Beyond Belief: The American Press And The Coming Of The Holocaust, 1933- 1945

by Deborah E. Lipstadt

49. Nation, July 19, 1941, p. 45.

  50. New Republic, August 19, 1941, p. 208; PM, February 11, 1941. Some journals showed far greater sympathy for political refugees than they did for “racial” or “religious” refugees, particularly if they were Jews. Christian Century, which even in the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht stood firmly against increased immigration of Jews to the United States, came out strongly in favor of the entry of British children and the immigration of “Spanish and German political refugees.” Christian Century, November 30, 1938, June 3, August 21, 1940, February 5, 1941.

  51. Fortune, July 1940, insert; William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation, 1937-1940 (New York: Harper & Row and Council on Foreign Relations, 1952), p. 51; Frye, pp. 31, 140-144.

  52. Dieckhoff, March 10, 1941, DGFP, series D, XII, pp. 258-259; Thorn-sen to Berlin, May 4, 1940, DGFP, series D, IX, p. 282. See also Thomsen to Berlin, September 18, 1939, DGFP, series D, VIII, p. 89, and May 22, 1940, DGFP, series D, IX, p. 410. For earlier reports of German sensitivity to German-American Bund activities and American public opinion see Dieckhoff to Berlin, June 2, 1938, DGFP, series D, I, p. 454ff., and Dieckhoff to State Secretary Weisz-acker, November 8, 1938, DGFP, series D, IV, p. 638; Frye, p. 156.

  53. Frye, p. 156.

  Chapter 7

  1. The book which propelled both the discussion of American policy during the war and the question of “When did they know?” into the public arena was Arthur Morse’s While Six Million Died (New York: Hart Publishing, 1967). Yehuda Bauer took issue with Morse’s contention that the information was kept from Wise in “When Did They Know?” Midstream, April 1968, pp. 51-58. Most recently the question of the “secrecy” of the Holocaust has been examined in Walter Laqueur’s The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth About Hitler’s “Final Solution” (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980).

  2. Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981).

  3. Saturday Evening Post, April 5, 1941, p. 12; Illustrated, February 15, 1941; Collier’s, February 27, 1943, p. 29ff.; New York Times, October 30, 1941. In February 1942 German editors were told not to report on the “Jewish question” in Eastern Europe. They were also not to even reprint official communiqués which had already been published in newspapers in occupied territories. Zeitschriftendienst, February 27, 1942, as cited in Laqueur, p. 215. Although the Germans devoted an overwhelming percent of their propaganda activities to making antisemitic charges, they assiduously tried to prevent mention of the issue of the Endlösung, or Final Solution. Michael Balfour, Propaganda in War, 1939-1945: Organizations, Policies and Publics in Britain and Germany (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 302.

  4. Interview with Percy Knauth, February 18, 1985.

  5. New York Times, October 24, 1941; Washington Star, October 23, 1941.

  6. George Creel, “Beware the Superpatriots,” American Mercury, September 1940, pp. 33-41; Time, September 18, 1939, p. 59; Peoria Journal Transcript, March 9, 1940.

  7. Harold Lavine and James Wechsler, War Propaganda in the United States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), pp. 241-243, 270.

  8. New York Times, October 31, 1939, p. 1; San Francisco Chronicle, October 31, 1939, p. 1.

  9. Dayton (Ohio) News, July 21, 1941; China Weekly Review, July 21, 1941; Dallas Times-Herald, July 28, 1941; Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, November 23, 1941; Frederick Oeschner, This Is the Enemy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1942), p. 340.

  10. See for example In Fact, August 4, 1941, p. 3, August 11, 1941, p. 1, February 23, 1942, pp. 3-4, February 15, 1943, p. 2.

  11. New York Journal American, November 10, 1941.

  12. Sigrid Schultz, Germany Will Try It Again (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1944), p. 186; interview with Richard C. Hottelet, December 20, 1984.

  13. Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle, May 20, 1940; Cincinnati Enquirer, May 20, 1940; Los Angeles Times, November 12, 1939, p. 5.

