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The Road to
Market Crash Under President Coolidge
Unemployment was low -
calculated at only 3.2
percent. And during the years of Coolidge's presidency many people saw
their lives as better than their parents' lives had been. Real wages for the skilled and
unskilled were higher in the twenties than they had been at the beginning of
the century, and real wages meant an improved quality of life. In
general, the poor were healthier than they had been in previous decades. But
this did not obviate the fact
that many in the United States were still overworked and had to endure poor working
conditions. The United States was a
large nation with a broad economic spectrum.
On the lower end of that spectrum, many had incomes that were too small
for much buying beyond bare subsistence. People working in coal mining and the textile or leather industries were
suffering. Among the working poor were those who, if they were frugal and
unburdened by health problems, could save a little money to invest in property or in advancing
themselves in other ways. But they were a minority among the poor. As
good as things were under Coolidge, a better distribution of wealth would have strengthened the economy - the
kind of better distribution that would come in the better economic times of the
forties and fifties.
Manufactured goods still cost a lot
more relative to incomes than they would in decades to come, and many families
had incomes too low to afford labor saving devices such as vacuum cleaners and
washing machines. A washing machine, for example, cost from 60 to 200 dollars,
while the average factory worker was earning only about 100 dollars a month.
There were no food stamps, which would have created
the greater demand that farmers needed for their products. There was still no social security as income for
the elderly. There was no unemployment insurance. Often people were taking care of their
own unemployed family members such as their elderly, their brothers,
brothers-in-law and otherwise - a compelled family togetherness.
The
ability to produce had increased,
but the ability to
consume was limited. This had happened with grain production and the
tractor in the early twenties. The supply was so great that the drop in grain
prices hurt farmers. And the farmers responded by increasing production even
more.
In manufacturing, businessmen had
become encouraged by growth in sales. They were optimistic. Many who were warned about market saturation
laughed. But as the end of the decade, the number of people lacking alarm
clocks, for example, had declined. And many who could afford cars had cars,
with not enough people willing or able to buy a new car every year. Market
saturation was not a concept readily understood. Enthusiasm and optimism were
patriotic. The economy appeared healthy to many market watchers, but by 1927 production in the United
States
had begun to decline, most notably in automobiles and in building materials
such as steel, rubber and other materials for the automobile. Home buying and home building were
also down. Not enough people could afford to buy a home. Too many people were
paying rent rather than making payments on their own home - a benefit to
landlords, but for common people an unfortunate distribution of wealth upwards.
http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch20b.html
The United
States and Neutrality Economic
Recovery
With economic depression the
appreciation of jazz declined in the United States, except for the "sweet
jazz" of Guy Lombardo. Then in 1935, when people were more hopeful about
the economy, a "new jazz" appeared. With prohibition over, bands
were playing in hotels and ballrooms again. Benny Goodman was playing his
clarinet as the King of Swing, and Tommy Dorsey and Glen Miller were rising as
bandleaders.
The economy had improved, but it was still depressed.
Unemployment was a little
higher than in 1934, perhaps around
twenty percent of the workforce, while many were working only part-time and many
others had dropped out of the
workforce. Roosevelt and most business leaders still did not understand the depression as well as
people would decades later. Roosevelt
was giving himself credit for having stopped the downward spiral - something
that had happened during the Hoover administration. And Roosevelt and
Congress were still pursuing measures that were less than the massive
government intervention that would eventually get the economy going in 1939 and
1940.
In 1935 the government enacted the Works Progress Administration
(WPA) and Social
Security, creating old age and unemployment pensions, the latter taking
the United
States
close to what Otto von Bismarck had accomplished in Germany five decades before. The WPA started
building roads and bridges across the country. It put women to work on useful
sewing projects. The WPA
included programs in the arts:
in theater, music, literature and painting. And it included programs in
education, including vocational
training for needy youths.
Meshed with this new assault on the
depression by the Democrats, Roosevelt
and his administration tried to maintain good relations with big business, but
they increased taxes for the wealthiest people to seventy-five percent of their
income. And in
July came the National Labor
Relations Act, designed to free interstate commerce from the effects of strikes. This act
displeased some business leaders, as it gave workers the right to organize without interference from
employers, compelling employers to bargain in good faith with unions.
And the act included a National Labor Relations Board to hear complaints. Some
supporting the bill saw strong labor unions as protection against fascism and communism and a way of
increasing purchasing power, while opponents of the act complained that it gave too much power to
labor, denied individual rights sacred to the American way of life, and was
unconstitutional.
The slow recovery was worse regarding the national debt
than would have been a quick
and deep borrowing and spending and a fast recovery as in Sweden. Low income brought low revenues
to the government, and by August 1935 the
national debt rose above 30
billion dollars, exceeding by 4 billion the debt
incurred during World War I and twice what it had been under President
Hoover.
