I see FDR using what appeared to be inactivity as time to allow the public to get behind an issue - his early days as president he simply, with little pushing required, got things done but we were in such a weakened condition as a nation that kind of leadership was a God send - Once he realized he had a Congress again that actually weakened his efforts so that there was a second "Roosevelt depression" he found he had to work with Congress and he realized because of the debacle over his attempt to change the Supreme Court he chose to act the Sphinx as he was depicted, allowing things to take their course while behind the scenes manipulating efforts, working with individuals and groups that would make a difference in the public arena.
I looked up and shared the flip flop on the part of Russia for two reasons - this is when Unions were being labeled "Red" and therefore, their support of the isolationists was being labeled akin to supporting Hitler. And then for the average person at the time to have any trust in Stalin was a problem - not just because of the communist fears but Russia was as much a part of taking Poland as Hitler with both nations carving up the territory. Russia more for its own hubris where Hitler was trying to re-connect the Germans, isolated within Poland after WWI, back to Germany. So I can see Lindbergh's analysis suggesting yet again, another conflict among the leaders of Old Europe.
After seeing the first part of the special on Churchill last night on PBS, - except that no one knew the devastation to the Jews as well as the population that did not fit Hitler's concept of a strong Aryan race or those who were independent thinkers, I would have seen Churchill as a man who itched for war and his life was about righting the wrongs of his early life and early political life by getting others to help him win. I do not think he or FDR had an inkling till we were all deep into the war what Hitler was doing however, the more I read, too bad Hitler was so twisted since he accomplished more to turn a nation around in 5 years than any other western nation including Roosevelt.
Reading this book and the various other books about the lead world characters at this time shows me how all folks act from good intentions and after a brutal war all the propaganda to urge on the troops and the people then become cemented as the cause and downfall of the losing side. Makes me want to review history because I think we are working with a one sided view - it is too easy to dismiss aberrant behavior as deranged and complex behavior as inexplicable therefore, the author puts their spin on these distortions. From the PBS special on Churchill he was as complex with distorted patterns of behavior as any however, his views won the day.
Aghast we can ask what good intentions from Hitler and yet, like Kaiser Wilhelm II, they both admired and wanted to capture for the German people the history left by Frederick the Great of the second Reich, and Friedrich Wilhelm I who founded the Prussian army and the rigid efficient bureaucracy while pushing 'a ramrod up the back of my people' - Kaiser Wilhelm I outlined in his army regulation 'When one takes the oath to the flag one renounces oneself and surrenders entirely even one's life and everything to the monarch...Through this blind obedience one receives the grace and confirmation of the title of soldier' - (sounds familiar, the explanation we had a difficult time swallowing after WWII) He also made Prussia economically self-sufficient in time of war - and his son, Frederick the Great, a musician whose compositions are still played, a poet and a military strategist famous for winning the Seven Years War, outnumbered and with his back against the wall.
Hitler followed in these footsteps carrying with him a portrait of Frederick the Great as a talisman. Robert Waite in his book on the Kaiser and Führer tells us how, "In April 1945, with allied armies closing in from all sides, he (Hitler) eagerly reread pages in the German translation of Carlyle's biography in search of a miraculous sign that he, like the beleaguered Friedrich of 1762, would suddenly be rescued by the death of an arch-enemy." Hitler believed the sudden death of Roosevelt was his sign.
Again, reading this months choice by Ella and Harold is allowing us to see all sides of these world leaders and I'm realizing just because they win or lose they are not perfect or, the deranged, personification of evil.
