What's all this then?


My name is Victoria Stiles and I'm an Early Career Historian currently doing whatever odd research / consulting / outreach / tutoring jobs come my way. I blog here about some of the interesting texts I've found.
My research focusses on books about Britain and the British Empire which were in circulation in Nazi Germany but you'll also find a smattering of school textbooks, witchcraft beliefs, bog drainage, bemused travellers and weird illustrations that caught my eye.
Translations from German are my own. Comments are currently unmoderated and are mostly spam for leather jackets anyway.

Thursday 29 July 2010

America's Tragedy: Third Reich Perceptions of the United States

I love it when a plan comes together...

In a development which I feared would never actually take place due to my usual scatty and disorganised state of operation, work which I've done for this blog is going to form part of my soon-to-be-completed but largely-not-written-yet Masters dissertation. The topic can be roughly summarised as 'Third Reich perceptions of the United States' - hopefully it will explain how positive and negative views were reconciled in the minds of the general public once it became clear that Germany and America would be at war for a second time. Kurt G. Sell's Worüber man in Amerika spricht, which I've posted passages from before (see tag list) makes an appearance, alongside six more or less similar books. You can expect a smattering of translations from these to appear over the next few weeks, whenever I'm avoiding doing the more important work on the dissertation itself.

The following argument is taken from Menschen Wie Wir? Ein Amerikabuch für Europäer (Berlin, 1943) by Edmund Fürholzer, who I still no next to nothing about. The aim of his 400-page book is to explain why, when the US benefitted from the hard work of German immigrants and the support of German politicians, they are nevertheless prepared to go to war against Germany. In his words, Americans 'share our blood but not our spirit', 'us' being the Europeans. So whose spirit to they share? A soulless, materialistic pairing of Anglo-Saxon and Jewish, passed down from the Pilgrim Fathers.

Obviously I don't agree with any of the following, this is a translation of something I think is insane*.

From its first beginnings, the state of New England was anchored in an Old Testament mindset. State and religion were one, and there was no going back. The more it became clear that running the state along biblical lines would be impossible, the more fanatically the Puritans clung to the illusion; America's tragedy began to run its course. Intellectual Phariseeism and empty form replaced the original heroic spirit. The attempt at transplanting the Jewish Old Testament state into the Christian seventeenth and eighteenth century was doomed to failure. [...]

Der Staat Neu-England war von seinem ersten Anfangen an in den Gedankengängen des Alten Testamentes verankert: Staat und Religion bildeten eine Einheit. Es gab kein Zurück. Je stärker die Unmöglichkeit einer altbiblischen Staatsführung offenbar wurde, um so fanatischer klammerte sich das Puritanertum and den Schein; die Tragödie Amerikas nahm ihren Anfang. An Stelle des ursprünglichen heroishen Geistes trat intellektuelles Pharisäertum und tote Form. Der Versuch, den Judenstaat des Alten Testamented mit seinen Gesetzen und Anschauungen in das christliche sibzehnte und achtzehnte Jahrhundert zu verpflanzen, mußte scheitern.


We can see from looking at some of their laws and customs just how closely the Puritans followed the letter of the Bible.: They called themselves “the Christian Israel“, they spoke of their emigration to America as the „flight of the children of Israel“. Their god was Jehovah, their constitution was in line with the laws of Moses. In place of the Christian Sunday came the Jewish sabbath. The boys were circumcised. The Puritans took their festivals from the Old Testament. The self-righteousness and hubris of old Judaism ran in their veins. Whether to absolve themselves from mistakes or to justify their very unchristian conduct towards colonists of other beliefs, they always had an apt Bible quote to hand. [...]