Neutrality and Isolationism
In 1935 much attention was being given
to re-examinations of America's
entry into World War I. A best-selling book by Walter Millis, Road to War, was giving Americans a
new vision about World War I. Some were saying that Americans had been
"saps" or "suckers," that the atrocity stories during the
war had been British propaganda, that Germany
had not been as guilty most American thought in 1917, and that Germany
had been treated unfairly at the Paris Peace Conference. Some were claiming
that the United States
had gone to war not because of German submarines or the rights of neutrals but
because of a few greedy capitalists. And some people were calling for
assurances that their country would not take itself into another war in Europe.
The
leading war resisters were members of the United States Senate. Among them was
the cantankerous Gerald P. Nye of North
Dakota, a fighter for the farmer against the
interests of the big financial interests, a progressive Republican who chaired
a committee investigating the munitions industry, described by some as the
"merchants of death." Nye's committee
dramatized points that he and others wanted to make: that the arms industry had made huge profits, had bribed some politicians
and had evaded paying taxes. Nye and others in the Senate were opposed to the United
States going to war again in Europe.
They pushed for legislation prohibiting the export of arms to any power at war
and authorizing the president to prohibit people from traveling on the ships of
nations at war, and their bill, the Neutrality Act of 1935, passed in both the
Senate and the House of Representatives. The Bill was in tune with public
opinion - many Americans believing that the United
States should not get involved in Europe's
troubles.
It was more of the isolationism that
had kept the United States
out of the League of Nations.
The idea of preventing war by being involved with allies in a readiness to punish aggression
was for some people a bit too complex, or at least lacking in common
sense. The idea that pacifism
could encourage aggression was more easily understood but dismissed on the
grounds that it was not America's business to be involved in far away Europe or Asia in deterring aggression.
President Roosevelt, facing
the popularity of isolationism and wishing to get legislation on domestic
matters through Congress, signed the Neutrality Act into law in late August.
This came with Mussolini's
announcement that he would attack Ethiopia in
October, after the rainy season ended there. Roosevelt
requested a resolution from Congress authorizing him to ban arms exports as an
emergency measure. But because of isolation sentiments in Congress, this was
denied him.
Roosevelt was ahead of some of his critics in
his lack of admiration for Mussolini. Roosevelt
saw Mussolini as partly buffoon. Responding to a photo of Mussolini
goose-stepping, he commented:
"It's wonderful what middle-aged men can do when driven to extremes."
NOTE
Quoted by Ted Morgan, FDR: A
Biography, Simon and Schuster, 1985, p.427.
Many failed to see Hitler or Mussolini
as much of a threat. Many saw Hitler as an anti-Communist and Mussolini as
having saved Italy
from communism. And there were those who found little wrong in Mussolini
sending his troops and airforce into Ethiopia.
Representing this latter view was one of Roosevelt's
critics, Henry Luce, publisher of Time, Life and Fortune magazines. Luce was a
fervent anti-Communist. He had devoted his July 1934 issue of Fortune magazine
to praising Mussolini. He might have tempered his admiration for Mussolini with
some criticism, but in 1935 his magazine, Time, described Mussolini's invasion
of Ethiopia as
a "civilizing mission" and it ridiculed the Ethiopians. NOTE
Luce was no critic of the white man's mission to civilize the colored peoples
of the world.
Luce and His Empire, by W.A. Swanberg,
Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 128.
Mussolini was encouraged by an
assessment that the United
States would remain passive. In October,
Mussolini sent his army and airforce into Ethiopia,
and, in the coming months, merchants in the United
States would continue sending to Italy
the materials that Italians needed to conduct their aggression - despite Nye's
distaste for arms dealers.
Labor Troubles and a Presidential
Election in 1936
In January, 1936, Roosevelt asked Congress for 1.4 billion
dollars for more relief work, to add to the 4.9 million he had asked for in
1935. And as the nation entered another presidential election year,
conservatives continued to deplore the taxation they saw involved in servicing
the debt.
As in France, a reform government had given more
power to labor unions. John L. Lewis organized an industrial union, which broke
away from the American Federation of Labor and began organizing unions as
allowed by provisions of the Wagner Act - building what was called the Congress
of Industrial Organization (CIO). Sit-down strikes in the steel and automobile
industries followed - over issues of union representation, the closed shop, and
wages. General Motors gave in and signed a contract with the CIO's United Auto
Workers, recognizing as this union as the sole bargaining agent for its
workers. The Ford Motor Company resisted, using a gang of enforcers and
resorting to violence.
