Aufsatz

Joseph W. Bendersky

Racial Sentinels: Biological Anti-Semitism in the U.S. Army Officer Corps, 1890-1950

The Racial Mentality of an Anglo-Saxon Elite

On June 21,1921, twenty U.S. army officers from across Europe gathered at the American Military Attaché Conference in Coblenz, Gèrmany. Among them were the cream of U.S. Military Intelligence (MID), the most highly respected and effective intelligence officers in the army who held strategically important posts across the continent. This distinguished body also included rising stars such as Oscar Solbert, soon to be President Coolidge's military aide, and Warner McCabe, later Chief of MID during the crucial 1930s refugee crisis and years leading up to World War II. Robert Eichelberger and James Ord, later aide to Douglas MacArthur, became promi- nent generals in that war. The Chief of Military Intelligence, General Marlborough Churchill, had traveled from Washington to conduct the major briefing. Although usually not regarded within the sphere of military competence, immigration re- ceived more attention at this conference than any other issue, including military intelligence and administration. The temporary nature (18 months) of the restric- tive racial immigration law Congress passed a few weeks before seriously con- cerned these officers. On their own initiative, they felt duty-bound once again to raise the vital problem of immigration with Congress, since it had »an important bear- ing on the future of our country and our race«. They demanded legislative action to halt eastern European immigration, which constituted a »menace« to American civilization1. Indeed, for years, these same attaches had alerted Washington to this danger, emphasizing the threat arising from Jews in particular. In addition to the political and cultural arguments against Jews, these officers offered one based upon biological anti-Semitism. Jews constituted a »herd« of racial- ly inferior people. This same political biology also led these officers to favor in- creased immigration from their own racial kind. As their report concluded, »Ef- forts should therefore be made to pass legislation to facilitate immigration to the United States from the states of Northwestern Europe and the British Isles, where the Nordic race predominates2.« Both the racial perspectives held by these officers and the political engagement these views stimulated within the officer corps had their origins in the military cul- ture of the late 19eh and early 20th centuries. Within that culture Social Darwinism and scientific racism constituted significant components of the worldview of many

1 »Coblenz Conference of Military Attaches«, June 1921, National Archives College Park, MD (hereafter NACP), RG 165, Military Intelligence Division (hereafter MID), Records of the War Department and Special Staffs, 2580-47 (29), 4-5. 2 Ibid.

Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift 62 (2003), S. 331-353 © Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Potsdam 332 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky officers. This was no mere general prejudice. Their racial views had fairly sophis- ticated intellectual and theoretical foundations and their activities had long-term consequences throughout the first half of the twentieth century. They affected Amer- ican policy on immigration, on refugees from Nazi Germany, and on the fate of Jews during and after the Holocaust. Although traditional religious, cultural, and economic brands of anti-Semitism also influenced officer attitudes and political activities, this article focuses mainly up- on the racial variant, which reveals that even mainstream officers were susceptible to the most extreme form of anti-Semitism. Biological racial anti-Semitism was, in- deed, more virulent and momentous than more traditional types of prejudice against Jews. Traditional anti-Semites perceived Jews as merely religiously and culturally different, and as such their assumed problematic characteristics were susceptible to change through Christianization or cultural assimilation. The entire American »Melt- ing Pot« ideal was premised on the assumption that over generations environmen- tal influences and education could transform ethnically diverse people into an ap- proximation of the higher American types of being. Over time, assimilation would replace detrimental Jewish traits of anti-Christianity, economic avarice, and politi- cal radicalism with laudable Anglo-Saxon values, mentality, and behavior. A bio- logical interpretation of Jews, however, drastically altered the very nature of the so- called »Jewish Question« and its possible solutions. It defined Jewish racial char- acteristics of mind and body as genetically inherited and immutable. What nature and evolution had determined with firmness remained impervious to meaningful change through environmental influences of culture, education, and socialization. Social assimilation and Americanization could only affect Jews superficially, where- as actual crossbreeding with the non-Jewish American majority would be a racial catastrophe by infecting the American gene pool with inferior Jewish traits. Bio- logical fact dictated the exclusion rather than the assimilation of Jews. U.S. military historians have paid very limited attention to the pervasive racial thinking of the army officer corps and completely neglected the army's engage- ment with the »Jewish Question«3. Despite rising expectations over the past decade about the »New Military History«, only a limited number of studies have addressed the interaction of the military with American society and politics4. A recent study of immigrants in the U.S. army during World War I also reveals a continuing re- luctance to break away from traditional institutional approaches and to delve deeply into military culture to examine the mentality of officers that significantly affected their behavior5. And standard U.S. military histories still depict Social Darwinist at-

3 For a critical examination of U.S. military historiography regarding race and Jews see Joseph W. Bendersky, »The Absent Presence: Enduring Images of Jews in United States Military History«, American Jewish History 89 (December 2001): 411-436. 4 John Whiteclay Chambers II, »The New Military History: Myth and Reality«, Journal of Military History 55 (July 1991): 395-406; John A. Lynn, »Clio in Arms: The Role of the Mil- itary Variable in Shaping History«, Journal of Military History 55 (January 1991): 83-95. See also Peter Paret, Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power (Princeton, 1992), 209-226. 5 See Nancy Gentile Ford, Americans All! Foreign-Born Soldiers in World War I (College Sta- tion, TX, 2001). The subject of foreign-born soldiers was a perfect opportunity to exam- ine the mentality of officers regarding race as it affected their expectations and treatment of various ethnic groups. Attention to the substantial amount of available archival and published documentation on the racial thinking of officers would have produced a much different picture than the one offered by Ford. However, she follows a traditional insti- Racial Sentinels 333 titudes among officers as a phenomenon limited to the late-nineteenth century6. They offer no inkling that officers were exposed to racial theory into the late 1930s and that it pervaded their mentality and institutional culture throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Race is discussed only in the context of prejudice against African-American soldiers, and even these analyses fail to convey an ade- quate appreciation of the theoretical racial framework promoting and justifying racist behavior and policies within the military7. References to Jews are almost non-existent in this military literature, or these works merely note individual acts of prejudice without any suggestion of their wider institutional or historical significance. Nonetheless, documenting biological anti-Semitism among army officers has broader implications for American histo- ry generally and for the study of race and anti-Semitism in the United States in particular. Carl Degler, the prominent historian of Darwinism in America, has ar- gued that »by the 1930s it was about as difficult to locate an American social sci- entist who accepted a racial explanation for human behavior as it had been easy to find one in 19008.« Similarly, other historians held that biological-racial anti-Semi- tism had »virtually disappeared from the American scene« after 19249. The histo- ry of racial education, thinking, and political engagement among army officers casts serious doubts upon such contentions. During the early twentieth century, the officer corps consisted primarily of mid- dle and upper class Anglo-Saxon Protestants, reinforced by others of various north- ern European ancestries. Proud and defensive of what they perceived as their unique ethnic-cultural heritage and system of government, they were a reflection of the dominant sociological group within America of that age. Officers often claimed to be the models and guardians of true Americanism, which they equat- ed with pure Anglo-Saxonism. Although the immigration of millions of eastern and southern Europeans by the early part of the century made the country much more ethnically diverse, the officer corps, with few exceptions, remained a fairly homogeneous group10. With conservative political attitudes and Christian princi-

tutional approach and limits herself to a very restricted evidentiary base of certain offi- cial military reports, which she accepts uncritically. Neglecting the evidence document- ing the actual prejudices of officers, her work presents the training and treatment of im- migrant soldiers as a successful experiment in army progressive management. 6 Russell F. Weigley, Towards an American Army: Military Thought from Washington to Mar- shall (Westport, Conn., 1974), 146-147,152-155. 7 Stephen E. Ambrose, »Blacks in the Army in Two World Wars«, in Stephen E. Ambrose and James A. Barber, eds., The Military in American Society (New York, 1972); Warren L. Young, Minorities and the Military: A Cross-National Study in World Perspective (Westport, Conn., 1982); Daniel K. Gibran, The 92'"' Infantry Division and the Italian Campaign in World War II (Jefferson, N.C., 2001). 8 Carl N. Degler, »Culture Versus Biology in the Thoughts of Franz Boas and Alfred L. Kroeber«, German Historical Institute Annual Lecture Series no. 2 (Washington, DC, 1989), and In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought (New York, 1991). 9 Robert Singerman, »The Jew as Racial Alien: The Genetic Component of American An- ti-Semitism«, in David Gerber, ed., Anti-Semitism in American History (Urbana and Chica- go, 1986), 103-128; and John Higham, Send These to Me: Immigration in Urban America (Baltimore, 1984). 10 Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought (New York, 1959), 171-184; John G. Clifford, The Citizen Soldiers: The Plattsburg Training Camp Movement, 1913-1920 (Lexington, KY, 1972), 39,57-58; Richard C. Brown, The Social Attitudes of American Gen- erals, 1898-1940 (New York, 1979), 34-39,87-97. 334 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky pies an unspoken prerequisite for professional success, few non-Anglo-Saxons could hope to reach the upper echelons of this institution. The conscription of large numbers of ethnic minorities and African-Americans during World War I had, in fact, hardened officer resistance to opening their cherished institution to the newcom- ers. During and long after that conflict, officers depicted foreign-born soldiers and those of a different ethnic background, particularly Jews, as unpatriotic, disloyal, radical, and cowardly. And the drastic postwar reduction of the army to 137,000 men and 14,000 officers helped retain the homogeneous selectivity and elitist na- ture of the officer corps. Nonetheless, throughout the interwar period, officers wor- ried about the subversive »alien« threat within the U.S. to military mobilization and the dependability and »combat value« of ethnics, especially the »foreign-born«, as rank and file soldiers in the next war11. The potential threat within the armed forces, however, was only one manifestation of a broader racial question facing America. It was a concern already deeply embedded in the culture of the officer corps. Before World War I, books on government and history assigned at the West Point Military Academy reflected the Social Darwinism of that day12. Further re- inforcement came from the military journals officers read after entering the corps. The Infantry Journal and Journal of the Military Service Institution popularized the importance of »natural selections« and »race struggle«. Primitive man »killed and preyed upon the weak in order that he might live; nature had taught him that life was continual warfare, in which the fittest survived.« Modern man »still follows the instinct to beat down his opponent«, because the »great and immutable [...] law of self-preservation« will »always govern man«. And »war is but [...] an agent of progress [...] in the development of civilization«13. The books and journals cadets and officers read also emphasized that evolu- tion had established hierarchies of superior and inferior races. Natural selection had permanently elevated whites above non-whites, as »in succession the black, brown, and yellow races have succumbed to the white, which now dominates, the exemplar of the highest type of civilization yet evolved14.« Therefore, military sur-