  14. New York Times, October 31, 1939, p. 5. See also New York Times, October 22, 1939, p. 2E.

  15. Tolischus predicted that if a “solution of the Jewish problem” was carried out in Poland “on the German model,” the implications would be “ominous.” New York Times, September 13, 1939, p. 5, October 27, 1939, p. 3, October 31, 1939, p. 1, November 1, 1939, p. 5, November 4, 1939, p. 2; San Francisco Chronicle, November 1, 1939, p. 5; Los Angeles Times, November 1, 1939, p. 3.

  16. New York Times, November 1, 1939, p. 2, November 4, 1939, p. 2; New Republic, November 15, 1939, p. 90.

  17. Christian Century, November 30, 1939, p. 1456; Time, April 24, 1939, p. 26; Life, August 21, 1939, pp. 22-23; San Francisco Chronicle, October 31, 1939, p. 1; New York Times, November 1, 1939, p. 22, January 6, 1940, p. 2, January 23, 1940, pp. 1, 5, February 4, 1940, March 16, 1940, p. 3; Milwaukee Journal, February 29, 1940; Fort Worth Star Telegram, March 9, 1940; Cincinnati Enquirer, March 22, 1940; Greenville (South Carolina) News, March 22, 1940; Chicago Tribune, March 28, 1940.

  18. Schultz, pp. 185-186.

  19. Oeschner, p. 131.

  20. Life, January 8, 1940, p. 58, February 12, 1940, p. 4.

  21. Chicago Tribune, March 28, 1940. Kirk to the Secretary of State, February 16, 1940, DS 822.4016/2156; Kirk to the Secretary of State, March 20, 1940, DS 862.4016/2158; and Berle to the Secretary of State, February 27, 1940, DS 862/4016/2162.5.

  22. Buffalo Courier Express, April 6, 1940; Newark Star Ledger, May 7, 1940.

  23. For an example of this type of reasoning see Richard W. Whitaker, “Outline of Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ Apparent by 1933,” Journalism Quarterly, Summer 1981, p. 179ff.

  24. Edgar Ansel Mowrer, Germany Puts the Clock Back (New York: Morrow, 1933), p. 239; Spectator, March 8, 1940; H. R. Knickerbocker, Is Tomorrow Hitler’s? (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941), pp. 65, 362.

  25. Michael Marrus and Robert Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 4; Time, October 28, 1940, p. 23; Newsweek, October 28, 1940, p. 23.

  26. The Nation, November 9, 1940, p. 443; PM, September 6, 1940.

  27. Christian Science Monitor, March 17, 1941; New York Herald Tribune, February 19, 1941; Illustrated, February 15, 1941.

  28. Saturday Evening Post, April 5, 1941, p. 12ff.

  29. PM, June 17, 1941.

  30. New York Herald Tribune, June 14, 1941; Charleston Mail, June 18, 1941; Schenectady Union Star, June 19, 1941; Miami Herald, June 20, 1941; Dubuque (Iowa) Telegraph Herald, June 21, 1941; Augusta Herald, July 2, 1941; Henri Baudry and Joannes Ambre, Condition Publique, 110-111, as cited in Marrus and Paxton, pp. 167, 169-171. For examples of French sensitivity to foreign press reports see New York Times, January 11, January 26, and February 23, 1941, all as cited in Marrus and Paxton, p. 393, n. 195.

  31. Interview with Howard K. Smith, February 27, 1985.

  32. For an analysis of the mobile killing operation, see Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), pp. 177-256. For some examples of military personnel who were aware of the killings, see R. Ch. Freiherr von Gersdorff, Soldat im Untergang (Berlin, 1977), pp. 96-99, and Peter Hoffmann, Widerstand, Staatsstreich, Attentat (Munich, 1970), 317, as cited in Laqueur, pp. 19-20. For a discussion of the various ways in which the news of the killings reached the German public, see Laqueur, chap. 1.