Economic recovery was slower than was
being realized in Germany and Sweden, but the United States remained the world's leader in
manufacturing and in agricultural production. And reforms were occurring. In
1936 the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that federal obscenity laws did
not apply to legitimate activities of physicians, allowing doctors to prescribe
contraceptives for the health and well being for their patients. The American
Medical Association approved of the court's decision. Margaret Sanger felt
victorious, while birth control remained banned in three states: Massachusetts, Connecticut and Mississippi.
In 1936,Alfred
Landon was the Republican candidate for president. He spoke of Roosevelt's "broken promises" and of Roosevelt being big on talk and short in
performance. Landon spoke of continuing high
unemployment. He criticized the "old order" that had preceded Roosevelt's presidency. Landon spoke in support
of social security, the right of workers to labor unions, and the abolition of
sweatshops and child labor, but he denounced Roosevelt's New Deal as filled with mistakes.
Comparing the federal government to an individual household he complained that
the government could not continue spending more than it received. He spoke of
the need to subordinate material rewards and to "enthrone the things of
the spirit." Then, turning to things material, he said that the Roosevelt administration's intentions were
laudable but that the remedy for the depression was to "start all over
again" - with, of course, a Landon presidency.
On foreign affairs, Landon sided with
the isolationist majority. He advocated remaining outside of any defensive pact
with a European power. He was against any plan that might involve the United States in the building of "a false
peace on the foundation of armed camps."
Also running against Roosevelt was the National Union for Social
Justice, known also as the "Union Party." This group included the
anti-Communist radio priest, Father Coughlin, who was speaking of "Roosevelt and ruin." Coughlin saw the Jews
as Christ killers and Christ rejecters, but at this point in his career he was
mute in his anti-Semitism. Another Union Party activist was Gerald L.K. Smith,
of Louisiana, a fire and brimstone preacher who
had associated himself with Huey Long. With Long now dead, Smith wished to lead
what remained of Long's movement, and he joined
Coughlin in accusing Roosevelt of taking the country toward
communism. Also a part of the Union Party coalition was Francis Townsend and
his movement. Townsend described the Roosevelt
administration as linked to both communism and fascism. The Union Party
candidate for president was Senator William Lemke of North Dakota, who was angry with Roosevelt for opposing farm refinancing.
Some conservative democrats broke with
their party and became a part of what was called the Liberty League. Alfred
Smith, the Democrat candidate for president in 28, was among them. He accused Roosevelt of having abandoned the Democrat's
party platform of 1932. With the Liberty League were a number of Roosevelt haters and representatives of some
major corporations: DuPont, U.S. Steel, General Foods, all of them
opposed to deficit spending and progressive taxation. Against the Liberty
League were Father Coughlin and others of the Union Party, who attacked the
Liberty League as the party of the fat cats.
Those opposed to Roosevelt tended to be white, middle-class
Protestants who were employed. A few anti-Semites were among them,
arguing that the Jews were controlling Roosevelt. On the other hand, those who favored
Roosevelt and the Democrats tended to be the poor, blacks, big-city Catholics,
and Jews. Despite Roosevelt's failures in ending the depression
many liked and trusted Roosevelt, believing that he cared about the
common people. And Roosevelt tried to appeal to everyone. He spoke
of the interdependence between workers, businessmen, farmers, consumers and
state and national governments, and he gave himself credit for all improvements
that had taken place since he had taken office.
A poll taken for Literary Digest gave Landon a lead in
the voting, and it predicted a Landon victory. But the results were a greater
victory for Roosevelt than in 1932. Roosevelt won 60.8 percent of the vote and
every state except Vermont and Maine. In the House of Representatives, the
Democrats came away with 331 seats against the Republics 89, and in the Senate
they held 76 seats against 16 for the Republicans.
The Union Party candidate, Senator
William Lemke, received 882,479 votes, about one for every nineteen votes for
Landon. Father Coughlin was upset over the results of the election and said
that Roosevelt could become a dictator if he wished
and predicted that the National Union for Social Justice would make a comeback.
The Communists, despite all their
efforts and their talk about the decline of capitalism, did worse than they had
in 1932, winning only 1 out of 564 votes, proving that they were less of a
threat than some excited Rightists portrayed them to be - unless one associated
Roosevelt as leading the Communist cause.
In his inaugural address in January
1937, Roosevelt spoke of the nation as being
one-third ill-housed, ill-clad and ill-nourished. Then he did harm to the
economy by supporting budget balancing and deflation measures.
In 1937, Congress passed a new
Neutrality Act, amending the Neutrality act of 1935. War between Japan and China and increasing tensions in Europe attracted some interest, but the news
that created the most interest for Americans was about the economy and floods
in Ohio. The public continued to favor
staying out of foreign wars, and the Roosevelt
administration's response to the war in China suited the neutralists and pacifists.
The Roosevelt administration denounced the use of
force and called on Japan and China to settle their differences through
peaceful negotiations - while the Neutrality Act
prevented the U.S. from sending the Chinese help for
their defense.