11 American Jewish Committee Archives, New York, AJC General Correspondence, 1906-1932, »Discrimination in the Armed Forces«; Major M.D. Wheeler to MID Direc- tor, March 19,1919, NACP, RG 165, MID 10560-152 (88); Major J.S. Richardson, »Contre- Espionage in the A.E.F.«, January 26,1920, NACP, RG 165, MID 10560-328 (162); Truman Smith, Berlin Alert: The Memoirs and Reports of Truman Smith, ed. Robert Hessen (Stan- ford, 1984), 11; U.S. Military History Institute Archives, Carlisle, PA (hereafter MHI), U.S. Army War College Archives (hereafter AWCA), 17-A, »Internal Stability of Nations«, February 16,1935,8,19,25; 6-1936-8, »Internal Stability of Nations«, February 1,1936,6, 11-12,15; 8-1939-10, »War Department Procedure in Mobilization«, December 23,1938, 3, 8; 6-1938-7, »Survey of United States«, February 26,1938, 45-46, 58-59. 12 James Dealey, The Development of the State (New York, 1909), 14-25, 45, 76-79, 304-314; William Swinton, Outlines of the World's History (New York, 1874), 2-4,72; George Fisher, Out- lines of Universal History (New York, 1885), 9,19,55,71-72,622; George Fisher, A Brief History of the Nations (New York, 1896), 3-5,48-58; Victor Duruy, General History of the World (New York, 1898), 1-6,38-44; Raymond Gettel, Introduction to Political Science (Boston, 1910), 33-39. 13 Henry C. Emery, »Some Economic Aspects of War«, Infantry Journal 10 (May-June 1914): 795-818; Major Evan M. Johnson, »The Philosophy of War«, Infantry Journal 8 (May-June 1912): 783-794; Captain Arthur P.S. Hyde, »The Evolution of Warfare«, Journal of the Mil- itary Service Institution 46 (1910): 103-104; Major C.A.P. Hatfield, »The Tendency of Evo- lution in the Army«, Journal of the Military Service Institution 21 (1897): 441. 14 Emery, »Economic Aspects of War« (n. 13 above), 818; Johnson, »Philosophy of War« (n. 13 above), 791-795. Racial Sentinels 335 geons warned of the dangers posed by the immigration of inferior races. The coun- try must protect itself against the »swarthy low-browed and stunted peoples now swarming to our shores«. The physical power of American soldiers stemmed from the fact that they were of the superior taller northern European races. By assimi- lating eastern European immigrants, Americans would »inevitably evolve [into] an inferior type«, and the country would suffer »the loss of national ascendancy15.« One of these army surgeons, Major Charles E. Woodruff, emerged as a leading Darwinian theorist. His books The Effects of Tropical Light on White Men and The Evo- lution of the Small Brain of Civilized Man, as well as his article on the »Complexion of Jews« in the American Journal of Insanity, were widely read within and outside the army. Woodruff's major Darwinian contribution, Expansion of Races (1909), sought to apply »to man the natural laws that are known to govern the spread of all species of plant or animal«. His abundant scientific data and meticulous analy- ses showed that »Man began his existence by murder of competitors and has con- tinued it ever since.« Instinct, the struggle for existence, war, overpopulation, and the extermination of competitors still characterized the basic nature of man and civilization. An advocate of Aryan racial superiority, Woodruff stated that »all low- er races in civilization, then, are actually a species of animal under domestication, increased in number hugely by the sanitation forced upon them and kept up by the Aryans.« Thus, the »Melting Pot« theory would be disastrous for America. The future greatness of the United States depended upon maintaining the racial puri- ty of its dominant Nordic or Aryan stock against racial bastardization caused by miscegenation. Woodruff cited recent eugenic and biological studies to verify that »the history of civilization shows that racial stocks are never mixed with profit16.« To Woodruff, Jews were a particular problem. Natural selection had produced in them inherited racial traits of selfishness, slyness, duplicity, physical weakness, and cowardice. Nature and history have thus determined that, with few excep- tions, Jews can never be expected to bear their share as citizens or soldiers. In fact, the Jew survives »by the spilling of the blood of his protectors«. In retrospect, Woodruff's description of Jews is chilling: »The Jew, then, is a typical illustration of a commensal race, welcomed as long as he renders a returning benefit but driven out or killed off as soon as he be- comes so numerous that he is a harmful parasite and a national disease. Euro- pean nations have repeatedly undergone a process of disinfection in this re- gard. The same law applies to the Jew as applies to a bacillus or any other or- ganism which may be beneficial if few and in place but deadly if numerous and out of place ...[J]ust as soon as he becomes so numerous as to be an economic disease he is eradicated. The persecution of the Jew, then, is and always has been a natural law, because it is necessary for the survival of the supporting or- ganism [... ] It is not a persecution of the Jew as Jew, but an extermination of an invading disease17.« Woodruff warned that the United States was reaching the point where these par- asitic Jews posed the dual threat of commercial control and racial degeneracy to

15 Major Henry S. Kilboume, »The Physical Proportions of the American Soldier«, Journal of the Military Service Institution 22 (1898): 50-61. 16 Charles E. Woodruff, Expansion of Races (New York, 1909), v-vi, 118-137,268-273,379-387. 17 Ibid., 379-385; Charles E. Woodruff, »The Complexion of the Jews«, American Journal of Insanity 62 (1905-1906): 327-333. 336 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky its cities and population. Perpetuating filth, disease, vice, crime, and perversity, as well as generally undermining key social values and religion, Jews would certainly soon suffer an anti-Semitic purge by Americans that equaled any in their history18.

Racial Theory at the U.S. Army War College

Racial science and biological anti-Semitism would be elaborated, institutionalized, and perpetuated through instruction at the Army War College in Washington, DC. Racial theory constituted a part of the teaching at that institution throughout the entire inter-war period, especially during the 1920s. The highly selective War Col- lege trained officers for war planning and the upper echelons of high command. Graduates were cultivated to become the »brains of the army« by serving on the General Staff. During this period almost 2000 officers went through the War Col- lege. This is an important number considering that at any given time the army on- ly had 14,000 active officers at all levels. 600 of the 1000 generals in World War II were alumni of this institution. Not limited to military affairs, War College educa- tion addressed broader questions of politics, international affairs, economics, and psychology19. Instruction was provided by a faculty of military officers, supple- mented by numerous lectures by other military and civilian personnel, including dignitaries and university professors. Among these outside instructors were some of America's most renowned racial theorists and eugenicists. In October 1921, Charles Davenport, was invited to lecture on »racial con- sciousness and inherited racial characteristics« related to war and peace. Perhaps the country's leading eugenicist, he was the director of the Genetics Research In- stitute at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. His talk ranged from history, biology, in- telligence tests and comparisons with animal breeds to studies of the behavioral traits of German and Jewish schoolgirls in New York. His lesson was the inescapable determinism of heredity. »Man is an animal« subject to the same laws of nature that »have been worked out in related animals that are lower on the scale«. Dav- enport also demonstrated to officers the proper scientific technique for differenti- ating between the Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean races. The key was stature, hair and eye color, and cephalic index, which he showed them how to measure. Equally important, though, were the widely varying intellectual and behavioral qualities of various races. This had been recently verified by the Army Intelligence tests. Those of English or Nordic origin ranked among the most intelligent, while those from other races fell within the lowest categories. Davenport emphasized that those from Russia and Poland, who »must have been [...] largely Jews«, scored among the lowest. Thus, officers had to be recruited from »races with higher lev- els of intelligence«20.

