If Hitler started raising hell in '39, why didn't America get involved until...

Bingo, a lot of what Hitler was preaching (pryor to him actually attacking other nations) was mirrored by many Americans at the time...

America had it's own Aryon supremacy thing going on against it's own non Aryon population...so to many, I suppose what Hitler was saying mirrored their own thoughts and belief system....

You gotta remember, back then, groups like the Klan were rampant, (and held many elected seats), white citizens council, and other such groups...


American rally....


Nazi rally in Germany...

 

The reason they did not join the war earlier is simple, America found no way to benefit from it. Then they were attacked, and got pissed off

but they probably shouldn't have been supplying everyone with weapons in the first place. The Germans discovered this, and started blowing shit up.

 

If Hitler hadn't declared war on the US there's a decent chance it would've taken even longer to get involved in the European war since public anger in the US was directed at the Japanese, and the memories of WW1 and being involved in "Europe's problem" again wasn't too appealing

 

This is true apart from the US already being involved via lend/lease... =

 

the USA waited until the european countries agreed to give up their colonies after the war.... and for britain to agree to a $30 billion loan to aid it's war effort (which it finally finished repaying in 2006)

basically, the US waited until it could secure maximum profit from the situation

gawd bless america :mickey:

 

Yup, it was all about profitability.

 

We were involved. We were basically single handedly financing England's war.

 

lack of media ,, not the media of today where people have instant news.. Many people in the USA didnt know the Germans were that bad., basically hearsay.. Til Japan made an aggressive move on PH..

 

Yes- as well as equipping them. Funny thing about a manufacturing base that is out of range of bombing runs instead of dealing with the aftermath of air strikes.

 

Talk of supplies, weapons and money is not answering the OP's question in the slightest.

The question is why America did not get involved earlier, you know, with the fighting and/or dying, bit?

 

I disagree... to the point that the economic involvement tipped off to anyone interested which side their eventual military involvement would fall. The question seems to be aimed at moral justification for getting involved earlier which may seem clear through history's red, white, and rose colored glasses but there is some evidence that FDR indeed wanted to get the US involved earlier- but such an unprovoked entry into something that the public very strongly felt to be Europe's problem. I had mentioned lend/lease in an earlier post... it was basically FDR's plan to help out the British without assuming the politically perilous military option-- after Germany invaded France

I have a suspicion that the US might have been in Hitler's eventual sights and there may have been some thoughts about not stretching ourselves too thin depending on how well things went with Japan- who was on a military conquest for Chinese resources and being painted as really, really naughty by domestic propaganda mills... and they played the part to a tee on the first Sunday in December in '41 giving the administration justification to mobilize the military... whose numbers had been enhanced by the implementation of the first peacetime draft in US history.... suggesting to me that the idea was that our involvement was inevitable. In '38 I imagine that our armed forces needed some work to be ready for wartime so it likely was seen as rash to jump right into the teeth of the German war machine.

JMO

 

This is pretty true. All countries including the US in the mid 30's began to rearm their navies as Germany, France, Britain, Japan, US and Italy all basically said fuck it to the Washington Naval treaties. Meanwhile in the 30's Japan continued it's war on China, while Europe began a new arms race as Germany and Italy began to expand. Europe in Sep 1939 was ready for war. The US in 1939 was ready for no war, our army and air force had been neglected all through the 30's, and we really didn't start seriously rearming them until 1940 after the fall of western Europe and further Japanese advances began to freak us out.

 

Money doesn't have a pulse.

 

Also no one has mentioned all the German u-boats that were sinking American supply ships or maritime ships on their way to Britian...

The Germans sank like dozens or hundreds of Merchant Marine ships originating from America...



Their submarines were a Atlantic menace to our supply ships...big time...

I'm not sure if this was before or after war was declared...

 

And lets not forget the mess that was WWI.

They also basically didnt think the Brits and French wouldnt be organised enough.


But sentiment was very different to the way Hollywood presents it back then , there was lots of racial superiority crap all over the world. Many americans thought, yeah maybe Germany should run that part of the world.

They knew about the concentration camps, knew what was going on, but it didnt really make headway in the media cos it would have harmed support. A US vs Russia race was far more exciting.

Millions more russians died than Allies, 10s of millions of Chinese died just through starvation during this time, but you dont really here a peep about that.

More Japanese died via suicide because of propaganda at what the US troops would do to them once invaded than the number that were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

 

When ever people argue how the A-bomb killed too many innocent people I point out the fact more people died in the firebombings of Tokyo than in either A-bomb attack, and the casualties from Hamburg and Dresden in the firestorms that engulfed the cities after the bombings killed 40-50,000 each.

 

hitler was our special friend in the fight against international socialism

just like john boner today!

uke::bigcry:

remember that all those commies were jews with punk rock names like johnny lenin and sid stalin so we couldn't tell, but adolf knew [cause henry ford told him]

and we were waiting for 9/11 to give us an enemy we could all understand, those goddamn sneaky little rice-eaters

too bad that nice hitler fella had to ruin things by immediately declaring war on us so we had no choice but to get in bed with uncle joe . . .

you can pick your allies, and you can pick your nose, but, ugh, never mind . . .

 

Perhaps she was referring to the St. Louis a Ship carrying 900 Jewish refugees fleeing from Nazi Germany who were turned away from the United States and Cuba only to return to Europe to face the final solution :2thumbsup:

Nah


Hotwater

 

Isolationism.

 

Distance......And Hitler was partially jewish...;-)