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Passivity and Aggression
in Europe, to 1936
Voices in Britain and the United States against War
Many in Great
Britain were looking back upon the horrors of
World War I. The novel by the German author, Erich Maria Remarque,
All Quiet on the Western Front,
had been published in 1929, and it was a sensation in Britain. There were other widely read books on
the horrors of World War I, including Vera Brittain's
memoirs of nursing during the war, Testament
of Youth. The British were also reading about Gandhi, who was frequently
in the news in Britain concerning his non-violent, civil
disobedience campaigns in India. And, in response to the horrors of
war, some
in Britain
saw hope in Gandhi's pacifism preventing their nation from again going to war.
And they hoped that Gandhi's pacifism being
adopted in all nations.
Albert Einstein also saw some hope in
Gandhi's civil disobedience. In a much-quoted speech that he gave in New York in September 1930, Einstein declared
that pacifists should stop talking and replace their words with deeds. He said
that if only two percent of those assigned to perform military service refused
to fight, governments would be powerless. They would not, he declared, send
such a large number to jail.
The peace movement in Britain
grew, joined by various professionals:
teachers, doctors, psychologists, lawyers, prominent people of faith, trade
unionists, socialists, followers of Tolstoy, novelists and some who were seen
as philosophers. A peace enthusiast from California sent to London
a book sixteen feet wide which he wished to have driven around Europe on a flatbed truck, hoping that the
book would be filled with declarations for peace from every prominent man and
woman in Europe.
In September 1931, when Japan's Kwantung army went on the offensive within Manchuria,
a pacifist leader in England, Maude Royden, stated to
her Christian congregation her intent to enroll people to put their bodies
between the Japanese and Chinese armies.This required
a speed and mobility that some armies lacked, and, before Royden
could organize her move, the Japanese army had stopped fighting, and Royden had no way of knowing whether the fighting would
resume, or where exactly it would resume. In January 1932, when Japanese troops
were sent to Shanghai, a group of eight hundred British
pacifists enrolled to put their bodies between the Japanese army and the
Chinese. But the Japanese took control of Shanghai within a month, accomplishing their
aims again before the pacifists could deploy their force.
Reported in the magazine Nation,
May 24,
1933.
In January 1933, Hitler came to power,
and in Britain people became more concerned about
the likelihood of war. The question of war was debated on university campuses
in both the Britain and the United States. In the U.S. in 1933, Brown
University conducted a poll of 21,725 students from sixty-five U.S. colleges,
and the poll found 8,415 who declared themselves pacifists, 7,221 who believed
that the only justification for their nation bearing arms would be its having
been invaded, and only 6,089 who declared that they would fight another war if
the government ordered them to do so.NOTE
In February 1933, students at Oxford University
debated the question that "this House will in no circumstance fight for
king and country." At the conclusion of the debate, 275 undergraduates voted against
fighting for king and country, and 153 voted for fighting for king and country.
Newspapers described the debate, and many in Britain
were dismayed. The controversy over the debate inspired another, larger,
noisier debate at Oxford, with Winston Churchill's son, Randolph, leading the debate against the
pacifists. And the pacifists won by a larger margin: 750 to 138.
Similar debates at the London School of Economics resulted in a pacifist
resolution that was supported unanimously. Aberystwyth University in
Wales voted 186 to 99
for pacifism. Manchester University voted for pacifism 371
to 196. And students in Canada
and New Zealand voted with the Oxford pacifists.
Hitler was watching,
and, contemptuous of pacifism, he was encouraged. Winston Churchill was
outraged.
In Germany, books, motion pictures, radio broadcasts and the
theater were subject to state censorship, but the economy was improving and the
public's support for Hitler was holding. Germany's rural and religious conservatives were pleased by what
they believed was the weeding out of corruption. Many, including intellectuals,
believed the National Socialist propaganda that they read in their newspapers
and heard on the radio. Hitler spoke of Germans being an exceptional and superior people, and Germans were inclined to believe
it - as did other people in judging themselves through the ages, including many
Americans when Richard Nixon told them they were a superior people.
Of Germany's 17,000 Protestant pastors, 3000 were fervent enough in the
support of Hitler to join the German Faith movement. Those supporting
National Socialism talked of German science as opposed to Jewish science -
Einstein, of course, belonging with the latter. There was also talk of German
mathematics rising from the superiority of the German spirit. Textbooks were
being rewritten. Teachers were conforming, and only a few of them were being
dismissed. University professors, who had long lectured with enthusiasm about
German grandeur and had supported rightwing and nationalist politicians, now
found it easy to support National Socialism.