18 Woodruff, Expansion of Races (n. 16 above), 385-387. 19 George S. Pappas, Prudens Futuri! The U.S. Army War College, 1901-1967 (Carlisle, PA, 1968), 40-45,86,124,136-137; »Personnel of the Army War College, 1925-1926«, NACP, RG 165, MID 238-B-ll (57); Henry G. Gole, »War Planning at the War College in the Mid- 1930s«, Parameters: Journal of the U.S. Army War College 15 (Spring 1985): 55-56, 63. 20 Charles B. Davenport, »Racial Features in War«, October 29,1921, 2-7, MHI. Racial Sentinels 337

Equally foreboding, Davenport argued that war and revolutions have a »bio- logical base«. Peculiar »hereditary racial qualities [...] may cause social unrest«, culminating in upheavals like the French and Russian Revolutions, where the more numerous »lower stratum« led by malcontented intellectual types, killed off the »most capable classes«. This results when the traits of the »paranoiac« blend with »the tendency to reform«, which is also a hereditary characteristic. Although Dav- enport made no specific reference to Jews, these were the very characteristics at- tributed to Jews by racial theorists and by many of the readings assigned to offi- cers at the War College. Davenport's future prognosis was of continual Darwinian struggle as racial instincts, immigration, and overpopulation led to clashes over space and resources. Not surprisingly, he rejected categorically any solution that in- volved race mixing. That would undermine the very foundations of civilization, which rested upon the purity of the superior races21. Well into the 1930's other prominent racial theorists at the War College echoed these scientific racial lessons for the army and all America. Anthropology profes- sors from Columbia University, like the chair of the psychology department at Har- vard University, William McDougall, reiterated the danger of assimilating alien races. An advocate of Nordic racial superiority, McDougall called not only for im- migration restriction and racial segregation but also for a national eugenics pro- gram to protect the racial homogeneity of America22. The racial theorist who lectured most frequently at the War College, Henry Pratt Fairchild of New York University, had achieved national fame through his 1926 book, The Melting Pot Mistake. The folly of the assimilationist myth, he stated, could have meant racial disaster to America had not the restrictive immigration law of 1924 cut off the influx of the inferior races. His annual lecture on population at the War College was a model of scientific racism. His was a Malthusian world of un- limited reproduction and limited food supply, in which the unavoidable fact of life was »slaughter«, »starvation«, and »wholesale killing« in nature and for humans. It was a kind of geopolitical Darwinism of perpetual struggle over space and re- sources. Here, he echoed the voices of other racial theorists who instructed offi- cers: »overpopulation« was the root of all war. The only ways short of war to deal with this fact of life were eugenics, birth control, and sterilization23. Racial teaching was, however, not limited to eugenicists like Fairchild. Speak- ers from the Commerce and State Departments, together with the renowned Prince- ton Orientalist, Herbert Adams Gibbons, reinforced such thinking by interjecting inherited racial traits to explain the problematic social and political behavior of Italians and Russians. The credibility of such racial theories was perhaps best es- tablished by prominent fellow officers who ran the War College or lectured at it. That institution was directed between 1927 and 1932 by a leading army Darwinian thinker, General William D. Connor, who thereafter served as superintendent of West Point until 1938. This highly respected commanding officer was a lifelong

21 Ibid., 8,17-21. 22 Clark Wissler, »Racial Problems Involved in International Relations«, November 2,1921, 7, 19-28, MHI, AWCA 215-40; William McDougall, »Race as a Factor in Causation of War«, April 15,1924,1-7, MHI, AWCA 274A-37. 23 Henry P. Fairchild, »Problems of Population«, October 14,1932,1-2, MHI, AWCA G-l, 10; »Population«, 1935, AWCA G-l, 6,1936, and »Population«, October 29,1936,1-14, MHI, Frank J. McSherry Papers, box Army War College, 1936-37. 338 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky friend and influential mentor of Eisenhower. Connor gave Darwinian lectures that rivaled those of the university professors. He invoked laws of nature, biological determinism, and survival of the fittest to explain American foreign policy, as well as why Bolshevism was doomed to failure24. Another War College instructor, Colonel Preston Brown, former aide to General Pershing, cited extensively from the army's own Darwinian theorist, Charles Woodruff. Brown used Woodruff's Expansion of Races to show how the »instinct for race preservation« and perpetual struggle for resources caused all wars. Like species in nature, a race must triumph or die out25. Military Intelligence officers who lectured in the early 1920s reinforced the di- rect relationship between such racial ideas and the immediate problem of immi- gration. Some of these intelligence officers were, at that very time, involved in the secret surveillance of Jews at home and abroad. To MID officers, the core of the radical and revolutionary danger facing America came from immigrant popula- tions crowed into cities like New York and Chicago. Jews, they argued, made up the bulk of most revolutionary groups and controlled the leadership of others26. In addition to lectures, officers studying at the War College worked directly with racial issues through assigned committee and individual reports. Among the topics covered by such assignments were Bolshevik influence, European minori- ties, and »International problems of race and color«. The sources for such reports were reading lists provided on each topic that reinforced what they heard in lec- tures. This was especially true regarding race and Jews. On race, William Ripley's, The Races of Europe, stood out as the authority and established the idea of Nordic supremacy. Two of the writers most highly regarded by officers were the racial the- orists Gustave Le Bon and Lothrop Stoddard. From Le Bon and Stoddard, officers learned that the stability of Nordic or Anglo-Saxon societies was due to their racial homogeneity. Race mixing was at the heart of the instability of the rest of the world27. Several works by Stoddard on these assigned lists instructed officers of the inher- ited racial characteristics of Jews so detrimental to America. Modern Jews were an Asiatic hybrid race, Stoddard wrote, whose inferior Mongoloid traits were readi- ly apparent. Jews could never become a part of, or even understand, American so- ciety and government. Their racial traits would inevitably lead them to try to over- throw all that Americans cherished28. Other books by members of the New York Geological Society on race problems in the New World and the Old offered a similar warning against immigration of racial inferiors. These writers pointed to the European experience, where suppos- edly selfish, clannish Jews crowded into Ghetto slums from which they controlled

24 General William D. Connor, monologue, MHI, AWCA G-2 Course, 1931-1932, vol. 2, 29-30, and »Some Aspects of the Foreign Policies of the United States«, January 25,1929, 13-15, AWCA Course at AWC, 1928-1929, G-2, Doc Nos 1-18, vol. 2. 25 Major Preston Brown, »Population and Food«, September 6,1919, MHI, AWCA Course in Intelligence, 1919-1920, vol. 2, Intelligence Lectures, 61. 26 Major William W. Hicks, »Estimates of the Radical or Revolutionary Situation in the Unit- ed States«, December 16,1920,1-2, 22, NACP, RG 165, MID 10058-984 (1). 27 »G-2 Orientation and Outline of the Course«, January 3-February 5,1927, Section V: In- dividual Reports«, MHI, AWCA 332A-4; »General References, G-2 Course«, 1922-1923, »Compilation of Book Reviews«, G-2 Course, 1927-1928, »Selections from Library Ac- cessions«, May and December 1924, »G-2 Factors in War Planning«, NACP, RG 165, MID 238-B-3 (95,325); 238-B-ll (47,113,154). 28 Lothrop Stoddard, Racial Realities in Europe (New York, 1924), foreword, 26-27,144-145, 171-172, 231-246. Racial Sentinels 339

the economies of various countries. Jewish racial and economic interests were al- ways separate and contrary to those of the host country. Not prejudice, but this selfish Jewish control and power was actually the cause of anti-Semitism. The Jew was a destabilizing force in Europe by promoting unaccountable international cap- italism, as well as international socialism. Both undermined the economic and po- litical foundations of nations, to which the »International Jew« never had any loy- alty29. In all of the surviving bibliographies, assigned readings, and student citations, only two works offered any kind of counterbalance to these racist and anti-Semit- ic views. Both were by American progressives who said little on the subject. Her- bert Adams Gibbons attacked nativist paranoia about immigrants. To him, educa- tion and environment could transform Jews into Americans. However, even Gib- bons demanded total and absolute assimilation by Jews. Unlike their place in Eu- rope, Jews must completely lose any Jewish identity in favor an American one. Zionism, he wrote, was the last effort »to preserve the Ghetto for those whose re- ligion cannot thrive outside the Ghetto.« John Spargo, on the other hand, had no such reservations. In his The Jew and American Ideals (1921), he refuted the Jewish conspiracy theories then in circulation and condemned anti-Semitism as contrary to American ideals. Spargo's influence, though, is difficult to determine. While works by Stoddard usually showed up on bibliographies and in student reports, Spargo's book was listed only on one surviving bibliography. No references to Spar- go or resonance of his ideas could be found in reports written by officers30. Readings and lecturers were augmented by Military Intelligence reports on file at the War College. The information most relevant to Jews and race was contained in the Psychological sections of attaché reports and intelligence monographs. Many of the most important of these emanated from the Army's Racial Psychology Pro- ject between 1920 and 1922. Using the racial psychology of the day, MID under- took a grandiose project to develop a predictive psychological manual on all ma- jor nations and movements throughout the world. This included identifying the characteristics and intelligence of each »national brain« as evidenced by head shape, brain weight, and environmental influences. For years, military attaches around the globe collected and analyzed such racial material from their host countries31. One

