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Charles Lindbergh, racist & Nazi sympathizer



 
 
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  #2  
Old July 6th 03, 01:19 PM
JDupre5762
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"codefy" wrote
Some American hero.

When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with
any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just
consider them his coolies ?


Lindbergh died in what 1973? There had been a lot of change in Americans views
toward race by that time. I think above all Lindbergh was an American and
while he probably echoed the prevalent racial and isolationist views of the
1920's and 1930's in his heyday, ultimately he would be swayed by performance
and character. By the end of his life he could not have been ignorant of the
Tuskegee Airmen, Chappie James and Jesse Brown let alone Jackie Robinson. I
can't prove it but I dare say he would have rather forgotten any racist remarks
he might have made. Don't forget that after Pearl Harbor Lindbergh volunteered
for active duty and was denied several times by Roosevelt who harbored a grudge
over Lindbergh's comments on the superiority of the Luftwaffe in the late
1930's. A superiority that was as much Roosevelt's responsibility as it was
Hitler's.
Lindbergh's comments in those days were that the German's were so superior to
us and we were so hopelessly outclassed we could not possibly affect the
outcome of a modern war in Europe so why bother. He was right of course the US
Army was not even in the top ten in size in the world. Bulgaria had a larger
standing army. A single Luftflotte in 1940 had more aicraft than the entire US
Army Air Corps.

Lindbergh was guilty more of naivete' than Nazism. Lindbergh was taken in in
many ways by such ruses as the only handful of a bomber type being flown from
factory to factory and put back in the "production line" for him to examine all
over again.

John Dupre'
  #3  
Old July 6th 03, 02:51 PM
Gooneybird
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"JDupre5762" wrote in message
...
"codefy" wrote


(Snip)

.....Don't forget that after Pearl Harbor Lindbergh volunteered
for active duty and was denied several times by Roosevelt who harbored a

grudge
over Lindbergh's comments on the superiority of the Luftwaffe in the late
1930's. A superiority that was as much Roosevelt's responsibility as it was
Hitler's.


Your biases are showing. Roosevelt took office in the middle of a roaring
depression and was elected not to build a war machine, but to resuscitate the
moribund economy. The public would not have tolerated a rebuilding and
expansion of our military while masses of Americans were still out of work.

Lindbergh's comments in those days were that the German's were so superior to
us and we were so hopelessly outclassed we could not possibly affect the
outcome of a modern war in Europe so why bother. He was right of course.....


He was wrong of course. He had never envisioned that an "arsenal of democracy",
as Roosevelt called it, was even vaguely possible....one that could produce
50,000 warplanes in a year. He may have been right at the time he made that
statement, but he was clearly wrong in the final analysis.


.....the US Army was not even in the top ten in size in the world. Bulgaria

had a larger
standing army. A single Luftflotte in 1940 had more aicraft than the entire

US
Army Air Corps.

Lindbergh was guilty more of naivete' than Nazism. Lindbergh was taken in in
many ways by such ruses as the only handful of a bomber type being flown from
factory to factory and put back in the "production line" for him to examine

all
over again.


At the time he was invited to Germany to be given the wining and dining and
propaganda tour, he went as a private citizen and allowed himself and his good
name to be used by the Nazi Government for their own purposes. He should have
been able to foresee that his involvement with them could not help but rub off
on him, but he went anyway, without our government's blessings. The tarnishing
of his name was the price he paid for his folly.

George Z.

John Dupre'



  #4  
Old July 7th 03, 12:34 AM
Tom Cervo
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Don't forget that after Pearl Harbor Lindbergh volunteered for active duty and
was denied several times by Roosevelt who harbored a grudge over Lindbergh's
comments on the superiority of the Luftwaffe in the late 1930's.

He tried to resume his Col.'s commission in the reserve. It's a little leaden
of him to insist on that; had he shown up at an enlistment office they would
have had to take him and he would have lasted about a week as a private;
national outcry would have insisted he take the role his talents suited him to.

A superiority that was as much Roosevelt's responsibility as it was Hitler's.

