was undemocratic. He seems to have looked on request from Jewish leaders to speak out as unpatriotic special pleading. [Beschloss, Conquerors] As far as we know, the President never explained his failure to do so. He certainly never did so publically and as far as we know never did so privately, at least his intimates never reported such conversations. We think his objection to specil pleading is probably an important factor. Another factor is to what extent he believed the reports. He was aware as to how British propaganda built up attrocity reports during World War I. And another factor would have been his assessment of the impact on the war effort. We are all affected by past experiences. And one of the President's most difficult and most important struggle was the political effort against the isolationists. One of the charges made over and over again by isolatiinists like aviation hero Charles Lindberg was that he was dragging America into the European war to save Jews. We suspect that this effort was so difficult and hard won that he did not want to do anything tht would reserect the issue. The President now had a united natio behind him and we wanted to do nothing that would reihtroduce divisive issues. What ever the reason, we believe that this is a valid criticism of the President. As the historian cited above suggests, the Holocaust was aevent of such infamy and magnitude, the President should have spoken out. [Beschloss, C-Span.]

3. Bombing the death camps

Third, the Ptrsident is criticised for not ordering the bombing of the death camps. Here the issue is complicated, but vastly overstated by the Oresidents critics who commonly show a complete lack of understanding of the Air War. The death camps (as opposed to NAZI concentration and sklave labor camps) were builr in Poland, some of them in eastern Poland. They were began to operate in mid-1942. The U.S. 8th Air Fotce only began arriving in England during early 1942 adfter Hitler declared war on America. It was not operational until 1943 abd in 1943 there were no fighter esorts available. Raids into Poland were not feasible. The camps in eastern Poland were beyond he reach of even long range B-17s abd 24s and raids on camps like Auschwitz in western Poland woul have been devestated by Luftwaffe defenses as there were no fighter escorts. So for much of the time the death camps operated, 8th Air Force attacks were not feasible. This changed in 1944 when the P-51s became available in large numbers. But at the sane time Eisenhower insisted on taking control of American and British air firces to support the D-Day Operation. And by that rime the NAZIs had largely succeeded in their undertaking. The one group of Jews that might have been saved was the Hungarian Jews. This is important because the question is usually posed as if American bombing could have prevented the Holocaust or drastically reduced the number of Jews the NAZIs were able to kill. As explained above this was not the case. But was it even feasible to save the Hungarian Jews.

Level of Knowledge


American Jews

One of the most mistifying aspect aspect of any study of the American response to the Holocaust is the infighting among Jewish groups and the failure to adopt any unified effort to save European Jews. One consistent trend, however, was the criticism of Peter Bergsen and the Begsen group which in the end conducted the only truly effective American effort by a Jewish group. The tendency of Jews to dispute issues is well rcognized in Jewish culture and folk lore. There are jokes told by Jews to the effect that any discussion by two Jewish scholars will resulkt in three opinions. This reflects a freedom of thought that is nurtured by Jewish culture. It is undoubtedly a factor in the tremendous creativity and achievements of the Jewish people. In conection with the Holocaust it proved disastrous. [Wyman] It is interesting that the same level of criticm leveled at Presidebt Roosevelt is not addressed to American Jewish leaders. Of course Jewish leaders were divivided by both imperfect knowledge, American abti-Semitism, and the difficulty of acting effectively. These of course were the same problems the Administration was wrestling with. Many of the President's critics simply ignore these problems.

Achievements

For many criticising the President, the fact that the NAZIs succeeded in killing 6 million Jews is sufficent reason for condemning the President. The fact is, however, that the President's war leadership was an important factor in the Allied victory. And without that leadership the NAZIs migght well have succeeded in killing the 6 million Europeans Jews that managed to survive the War. Bismark leading to its sinking. Once America entered the War, FDR insisted on demanding unconditional surrender. He told aides in private, "This time the Germans are going to know that they were defeated," refering to the decission not to occupy Germany after World War I. [Beschloss] The insistance on unconditional surrender may have prolonged the War, although here historians disagree as to what extent it prolonged the War. [Davidson, p. 442.] Given the NAZI hold and the complicity of the Government and Wehrmacht in such enormous crimes, it may not have been a major factor in stiffening German resistance. FDR was an effective war leader, especially in mobilizing American public opinion and the economy. His absence of leadership on the Holocaust is clearly the major failure of his presidency--given the fact that the Holocaust was the great moral outrage of modern times. (Civil rights was the other notable failure, but here FDR may have been correct that his efforts have had a limited imapact and woud have jepordized achievements in other areas that were obtainable.) Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury, was perhaps FDR's closest confident in the Cabinent and the only Jew. (He was only the second Jew to serve in the Cabinent.) He was not a practicing Jew and did not raise issues with FDR that he thought would be precived as Jewish issues. He learned of the extent of the NAZI attrocities in 1943 and was deeply moved, changing his attitude toward Judiaism and caused him to raise the issue with FDR. Morgenthau became deeply involved with assissting refugees. FDR apparently knew a great deal about what was happening by 1942. [Beschloss] Few specifics, however, are vailable. I do not know of much information available as to the extent that the Government seriously considered military options to stop the Holocaust. One report suggests that John McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War, went to FDR in the Spring of 1944 and suggested bombing Auschwitz, but FDR turned him down flat without seeking any military advise on the matter. [Beschloss] I do not know where Marshall and Eisenhower stood on the issue. I am not sure why FDR took this attitude. We know by this time is health was failing. Also he was still senstive politically to the canard that Charles Lindburg and other isolationists raised that the War was a war to save Jews. He may have been afraid that raising the issue publically may have devisive and fueled anti-semitism in America. He seems to have looked on request from Jewish leaders to speak out as special pleading. [Beschloss] >

President Roosevelt and the Isolationists

President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) who wa inagurated about the same time Hitler seized power in Germany was an early opponent to Hitler, although the strong isolationist movement in America limited what he could do. He did provide, at considerable political risk, crucial help to Britain even before America entered the War. Hitler himself compiled a long list of American provocations and outright acts of war--in this case a fairly accurate statement. [Domarus, pp. 1804-08.] Amercan destroyers were fighting U-boats in the Atlantic well before war was declared. American armanents were flowing to Britain in large quantities through Lend Lease and the British were placing orders for war materials in America. One such order eventually led to the P51 Mustang. It was an American Catalina patrol boat including an Americam pilot that spotted Bismark leading to its sinking.
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Sources

Beschloss, Michael. The Conquerors.

Beschloss, Michael. C-Span Book TV, rebroadcast, September 8, 2012.The Conquerors.

Wyman, David. A Race Against Death: Peter Bergsen, America, and the Holocaust.






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Created: 9:57 PM 10/16/2006
Last updated: 12:34 PM 9/8/2012