Appealing
to the spirit of conformity, in January 1934, Hitler's Minister of the
Interior, Hermann Goering (Göring),
was in a forgiving mood, asking prisoners released from the concentration camp
at Dachau to rejoin their places in their communities rather than
consider themselves outlaws. Meanwhile, Germany's court system was upholding Nazi law. In February it became illegal to
advocate monarchy. Later in the year it became illegal for a Jew to be a member
of Germany's stock exchanges.
In Central Europe, repression from the Right was not strictly a National Socialist
phenomenon. Austria's government was led by the conservative and religiously
devout Englebert Dollfuss
of the Fatherland Front Party. Chancellor Dollfuss
led a right-wing coalition that lacked a majority in parliament. His government
was unpopular but rather than step down he declared parliamentary government
unworkable and in March 1933 suspended parliament indefinitely. The biggest
obstacle to his authoritarian rule was his nation's Social Democrats, which led
the labor movement in Austria. In February 1934, the Social Democrats took up arms to
defend their movement. Dollfuss banned all parties
but his own, including Austria's National Socialist party, and against the Social
Democrats and organized labor he sent the army. In various cities the
fighting lasted four days. Resistance was crushed. Social Democrat leaders fled
the country. Dollfuss allowed the army a repetition
of "the joyous hangings of wartime." Every prisoner taken during the
fighting was to be court-martialed and hanged. But, after eleven or more had
been executed, an international outcry brought an end to it .
Conservative estimates are that during the uprising 1500 or 1600 died, around
5000 were wounded and 1,188 imprisoned.
In April 1934, Austria's National Assembly endorsed a new constitution that
made Dollfuss a virtual dictator. Austria's National Socialists envied Dollfuss'
position, and in July they attempted to take power - backed perhaps by Hitler Germany's National Socialists. They captured a radio
station in the capital, Vienna, and they wounded Dollfuss. Dollfuss died of his
wounds, and German troops were massed on the German-Austrian border. But Yugoslavia and Italy were adamantly opposed to Germany taking over Austria. Mussolini, who had been a friend of Dollfuss,
rushed army divisions to the Brenner
Pass (at the Austro-Italian
border). Hitler chose not to attack Austria. He was in no position to justify warring against
Mussolini, and he left the National Socialists in Austria to their fate, while the Austrian army crushed the Nazi
rebellion.
In May in Germany treason trials were allowed to be held in
secret. Then in June came a showdown with the anti-capitalist elements in
Hitler's National Socialist Party who were clamoring for Hitler to extend his
revolution. Ernst Roehm (Röhm),
leader of the Brown Shirts and the revolution's chief protagonist was feeling
powerful - his Brown Shirts now numbering 2.5 million. Hitler proposed at a
cabinet meeting that the Brown Shirts should be made the foundation of a new
people's army. Army leaders protested and appealed to
President Hindenburg. At cabinet meetings, Roehm
and the head of the army, von Blomberg, argued with
each other. Unexpressed in these debates was the disgust that Army leaders had
for the homosexuality of Roehm and the clique that
surrounded him. More important to the Army was its position of leadership and
its need for officers who were highly trained. Now that Hitler was in power he
too wanted professional soldiers more than he did street rowdies. He sided with
the Army, and, in exchange, Army leadership endorsed Hitler as successor to
Hindenburg.
There were also calls from capitalists and the landed
aristocracy for the law and order necessary for a well functioning economy.
They asked Hitler for an end to arbitrary arrests, the persecution of Jews,
attacks on churches and the antics of the Brown Shirts. The vice chancellor,
von Papen, joined the call for law and order.
Addressing the University of Marburg on June 17, he called for an end of National Socialist
terror, for the restoration of normal decencies and the return of a measure of
freedom, including freedom of the press. Only weaklings, he said, suffer no
criticism. Great men, he said are not created by propaganda. And he called for
respect being extended to "all our fellow countrymen."
Hitler's propaganda minister, Dr. Josef Goebbels, moved to repress any distribution of von Papen's speech on radio or
in the press. Hitler was furious with von Papen, and
von Papen was furious over the suppression of his
speech by Goebbels. Von Papen
told Hitler that he could tolerate no such ban by a junior minister. He
submitted his resignation and said he would advise Hindenburg immediately.
Hitler felt his power threatened, and he met with the leader of the Army: von Blomberg.
Blomberg told Hitler that Hindenburg had stated that
he would declare martial law and turn the government over to the Army if Hitler
did not bring a quick end to the tensions that had arisen. Hitler caved-in and
decided that the way out was to move against Roehm
and the Brown Shirt leadership as the Army wished.
Heinrich Himmler, leader of the
SS, an organization within the Brown Shirts, saw advantage in the demise of Roehm. And the Minister of the Interior, Hermann Goering, believed that it was time that Hitler eliminated
opponents such as Roehm. Hitler used them and their
faction of the Nazi Party against Roehm's faction.