  33. Washington Star, August 8, 1941; New York Post, August 1941, no day, original clipping found in the Division of Intelligence Information, National Archives, Washington, file no. H-275867.

  34. New York Times, October 26, 1941, p. 6; New York Journal American, November 13, 1941, p. 1, November 29, 1941, p. 2.

  35. Memos, Morris to Hull, September 8, 1941, DS 862.4016/2202, and September 30, 1941, DS 862.4016/2204.

  36. New York Herald Tribune, August 22, October 27, November 6, 1941; Philadelphia Record, September 7, 1941; Christian Science Monitor, November 26, 1941; Baltimore Sun, October 18, 1941; New York Herald Tribune, October 27, 1941; New York World Telegram, October 5, 19
41; New York Journal American, November 5, November 6, 1941.

  37. New York Times, September 23, 1941, p. 9; Philadelphia Record, October 22, 1941; PM, October 22, 1941; Utica Observer Dispatch, October 24, 1941; Baltimore Sun, November 18, 1941; DS 862.4016/2206; Oeschner, pp. 131-132, 134, 139.

  38. Chicago Tribune, October 19, 1941; Detroit Free Press, November 16, 1941.

  39. New York Times, October 13, 1941; Baltimore Sun, October 16, 1941.

  40. Chicago Tribune, October 19, 1941; Amsterdam (New York) Recorder and Democrat, October 24, 1941; Utica (New York) Observer Dispatch, October 24, 1941.

  41. New York Journal American, November 6, 1941, Los Angeles Times, September 13, 1941, September 15, 1941, p. 2; New York Herald Tribune, November 7, 1941, p. 4, November 8, 1941, p. 3; New York Times, September 9, 1941, p. 5, September 21, 1941, p. 1, September 23, 1941, p. 5.

  42. Detroit Free Press, November 16, 1941.

  43. New York Times, March 16, 1940, p. 3, August 8, 1940, p. 11, October 7, 1941, p. 5.

  44. Philadelphia Record, October 22, 1941.

  45. Akron Beacon Journal, April 26, 1940; Buffalo Courier Express, April 6, 1940; Chicago Tribune, November 3, 1941. For background on Frank see Hilberg, pp. 133-134.

  46. New York Times, November 1, 1939, p. 2, January 6, 1940, p. 2, January 23, 1940, p. 5, September 7, 1941, p. 14, December 12, 1941; New York Journal American, November 27, 1941, p. 30.

  47. New York Journal American, November 5, 1941, p. 8; New York World Telegram, November 5, 1941, p. 15.

  48. Chicago Tribune, November 3, 1941, p. 5, November 16, 1941, p. 10.

  49. New York Journal American, November 17, 1941, p. 32; Baltimore Sun, November 18, 1941, p. 10; New York Times, August 25, 1941, p. 5, October 13, 1941, p. 8, March 1, 1942, p. 28, May 31, 1942, p. 18; New York Herald Tribune, November 27, 1941, p. 6.

  50. New York Herald Tribune, November 6, 1941, p. 3, November 7, 1941, p. 4, November 8, 1941, p. 3.

  51. New York Journal American, November 9, 1941, p. 1; New York Herald Tribune, November 9, 1941, p. 1; St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 8, 1941, p. 1; Chicago Tribune, November 9, 1941, p. 16; Boston Globe, November 10, 1941; San Francisco Chronicle, November 9, 1941, p. 1; Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1941, p. 13.

  52. Oswald Garrison Villard, The Disappearing Daily: Chapters in American Newspaper Evolution (New York: Knopf, 1944), p. 86.

  53. Lochner’s story was carried in many major newspapers including the Baltimore Sun, October 28, 1941, New York Times, October 28, 1941, and Washington Star, October 28, 1941.

  54. Springfield (Ohio) News Sun, October 19, 1941.

  55. Miami Herald, November 16, 1941; Detroit Free Press, November 16, 1941.

  56. New York Herald Tribune, November 8, 1941.

  57. New York Herald Tribune, November 20, 1941 (emphasis added); Christian Science Monitor, March 14, 1942; New York Times, June 11, 1942.

