When Books Went to War (3 page)

Some Americans, however, found Germany's barefaced anti-Semitism shocking. Newspapers were flooded by letters voicing concern and incredulity. For example, from Saint Paul, Minnesota, a man wrote: “The extent and severity of this outbreak of terrorism [are] unbelievable,” and the “assassination of a minor official cannot justify wholesale retaliation in this manner. Reprisal against a whole people for the crime of an overwrought youth is a throwback to barbarity.” A San Franciscan wrote a letter to that city's
Chronicle
, marveling that “one madman could infect a whole nation of intelligent, sensible, essentially kindly people with his own fanatic madness.” In Boston, a writer to the
Herald Tribune
remarked that “the noblest feature of modern civilization, respect for human life, has been abandoned for the time being in Germany.” This Bostonian noted that while the “internal affairs of Germany are her own business . . . there are some practices which are so revolting to mankind, such a setback for civilization, such a debasement of the human spirit that absence anywhere of protest against them is almost equivalent to approval of them.”

 

Germany declared war on Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France were compelled by treaty to declare war against Germany. Yet as the German military pushed into Poland, France and Britain were invaded initially not by tanks and bombs, but by words. Hitler's psychological warfare paved the way for a quick succession of German victories.

France and Britain each knew they would be attacked after Poland, but France was more vulnerable, with its long land border with Germany. Hitler prepared for battle by infiltrating France's airwaves. Germany hired native-French broadcasters to lure unsuspecting listeners to tune in to amusing radio shows and popular music. Many listeners were oblivious to the propaganda that was subtly included. These radio commentators expressed worry over the German army's dominance and military strength, and predicted that France could not withstand an attack. The doubt Hitler's radio programs planted in French minds quickly spread. Edmond Taylor, a correspondent for the
Chicago Tribune
who lived in France during this period, witnessed Hitler's intricately choreographed propaganda campaign and how it crumbled France's resolve. Describing it as a “strategy of terror,” Taylor reported that Germany spent enormous amounts on propaganda and even bribed French newspapers to publish stories that confirmed the rumors of Germany's superiority. According to Taylor, Germany's war of ideas planted a sense of dread “in the soul of France that spread like a monstrous cancer, devouring all other emotional faculties [with] an irrational fear [that was] . . . uncontrollable.” So weakened was the confidence of the French that something as innocuous as a test of France's air-raid-siren system generated ripples of panic; the mere innuendo of invasion somehow reinforced the idea that France would undoubtedly be defeated. Although the French government made a late attempt at launching an ideological counteroffensive by publicizing the need to defend freedom, it was as effective as telling citizens to protect themselves from a hurricane by opening an umbrella. When the invasion finally did come, France capitulated in six weeks. By similarly destroying the resolve of his enemies before invading them, Hitler defeated Poland, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg in addition to France, all in under a year. Over 230 million Europeans, once free, fell under Nazi rule.

As France succumbed to its fate and surrendered to Germany, Hitler prepared to send a powerful message to the world, showing how seriously he took his role in avenging Germany's military humiliation in World War I. France's defeat was an opportunity to display the might of the German army and intimidate other nations that would be invaded in the future.

On June 17, 1940, Hitler met with what remained of the French government to sign a formal armistice. Employing every dramatic device to mark the event, Hitler insisted on re-creating the scene of Germany's defeat in World War I, aboard Marshal Ferdinand Foch's private railway car in France's forest of Compiègne. The rail carriage had long been stored in a French museum; on Hitler's orders it was moved to the exact location where it had stood on November 9, 1918. Clearly, it was France's turn to be humiliated. The führer personally delivered the terms of capitulation to the French officials. After the armistice was signed, Hitler decreed that Foch's railway car and a monument dedicated to France's World War I triumph be transferred to Berlin, where they would be displayed in a museum to mark Germany's victory over its longtime enemy across the Rhine.

Once a nation fell to Germany, great care was taken to refashion that country's concepts of culture, history, literature, art, media, and entertainment in an effort to solidify and reinforce Hitler's power. Often, the first cultural pillar to be toppled was the library. Hitler created the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) to confiscate desirable books and other artifacts in occupied territories. They were intended for a Nazi university to be built after the war. Undesirable books, by contrast, were destroyed. In Eastern Europe, the ERR burned a staggering 375 archives, 402 museums, 531 institutes, and 957 libraries. It is estimated that the Nazis destroyed half of all books in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and fifty-five million tomes in Russia. Libraries in occupied nations that remained open were reorganized to serve the Nazi agenda. Poland's libraries were restructured along National Socialist lines through a process of Germanizing records, supplementing collections with Nazi-approved literature, and removing all undesirable materials. After Holland was defeated, recent German books were displayed in order to impress the public with German achievements. When France fell, one of Germany's first actions was to issue the “Liste Bernhard,” which identified 140 forbidden books. In September 1940, a more comprehensive list was published, naming nearly 1,400 titles. Many libraries in Paris were simply closed. H. G. Wells's Library of Burned Books, ironically, was carefully preserved by the Nazi occupiers. According to Dr. Alfred Kantorowicz, the library's general secretary, the Germans kept it “under lock and key,” and although it was “practically impossible for foreigners to use the books,” Germans consulted them for reference. Hitler's attention to libraries became so well known that, throughout Western Europe, librarians and curators took preemptive measures, moving their most valuable holdings to caves and castles, hoping to hide and preserve treasured collections.