Rohm's made it easier for Hitler by making veiled threats of a Brown Shirt
rising in response to his fears that his Brown Shirts were about to be reduced
in size. On the night of June 30, Goering and Himmler's SS led raids against Roehm
and others across Germany. Roehm, his lieutenants and
some other Brown Shirts were executed. And the opportunity was taken to
eliminate some who had crossed the National Socialist movement, including von Kahr, whose body was hacked to pieces and thrown into a
swamp. Brüning escaped death by having fled the
country sometime before. The leftist Nazi, Gregor Strasser was executed, as was Kurt von Schleicher and the
leader of Catholic Action in Berlin, Erich Klausener, whose staff
was hauled off to a concentration camp. About 116 died. There were incidents of
mistaken identity, and the bodies of those killed by mistake were returned to
their wives with apologies.
On July 1, Hindenburg publicly thanked Hitler for his ‘determined action and gallant personal
intervention," which, he said had "nipped treason in the bud and
rescued the German people from great danger." The following day, von Blomberg gave Hitler the congratulations of the cabinet. In
a speech before parliament justifying his purge, Hitler accused the Brown
Shirts of preparing to seize Berlin and arresting him. He announced that 67 had died, 61 of them shot, including nineteen Brown Shirt
leaders - thirteen, he said, for resisting arrest. Three, he claimed, had
committed suicide. Said Hitler:
If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to
the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: in this hour I was responsible for
the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the
German people. Everyone must know for all future time that if he raises his
hand to strike the state then certain death is his lot. NOTE
William
L. Shirer, The Rise and
Fall of the Third Reich, Simon and Schuster, p. 226.
On
August 2, Hindenburg died of old age. A plebiscite was held on August 19
that overwhelmingly endorsed Hitler as
Hindenburg's successor as President. Hitler did not care for the title of
President - a left over from the Republic. Nor did he care for the title of
Chancellor. He preferred the simple der Führer (the Leader), and that is what
he would be called. Now he no longer had someone above him to worry
about. And to appease criticism of his rule, he announced amnesty for 27,000 camp inmates.
Germans
believed the period of arrests was at an end, and they felt comfort in the
realization that only a small fraction of the population had been arrested.
Membership in Germany's National Socialist party continued to grow, as people
wished to identify with Hitler's regime, to express their patriotism or to
advance their position.
The
year 1935 began with the question of Germany getting back its coal producing Saar region - a region just south of Luxembourg, and about as big. The
Peace Treaty that had ended World War I, signed at Versailles, had entrusted the Saar
to the League of Nations and occupation by France, and
a plebiscite was to decide the region's future. A little over two thousand
people (0.4 percent) in the Saar
voted to join France; nine percent voted to remain under the League of Nations; and ninety percent voted to join Germany. Hitler responded by saying he was proud of the German
people. He announced that Germany had no more territorial claims against France (in other words no claim on Alsace and Lorraine)
and he spoke of hope that the decision regarding the Saar was a decisive step on the road to gradual
reconciliation with First World War's Allied powers.
Instead of moving closer to reconciliation, Europe
moved closer to war. In 1935 Great Britain announced an increase in armaments, and the French
increased conscripted military service from one to two years because of a
shortage of young men of draft age. Hitler said he was responding to the
failure of other European powers to disarm and to the Soviet Union
having enlarged its military forces. He announced to the world that Germany was rearming, that he was establishing military
conscription, enlarging Germany's army to thirty-six divisions and increasing Germany's airforce. Germany's rearmament was in violation of the Treaty of
Versailles, which Hitler included in his denunciations. What Germany wanted, he said, was for Germany to be treated as an equal among the leading powers and
for Germany to be "able to respect itself."
The French and British governments protested. Hitler
responded by speaking of his good intentions and of his word being better than
any treaty. If his word could not be taken in trust, he asked, what good
was an agreement on paper? To some in Europe who longed for
peace and stability, Hitler's disdain for the
treaty signed at Versailles appeared reckless and threatening. They would have
preferred that Hitler pursue changes in his international standing through
amendments to treaties reached through agreements. But in Britain, public opinion against Hitler's police state methods
and anti-Semitism had recently subsided, and there had been a swing toward some
sympathy for Germany's treatment at Versailles.
Germany appeared to have a hostile combination of neighbors
against it - neighbors such as France, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania and the Soviet
Union - and. Britain's National Coalition government, under the leadership of
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, did not want to appear to be a part of this.
The British government wished to demonstrate a peaceful disposition and
announced its intentions to settle differences with Germany.