29 Archibald and Ethel Colquhoun, The Whirlpool of Europe: Austria-Hungary and the Habs- burgs (New York, 1914), 109-111,154-156,173-176,223,301; »Restrictive Measures in the Treaty of Versailles and Significant Factors in the Problems of the So-Called European Minorities«, January 20,1928, MHI, AWCA 342-5; Leon Dominion, The Frontiers of Lan- guage and Nationality in Europe (New York, 1917), xiii-xvi, 124-127,301; »Significant Fac- tors in World Politics and Social Conditions«, January 20,1928,4-6,12, NACP, RG 165, MID 238-B-ll (115); Isaiah Bowman, The New World Problems in Political Geography (Yonkers, NY, 1921), 380-382,420-421 and Supplement to New World Problems in Geography (Yonkers, NY 1924), 12-17,25-30; »European Colonization«, February 6,1926, bibliography, MHI, AWCA 315-A/35. 30 Herbert Adams Gibbons, The Reconstruction of Poland and the Near East (New York, 1917), 52-53, 212-218; The New Map of Europe (New York, 1914), 107-108, and The New Map of Asia (Chautuaqua, NY, 1919), 192-228; John Spargo, The Jew and American Ideals (New York, 1921), foreword, 6-13, 40-47, 60-71, 76, 90-91, 136-137; Army War College, »Se- lections from Library Accessions«, May 1924,4, NACP, RG 165, MID 238-B-3 (95). 31 NACP, RG 165, MID 2656; MID 2665-1-17-19; MID 2665-9. See also Joseph W. Bendersky, »Psychohistory before Hitler: Early Military Analyses of German National Psychology«, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 24 (April 1988): 166-182. 340 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky of the most complete reports that survived came from the military attaché in Japan. In meticulous detail, he identified the racial characteristics of Japanese of different social classes and gender. Japanese studies of hundreds of brains and head shapes proved that lower class Japanese were more Mongolian and the aristocrats of su- perior Malay blood. According to the attaché, however, the brain capacity of even Japanese aristocrats could never reach that of the »fully developed races of North- ern Europe«32. Although the monograph compiled on Jews was either lost or destroyed, some of the reports that constituted part of it did survive. Almost all references to Jews were negative. Typically, they were described as racially inferior, economic para- sites, Bolsheviks, and disloyal aliens who could not be assimilated. Some reports were distinctly Darwinian. In 1921, the U.S. military attaché in Warsaw wrote that the »Semitic race [in Poland] has separate anatomical characteristics; they are all brachycephalic; the West Jews show the influence of their racial sojourn in West- ern Europe.« With precise scientific measurements, this officer documented the dif- ferences in skull shape and size and physical stature of Polish, Lithuanian, and Galician Jews. The average cephalic index (C.I.) of the male »Polish type Jew«, for example, was 82 and his height 162 centimeters. These data clearly demonstrated that Eastern Jews had the inferior brachycephalic head type (C.I. 81-85.4) as com- pared to the skulls of the dolichocephalic Nordic race (75.9)33. War College teaching and reading greatly affected the attitudes of officers and army policies. Reports written by officers studying at the War College often relied upon racial theories and works. Into the 1930s, some officer reports used the cephal- ic index to distinguish between different races. They contrasted the »broader-head- ed, darker types« of racially Alpine southern Germans from the North Germans who were racially »more nearly akin to the Anglo-Saxons«34. They used inherited racial characteristics to explain the behavioral characteristics of Italians, Russians, Ger- mans, Poles, and so on. Officer committees sometimes assessed a country's war-mak- ing capacity on the basis of such racial criteria. As a »Latin race with an extreme- ly temperamental mind« deficient in logic and discipline, Italians were simply »not a military race«35. Psychological estimates of Russians warned of the dangers of racial miscegenation. A hybrid of lower Slavic races and »Asiatic blood«, Russians remained »inferior mentally and morally« to Europeans and, like all mixed races or countries with large racial minorities, had »poor« psychological capacity for war36. Various officer committees pointed out that the history of Eastern Europe def- initely proved the debilitating effects of racial diversity. In Poland, »lack of homo- geneity [...] in race, religion, and customs caused extreme unrest«. And of all the

32 Major Charles Burnett to MID Director, November 1,1920, NACP, RG 165, MID 2656-H- 10-11. 33 »Poland: Psychologic Factor«, May 5,1921, 2-7, NACP, RG 165, MID 2656-DD-18. 34 »Estimate of the Strategic Situation, Germany«, December 18,1930,17, MHI, AWCA 372- 4A. 35 »Strategical Estimate of Italy«, December 17,1931, 4-7, MHI, AWCA 382-3B. 36 »Current Estimate of Comparative Military Power«, January 14,1927,5, MHI, AWCA 332- 2; »European Colonization«, February 6,1926,16, AWCA 315-A/35; »Strategic Survey of Union of Socialist Soviet Republics«, December 20,1932,30, AWCA 392-5B; »Intelligence Summary of Estimate on European Russia«, September 30,1919,7-8, AWCA 57-15; »Sum- mary of Estimate on Russia«, October 14,1922,1-3,13, AWCA 251-9. Racial Sentinels 341

»disturbing internal factors the most serious menace [was] the Jewish question«. Whether in Austria, Hungary or Poland, both assimilated and unassimilated Jews formed a separate entity acting in their own selfish interest. Their peculiar inher- ited racial characteristics produced mental qualities that allowed them to domi- nate economies and the press37. And »the principal advocates of Bolshevism are Jews«. Race, politics, and national security were inextricably intermixed in the minds of these officers38. In the early 1920's, they identified »Russian Jews...[as] an especially dangerous class of immigrants«39. Crowded Jewish ghettos in Amer- ican cities were seedbeds of revolution. Equally significant, this different racial stock, by its very nature, posed a real threat to Anglo-Saxon America. Officers doubted their country could assimilate »the Slavic, Jewish and other lesser ele- ments in such a manner that the inherent value of Anglo-Saxonism be not lost or submerged«40. Certainly not all officers were affected in the same way by such racial theory. Some might have been entirely resistant to such ideas. Others probably agreed with parts, but were perhaps less interested in such non-military subjects. Still others probably embodied non-racial traditional forms of religious, cultural, or political anti-Semitism. However, the pervasiveness of these racial ideas would be difficult to deny. There is no evidence available suggesting any attempt by instructors or students to challenge, modify, or counterbalance the dominant racial viewpoint expressed in the lectures, readings, and reports at the War College. Racial and anti-Semitic War College instruction reflected and institutionalized the general cultural mindset of the officer corps. Military Intelligence files, as well as abundant documentation regarding officers outside of MID, indicate widespread racism and anti-Semitism41. A prime example of this pervasive mentality is found among U.S. military attachés. In social background, education, and experience, at- tachés were quite typical of the officer corps in general. No distinction could be found between the attitudes of career MID officers, those who rotated in and out of MID, or those from other sections of the army. Into the 1930s, reports written in-

37 »Poland«, October 1,1919, in General Staff College, 1919-1920,2, Intelligence, pt. 2, »Com- mittee Reports«, 174-178, MHI, AWCA; »Summary of Estimate of Poland«, September 20,1921,3, AWCA 225-3; »Significant Factors in World Political and Social Conditions«, January 20,1928,4-6,12, NACP, RG 165, MID 238-B-ll (115); »Austria-Hungary«, in Gen- eral Staff College, 1919-1920, 2, Intelligence, pt. 2, September 24,1919, 81, AWCA; »Suc- cession States of the Austro-Hungarian Empire«, September 20-21,1921,2-3,10,17, 34, and appendix, September 20,1921,15, AWCA 224-2,225-2A. 38 »Summary of Estimate on Russia«, September 30, October 1-2, 1920, 9-11, MHI, AW- CA 83-12/B; »Summary of Estimate on Russia«, September 28-29, 1921, 1-3, NACP, RG 165, MID 238-B-ll (5); »Summary of Estimate on Russia«, October 14,1922,1-2, MHI, AWCA 251-9; »Bolshevik Influence and Its Importance«, February 5,1927, 1-2, AW- CA 332A-28. 39 »Bolshevism«, October 1,1920, 3-6, 9-12, 25-27, NACP, RG 165, MID 10058-910-1. 40 »Estimate of the United States: Psychological Situation«, October 18, 1919, 9-10, MHI, AWCA 57-31/c; »Estimate of the United States«, pt. 3 »Military Situation«, October 21, 1919,5, AWCA 57-31. 41 Although many were destroyed, there are references to approximately 2000 MID reports on Jews, most written in the 1920s and early 1930s, scattered throughout its enormous intelligence collection files. See MID Military Intelligence Subject Index, »Jews: Race«, March 1918-August 1941, NACP, RG 165, MID. However, MID also developed a sepa- rate file specifically devoted to Jews, MID 245-1/151; and one devoted to The Protocols of the Elders ofZion, MID 99-75. 342 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky dependently by attachés across Europe show remarkable consistency and unifor- mity in their racial anti-Semitism, which often expressed the most extreme variant of this thinking. From Bucharest, Budapest, Riga and Warsaw to Berlin, Bern, and Vienna attachés invoked science, biology and ethnography to describe and decry problematic inherited Jewish characteristics. Innate slyness and instinct for business led to selfish Jewish exploitation of economies, while their intrinsic radicalism and disloyalty made them the chief source of Bolshevism. Jews supposedly launched the Russian Revolution, controlled the Soviet Union and fomented world revolu- tion42. One of the most respected military attachés, William A. Godson, was »thor- oughly convinced of the reality of a Jewish movement to dominate the world«43. Racial concerns and anti-Bolshevism led to the direct political engagement of the army with the »Jewish Question« throughout the post-World War I decade. Following policy directives from its Washington headquarters, MID conducted sys- tematic investigations of Jews at home and abroad44. Whether dealing with revo- lutionary upheaval in Europe or subversion in the United States, officers repeatedly identified the »International Jew« as a threat to the stability and security of the country. Even though doubts existed about the authenticity of the Protocols of the El- ders of Zion, MID provided every intelligence office with a copy for »assistance in the study and observation of the Jewish movement within our country«45. Some officers even placed credibility in secret reports such as »The Power and Aims of International Jewry« which purported to prove that »the Jewish movement, if per- mitted to develop unchecked [...] might approach actual world control46.« Although it is difficult to determine how many officers accepted this extremist version of the danger, by the early 1920s, MID had definitely concluded that Bolshevism was, in fact, a conspiracy of International Jews47.