I think you must mean Congress here.

Lindbergh's comments in those days were that the German's were so superior to

us and we were so hopelessly outclassed we could not possibly affect the
outcome of a modern war in Europe so why bother.

Actually it was such comments to the British "Cliveden" set that confirmed
their appeasement policies. Lindbergh's comments about the prowess of German
bombers created visions of London in ruins, but in fact the bombers then in
service--the ones he had seen in Germany--had the range for Britain only
without a bombload. Now, if he was the aeronautical genius he was claimed to
be, he would have noticed this. Yet he reported otherwise. He was a dupe or a
co-conspirator.

He was right of course the US Army was not even in the top ten in size in the

world. Bulgaria had a larger standing army. A single Luftflotte in 1940 had
more aicraft than the entire
US Army Air Corps.


"Standing"? Try figure in the reserves and the National Guard into that--as
well as America's industrial capacity, the wonder of the world in 1940. As for
that Luftflotte, try figuring in the orders placed in 1940--more than the
Luftwaffe posessed.

Lindbergh was taken in many ways by such ruses as the only handful of a bomber

type being flown from factory to factory and put back in the "production line"
for him to examine all
over again.


Well, check out the big brain on Lindy. No wonder the AAF didn't want him back.
Can't see them tricking someone like Doolittle like this.
  #5  
Old July 7th 03, 05:04 AM
Lawrence Dillard
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"JDupre5762" wrote in message
...
"codefy" wrote
Some American hero.

When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with
any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just
consider them his coolies ?


Lindbergh died in what 1973? There had been a lot of change in Americans

views
toward race by that time. I think above all Lindbergh was an American and
while he probably echoed the prevalent racial and isolationist views of

the
1920's and 1930's in his heyday, ultimately he would be swayed by

performance
and character.


Seems to me that the essence of a Great Man is to be able to see beyond
conventional wisdom and to examine persons and situations independently and
reach one's own conclusions and where possible, act on them. When it came to
race and to anti-Semitism, Mr. Lindbergh, although IIRC a minister's son,
seems not to have conducted such a self-examination. One wonders whether
Lindbergh ever was in touch with the so-called "average American" or whether
he could recognize and relate to views other than those fashionable in the
circles in which he habituated.

By the end of his life he could not have been ignorant of the
Tuskegee Airmen, Chappie James and Jesse Brown let alone Jackie Robinson.

I
can't prove it but I dare say he would have rather forgotten any racist

remarks
he might have made. Don't forget that after Pearl Harbor Lindbergh

volunteered
for active duty and was denied several times by Roosevelt who harbored a

grudge
over Lindbergh's comments on the superiority of the Luftwaffe in the late
1930's. A superiority that was as much Roosevelt's responsibility as it

was
Hitler's.


Actually, FDR desired to harness the charisma and persuasiveness which
Lindbergh possessed. Although FDR was certain, because of access to sources
of his own, independent of Lindbergh's, that Nazi Germany's aircraft
industry had not the prowess its propaganda claimed for it, and that the US
armaments industry, and especially the aircraft portion thereof, could be
resuscitated and could become strong enough in a rather short period of time
so as to be able to interpose effectively against any expansionist ambitions
held by the Axis, it is apparently not widely known that FDR, in the wake of
Lindbergh's German tour, offered the latter the position of US aircraft
acquisition czar, with wide delegation of authority in overseeing US R&D and
contracting; he wanted Lindbergh "on the team" instead of jeering from the
sidelines and counseling caution, if not defeatism. Lindbergh refused,
believing that FDR merely wanted to remove an irritating naysayer and
silence his independent voice of opposition.

Whereas FDR's attitude was "We'll show them!", Lindbergh's attitude
reflected a certain defeatism, "We'll never be able to match them, and let's
not waste our energies trying to" attitude, and he appeared to be ready to
accept a second-rate status for the US in world affairs, because intimidated
by a Nazi/Axis show of force.

As for his return to active duty, I submit that such a thing would have
opened a can of worms. Would Lindbergh have been able to submit to military
discipline? Would he have been able to contribute effectively in a system
where his word or opinion was not necessarily considered tantamount to
revelation?

