Wiki has a fair assessment of his politics during WWII
a few quotes:
Lindbergh argued America did not have any business attacking Germany and believed in upholding the Monroe Doctrine, which his interventionist rivals felt was outdated. According to Lindbergh historian Scott A Berg, Lindbergh said before World War II:
“the potentially gigantic power of America, guided by uninformed and impractical idealism, might crusade into Europe to destroy Hitler without realizing that Hitler’s destruction would lay Europe open to the rape, loot and barbarism of Soviet Russia’s forces, causing possibly the fatal wounding of western civilization.”
his efforts were praised in Nazi Germany and included quotations such as "Racial strength is vital; politics, a luxury." They included pictures of him and other America Firsters using the stiff-armed Bellamy salute (a hand gesture described by Francis Bellamy to accompany his Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States); the photos were taken from an angle not showing the American flag, so to observers it was indistinguishable from the Hitler salute.<58>
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt disliked Lindbergh's outspoken opposition to intervention and Roosevelt's policies such as the Lend-Lease Act. FDR said to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau in May 1940, "if I should die tomorrow, I want you to know this, I am absolutely convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi."
Lindbergh's reaction to Kristallnacht was entrusted to his diary: "I do not understand these riots on the part of the Germans," he wrote. "It seems so contrary to their sense of order and intelligence. They have undoubtedly had a difficult 'Jewish problem,' but why is it necessary to handle it so unreasonably?"
In his diaries, he wrote: “We must limit to a reasonable amount the Jewish influence… Whenever the Jewish percentage of total population becomes too high, a reaction seems to invariably occur. It is too bad because a few Jews of the right type are, I believe, an asset to any country.”
Lindbergh's anti-Communism resonated deeply with many Americans while eugenics and Nordicism enjoyed social acceptance,<54> with enthusiasts such as Theodore Roosevelt,<61> Winston Churchill<62> and George S. Patton.<63>
However, Lindbergh considered Hitler a fanatic and avowed a belief in American democracy.<64> However, he clearly stated elsewhere that he believed the survival of the white race was more important than the survival of democracy in Europe: "Our bond with Europe is one of race and not of political ideology," he declared.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh
He's seen more sympathetically by history because of his flights and the kidnapping but he said some intemperate things during WWII.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