42 For example, see »Poland. Jewish Problem«, November 24, 1920, NACP, RG 165, MID 10059-153 (3), 10059-90; »Poland. Psychological Factor«, MID 2656-DD-18,9; »Jew- ism«, May 18,1921, MID 245-98; »Bolshevik Russia«, July 15,1921, MID 10058-1174 (1); »Hungarian Social Customs«, May 1> 1921, »Hungary Not to Be Judged from Budapest Alone«, May 26,1921 MID 2656-GG-13/14; »The Jewish Question«, June 3,1921, MID 245- 100; »National Faults...Racial«, May 2,1921, MID 2556-GG-9; »Racial Character of the Austrians«, October 10, 1920, MID 2656-FF-l; »Germany and Anti-Semitism«, April 6, 1920, MID 2656-B-2; »The Jew, The Lett and the Russian. Their Relative Roles in Soviet Russia«, December 14, 1920, MID 2656-D-17; »The Jewish Mondial Movement«, De- cember 6,1920, MID 245-70 (1). 43 Colonel William Godson to Major Sherman Miles, February 21, 1921, NACP, RG 165, MID 245-48 (41). 44 For a comprehensive examination of .the army's engagement with the Jewish question in the first half of the twentieth century see Joseph W. Bendersky, The »Jewish Threat«: An- ti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army (New York, 2000). 45 »International Movements or Isms«, June 10,1920, NACP, RG 165, MID 10058-586 (10); »A Brief Sketch of the Important International Movements or Isms«, MID 110-2048 (1); MID 245-48 (6, 29,35, 41,45). 46 »The Power and Aims of International Jewry«, August 1919, NACP, RG 165, MID 245-1; »Judaism and the Present World Movement - A Study«, September 29,1919, MID 245- 15(1), 18-19. 47 »Zionist Men of Wisdom«, October 11,1919; »The Jews«, December 27,1919, in Weekly Intelligence Summary, ed. Richard D. Challener, United States Military Intelligence, 1917-1927 (New York, 1978), 10:1998; 11: 2592. Racial Sentinels 343

Army Opposition to Jewish Immigration and Refugees

Prompted by fears of racial degeneration and presumed Jewish subversion, MID officers took an active part in passage of the restrictive immigration laws of the 1920s. Attaché and domestic intelligence reports went routinely to top officers on the General Staff, who shared them with congressmen and the government de- partments involved with immigration, primarily state and justice. They intensi- fied the anti-Semitic paranoia of Americans generally and political decision-mak- ers in particular. As indicated by the 1921 Attaché Conference in Coblenz, offi- cers did much more than merely forward intelligence on Jews. These officers saw themselves as racial sentinels, whose duty it was to actively counteract the »dan- ger to our country«. They took the initiative in urging Congress to take action. They supplied that legislative body, as well as other government agencies, with the alarmist data to both prompt and justify the immediate passage of stringent, racially restrictive immigration laws. Their alarmist intelligence constituted an important part of the hearings, evidence, and reports within Congress. The lead- ing restrictionist congressman, Albert Johnson of Washington, used this intelli- gence to substantiate that these Jews were of the »decidedly inferior type, phys- ically, mentally, and morally«. Bolshevik sympathizers, Jews caused most of the political agitation against organized government. Basically, »it was impossible to overestimate the peril of [this] class of immigrants«48. Even a good deal of the in- formation on Jewish immigration in the articles and books of leading intellectu- al activists for restriction came directly from military attachés in Europe. One se- cret report noted »Jew societies [...] expedite scum of Europe«. »70% are females and males under 18. 95% are Jews: all but 30% are ready to breed49.« At home, officers delivered public lectures against the influx of these »fren- zied masses of low brows« causing the »degeneracy of our sons and daughters as the result of the infusion of alien blood«50. The widely read Infantry Journal published articles and editorials on the necessity of »scientific selection« of im- migrants to guard America against undesirable, disease-ridden, radical elements51. A 1921 article in the Infantry Journal explicitly related Jews to »a real conspiracy of world revolution«52. The major veterans organization, the politically influen- tial American Legion, launched a national propaganda and lobbying campaign to halt the influx of these »alien hordes« of physically, mentally and behavioral- ly deficient »racial stocks«. Among others, the American Legion Weekly published

48 House, Temporary Suspension of Immigration, 66lh Cong. 3rd sess., 1920, H.R. 1109,3-11; »Em- igration of Undesirables to the United States«, February 7, 1921, NACP, RG 165, MID 10058-2127; »Jewism in Roumanie«, February 21,1921, MID 245-8 (6); MID 245-71 (2-6); MID 245-75. 49 Kenneth L. Roberts, Notebooks, Library of Congress (hereafter LC), Kenneth L. Roberts Pa- pers; Kenneth L. Roberts, Why Europe Leaves Home (Indianapolis, IN, 1922), 76-79,122-123; »Emigration of Undesirables to the United States«, MID 10058-2127. 50 Colonel Benjamin M. Bailey, »Americanism and Guts«, »Aliens«, and an untitled lecture manuscript, Atlanta Historical Society, Atlanta, GA, Benjamin M. Bailey Papers. 51 Infantry Journal 18 (January 1921): 89-90, (March 1921): 291-293; 21 (August 1922): 219; 22 (April 1923): 371-386; 24 (March 1924): 639-642. 52 »History of World Revolution«, Infantry Journal 19 (August 1921): 174-188. 344 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky lengthy eugenics articles by the Princeton biologist Edwin Conklin, warning Americans not to »debase the heredity of our people by admixture with inferior stock«53. Active-duty and retired officers had contributed significantly to strengthening the restrictionist cause by heightening concern over an incessant flood of politi- cally radical and racially inferior southern and eastern Europeans. Moreover, John B. Trevor, a former wartime chief of MID's New York office closely involved in the surveillance of Jews, became a pivotal force in the design and passage of the re- strictionists immigration legislation of 1924. As confidential adviser to restriction- ist congressmen, Trevor actually conceived the racial quota system of that law. Un- til the 1950's, Trevor remained the primary force in the powerful anti-immigrant lob- by in America. The 1924 law not only drastically reduced immigration to 150,000 annually but it instituted national quotas to essentially cut off Jewish immigration while giving preference to immigrants from Northern Europe54. The passage of the 1924 restrictive immigration law alleviated much of the fear manifested by officers about being overrun by racial inferiors. However, racial an- ti-Semitism did not disappear with the relief nativist officers felt because of this decisive legislation. Into the 1930s, Darwinian theories still pervaded army man- uals on Filipinos and reports contrasting inferior »orientals« and the creative white race55. General MacArthur's deputy chief of staff, General George Van Horn Mose- ley, engaged in long erudite eugenic discourses on human breeding to protect the country from inferior racial stocks56. And Colonel Kenyon Joyce, MID chief in New York, filed alarmist reports about subversive Jews -«a veritable cesspool of undi- gestible foreign elements«57. Although later during the immense military expansion in World War II the army would become far more diverse in its ethnic make-up and attitudes, these earlier generations of officers would serve in decision-making capacities during the refugee crisis of the 1930s and during the Holocaust. It is difficult to imagine that the racial ideas found throughout the culture of the officer corps did not affect their views on refuge, relief, and rescue for Jews. Indeed, the army zealously opposed any immi- gration of Jewish refugees before, during, and after World War II. Moreover, in the forefront of action to keep America's gates closed to Jews were retired generals Amos Fries and Ralph van Deman, father of American Military Intelligence. Among the various arguments invoked to retain current restrictions, racial ones were no

53 American Legion Weekly, August 8,22, November 21,1919, January 12, July 20, August 3, November 2,1923. 54 Congressman Albert Johnson to John B. Trevor, April 15,1924, NACP, RG 233, HR-68A- F18.3; John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Natwism, 1860-1925 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1955), 316-324; Robert Divine, American Immigration Policy, 1925-1952 (New York, 1972); John B. Trevor, An Analysis of the American Immigration Act of 1924 (New York, 1924). 55 Psychology of the Filipino, ed. Headquarters Philippine Department, U.S. Army, NACP, RG 165, MID 2656-ZZ-3; »A Survey of the Caucasian in the Territory of Hawaii«, Janu- ary 1930, MID 9605-97 (1-3). 56 General George Van Horn Moseley to Herbert Corey, May 24,1932,557-564, LC, George Van Horn Moseley Papers, container 9. 57 »General Subversive Situation«, February 3,1932, NACP, RG 407, Adjutant General Of- fice, A.G. 0000.24 (2-2-32), 1-6; »Communist Party USA«, July 1932, RG 165, MID 10110- 2662 (12) 1-5. Racial Sentinels 345

longer thrust forward as they had been in the nativist 1920s. In fact, restrictionists avoided even using the word »Jew«, though everyone knew Jews were the central issue. Nazism had made racial theory and anti-Semitism less acceptable in public discourse. But in certain testimonies, including that provided by retired general Fries, arguments based on blood and homogeneity surfaced. So, too, did claims that the inferior types constituted a menace to civilization58. In the midst of the refugee crisis of 1938, General George Van Horn Moseley, among America's most decorated generals and a former candidate for chief of staff, became a cause célèbre. Speaking before a group of reserve officers on American manpower, Moseley placed the refugee question in the context of the hereditary degeneracy that was undermining the country and the military's manpower pool. America should only accept Jewish refugees, he argued, if they were first »steril- ized« so that these racial inferiors would not procreate: »Only that way can we properly protect our future59.« Moseley was a Darwinian thinker who soon proved to be one of America's most extreme racial anti-Semites. His close friend, chief of staff, General Malin Craig, initially thought the whole affair rather funny. But the public uproar soon forced the army to reprimand Moseley and claim that such ideas were neither reflective of army thinking, nor would they be tolerated by that institution. Privately Moseley was informed this had to be done for political rea- sons60. Upon his retirement the following year, Moseley began to articulate a eugen- ics program for America similar to the one he admired in Nazi Germany, includ- ing »selective breeding, sterilization, the elimination of the unfit, and the elimi- nation of those types which are inimical to the general welfare of the nation61.« In elaborate writing, he explained the objectionable hereditary characteristics of »un- clean, animal-like« Jews who sought to destroy Christian civilization. Through in- ternational finance and communism, Jews get control of economies and then gov- ernments. America should learn from the German model of protecting itself against this danger. He advocated a »worldwide policy, which will result in breeding all Jewish blood out of the human race«62. Although the outspoken Moseley had be- come a liability for the army, two of that institution's most prominent figures, men he had personally mentored, never repudiated him. Ignoring his racial extrem- ism and vile anti-Semitism, both Marshall and Eisenhower retained their admi- ration for Moseley as a soldier and remained in contact with him until his death in the 1950s63 In 1934, Eisenhower considered Moseley a »man of great moral