It is well to remember that no nation, including the US, forced the Nazis to
re-arm in defiance of the WWI peace accords. FDR bore no responsibility for
the collapse of the world-wide economy, other than to try to bring the US
portion of it back to life.

Lindbergh's comments in those days were that the German's were so superior

to
us and we were so hopelessly outclassed we could not possibly affect the
outcome of a modern war in Europe so why bother. He was right of course

the US
Army was not even in the top ten in size in the world. Bulgaria had a

larger
standing army. A single Luftflotte in 1940 had more aircraft than the

entire US
Army Air Corps.


Again, a Great Man has to have matching vision. In this case, he seemed
determined to Think Small and seemed to lack an understanding of the latent
manufacturing potential of the US, which was still badly scarred by the
economic depression of the 1930's. As is well-known, once Gen Marshall's
system was in place, the US began producing trained divisions at such a pace
that, for example, WS Churchill initially could not comprehend how it was
being done. Lindbergh could not envision a dramatic increase in the number
of training a/c, pilots, transports, bombers, fighters, etc. which the US
proved to be capable of producing in relatively short order. Lindbergh also
appears to have missed out on the inter-allied information interchange which
kick-started US electronics and airframe development efforts.

Lindbergh was rightly called "Lucky Lindy" due to his successful solo
Atlantic crossing. However, the intense and universal celebrity (and wealth)
that became attached to him attendant thereto seems to have caused him, (as
well as many a person in other fields), to wrongly consider himself expert
at everything to which he turned his attention, and to believe that his
every opinion was sacrosanct. But Lindbergh was not a trained engineer, as
he demonstrated when the Nazis showed him around their alleged production
facilities, and was clueless in assessing the current and potential
industrial prowess of the US. Any of Gen Marshall's top staff could have
told him that the US would expand its army many-fold in a brief time, if
tasked to do so. Any of Adm Stark's top staff could have alerted him to the
swelling size and strength of the US Navy, similarly.


Lindbergh was guilty more of naivete' than Nazism. Lindbergh was taken in
many ways by such ruses as the only handful of a bomber type being flown

from
factory to factory and put back in the "production line" for him to

examine all
over again.


According to author "Ladislas Farago", intercepted German documents showed
that the Germans considered Lindbergh to be akin to one of their propaganda
agents who could be relied upon to cause their sentiments to become widely
heard in the US. They were especially impressed by Lindbergh's expressed
anti-Semitism.

SNIP


  #6  
Old July 6th 03, 03:00 PM
James Linn
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"S. Sampson" wrote in message
...
"codefy" wrote
Some American hero.

When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with
any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just
consider them his coolies ?

If there's a Hell I'm sure Lindbergh is roasting there for his racism
& Nazi sympathies.

You have to wonder how Lindbergh's grandson deals with that nasty part
of the legend that he's living off of.


Lindbergh's been dead longer than you've been alive. Only a red-neck
would equate pacifism with sympathism.


Just watched A&E Biography on the man - he was more than sympathetic - he
admired Hitler. At one point he was going to move to Germany(1938), but
Kristallnacht disturbed him and his wife, so he never bought the house and
did move back to America.

I'd have to say that while he was a mechanical genius and great aviator, he
wasn't a great intellectual. He seems to have absorbed the views of some of
his friends and made them his own. While his views on eugenics and Jews were
and are abhorrent, I'm not sure they came from his heart either. He was
caught up in hero worship - of Hitler and others. And he seemed also to be
a contrarians - whatever Roosevelt said was bad. It cost him his Army Air
Corps Career.

And yes he was snowed by the Nazis about the power of the Luftwaffe - they
played him - and he delivered the message the Nazi's wanted -that the
Luftwaffe was invincible. Lindbergh passed the message on to Ambassador
Kennedy - who was more than ready to believe it, being anti British. More
discerning people in the state department took it with a grain of salt.

I'm sure someone here has read a decent biography of the man which covers
this stuff.