The National Council of Jewish Women in New York City saw Hitler as more of a threat than did Britain's government. In March, 1935, they described Hitler as a
"world menace." In Germany, meanwhile, National Socialists were
describing hostility toward Hitler as Jewish inspired, and they threatened to
retaliate against Jews should an attempt be made on Hitler's life. In Germany, Julius Streicher was
comparing Hitler to Jesus Christ. A professor Hauser made the news by
declaring that God had revealed himself to Germany through Hitler, and Dr. Reinhardt Krause declared that
Hitler alone had "God's order" for the German nation.
Great Britain, France and Italy wished to maintain close ties, and on April 11 they met
at the village of Stresa in Italy, where they agreed to maintain their 1925 Locarno Treaty obligations and agreed that Germany should not be allowed to absorb Austria. France already had a defensive treaty with Czechoslovakia, and, on May 2, France moved to enhance its security by signing a mutual assistance treaty with the Soviet Union.
On May 16, the Soviet Union promised that if France fulfilled its defensive obligations to Czechoslovakia it too would go to the support of Czechoslovakia.
Hitler
denounced these combinations as hostile towards Germany. He spoke of Germany not wanting another war, of the absurdity of war and of
the "follies" of the past. Wars of revenge, he said, were out of
date. "A deliberate maker of war may have been a patriot in the old days,"
he said, "but today such a person would be a traitor." "We are
not imperialist," he added, and he held to his position that the German
people wanted only "equal rights for all" and its honor restored.
Since
1933 Churchill had been speaking of Germany secretly rearming, and now, at the end of May, 1935,
from his seat in the House of Commons, he was still speaking of a danger
emanating from Germany. He spoke of arms manufacturing having "first
claim" in German industry, of Germany's "war power" being built "with
ever-increasing momentum" and of Britain's slow pace of research concerning military aircraft.
The British government considered Churchill an alarmist and went about making
what agreements with Hitler that it could. And Hitler wished to keep the British
friendly, or at least passive. he was anxious to avoid
alarming Britain as Germany had before World War I with the naval arms race. In
mid-June, 1935, Germany and Britain signed a naval accord, Germany accepting a ratio of 35 ships to 100 for Britain. Hitler was pleased and the British were pleased, but
the French were alarmed. They feared that Britain's friendliness was encouraging Hitler.
On
June 6, Britain's leading cleric, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
expressed sympathy for Germany's position among nations, declaring that Germany "must be recognized as a nation entitled to an
equal place among other nations." Also in June, the results of a
"peace ballot" in Britain were announced. This poll gave overwhelming endorsement
to the pursuit of peace through armament reductions. Britain's pacifists approved, but they had reason for concern.
This was when Mussolini was talking about expanding into Ethiopia.
Since 1933, Mussolini had been preparing to expand into Ethiopia, but at the Stresa conference
in 1935 Britain had not voiced opposition to such a move by Italy, and Mussolini was under the impression that Britain would not stand in his way. Now, however, British public
opinion rose in opposition to such a move, and Britain's peace movement became energized. New peace groups
gathered together around the country, all of them struggling with the question
of what they could do to maintain world peace.
Ethiopia and Italy were members of the League of Nations, and aggression against Ethiopia was a violation of the League of Nations Charter. In
general, people in Britain wanted to see the League of Nations maintained as an instrument of peace. So too did the
British government. But the British government also wanted to maintain its
friendship with Mussolini, and rather than take a firm stand against Italy's plan against Ethiopia, the British government tried to talk Mussolini into
accepting just a portion of Ethiopia. Mussolini refused, wishing to have a great military
victory to impress his nation and signify fascism's success. He wanted Italy to appear to be a great power.
The debate as to what caused wars had intensified. Some
claimed that military alliances caused wars. Marxist-Leninists were still
claiming that it was capitalism that caused wars, including World War I. Those
most opposed to war in Britain were still talking of non-violent
resistance. Discussed was Einstein's idea that if only two percent refused to
be drafted there would be no war. Richard Gregg, who had recently spent four
years with Mahatma Gandhi in India, advocated the training of a corps of war resisters who
could stop soldiers from fighting. He distributed a manual called Training for Peace in which he recommended
meditation, group singing and folk dancing, spinning cloth or knitting clothes.
A Quaker named Humphrey Moore started a paper called Peace News which frequently displayed a photo of Gandhi. Members
of Moore's congregation distributed the paper on street corners,
and soon about a thousand anti-war persons were distributing the paper across
the country. Some pacifists took action in the form of sitting down and singing
in front of a march by British fascists. An
anti-war leader, Dick Sheppard, was in great demand as a speaker, and Sheppard
came up with the idea of writing to Hitler, suggesting that Hitler allow him to
go to Germany to preach peace. But Hitler never replied.
German law continued toward greater repression. The
Prussian Supreme Court ruled that the orders and actions of Hitler's police,
the Gestapo, were not subject to judicial review. And by now Germany's defense lawyers had to have the approval from a
National Socialist official to represent a client. A few lawyers were sent to
concentration camps after trying to represent someone out of favor with
Hitler's regime. Among them was the lawyer who had represented the widow of Dr.