As American newspapers reported Hitler's cultural attacks, the war began to be defined as having two fronts or dimensions. One journalist explained: “There are two series of conflicts going on at the same time: the vertical conflicts in which nations fight one another, and the horizontal conflicts which are ideological, political, social and economic.”
Other descriptions referred to the war as involving physical and mental components, and as being fought on the battlefield and in the library. Regardless of the terms used, a unanimous understanding emerged that the war was not waged on battlefields alone: the ideas a nation espoused were also under attack. Hitler sought to destroy not only armies, but also democracy and free thought. This new brand of combat was pegged “total war.”

Although Americans took solace in their physical distance from Germany's army, it soon became apparent that Hitler's ideas had long reach. Just as it invaded France with radio broadcasts before sending in its military, Germany relied on the radio to engage American minds long before there was any suggestion of American involvement in the war. Radio sets of the 1930s and 1940s typically included shortwave bands for international listening. For eighteen hours each day, Germany (with Japan's help) broadcast programs that would reach North America; the war of ideas against the United States had begun.
If America could be weakened as efficiently as France, Germany would be able to trounce the nation with very little struggle.

In order to make its propaganda more palatable to Americans, German officials searched for American expatriates to hire as announcers, as their accents would conceal their loyalties. In exchange for such benefits as ration coupons, which were only distributed to German citizens, and protection in an increasingly volatile Germany, several Americans joined Reichsradio. Iowa-born Frederick William Kaltenbach and Illinois-born Edward Leo Delaney were among the first American radio hosts. Later, Reichsradio would turn to the infamous Mildred Gillars, better known as Axis Sally, to deliver some of its greatest propaganda punches.

The campaign had little effect, however. The American media readily exposed Germany's radio shows for what they were. The
New York Times
reported that Germany's broadcasts were smartly arranged, copying the format of typical American radio shows: they read the news, played music, and presented skits. Yet while domestic radio stations included sales pitches for soap and breakfast cereal, the
Times
warned that Germany was out to sell a point of view.

Beyond calling out the propaganda campaign, some Americans discussed counterattacking. France's quick defeat demonstrated how effective Germany's radio campaign could be. One of the loudest voices to address this issue belonged to the American Library Association (ALA). Librarians felt duty-bound to try to stop Hitler from succeeding in his war of ideas against the United States. They had no intention of purging their shelves or watching their books burn, and they were not going to wait until war was declared to take action. As an ALA publication observed in January 1941, Hitler's aim was “the destruction of ideas . . . even in those countries not engaged in military combat.”

Throughout late 1940 and early 1941, librarians debated how to protect American minds against Germany's amorphous attacks on ideas. The “bibliocaust” in Europe had struck a nerve. America's librarians concluded that the best weapon and armor was the book itself. By encouraging Americans to read, Germany's radio propaganda would be diluted and its book burnings would stand in marked contrast. As Hitler attempted to strengthen fascism by destroying the written word, librarians would urge Americans to read more. In the words of one librarian: if Hitler's
Mein Kampf
was capable of “stir[ring] millions to fight for intolerance and oppression and hate, cannot other books be found to stir other millions to fight against them?”

 

When Goebbels spoke in Berlin on the night of May 10, 1933, he declared that from the ashes of the burned books smoldering before him there would “arise victoriously the phoenix of a new spirit.”
As he uttered these words, Goebbels envisioned German nationalism, fascism, and Nazism emanating from the books' remains.

Within ten years of Goebbels's speech, from the embers arose a renewed dedication to democracy and freedom. From the remains of those tomes blackened and licked by flames arose a spirit dedicated to spreading ideas, including those contained in the books that had been destroyed. Soon, thanks to America's librarians, towering piles of books would rise in libraries, department stores, schools, and movie theaters—not for burning, but for donation to American servicemen. Rival publishing companies would come together, pooling their resources and expertise to print tens of millions of books for American servicemen on all subject matters and professing all manner of viewpoints. From the ashes, books would arise and flourish.

TWO

In all phases of administration, training, and operation make every effort to keep your men informed. Nothing irritates American soldiers so much as to be left in the dark regarding the reason for things.

 

—
ARMY BASIC FIELD MANUAL

 

A
S WAR SPREAD
across Europe in 1939 and 1940, most Americans opposed getting involved. In June 1940, the recently invented Gallup poll revealed that only 7 percent of Americans were in favor of an immediate declaration of war against Germany.
Yet many understood that America might not have a choice. That same month, the
New York Times
, along with several other major newspapers, endorsed the unpopular position that the United States needed to immediately adopt a national system of compulsory military training. The
Times
explained:

 

The most powerful mechanized army that the world has ever seen is now striking at Paris. We must consider realistically the consequences of that army's victory. If we are not to be caught without warning, we must face in all frankness the worst that can possibly happen. That worst is France defeated and knocked out of the war; England in no position to defend herself in 1940 owing to the loss of her supplies in Flanders; Hitler becoming the master of all Europe, either in possession of the British fleet or in possession of shipbuilding facilities which are many times our own, in Germany, Norway, Belgium, Britain, Holland.

 

Hitler had declared himself the enemy of democracy, and the United States was one of the largest, richest, and softest of them all, the article said. Plus, it was no secret that Hitler's “whole strategy has been to strike before his opponents were prepared.”

Hitler did not conceal that he considered the United States an enemy, or that he expected his military to face America's. In a December 1940 speech given at a Berlin antiaircraft-gun factory, Hitler dubbed America, Britain, and France the “haves,” while deeming Germany a bullied “have-not.” Yet he was not simply motivated by revenge for Germany's defeat in World War I. He had a vision. “Two worlds are in conflict, two philosophies of life,” and “one of these worlds must crack,” he said. With an army of only 174,000 men (as of 1939), the United States was in fact vulnerable. Popular or not, conscription was necessary. As Congress worked on legislation during the summer of 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt reminded the nation time and again that conscription, no matter how despised, was essential to adequate defense.