Max Wallace. The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2003. ix + 465 pp. $27.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-312-29022-1.

Reviewed by Michaela Hoenicke Moore

Published on H-German (May, 2004)

On a recent fight to St. Louis (no less), while eforts to assist the Nazis is an important one and still reading the book under review, I was asked if should be told to a wider audience. But the ac‐ I would recommend it. My neighbor, a self-pro‐ count is lacking in interpretative focus and occa‐ fessed history-buf, could not help notice the strik‐ sionally in historical perspective. ing cover--Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford The book weaves together the genesis of next to Auschwitz-Birkenau and a swastika--and Ford's and Lindbergh's racial notions, their pro‐ the title that linked this "American Axis" to the fessional dealings with Germany and their private rise of the Third Reich. What follows is my am‐ admiration for the Third Reich. Wallace uses the bivalent endorsement. existing literature on his two fallen heroes as well The book was not written for an academic au‐ as Lindbergh's private papers and the Ford Com‐ dience to whom it will yield few new insights--in pany archives. Yet his account is not a biographi‐ spite of the somewhat sensationalist advertise‐ cal one. Overall Lindbergh emerges as more of a ment of new disclosures and revelations on the complex, real-life character from these pages; two protagonists. The author, Max Wallace, is an Wallace's portrait of Anne Morrow Lindbergh is investigative journalist and this accounts for both nuanced and at times even moving (p. 247f.). By the strength and the weakness of his story. His contrast Ford's personality remains vague and style is dramatic and captivating, and I thorough‐ Wallace's explanation of how and why he ac‐ ly enjoyed reading the book. The narrative is or‐ quired his anti-Semitic views is not entirely con‐ ganized exclusively around the two central fg‐ vincing. In 1920 Ford began serializing articles on ures with a gallery of secondary characters rang‐ the "Jewish Question" based on the Protocols of ing from alleged Nazi spies and military attachés the Learned Elders of Zion in his newspaper the to slave labor victims in "supporting roles." The Dearborn Independent, outlining a worldwide sin‐ story of Ford's and Lindbergh's anti-Semitism and ister Jewish conspiracy as detailed in the forgery. racism, and their deliberate as well as unwitting Subsequently he published the collection as a H-Net Reviews pamphlet, The International Jew, and efectively who was behind all of this activity; too often the distributed it through the Ford Company's nation‐ argument is based on conjecture (131f., 144, al and international network of dealerships. Wal‐ 318f.). Rather than focusing on how Ford came to lace reviews and rejects as defcient alternative be an anti-Semite (as if anti-Semitism were a con‐ explanations of how Ford--that "hitherto shy, gen‐ tagious disease one could only catch through close tle ... and in some respects quite enlightened" man personal contact), it is the story of the public and (p. 16)--had come to adopt these malicious lies. political consequences of Ford's anti-Semitism The author instead introduces as the real culprit that is really the more interesting one. Ernest Gustav Liebold, a Detroit-born German- No less frustrating is the reversal of the American, who became both the Dearborn Inde‐ above-outlined argument in chapter 2, "The pendent's general manager and Henry Ford's Fuehrer's Inspiration." Much is made of Ford's trusted personal secretary. A 1918 "most secret" portrait in Hitler's ofce in 1931 (p. 2) and Baldur military intelligence document reported that von Schirach's defense at the Nuremberg trial: "If Liebold is "considered to be a German spy" (p. 25), [Ford] said the Jews were to blame, naturally we although the investigation remained inconclusive. believed him" (p. 42). Surely, the Nazis did not Over the next three hundred pages Liebold re‐ have to rely on Ford as a teacher of anti- mains a shadowy fgure. Wallace insinuates that Semitism? Here, too, the claim of Ford's infuence Liebold is both responsible for Ford's anti- on the Nazis is not contextualized.[1] Wallace in‐ Semitism and for his company's attempts to pre‐ stead ofers the opinion by another historian em‐ vent and undermine the American war efort in phasizing "the role that Russian émigrés played in both World War I and World War II. laying the ideological groundwork for the Holo‐ But Liebold is also shadowy in that Wallace caust" (p. 63).[2] Wallace uses this point to explain neither develops his character and motivations the signifcance of the White Russian Boris Brasol (or the makeup of his anti-Semitism) nor the spe‐ who is the most direct link between Ford (via cifc nature of his ties to Germany from 1918 Liebold, of course) and the Nazis and also the con‐ through 1941. He has contacts with Franz von Pa‐ duit for a possible fnancial donation to the NS‐ pen (pp. 131, 225), Kurt Ludecke (the Nazis' "chief DAP. The driving force behind Wallace's account fund raiser" in the 1920s, p. 49f) and perhaps is the existence of links between people who Heinrich Albert, one of the members of the board move like chess fgures across board. The author of directors of German Ford Werke since the establishes far-fung connections between his two 1930s. By page 318 Liebold has evolved into protagonists and Germany, but much of the con‐ "probably a Nazi spy" but the evidence remains text is missing. Occasionally, the reason for the shaky and confusing, and consists of a few ofcial lack of historical perspective is Wallace's unfamil‐ Nazi (p. 146) or older German contacts, the signif‐ iarity with important secondary literature on his cance of which Wallace cannot fully illuminate. subject. The reference for his account of Ameri‐ This never explicitly-made line of argumentation can controversy over boycotting the Berlin then would read as follows: during World War I Olympics in 1936 is a 2001 article on China in the an unconfrmed German spy set Henry Ford up to National Review Online (p. 415f.). But the main develop anti-Semitic views which, by the time of problem of Wallace's book is not a failure to ad‐ World War II, would lead the Ford Company to here to academic standards of referencing or undermine the American military eforts against source criticism. At issue is a broader concern Nazi Germany. My problem is less with the validi‐ that historians and journalists share: we tell a sto‐ ty of this interpretation than with the lack of spe‐ ry in order to advance an argument, to give mean‐ cifc and convincing evidence that it was Liebold ing to an otherwise confusing and chaotic assem‐