Klausener, the Catholic Action Leader who had been
murdered during the purge of 1934.
In Germany, jazz was described as having Negro or Jewish origin and
was banned. Tensions had been developing between Hitler's regime and some
people of faith, and, in July 1935, political activities by Catholics were
outlawed. Some Catholics and Protestants expressed their discomfort with
"the paganism" among the National Socialists, and Hitler tried to
appease opinion by repudiating paganism and holding to his claim that he would
lead the German nation along the path of positive Christianity. But soon his
propaganda minister, Dr. Goebbels, came to the
defense of the National Socialists and denied that Hitler had made any
repudiation.
In September, 1935, came the Nuremberg Laws that denied
the rights of citizenship to Jews and reduced
them to the status of "subjects." These laws forbade marriage
and extramarital relations between Jews and "Aryans." Jews were
forbidden from employing an Aryan female under the age of thirty-five as a
servant. Other edicts forbade Jews to shop in gentile stores, or gentiles to
shop in Jewish stores. Jews could not attend movies, theaters or stroll in
public parks. The majority of the Germans felt unaffected by all this, and let
it pass. And Hitler promised that signs suggesting hostility to Jews in Germany would be removed in time for the Olympic games - which were to be held in 1936 in Berlin.
On October 2, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, and on October 7 the League of Nations declared Italy to be in violation of the League's sanctions against
aggression. And League members began discussing sanctions against their fellow
League member, Italy - as they had against Japan. On October 11, the Italians overran Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, and Mussolini threatened war
against France in retaliation for its support of League sanctions
against his regime.
Some anti-war activists in Great Britain opposed sanctions against Italy, claiming that sanctions might spread war. Other
anti-war activists were concerned that if the League did nothing to stop
Mussolini the League would be destroyed. Britain's Labour Party remained a
strong supporter of sanctions and was labeled by some conservatives as the
"war party." Britain's National Coalition government was standing for
elections while calling for sanctions short of war, which was what the majority
in Britain supported, and the National Coalition won the elections
by a comfortable margin.
On November 18 the League voted for only light sanctions
against Italy, leaving Italy with the oil that it needed for its war effort.
The British public got its way:
sanctions would not lead to war. Italy was on its way to conquering all of Ethiopia, and the League was exposed as impotent.
Pierre Laval had been France's premier and minister of foreign affairs since June,
1935. Having lost confidence with Britain when Britain signed the naval agreement with Germany, Laval had moved toward accommodation with Germany. Laval attempted to keep France on friendly terms with Italy, and he allowed Italy to have its way in Ethiopia. But Laval's diplomacy was not appreciated enough in France that it could keep him in office. In
January, 1936, Laval's government fell, and a caretaker government took
office.
Hitler watched Mussolini's move into Ethiopia and the failure of the League of Nations. He had never been a believer in the League of Nations and had taken Germany out of the League in 1933. And now, on March 7, 1936, while France had only a caretaker government, Hitler, not fearing the
League being used against him, sent troops into the Rhineland.
According to the Versailles and Locarno treaties the Rhineland was to remain demilitarized. The move defied these
agreements but was popular in Germany - an issue of national sovereignty - the Rhineland
being a part of Germany. But Hitler's generals were concerned. Germany's army was still not ready for combat. Hitler had
assured his generals that they could withdraw at the first sign of a counter
move by France's army, but he had taken measure of the pacifism in France and Britain and was confident that France and Britain would do nothing. His move into the Rhineland
caused a sensation and the world waited to see what France and Britain would do.
The French military command, in the person of General Gamelin, insisted that counteraction against Germany could not be undertaken without France calling up troops in a general mobilization, and he
complained that France should make no such move without support from Great Britain. If France acted alone, he said, France might be accused of aggression. And France's caretaker government was unwilling to go so far as to
call a general mobilization that General Gamelin
claimed was necessary.
In response to the move into the Rhineland,
the British, French, and Belgian governments, and even the Italian government,
denounced Germany for violations of the Versailles and Locarno treaties. But nothing more was done. Britain made it clear that it did not want to live up to the
obligations of Locarno. Italy wanted to go no further than it had, not wishing to
offend the only supporter of its move into Ethiopia. In the League
of Nations, only the Soviet Union's
foreign minister, Litvinov, called for sanctions
against Germany, while Hitler was giving the world an old excuse for his
move: the Communists.
Hitler complained that his move was defensive in nature, that it was made
necessary by France having signed a treaty with the Russians,
a treaty that he claimed threatened Germany.
Belgium's government watched the passivity toward Hitler's
action and, not wanting their country to be in the same position that it had
been at the beginning of World War I, the
government declared Belgium neutral.