58 Bendersky, The »Jewish Threat« (n. 44 above), 242-246. 59 General George Van Horn Moseley to General Malin Craig, May 18,1938, LC, Moseley Papers, box 9. 60 General Malin Craig to Moseley, October 3,1938, LC, Moseley Papers, box 9. 61 Moseley, »One Soldier's Story« (unpublished manuscript), vol. 3 (1940), 100-115,136-138, 219, LC, Moseley Papers. 62 Ibid. 3:22-24, 37-38,155, 215-219; 4: preface. 63 General George C. Marshall to General George Van Horn Moseley, September 9,1938, in Larry Bland, ed., The Papers of George Catiett Marshall (Baltimore, 1981,1986), 3:626; Mar- shall to Moseley, August, October 1940, January 1945, George C. Marshall Foundation, Lexington, VA, George C. Marshall Papers, box 77, folders 6-7; Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939-1942 (New York, 1986), 2:12-13; Ed Cray, General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman (New York, 1990), 6-7,118, 479. 346 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky courage«, his »most intimate friend«, and the best candidate for chief of staff. One could even detect some influence on the Eisenhower of the early 1930s, who nick- named »Dictator Ike« favored »virtual dictatorship« by the president to restore the country and so that »we will be freed from the pernicious influence of noisy and selfish minorities«64. As late as the 1960s, Eisenhower wrote fondly of Mose- ley as a »patriotic American unafraid to disagree with a consensus«, whose »out- spoken reaction to public questions [...] got him bad press« and created a »dis- tortion« of what Moseley really represented65. At a time when Roosevelt era America was becoming more socially progres- sive and Nazi oppression discredited racial theories in public discourse, Moseley stood out as an extremist. But the Darwinian thinking underlying his position had been part of army culture for decades. Less than a year before Moseley's refugee controversy, two prominent racial theorists, Henry Fairchild and Lothrop Stod- dard, still taught biological racism at the War College, the Naval War College, and the Army Industrial College. However, Franz Boas and Alfred Kroeber, the two anthropologists rising to international prominence at the time by challenging racial theory, were never invited to lecture at the War College. Fairchild and Stoddard promoted eugenics and criticized efforts to open America to refugees. The United States had prudently closed its gates to the »enormous hordes of foreigners«. Sci- ence had proven, they argued, the need to maintain racial purity by restricting im- migration. Darwinian ideas made both intellectuals quite understanding of German expansionism as part of the »search for survival and existence«66. During the 1930s, officer reports at the War College also showed a continuation of racial thinking af- fecting their analyses. Some officers still relied upon Le Bon's racial theories, while others used Ripley's Races of Europe. Officers invoked Malthusian concepts to es- tablish that the fundamental causes of wars were »economic and biological«67. One officer committee in 1935 rejected »blood relationships« in favor of »linguistic groups« when describing »Slavic, Teutonic, or Latin races«68. However, this was the exception, as some officers routinely employed inherited racial characteristics to differentiate Nordic Germans from mongrelized oriental Russians. As late as 1940, War College officers would contend that »the natural instincts of the race evolved by centuries cannot be eradicated in a generation or two«69. That same year, Colonel Dean Hudnutt identified the »grave menace« posed by Jews as one

M «Moseley«, Eisenhower Diaries, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS (hereafter DDEL), Kevin McCann Papers, box 1; Eisenhower Diary, February 29, October 29,1933; Eisenhower to Moseley, January 24,1934, Eisenhower Papers PPP, box 84; Eisenhower to Moseley, April 26,1937, Eisenhower Papers, box 84; Eisenhower Diaries, 1935-1938, box 1. 65 Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends (New York, 1967), 213. 66 Henry P. Fairchild, »Population«, October 29,1936, MHI, McSherry Papers, box: Army War College 1936-1937; Lothrop Stoddard, »The Racial Factor as a Determinant in National Policies«, April 26, 1937, MHI, AWCA 221-37-30; Lothrop Stoddard, »An Impressionistic Survey of World Affairs«, May 22, 1939, NACP, RG 165, MID 248-86 (206). 67 Colonel C.A. Seone, »Military Aspects of Economic Recovery: A Political-Economic Pa- per«, March 15,1936, 2-3,44-46, MHI, AWCA 221-37-31. 68 «Strategic Survey of Poland and the Little Entente«, January 7, 1935,1-3, 17-18, 85-86, MHI, AWCA 2-1935-4. 69 «Survey of Soviet Socialist Republics«, January 24,1940,16, MHI, AWCA 2-1940-7; »Strate- gic Survey of the USSR«, January 23,1939,3-4 and discussion section, 2, AWCA 2-1939- 5; »Strategic Survey of the USSR«, January 10,1935, 2, AWCA 2-1935-7. Racial Sentinels 347 of the central »Political and Racial Reasons for the Collapse of the Polish Army«, and cautioned that the »American army should not be made up of the scum of Eu- rope«70. One change was that when dealing with Jews officers at the War College ap- peared less likely to rely specifically upon biological arguments. Nazism had taint- ed that kind of racism. Nonetheless, the political and cultural anti-Semitism of the officer corps continued to characterize their analyses. What had earlier been dis- tinctly biological arguments regarding Jews were now phrased in euphemistic terms of »undesirable« types who retain »alien ideals«, lack the capacity for self- government, promote subversion, and do not assimilate rapidly71. And underlying racial assumptions did occasionally surface. In his report on Central Europe to the Chief of MID in late 1933, Colonel Joseph Baer described the importance of »in- nate Jewish cleverness« in the insidious takeover of Austria by the collusion of old- er Jewish families and recent immigrant Galician Jews who were »merely para- sites«72. Colonel Truman Smith, military attaché to Nazi Germany, and General Marshall's key adviser on Germany during World War II, regarded Houston Stew- art Chamberlain's racial treatise, The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, the au- thoritative work on the Jewish question. Smith's reports from Germany created the impression that Jews constituted a distinct race with tremendous power, which economically, politically, and culturally dominated the Weimar republic in their own interest and to the detriment of suffering Germans73. Whether explicitly racial or cloaked in the increasingly more acceptable cultural and political terminology, the basic conclusion remained the same - Jews from Nazi Germany should not be granted refuge in America. Officer committees recommended sharp restrictions on immigration to exclude such types, noting that they constituted a threat to national security in time of war74. Meanwhile, attachés strengthened the anti-immigrant position of the military and congress by providing foreign intelligence on the problems Jewish refugees posed around the world. Army intelligence from Latin America, Czechoslovakia, France, and Poland consistently depicted Jews as a significant destabilizing force inevitably creating a serious anti-Semitic backlash against them. While uncouth lower-class Polish Jews supposedly spread communism abroad, German and Aus- trian Jewish refugees quickly penetrated local economies, even usurping substan-

70 Colonel Dean Hutnutt, »Political and Racial Reasons for the Collapse of the Polish Army«, January 31,1940,2, and appendix, MHI, AWCA 7-1940-76. 71 »Internal Stability of Nations«, February 16,1935,8,19,25, MHI, AWCA 17-A; »Internal Stability of Nations«, February 1,1936, 6,11-12,15, AWCA 6-1936-8. 72 Colonel Joseph A. Baer, »Comments on Central European Affairs« October 14,1933,1-6, NACP, RG 165, entry 181, box 934. 73 Ret. colonel Truman Smith to John O. Beaty, March 24, May 2,1955, University of Ore- gon Library, Eugene, OR, John O. Beaty Papers, Incoming Correspondence; Major Tru- man Smith, »Germany and Hitler«, April 29, 1933, 1-4, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA, Truman Smith Papers, »War College Monographs«, box 1; Colonel Tru- man Smith, »Foreign Political Aspects of the Recent Anti-Semitic Measures of Germany«, December 16,1938, NACP, RG 165, MID 2657-B-801 (2) and »Anti-Semitism in Germany«, January 12,1939, MID 2657-B-801 (5). 74 »War Department Procedure in Mobilization«, December 23,1938,1, 8, MHI, AWCA 8- 1939-10; »Survey of the United States«, February 26,1938,45-46, 58-59, AWCA 6-1938- 7; »Internal Stability of Nations«, AWCA 17-A; »Internal Stability of Nations«, AWCA 6- 1936-8. 348 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky tial wealth in certain countries. None showed loyalty either to the countries in which they were born or to which they had emigrated75.

Racist Continuities and Social Progress through World War II

With the outbreak of war in Europe, the FBI and MID made Jewish refugees into a pressing issue of national security. These intelligence agencies created the illu- sionary threat that the Nazis and Soviets were using Jewish refugees to infiltrate espionage agents into the United States. This fifth column would undermine Amer- ica from within in preparation for Nazi conquest as they had supposedly done in Europe. Either agents posed as refugees or Jews were blackmailed into spying. It was presumed that Jews willingly spied for the communists. By creating this spec- tre, the intelligence agencies raised public misgivings about refugees and even convinced government officials and Roosevelt himself of the existence of the du- bious hidden danger76. The promotion of Jewish refugee subversion was, howev- er, much more than an immediate reaction to imminent danger. These agencies had a long history of inherent suspicion, prejudice, and political action against Jews dating back to World War I; they were predisposed to view Jews as racially undesirable alien types with subversive tendencies. The two prominent figures in creating alarm over a fifth column of »German-Jewish refugees« were FBI direc- tor J. Edgar Hoover and MID chief Colonel Sherman Miles. Both had been per- sonally involved in the anti-Semitic engagement against Jews by the justice de- partment and MID of the 1920s77. In fact, it was not unusual for officers to trace the roots of such threats back long before the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. As Ma- jor Charles R. Mabee, the intelligence officer in charge of formulating army refugee policy, argued in 1941, the acute danger stemmed from the »innumerable unde- sirable aliens and subversive elements« that had entered the United States »for the last twenty years«78.

