U.S. Apologized to Hitler
I didn’t know this story until I heard it on KPFK today.
Maybe everyone else did, but I didn’t.
On this day in history (March 5, 1937), the United States government — specifically Secretary of State Cordell Hull — apologized to Adolp Hitler and the German government for remarks made by New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Said Hull:
“I very earnestly deprecate the utterances which have given offense. . . . They do not represent the attitude of this Government toward the German Government.”
Hull also noted that “”in this country, the right of freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Constitution to every citizen and is cherished as a part of the national heritage,” which the Time Magazine notes was in and of itself a subtle dig at Germany.
So, what did LaGuardia say?
It wasn’t just one thing. The New York Times reports on its web site that:
Fiorello H. La Guardia denounced Hitler before it was fashionable, calling him a “perverted maniac” in 1933. In 1934, he revoked the massage license of a German citizen, provoking an apology to Germany from the State Department. The next year, he objected when Robert Moses ordered 500 tons of German steel for the Triborough Bridge. And in 1937, he suggested that the World’s Fair include a “chamber of horrors for that brown-shirted fanatic,” which brought another apology from Washington.
More specifically, Time says:
[The] (c)ause of Germany’s paroxysm was found to be a proposal by Mayor LaGuardia that adjoining a proposed “temple of tolerance” at New York’s 1939 World’s Fair there be erected “a chamber of horrors” containing a figure of “that brown-shirted fanatic who is now menacing the peace of the world.”
Laguardia’s remarks came in a speech in front of the the Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress. Germany’s response was to call the mayor “a “Dirty Talmud Jew,” a “shameless Jew lout” and “a whoremonger.”
One other interesting aspect of the story comes from the Virtual Jewish Library. (First of all, I learned here that Laguardia’s mother’s name was “Coen” and that Laguardia was Jewish, though most identified him more with his Italian heritage.)
Secretary Hull was not necessarily speaking for the president when he issued his apology. Here is how the Library tells it:
Hull complained privately to President Roosevelt that LaGuardia was poisoning German-American relations, but Roosevelt asked Hull, “What would you say if I should say that I agreed completely with LaGuardia?” Several months later, LaGuardia visited Roosevelt and recorded the following scene:
The president smiled as I entered his office. Then he extended his right arm and said, “Heil, Fiorello!” I snapped to attention, extended my right arm and replied, “Heil, Franklin!” And that’s all that was ever said about it.
Until today, I guess …
