Why American Capitalists Turned on Hitler
February 16, 2018
by William P. Meyers

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Global Dominance Trumped Anti-Communism

I am reading, am most of the way through, Witness to a Century, by George Seldes, one of the best-known (back then) journalists of the 20th Century. One of Seldes' points is that you can't always trust contemporary newspaper reports when you write about a period of time. He gives numerous examples of his reporting on events, or talking to other journalists who witnessed events, only to see most of America's (and usually England's) newspapers publish what they wanted the news to be, rather than what actually happened on the ground.

Before getting to my Hitler thesis, I'll prep that with what Seldes said on why an alleged leftist, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had a policy of neutrality in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). My previous thesis was that the Roman Catholic Church, which supported Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, was too important a part of the Democratic Party voter base. That base, from roughly the end of the American Civil War until the 1960s, had a southern Protestant wing and a northern mainly Roman Catholic wing.

According to Seldes all the major American newspaper chains supported Franco and his fascists. They all claimed the Republic (the elected government of Spain) was 100% Communist. Roosevelt, of course, knew better, but he was having enough trouble with those newspaper chains over his New Deal policies. The New Deal policies created safety nets, but were not socialist in any meaningful way. Yet America's capitalists and their right-wing allies saw them as the creeping edge of communism.

According to Seldes most American capitalists were supportive of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco because of their anti-communist agenda. If Seldes was right, or even partly right, why did they go along with the U.S. entering World War II on the side of the British Empire?

In the real world there are a lot of variables, and several were contributing factors.

First, an American capitalist liking Hitler, Mussolini and Franco better than the other choices in Germany, Italy and Spain does not mean that those capitalists were actually followers of the fascists. Capitalists don't like communism or socialism, so they supported anti-communist strongmen.

Second, the British Empire was strongly anti-communist. The Brits did not conquer the world and move most of its wealth to England by sipping tea and sending Care packages to Asian and African natives.

Third, by the time of Pearl Harbor, the communists in the U.S.S.R. had stopped Hitler's armies and were turning them back. By the time D-Day rolled around and the U.S. finally committed large numbers of troops, Hitler's time was up, his troops were being ground up on the Eastern Front.

Fourth, why let Britain rule the world when it could be ruled from Washington, Detroit, New York and Los Angeles?

I believe that Franklin Roosevelt, like his relative Theodore Roosevelt, had global conquest ambitions from an early age. There is no contradiction between his wanting to Make America Great again with his New Deal programs, and his wanting to conquer the world. Roosevelt was a notoriously secretive guy. I believe that he was never an enemy of the American capitalist class that he belonged to. He explained to the powerful capitalists what his plan was. Then, when they saw events leading to more power and money for themselves under Roosevelt's leadership, they happily abandoned the fascists.

For American capitalists, the crucial factor was that communism was not going to be defeated by Hitler. Roosevelt saw that England would be greatly weakened by the war. If America entered the war, it could take over the British Empire.

That is why Pearl Harbor was so important. We know that Roosevelt knew about the planned attack months in advance. We know that several of the Japanese commanders had trained in the U.S., so at least one of them would have been a U.S. spy. We know that the expensive new major vessels were out to sea, while the old, almost useless World War I battleships were sitting looking attractively ready to sink. And we know that General McArthur had written orders to attack the Japanese in Taiwan several days before Pearl Harbor (he refused), and that a huge American Naval group was steaming across the Pacific to back up the general. What more do you need?

And then there is Seldes explaining why he was attacked, but then cleared, by Joe McCarthy [Witness pages 359-361]. Testimony: "The facts were that the North Koreans, or Communists, were the aggressors militarily. They could not have marched all the way from Pusan, defeated the South Koreans, conquering almost the entire nation, if they had not planned the entire military campaign."

I submit to you the U.S. could not have helped defeat Germany and almost single-handedly defeated the Japanese, then end up the dominant world capitalist power, if it had not been planned. And President Franklin Roosevelt was the planner. And while America's capitalists kept criticizing the New Deal, and are still trying to unravel it to this day, at least a core of them were informed of the plan and had no problem dumping Hitler when he was no longer of use to them.