75 For example, see Colonel Fred T. Cruse, »Immigration of Polish Peddlers«, January 10, 1931, NACP, RG 165, MID 2655-P-23 (6); Major Arthur R. Harris, »Campaign Against Jews Started«, December 20,1934, MID 2657-P-509 (1); Colonel Joseph B. Pate, »Attitude on Jewish Refugee Question«, March 15, 1939, MID 2657-P-540 (3); »Government Op- position to Jewish Immigration and Colonization«, September 30,1937, MID 2655-P-73 (15); »Campaign against Jews in Mexico«, October 11, 17, 21, 1938, MID 2655-C-188 (5- 9); »Jewish Immigration in Chile«, January 23,1940,2657-G-185 (5); Major Lowell M. Ri- ley, »The Jewish Question«, February 1,1939, »Anti-Jewish Legislation«, January 16,1939, MID 2493-84 (4-5); Major John S. Winslow, »Poland: Domestic Issues and Problems«, May 11,1937, MID 2657-DD-589 (2-4); Colonel Sumner Waite, »France: Jews«, October 11,1938,1-2, MID 2015-1049 (56). 76 Robert Herzstein, Roosevelt and Hitler: Prelude to War (New York, 1989), 338-341; Richard Breitman and Alan Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933-1945 (Bloom- ington, IN, 1987), 118-125. 77 NACP, RG 165, MID 28010-45 (13), 10214-675 (1), 10525-821. 78 Major Charles R. Mabee to Colonel John T. Bissell, August 29,1941, and »War Department Policy for Consideration of Visa Applications of Aliens«, NACP, RG 165, entry 192, G-2, Visa and Passport Control Branch Correspondence, 1941-46, box 900. Racial Sentinels 349

In retrospect, the »evidence« that Mabee and others provided about alleged Jewish espionage proved as unreliable as their arguments were specious. Howev- er, throughout the 1930s, officers with these attitudes sat on the committees screen- ing refugees for entry into America, where the FBI, MID, and Naval Intelligence held the majority of votes. Through vetoes and generally impeding the visa process, the intelligence community helped ensure that the U.S. would not be a major place of refuge during the war79. As several studies have shown, the army would also make crucial decisions on whether to give any consideration to the relief and rescue of Jews. Invariably, the army resisted every major suggestion for assisting Jews during the Holocaust80. Surely longstanding anti-Semitism, including its Darwinian components, had an impact on the way many officers reacted to these challenges. This was clearly the case with relentless army opposition to admitting Jewish refugees into Palestine. Publicly, the army displayed sincere sympathy for the humanitarian suffering of Jews but justified its opposition to bombing Auschwitz and to Jewish immigration into Palestine on the grounds of wartime necessity and strategic security. Private- ly, top army officers ridiculed and dismissed rescue proposals as merely »human- itarian«81. A pivotal figure in keeping Palestine closed, MID chief General George V. Strong (1941-1944) stated the real position quite bluntly: »Arabs and Jews are of importance only in so far as security is concerned82.« The intelligence he pro- vided the army and the Roosevelt administration from MID analysts in Washing- ton and officers in the Middle East reflected traditional anti-Jewish biases. More- over, top officers looked far beyond the immediate need to maintain stability in that region so as not to impede the war effort. Intelligence reports showed a dis- tinct eye toward postwar economic and geopolitical objectives of retaining access to oil and thwarting Soviet penetration into the region, which some expected to be spearheaded by Jewish communists83. Even though the powerful rationalizations of wartime necessity and national se- curity disappeared with the complete defeat of Nazi Germany, army opposition to the immigration of Jewish Displaced Persons into Palestine and the United States remained strong84. A key figure in this opposition was General Albert C. Wede-

79 David S. Wyman, Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941 (Amherst, MA, 1968), 203-204; John W. Pehle to Abrahamson, April 25,1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt Li- brary, Hyde Park, NY, Records of the War Refugee Board (WRB) box 26; memorandum [1944?], box 49, folder: Department of Justice. 80 Bendersky, The »Jewish Threat« (n. 44 above), 287-347. See also David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 (New York, 1984); Breit- man and Kraut, American Refugee Policy (n. 76 above). 81 General J.E. Hull memorandum, »Proposed Air Action to Impede Deportation of Hun- garian and Slovak Jews«, June 26,1944, NACP, RG 165, entry 418, OPD 383.7 (23 Jun 44); Hull to John J. McCIoy, November 14,1944, RG 165, ABC 383.6 (8 Nov 44) sec. 1 A. 82 General George V. Strong to General George C. Marshall, August 5,1943, NACP, RG 319, MID 092 Palestine. 83 Bendersky, The »Jewish Threat« (n. 44 above), 317-332. Among the important new docu- mentation brought to light on the army and Palestine is NACP, RG 319 Army Intelli- gence Project Decimal, ACSI-G-2 (1941-1945), (1941-1948), particularly MID 092 Middle East, MID 291.2 Jews, MID 350.05 Palestine. 84 Reid Report, September 13,1945, NACP, RG 165, ABC 383.7; Bissell Report, September 7, 1945, RG 319, MID 291.2 Jews; P&O 091.Palestine (23 Jun 47) and (13 Jul 48), RG 319 entry 153, box 93; Bendersky, The »Jewish Threat« (n. 44 above), 371-387. 350 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky meyer, a staunchly pro-German racial anti-Semite, then on the general staff as the director of Plans and Operations85. And among the various anti-Semitic attitudes blended in with geopolitical arguments, racial notions also surfaced again. A no- torious illustration of such racial anti-Semitism was the thinking of General George C. Patton who controlled most Jewish DPs in Germany His private papers revealed him to be a racial anti-Semite, whose views rivaled those of the racial theorists who lectured at the War College in the 1920s. From the liberation of concentration camps until his removal in fall 1945, Patton invoked racist analyses to degrade Holocaust survivors and complained that other Jews collaborated in attempts to communize Europe and that they controlled the American press and greatly influenced its gov- ernment86. It was a mistake, Patton stated, to »believe that the displaced person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews, who are lower than animals«87. In contrast to earlier decades, however, the attitudes of officers like Patton no longer reflected official government or War Department policy. Fighting a war against Nazism with a vast multi-ethnic army had made the U.S. government very sensitive to racial issues that might destabilize the domestic front or cause dis- sention among its soldiers. Condemning Nazi notions of superior races as »non- sense«, a War Department manual emphasized that »effective command cannot be based upon racial theories«88. Moreover, though still suspected of disloyalty and cowardice, hundreds of thousands of Jews served; and their casualties approxi- mated their proportion of the population. The ethnic mixing in the rank and file, especially in combat, reduced anti-Semitic attitudes among soldiers. The influx of millions of diverse Americans into the military also diluted the earlier homogene- ity of the officer corps. And despite some continued social prejudice, more Jews would establish careers in the upper ranks of the army and navy®'. The U.S. gov- ernment was so determined to eschew Nazi racial theory that its efforts were some- times counterproductive. Rejecting the Nazi notion of a distinct Jewish race, U.S. occupation forces initially refused to identity Jews as Jews, or make any distinc- tion between Jews and other Germans. This hampered efforts to assist Holocaust survivors and, in certain cases, led to Jews being interned in the same camps as Nazis. It took a major scandal before U.S. policy designated Jews as a separate cat- egory of survivors requiring special assistance90.

85 General Albert C. Wedemeyer to Patrick Hurley, May 25,1946, November 26,1947, HIA, Wedemeyer Papers, boxes 81, 98; »Study on Palestine Situation«, December 8, 1947, »Palestine«, February 2, 1948, and »Estimate of the Palestine Situation in 1948«, Febru- ary 26,1948, NACP, RG 319, entry 154, 091.Palestine Top Secret, box 24. 86 George S. Patton, Jr. Papers, LC, especially boxes 4,16,29, 31. 97 Patton Diaries, September 15-21,1945, LC Patton Papers, box 31. 88 Command of Negro Troops (Washington, DC, 1944), 7-8. 89 YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York City, Autobiographies of Jewish Ameri- can Soldiers in World War II; »Anti-Semitic Rumours Within Seventh Service Com- mand«, March 18,1944, NACP, RG 319, Project Decimal, MID 091.412, box 25; Freder- ick S. Harris, general chairman, Jewish War Veterans, to General Douglas MacArthur, April 15,1947, Douglas MacArthur Memorial Archives, Norfolk, VA (hereafter DM- MA), RG 10, P.C.; MHI, Senior Officers' Oral History Project, 85-B, General Gerd S. Grombacher. 90 Robert H. Abzug, Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentra- tion Camps (New York, 1985), 151-154. Racial Sentinels 351