James Linn


  #7  
Old July 6th 03, 03:12 PM
Cecil Turner
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James Linn wrote:

"S. Sampson" wrote in message
...
"codefy" wrote
Some American hero.

When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with
any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just
consider them his coolies ?

If there's a Hell I'm sure Lindbergh is roasting there for his racism
& Nazi sympathies.

You have to wonder how Lindbergh's grandson deals with that nasty part
of the legend that he's living off of.


Lindbergh's been dead longer than you've been alive. Only a red-neck
would equate pacifism with sympathism.


Just watched A&E Biography on the man - he was more than sympathetic - he
admired Hitler. At one point he was going to move to Germany(1938), but
Kristallnacht disturbed him and his wife, so he never bought the house and
did move back to America.

I'd have to say that while he was a mechanical genius and great aviator, he
wasn't a great intellectual. He seems to have absorbed the views of some of
his friends and made them his own. While his views on eugenics and Jews were
and are abhorrent, I'm not sure they came from his heart either. He was
caught up in hero worship - of Hitler and others. And he seemed also to be
a contrarians - whatever Roosevelt said was bad. It cost him his Army Air
Corps Career.

And yes he was snowed by the Nazis about the power of the Luftwaffe - they
played him - and he delivered the message the Nazi's wanted -that the
Luftwaffe was invincible. Lindbergh passed the message on to Ambassador
Kennedy - who was more than ready to believe it, being anti British. More
discerning people in the state department took it with a grain of salt.

I'm sure someone here has read a decent biography of the man which covers
this stuff.

Make sure it also covers his work in the Pacific during WWII as a civilian tech rep in
front-line units (flight test and profiling P-38s that resulted in nearly double
operational range). Provides a bit of balance.

rgds,
KTF
  #8  
Old July 28th 03, 09:06 AM
Joseph Cutler
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Cecil Turner wrote in message ...
James Linn wrote:

"S. Sampson" wrote in message
...
"codefy" wrote
Some American hero.

When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with
any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just
consider them his coolies ?

If there's a Hell I'm sure Lindbergh is roasting there for his racism
& Nazi sympathies.

You have to wonder how Lindbergh's grandson deals with that nasty part
of the legend that he's living off of.

Lindbergh's been dead longer than you've been alive. Only a red-neck
would equate pacifism with sympathism.


Just watched A&E Biography on the man - he was more than sympathetic - he
admired Hitler. At one point he was going to move to Germany(1938), but
Kristallnacht disturbed him and his wife, so he never bought the house and
did move back to America.

I'd have to say that while he was a mechanical genius and great aviator, he
wasn't a great intellectual. He seems to have absorbed the views of some of
his friends and made them his own. While his views on eugenics and Jews were
and are abhorrent, I'm not sure they came from his heart either. He was
caught up in hero worship - of Hitler and others. And he seemed also to be
a contrarians - whatever Roosevelt said was bad. It cost him his Army Air
Corps Career.

And yes he was snowed by the Nazis about the power of the Luftwaffe - they
played him - and he delivered the message the Nazi's wanted -that the
Luftwaffe was invincible. Lindbergh passed the message on to Ambassador
Kennedy - who was more than ready to believe it, being anti British. More
discerning people in the state department took it with a grain of salt.

I'm sure someone here has read a decent biography of the man which covers
this stuff.

Make sure it also covers his work in the Pacific during WWII as a civilian tech rep in
front-line units (flight test and profiling P-38s that resulted in nearly double
operational range). Provides a bit of balance.

rgds,
KTF



Recognize that even in this position he was still commenting that
"What we are doing to the Japs in the Pacific is the same as what the
Germans are doing to the Jews".

Certainly some sickening moral relativism.
  #9  
Old July 6th 03, 10:10 PM
Tiger
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James Linn wrote:

"S. Sampson" wrote in message
...
"codefy" wrote
Some American hero.

When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with
any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just
consider them his coolies ?

If there's a Hell I'm sure Lindbergh is roasting there for his racism
& Nazi sympathies.

You have to wonder how Lindbergh's grandson deals with that nasty part
of the legend that he's living off of.