2 H-Net Reviews blage of facts and events. It is in this endeavor Games (p. 112f.) Not surprisingly, Lindbergh was that Wallace's meandering account falls some‐ deeply impressed not only by "the organized vital‐ what short. Instead we learn intermittently some ity of Germany" but more importantly by a state juicy tidbits that do not pertain to the author's im‐ that sought to realize his own ideals: "science and mediate subject matter: for example, Kurt Von‐ technology harnessed for the preservation of a su‐ negut once wrote an admiring piece in a student perior race" (p. 118). As a result of the exclusive paper on the isolationist "lonely eagle" (p. 275) focus on the aviator, the dramatic and complex and George W. Bush's maternal great-grandfather story of the Czechoslovak crisis is told with Lind‐ "has been described by a U.S. Justice Department bergh and his exaggerated reports on the German investigator as 'one of Hitler's most powerful f‐ air force playing the decisive role in tilting British nancial supporters in the United States'" (p. 349). policy towards appeasement (pp. 165, 167-171). Later chapters explore the relationship be‐ Wallace's chapter ignores the military, political tween the Ford Company (Dearborn) and its Ger‐ and diplomatic reality of the British situation in man subsidiary Ford Werke during World War II. 1938.[4] It is a story of "business as usual": the German Lindbergh, probably even more so than Ford, profts were "placed in an escrow account for dis‐ emerges at times in this book as an unsuspecting tribution to the American parent company after dupe of more sinister forces working in the back‐ the war" (p. 329). These profts, Wallace rightly ground (p. 208). I am not convinced that this con‐ highlights, were in part based on forced labor.[3] spiratorial approach to history serves Wallace's Wallace is also correct in challenging the notion-- endeavor to establish personal responsibility for ofered as the conclusion of a recent investigation politically damaging actions. The point to make that Dearborn had conducted into the problem of about the problematic role of the two fawed he‐ wartime profts from its European, Nazi-dominat‐ roes concerns the impact of their anti-Semitic, ed subsidiaries--that Ford "had to use labor pro‐ racist, pro-Nazi public activities, speeches or pub‐ vided by the German government" (p. 335). The lications over the course of more than a decade German controlled Ford plants in Europe had, on American public opinion. The Roosevelt ad‐ even before the outbreak of the war and with the ministration, in the meantime, tried to rally the consent of Dearborn, turned into "an arsenal of same public around a program of aid to Britain Nazism" (pp. 228f., 340). and subsequently in a heavily ideological mobi‐ The story of Lindbergh's misguided views and lization characterized Nazism as an assault on civ‐ actions is also advanced through a narrative of ilization. Ford and Lindbergh in turn found this secondary fgures. Lindbergh--in spite of a father civilization not threatened by the Germans but by who is portrayed as more racist than ordinary the Russians. The fact that both received a Nazi white Americans at the time (p. 83)--acquired his medal, which was evidently well-deserved, and racial views through his close association and that they refused to return them is telling. Particu‐ friendship with the French scientist Alexis Carrel. larly in the last chapter, Wallace tries hard to give The aviator's obsessions with racial purity were the impression of a fair and balanced portrait of subsequently further bent in a direction of admi‐ the "lonely eagle," defending him against Harold ration for the Nazi project by the American mili‐ Ickes's public as well as Roosevelt's private accu‐ tary attaché to Germany, Truman Smith (pp. sations of being a "Nazi." This highlights one the 104-111, 381). And it is the latter who invited book's more problematic aspects: the incongruity Lindbergh and his wife "in the name of Göring" to between the title and jacket design suggesting a visit the Third Reich at the time of the Olympic crucial role of this "American Axis" in the rise of the Third Reich and the nuanced conclusion that