Official policy notwithstanding, racial anti-Semitism still persisted among the older officer elite during and after the war. Racist residue also existed in the Top Se- cret army reports on the role it could play in »selective immigration« of DPs into the U.S. in order to protect the country against the undesirables. The »most desir- able« were the Baits and Poles, who were »outstanding human beings« with »no racial or religious barrier to assimilation«. Jews were the least desirable by these cri- teria and also the most politically unreliable who would serve as a vehicle for com- munist expansion91. In the words of William Haber, General Clay's advisor on Jew- ish affairs, despite the sympathy toward Jews expressed publicly, many officers re- ally believe that »Jewish DPs represent a very real immigration hazard to the Unit- ed States«92. And the first Displaced Persons Act of 1948 did, de facto, discriminate against Jews by giving priority to Baits, Poles, and agriculturalists93. The army had originally considered recruiting racially »desirable« DPs in Ger- many into its ranks to offset a serious manpower shortage expected in postwar years. Racist attitudes had already led members of the General Staff to reject any manpower solution that involved increased recruitment of African Americans or Puerto Ricans. For similar racial reasons, the army strongly opposed desegrega- tion of the army, which even Marshall considered a communist proposal94. And even though army DPs recruitment plans intended to filter out most Jews, Gener- al Wedemeyer still warned McArthur against the recruitment of »a disproportion- ately large number of Jews« and that minority groups »particularly the Jewish one, can exert considerable pressure«. Wedemeyer also believed that Jews with »per- sonal hatreds and selfish plans of aggrandizement« for occupied Germany pre- vented his appointment as High Commissioner of that country in 194995. In the end, Congress did not approve any DPs recruitment initiatives. Long after the Holocaust, the residue of biological anti-Semitism remained for decades in the attitudes and activities of certain retired officers of those earlier generations. In their battle against what they perceived as a Jewish threat to Amer-

91 For example see »Possible Enlistment of Foreign Nationals«, July 4; »Recruitment of Non- Enemy Aliens«, November 6; »Possible Enlistment of Foreign Nationals«, August 20; »Enlistment of Displaced Persons in U.S. Army«, November 15; »Possible Enlistment of Displaced Persons in U.S. Army«, November 21,1947; »Recruitment of DPs in U.S. Army«, January 5; secretary of the army, Kenneth C. Royal to secretary of defense, March 19, 1948; NACP, RG 310, entry 154,091.714 Top Secret, box 29; Colonel John G. Hill, to Gen- eral Arthur G. Trudeau, General Staff, November 19,1947, »Displaced Persons Who Are Qualified for U.S. Army Service«, March 2,1948, RG 319, entry 153,320.2, box 258; Gen- eral C. R. Huebner to CAD, February 11, »Displaced Persons Who Are Qualified for U.S. Army Service«, March 20,1948, RG 165, entry 463 CAD (1948), box 480. 92 William Haber Notes, April 1948, Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Historical Li- brary, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, William Haber Papers, box 20. 93 Leonard Dinnerstein, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust (New York, 1982), 159, 247; Divine, American Immigration Policy (n. 54 above), 116-145. 94 »Possible Enlistment of Foreign Nationals«, August 20,1947; »Enlistment of Displaced Persons in U.S. Army«, November 15,1947, NACP, RG 319, entry 154,091.714 TS, box 29. See also Forest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory, 1943-1945, vol. 3 (New York, 1976), 96-99,538-39, 664; Cray, General of the Army (n. 53 above), 168-69, 751. 95 Wedemeyer to MacArthur, December 11, 1947, DMMA, RG 10, P.C. VIP Files, Wede- meyer; Wedemeyer to Ivan D. Yeaton, October 22,1947, MHI, Yeaton Papers, box 6; Wede- meyer to Freda Utley, February 21,1949, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA, Ut- ley Papers, box 13. 352 MGZ 62 (2003) Joseph W. Bendersky ica, a small clique of prominent retired officers continued to invoke inherited racial characteristics as an explanation for their concern. The same kind of political bi- ology found in War College lectures and attaché reports of the 1920s and 1930s could still be found in the private correspondence of certain retired officers into the 1980s96. Of course, World War II was a watershed in the history of anti-Semitism in America as well as in the army. The progressive social consciousness emerging from Roosevelt's »New Deal«, like the war against Nazi Germany and revelations of the Holocaust, were significant turning points in the gradual decline of anti-Se- mitic attitudes and expressions97. Even among earlier generations of officers, anti- Semitism varied in quality and intensity from individual to individual and decade to decade. Nonetheless, anti-Semitism, including its racial variant, had been deeply embedded in the culture of the officer corps, which exhibited it overtly. After World War II, anti-Semitism and racial theory, though not necessarily racial prejudice, were no longer salonfähig in American public discourse. Over the postwar decades, the attitudes and political engagements of most officers came to reflect these changes. How quickly such changes occurred, like how substantial they were, cannot be dis- cerned until army records and relevant private collections for these decades are opened to historians. It is clear, however, that with the passing of the older generation of officers trained before World War II, anti-Semitism emanating from elaborate racial theo- ries gradually disappeared from the mindset of officers. Generations of officers thereafter remained completely unaware that their predecessors had ever mani- fested such biological racism or acted as racial sentinels guarding America's gates not against a military force, but against an allegedly dangerous racial enemy. When encountering examples of such racial thinking and engagement, postwar genera- tions of officers, like the military historians who informed them of their institu- tional heritage, dismissed these instances as inexplicable anomalies or attributed them to long discredited extremists like Moseley, who, they presumed, could not possibly be representative of the officer corps. Nonetheless, the historical record shows that racial anti-Semitism was mainstream. Similarly, rather than being a late nineteenth-century phenomenon, institu- tionalized Darwinian thinking was alive and well in officer culture up to World War II, and for some time thereafter. Contrary to what historians have previously held, biological anti-Semitism in America had not died out after 1924. Indeed, the nature and longevity of these views were quite consequential. Officers with such strong beliefs on race and Jews served in crucial areas of decision-making and pol- icy implementation regarding Jews at home and abroad. The engagement of army officers with the »Jewish Question« is an important case study of the role of the military in American society and politics throughout the first half of the 20th cen- tury. No mere instruments of government, officers were intimately involved in the initiation and creation of policies.

96 Bendersky, The »Jewish Threat« (n. 44 above), 389-434. 97 Leonard Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America (New York, 1994), 150-174. Racial Sentinels 353

Abstract

Although neglected by military historians, biological anti-Semitism and Social Dar- winism pervaded the worldview of many U.S. army officers in the first half of the 20th century. No mere prejudice, their racial views had sophisticated intellectual foundations. An abundance of recently uncovered archival sources from U.S. Mil- itary Intelligence files, the Army War College, and other army and private collec- tions reveal that such ideas prompted officers to become politically engaged with the »Jewish Question«. Prominent racial theorists and eugenicists lectured at the War College through the 1930s. Officers, especially those in intelligence, used these ideas to justify the systematic surveillance of Jews at home and abroad. Officers served as racial sentinels protecting America from dangers supposedly posed by racially inferior and politically subversive Jews. The army thereby significantly af- fected U.S. policy on immigration and the fate of Jews during and after the Holo- caust.

* * *

Ein von Militärhistorikern vernachlässigter Aspekt der amerikanischen Mili- tärgeschichte ist der Einfluß von biologischem Antisemitismus und Sozialdar- winismus auf die Weltanschauung vieler US-Offiziere in der ersten Hälfte des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Hierbei handelte es sich nicht um bloße Vorurteile, son- dern um Ansichten auf hochentwickelter intellektueller Basis. Aufgrund kürzlich entdeckter, reichhaltiger Dokumente aus den Archiven der US Armeenachrichten- dienste, des Army War College, sowie diversen offiziellen und privaten Quellen offenbart sich der Grad der Durchdringung, den diese Vorstellungen bei US Offi- zieren erlangten und der diese dazu brachte, sich mit der »Judenfrage« politisch aus- einanderzusetzen. So unterrichteten beispielsweise prominente Rassentheoretiker und Eugeniker während der 1930er Jahre regelmäßig am War College. Offiziere, besonders im Nachrichtendienst, nutzten dieses Gedankengut, um eine systema- tische Überwachung von Juden im In- und Ausland zu rechtfertigen. Offiziere dien- ten hier als »Rassenwächter«, um Amerika vor der Gefahr zu schützen, die »ras- sisch minderwertige« und politisch subversive Juden angeblich darstellten. Da- durch beeinflußte die Armee auf signifikante Weise die US-Einwanderungspolitik und das Schicksal der Juden während und nach dem Holocaust. BRYAN MARK RIGG Hitlers jüdische Soldaten

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Ein neues Kapitel in der Geschichte der Wehr- macht und des Holocaust - ein Buch, das viele Diskussionen auslösen wird.

„Ich hin davon überzeugt, dass die Ernsthaftigkeit von Riggs Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema der deut- schen Soldaten jüdischer Herkunft in der Wehrmacht zu neuen Erkenntnissen eines Teiles der deutschen Militär- geschichte im 20. Jahrhundert führen wird. " 2003. 459 Seiten, 109 Fotos, Helmut Schmidt, Bundeskanzler a.D. Leinen mit Schutzumschlag, € 38,-/sFr 64,60 „Es ist eine der wichtigsten Holocaust-Studien der ISBN 3-506-70115-0 vergangenen Jahre." Die Welt

CHRISTOPH RASS Erster Weltkrieg - »Menschenmaterial«: Zweiter Weltkrieg: Deutsche Soldaten Ein Vergleich an der Ostfront Krieg, Kriegserlebnis, Kriegserfahrung in Deutschland Innenansichten einer Infanteriedivision 1939 -1945 Im Auftrag des Militärgeschichtlichen Forschungsamtes herausgegeben von 2003. 486 Seiten, Karten und Graphiken, Bruno Thoß und Hans-Erich Volkmann Festeinband € 39,90/sFr 67,80 2002. 900 Seiten, 16 Seiten färb. Bildteil, ISBN 3-506-74486-0 Leinen mit Schutzumschlag = Krieg in der Geschichte, Band 17 € 45,-/sFr 76,60 ISBN 3-506-79161-3

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