  58. New York Sun, December 23, 1941; Washington Times Herald, January 11, 1942.

  59. New York Herald Tribune, December 5, 1941.

  60. San Antonio Light, December 19, 1941; Chicago Herald American, December 1, 1941.

  61. Christian Science Monitor, November 29, 1941.

  62. New York Times, March 1, 1942, p. 28.

  Chapter 8

  1. New York Times, May 18, 1942, p. 4.

  2. New York World Telegram, June 1, 1942, p. 3; New York Herald Tribune, June 2, 1942, p. 2; New York Journal American, June 1, 1942, p. 3.

  3. Frederick Oeschner, This Is the Enemy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1942), p. 130; Wallace R. Duel, People Under Hitler (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1942), p. 111; St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 11, 1942; Louis P. Lochner, What About Germany? (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1942), p. 124.

  4. St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 11, 1942.

  5. Louis Lochner, CBS radio interview, September 22, 1942, as cited in Joyce Fein, “American Radio’s Coverage of the Holocaust: 1938-1945,” senior thesis, Hampshire College, Spring 1984, p. 54.

  6. Atlanta Constitution, July 20, 1942.

  7. Philadelphia Inquirer, June 13, 1942, p. 1; New York Herald Tribune, June 13, 1942, p. 7; New York Times, June 13, 1942, p. 7.

  8. Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1942, p. 2; New York Journal American, June 16, 1942, p. 3; London Evening Standard, June 16, 1942; New York Times, June 16, 1942 (emphasis added).

  9. “Report of the Bund Regarding the Persecution of the Jews,” in “When Did They Know?” Midstream, April 1968, pp. 57-58; Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981), pp. 39-42.

  10. Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, June 25, 1942; London Times, June 30, 1942; Daily Mail, June 30, 1942; Manchester Guardian, June 30, 1942; Daily Telegraph, June 30, 1942; Montreal Daily Star, June 30, 1942; Gilbert, p. 43; Andrew Sharf, The British Press and Jews Under Nazi Rule (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), pp. 92-93.

  11. New York Times, June 27, 1942, p. 5; June 30, 1942, p. 7.

  12. Los Angeles Times, June 30, 1942, p. 3; Atlanta Constitution, June 30, 1942, p. 2; Miami Herald, June 30, 1942, p. 2; New York World Telegram, June 29, 1942, p. 4.

  13. Chicago Daily Tribune, June 30, 1942, p. 6.

  14. New York Journal American, June 29, 1942, p. 1 (emphasis added).

  15. Jewish Frontier, August 1942, November 1942; Marie Syrkin, “Reaction to News of the Holocaust,” Midstream, May 1968, pp. 62-64.

  16. Fein, pp. 49-50.

  17. New York Herald Tribune, June 30, 1942, p. 1.

  18. St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 26, 1942, sec. C, p. 1.

  19. New York Times, July 2, 1942, p. 6.

  20. New York Times, July 9, 1942, p. 8, July 23, 1942, p. 6.

  21. New York Times, May 5, 1942, pp. 1, 9, 20, May 7, 1942, p. 7, May 24, 1942, p. 5, June 1, 1942, p. 4.

  22. Interview with Percy Knauth, February 18, 1985; interview with C. Brooks Peters, February 12, 1985; David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (New York: Knopf, 1979), pp. 216-217; Oswald Garrison Villard, The Disappearing Daily: Chapters in American Newspaper Evolution (New York: Knopf, 1944), p. 86.

  23. Saturday Review of Literature, September 14, 1944, pp. 17-18; Gay Talese, The Kingdom and the Power (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 72, 113-114. For an example of how the New York Times creates and reflects public opinion in another area, see Donald O. Dewey, “America and Russia, 1939-1941: The Views of the New York Times,” Journalism Quarterly, vol. 44 (Spring 1967), pp. 62-70.