3 H-Net Reviews the author "discovered no smoking gun proving Semitism is a monolithic, timeless, unchanging that Lindbergh was motivated by anything but phenomenon. sincere--albeit misguided--motives for this prewar Max Wallace has written a passionate, though isolationist activities or that he was disloyal to sprawling, narrative that serves an important ed‐ America" (p. 378). Between title and conclusion ucational purpose: rather than continuing to ad‐ lies the substance of the book: characterized by mire these two deeply fawed individuals we the absence of an explicitly stated argument, a de‐ should appreciate both the political impact of tailed, yet narrowly focused narrative suggests their racial beliefs and the nature of their mis‐ that their racist convictions led Ford and Lind‐ guided attraction to Nazi Germany. But his book is bergh to take a benevolent and admiring view of not yet a conclusive assessment of the historical the Third Reich, and partly knowingly, partly un‐ role these two public fgures played in German- wittingly served Nazi interests. American relations in the 1930s and 40s. From the dust jacket we learn that Wallace is Notes a "Holocaust researcher" but he exhibits little [1]. For an important primary source on scholarly background on the Third Reich itself. Hitler's pre-1933 views of the United States, its au‐ (To refer to Adolf Hitler as "another German tomotive industry and his admiration for an im‐ philosopher" [p. 43] in the same sentence with migration policy that produced "racially frst-rate Hegel is not helpful to his overall point.) He cites Americans" see Gerhard L. Weinberg, Hitler's Sec‐ some relevant secondary literature on specifc as‐ ond Book: The Unpublished Sequel to Mein Kampf pects of World War II, for example Nazi Fifth Col‐ by Adolf Hitler (New York: Enigma Books, 2003), umn activities in the United States, anti-Semitism pp. 107, 109, 111-118. For the development of in the U.S. army, and forced labor in the German "Fordism" during the Third Reich cf. Philipp Ford Werke, but he does not use it to establish the Gassert, Amerika im Dritten Reich: Ideologie, Pro‐ urgently needed interpretive context for the paganda und Volksmeinung, 1933-1945 (Stuttgart: events detailed in this book. Most sorely missing Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997). is a proper analysis of American anti-Semitism as a prerequisite for understanding how Americans [2]. The dissertation proposal on which this confronted the Third Reich. Wallace, even though assertion is based, incidentally, turns into a disser‐ citing studies by Leonard Dinnerstein and Myron tation only a few footnotes later, p. 408, n. 101, Scholnick, neither defnes the nature of American 106. anti-Semitism nor does he seem to understand the [3]. The essence of Wallace's argument with efect it had on the American public perception of more historical context can also be found in and ofcial responses to the Third Reich--a story Bernd Greiner, Die Morgenthau Legende. Zur told by Deborah Lipstadt, Richard Breitman, Geschichte eines umstrittenen Plans (Hamburg: David Wyman and others. Its relevance lay in the Hamburger Edition, 1995), pp. 112f., 115f.; and role which even the mildest forms of social preju‐ Reinhold Billstein, Karola Fings, Antia Kugler and dice and, in particular, the Roosevelt administra‐ Nicholas Levis, Working for the Enemy: Ford, Gen‐ tion's concern over these prejudices played in de‐ eral Motors and Forced Labor in Germany during vising responses to Nazi Germany. Within the con‐ the Second World War (New York: Berghahn, text of Wallace's narrower focus, it would have 2000). been helpful at least to clarify the diference be‐ [4]. Gerhard L. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy tween Ford's hatred fantasizing about a Jewish of Hitler's Germany: Starting World War II, political-economic conspiracy and Lindbergh's ob‐ session with racial purity. But for Wallace anti-

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1937-1939 (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Hu‐ manities Press, 1994), pp. 313-464. Copyright (c) 2004 by H-Net, all rights re‐ served. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonproft, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originat‐ ing list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editori‐ al staf: [email protected].

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Citation: Michaela Hoenicke Moore. Review of Wallace, Max. The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich. H-German, H-Net Reviews. May, 2004.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9274

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