When looking back at antisemitism in the 1930s, we often think that German Fascists were the sole offenders. But as the economy continued to crumble, many Americans turned to radical ideologies like antisemitism.
One prime example of American antisemitism is Charles Coughlin, the notable radio preacher whose messages reached over 30 million people. Coughlin's radio career began by preaching Catholic views, but as it became more political, Coughlin expressed sympathy with Hitler and read excerpts from the text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
This text is pretty shady stuff: the gist of the manuscript is that there's a bunch of Jewish leaders of some kind (sometimes called Elders of Zion, sometimes called rabbis) who get together in the middle of the night to make a plan of how to take over the world. Of course, their scheming is all generic things that anyone would do to take over the world (control the media, manipulating the economy, and all that jazz), and it contains no specifics.
But a great deal of the writing is plagiarized from other sources, including a French anti-Napoleon pamphlet. While the French pamphlet had nothing to do with Jewish people, once the German anti-semite got a hold of it, he turned it into a Jewish conspiracy theory. It was translated into Russian in 1872 and was made popular after the Russian Revolution in the early 1900s, when it was used as a way to incite popular hatred against Jews.
Despite all this nonsense, The Protocols was still popular. Henry Ford even sponsored the distribution of the text, not to mention Charles Coughlin's readings from it.
While The Protocols may seem like the first modern conspiracy theory (some crazy, uncorroborated jumble of plagiarism), it had serious consequences: the text was even used as a justification for the genocide of Jews in Germany. Nazi Germany had the most obvious display of antisemitism, but their sentiments were (unfortunately) not alone in the early 20th century.
Sources:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6012010
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#The_Dearborn_Independent_and_antisemitism
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-ldquo-protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion-rdquo
It's amazing what conspirators will believe and try to convince people. Sadly, antisemitism in America has persisted since the colonial era -- barring voting, lynching, and even simple teasing for being Jewish (similar to the plights of many other minorities in America). During the Holocaust, the US wouldn't accept many Jewish refugees. There were over a hundred antisemitic organizations were responsible for pumping hate propaganda throughout the American public. The St. Louis is a very sad story that encapsulates this attitude. A ship from Nazi Germany carried 935 Jews headed to Cuba, where they would live until their visas were granted. Only 26 passengers were allowed to leave, while the rest were to be sent back to Europe. Instead, it navigated to Florida, was rejected, and was forced to go back. Britain, too, rejected most of the refugees. 236 of the passengers perished in the concentration camps.
ReplyDeleteDoes this attitude seem familiar today? Absolutely!
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/usholo/LaurenAntisemPage.htm
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/27/14412082/refugees-history-holocaust