Lindbergh's been dead longer than you've been alive. Only a red-neck
would equate pacifism with sympathism.


Just watched A&E Biography on the man - he was more than sympathetic - he
admired Hitler. At one point he was going to move to Germany(1938), but
Kristallnacht disturbed him and his wife, so he never bought the house and
did move back to America.


Some timetimes we all need a face slap to wake us up.



I'd have to say that while he was a mechanical genius and great aviator, he
wasn't a great intellectual. He seems to have absorbed the views of some of
his friends and made them his own. While his views on eugenics and Jews were
and are abhorrent, I'm not sure they came from his heart either. He was
caught up in hero worship - of Hitler and others. And he seemed also to be
a contrarians - whatever Roosevelt said was bad. It cost him his Army Air
Corps Career.


Most folks of the time wouldn't shed a tear if you hung a black man from a tree
either. And Jews didn't have a large fan club either. Times change as does
morality. Hittler had fans here & in the UK. Some misguided folk still
are......






And yes he was snowed by the Nazis about the power of the Luftwaffe - they
played him - and he delivered the message the Nazi's wanted -that the
Luftwaffe was invincible. Lindbergh passed the message on to Ambassador
Kennedy - who was more than ready to believe it, being anti British. More
discerning people in the state department took it with a grain of salt.

I'm sure someone here has read a decent biography of the man which covers
this stuff.

James Linn


Well till the Battle of Britan they were unbeaten.......

  #10  
Old July 6th 03, 05:06 PM
Chris Mark
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Lindbergh gets a little more attention than he deserves; the fate of the pop
celebrity, I suppose. Many more deserving intellectuals espoused isolationism,
though they are long-forgotten now.

Lindbergh's fate is, however, a reminder of how dangerous it can be to go
against the political tides.
Another, more significant and serious example of this is the poet Robinson
Jeffers, once vastly popular, but condemned to obscurity by his opposition to
US foreign policy. He could write about incest and bestiality and make the
cover of Time magazine, but once he wrote, in his poem "Pearl Harbor," such
lines as, ".... The men who have conspired and labored to embroil this republic
in the wreck of Europe have got their bargain--and a bushel more...." and
"....The war that we have carefully for years provoked Catches us unprepared,
amazed and indignant. Our warships are shot Like sitting ducks and our planes
like nest-birds, both our coasts ridiculously panicked, And our leaders make
orations...." he was professionally dead and his popularity crashed, never to
fully recover.
Like Lindbergh, he hovered around the edges of the culture after the war, a
figure from a past era whose continued presence seems to have made people
uncomfortable.

Jeffers was compared by Freeman Dyson to Einstein, not just because of his
political and social vision but also his desire to discover a broader, truer
sense of the universe and our place in it. Environmentalists like David Brower
were drawn to him, and scientists like Loren Eisley; great historians of
religion like Joseph Campbell and Huston Smith were avid students of Jeffers;
and the photographers Ansel Adams and Edward Weston rooted their understanding
of the sublime in nature, which they tried to capture in their art, in their
reading of Jeffers. Of Tor House, the home in Carmel that Jeffers built for his
strikingly beautiful wife Una with his own hands, stone by stone, incorporating
such things as a meteor fragment and a stone from Ossian's grave, Stewart
Brand, who wrote the classic "How Buildings Learn," said it was "the most
intelligent building per square inch ever built in America."

None of that mattered once Jeffers raised his voice against US foreign policy.
I don't expect A&E, that citadel of intellectualism, to ever run a story on
Robinson Jeffers, but he and Lindbergh seem to have had a lot in common, at
least in their political views (I believe Lindbergh was also a
proto-environmentalist like Jeffers). And they shared a common fate as losers
in a vastly important debate on the position the US should play in the world.

None of this is ancient history as the US is at a strikingly similar crossroads
as it redefines its place in the world post 9-11. In Lindbergh's time, the
opposition was a branch of the Republican party. This time the opposition is a
branch of the Democratic party. That's about all that has changed.


Chris Mark
 




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