  24. New York Times, June 11, 1942, p. 1; New York Herald Tribune, June 12, 1942, p. 18.

  25. Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1942, p. 1, June 16, 1942, p. 6; New York Times, June 14, 1942, pp. 1, 9, June 16, 1942, p. 6, June 27, 1942, p. 5. Miami Herald did the same on June 15, 1942, p. 1. Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1942, p. 2.

  26. New York Times, June 14, 1942, p. 1.

  27. New York Times, July 29, 1942, p. 7.

  28. Toronto Globe, July 29, 1942; Gilbert, pp. 44, 55.

  29. Newsweek, August 10, 1942, p. 40. See also New York World Telegram, July 27, 1942, p. 22; Los Angeles Times, June 18, 1942, p. 2, August 22, 1942, sec. II, p. 4; and Miami Herald, June 18, 1942, p. 13.

  30. Daily Express, July 28, 1942.

  31. Chicago Tribune, July 26, 1942; New York World Telegram, July 27, 1942, p. 22.

  32. Saul S. Friedman, No Haven for the Oppressed: United States Policy Toward Jewish Refugees, 1938-1945 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1973), p. 140. See also Congress Weekly, August 14, 1942, p. 2; New York Times, July 22, 1942, p. 1; New York Herald Tribune, July 22, 1942; Christian Science Monitor, July 23, 1942; New York Journal American, July 22, 1942; Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1942, p. 7, July 23, 1942, p. 17, July 24, 1942, p. 6; Miami Herald, August 3, 1942; Fein, pp. 49-50. The Los Angeles Times did publicize the Los Angeles rally and made it clear that it was designed to protest the “terrible mass murders of Jews.” Los Angeles Times, August 5, 1942, p. 10, August 7, 1942, p. 13, August 9, 1942, sec. II, p. 8, August 11, 1942, sec. II, p. 2,
August 12, 1942, sec. II, p. 8, August 13, 1942, sec. II, p. 1, August 22, 1942, sec. II, p. 4. For a discussion of the struggle to establish a Jewish division see Monty Penkower, The Jews Were Expendable (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983).

  33. Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1942, sec. II, p. 4, June 26, 1942, sec. II, p. 4, July 4, 1942, July 14, 1942, p. 1, August 8, August 11, September 25, 1942; Christian Science Monitor, August 5, 1942, p. 16.

  34. Christian Science Monitor, October 3, 1942.

  35. PM, September 9, October 22, 1941; New York Times, September 2, September 7, 1941.

  36. New York Herald Tribune, November 15, 1941, p. 5; Chicago Tribune, October 19, 1941.

  37. Springfield News Sun, October 19, 1941.

  38. St. Louis Post Dispatch, August 24, 1942, p. 2; Christian Science Monitor, August 19, 1942, p. 2, August 25, 1942.

  39. Manchester Guardian, August 31, 1942, as quoted in Walter Laqueur, The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth About Hitler’s “Final Solution” (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980), p. 75.

  40. Laqueur, p. 245, n. 18; Christian Science Monitor, August 19, 1942, p. 2.

  41. Economist, December 19, 1942.

  42. New York World Telegram, August 4, 1942, p. 6; New York Herald Tribune, July 27, 1942; Christian Science Monitor, July 28, 1942.

  43. Newsweek, August 10, 1942; Foreign Office Papers, 921/10, 921/7, as cited in Gilbert, p. 99.

  44. St. Louis Post Dispatch, August 23, 1942, p. 3; New York Times, August 29, 1942, p. 14.

  45. New York Times, February 18, 1944, p. 7, July 19, 1944, p. 5; New York Herald Tribune, February 18, 1944. On the reaction of the Hebrew press see Y. Gelber, “Haitonut Ha’ivrit be’Erez Yisrael al Hashmadat Yehudei Europa” (The Hebrew Press and the Destruction of European Jewry), in the collection of articles Dapim le’heker hashoa ve’hamered (Tel Aviv, 1969).

  46. London Times, August 3, 1942, p. 5.

  47. Some papers found it hard to abandon the idea that Jews were simply suffering along with other hostage peoples. Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1942; Christian Science Monitor, February 22, October 7, 1942.