Wie stark die Puritaner sich nach den Buchstaben der Bibel richteten, ersehen wir bei Betrachtung einiger ihrer Gesetze und Sitten: Sie nannten sich ,,das christliche Israel“; von ihrer Auswanderung nach Amerika sprachen sie als der ,,Flucht der Kinder Israel“. Ihr Got war Jehova, ihre Verfassung war den Gesetzen des Moses angepaßt. An Stelle des christlichen Sonntags trat der jüdische Sabbath. Die Knaben wurden beschnitten. Die Feste entnahmen die Puritaner dem Alten Testament. Selbstgerechtigkeit und Hybris des alten Judentums gingen ihnen in Fleisch und Blut über. Sei es zur Beschönigung ihrer eigenen Fehler oder zur Rechtfertigung ihrer sehr unchristlichen Handlungsweise gegenüber andersgläubigen Kolonisten - stets hatten sie ein passender Bibelzitat zur Hand.


Oliver Cromwell, the greatest of all Puritans, celebrated his victory over Ireland, which he depopulated with inhuman cruelty, turning it into a land of pestilence and hunger, with the words; „And now we ask ourselves: who has completed this great work? It was not done through our power; God the Father delivered it to our hands.“ Jews as the chosen people of the Old Testament and England as the chosen people of the New Testament; these become one in Cromwell's words. It should therefore come as no surprise that he allowed England's Jews to travel freely to the transatlantic colonies. It was strictly forbidden for the island's Catholics to settle in the New World. [...]

Oliver Cromwell, der größte aller Puritaner, feierte seinen Triumph über Irland, das er mit unmenschlicher Grausamkeit entvölkert und zu einem von Seuchen heimgesucht Hungergebiet gemacht hatte, mit den Worten: ,,Und nun wllen wir uns fragen: Wer hat dieses große Werk vollbracht? Nicht unsere Macht war es; Gott der Herr hat sie in unsere Hände gegeben.“ Juda als das auserwählte Volk des Alten und England als das auserwählte Volk des neuen Testamente verschmolzen in Cromwells Worten zu ein und demselben Begriff. Daher kann es auch nicht wundernehmen, daß er den Juden Englands die Auswanderung nach den transatlantischen Kolonien freigab. Den Katholiken der Insel war die Ansiedlung in der Neuen Welt strengstens verboten.


The resistance of other protestant religious communities failed due to the Puritanisms heavy political clout. They were English to the full; the common belief in an Anglo-Saxon divine calling proved a unifying bond, even in the face of bitter contradictions in the application of dogma, all taken from the same Old Testament. The most radical political course cut through all ecclesiastical differences; in the end Puritanism was able to claim for itself leadership of the New World's Anglo-Saxon church state. This attitude outlasted the colonial period, going on to determine the public life of the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was the spirit of Judaism which American Christianity adapted itself to. [...]

Der Widerstand anderer protestantischer Religionsgemeinschaften gegenüber der Neu-England-Richtung scheiterte an der stärkeren politischen Durchschlagskraft des Puritanertums. Engländer waren sie alle; der gemeinsame Glaube an eine göttliche Sendung des Angelsachsentums erwies sich als einigendes Band, selbst bei erbitterten Gegensätzen in Auslegung der Dogmen, die alle auf dem gleichen Alten Testament fußten. Die radikalste politische Richtung setzte sich gegenüber allen kirchlichen Differenzen durch; schließlich behauptete sich der Puritanismus doch als Führer des kirchlich-staatlichen Angelsachsentums der Neuen Welt. Dieser Geist überdauerte die Kolonialzeit und bestimmte in neunzehnten und zwanzigsten Jahrhundert das öffentlichen Leben der Vereinigten Staaten. Es war der Geist des Judentums, dem sich das amerikanische Christentum assimilierte.


The racial Jew arriving in America really did find the Promised Land. He did not need to adapt to new conditions, as instead the foreigner had assimilated to his beliefs, his thoughts, and his behaviour.

Der nach Amerika kommende Rassenjude fand tatsächlich das Gelobte Land vor. Er brauchte sich nicht neuen verhältnissen anzupassen, sondern die Fremde hatte sich von selbst seinem Wesen, seinem Glauben, seinem Denken und Handeln angeglichen.

(Fürholzer, pp.30-2)

*Shouldn't need saying, but this is the internet and some people aren't big on context