Nazi Obituary for FDR

FDR died on 12 April 1945.  His death gave temporary hope to the Nazis.  Pehaps his death would mean the collapse of the Allied coalition.  Here is what the Neue Warte am Inn (Braunau am Inn — Hitler’s birthplace) wrote on 18 April 1945 in one of its last issues.

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Roosevelt, the Person Mainly Responsible for the War, Dies

The North American President Roosevelt died suddenly Thursday at his country home in Warm Springs at the age of 63.  The cause was a cerebral hemorrhage. Vice President Harry Truman assumed the office of USA president according to the constitution and has already been sworn in.  He said that he would try to carry out his offices as Roosevelt would have done. The war will be carried out on both fronts with full energy to its successful conclusion. Roosevelt was buried Sunday morning in Hyde Park. The news of Roosevelt’s death caused alarm in America and England.  The United Press said the death of the president was like a lost battle.

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One of the greatest war criminals and political swindlers in world history has passed away. At the end of March Roosevelt ordered his cabinet and USA diplomatic representatives to prepare for the coming victory in Europe. Cabinet members were not to leave Washington. Now Roosevelt himself, who thought himself near the triumph of his life, has had to leave his post. He was the true cause of this terrible war. He began rearming the USA in 1933 and opposed the successes of the Munich Agreement in 1938. He promised American mothers that young American soldiers would not bleed in foreign wars. He quickly broke that promise. He lied to the American people by saying Germany wanted to conquer America. Roosevelt supported England in starting this war over the Polish question and he encouraged the Putschists in Belgrade to unleash the Balkans war. Although he always claimed the USA was neutral, he ordered that German submarines be attacked. Roosevelt also belonged to the vultures who profitted from German stocks as a a result of the dictate of Versailles.  The profiteers he lead persuaded American savers to speculate with German bonds. Roosevelt earned millions after Germany’s collapse from the money of small American savers.

We are filled with satisfaction at the death of the war criminal and Jewish lackey Roosevelt. We see it as God’s punishment, which lets us believe that the war that Roosevelt incited will find a just conclusion. Roosevelt died just as he was imagining victory. It reminds us of the divine providence of 20 July last year, when death stood all around the Führer and reaped its harvest. Roosevelt’s great counterpart was saved by a miracle. He is the only person who can guarantee that this war waged by the Jews, plutocrats, and Bolshevists will end as it must if history is to have any meaning. If we compare 20 July 1944 with 12 April 1945, we gain the strength that will give us the faith to move mountains.

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An Anti-Roosevelt Letter from 1939

This letter to the editor was published in the Miami Daily News on 28 April 1939.  I take it from the Google News run of the newspaper.

Hitler had just delivered one of his most effective speeches, one that attacked Roosevelt at length.  The letter writer expresses a considerable lack of enthusiasm for FDR, and of course he was not alone.  The isolationists were still strong enough to frustrate FDR’s attempts to oppose Hitler more directly.

The newspaper’s editorial on the same page finds that Hitler had made out “surprisingly well” in his response to FDR.

A Nazi Response to FDR’s Peace Message (1939)

In mid-April 1939, Franklin Roosevelt sent a message encouraging peace to Hitler and Mussolini.  Hitler responded on 28 April 1939 with a two-and-a-half hour speech that scornfully rejected FDR’s message.  This cartoon from Julius Streicher’s anti-Semitic weekly Der Stürmer (#19/1939) shows FDR sliding down the manuscript of his peace message into Hell, where laughing devils wait.

The caption translates: “Sliding down. The paragon of virtue and apostle of peace elicits hellish laughter.”

Australian Editorial Cartoon on Roosevelt and Hitler

The cartoon below appeared in Melbourne’s The Age on 2 May 1939. Franklin Roosevelt had commented that Hitler had not completely closed the door to peace in his speech of 28 April 1939 (although FDR wasn’t at all optimistic).  The Age has a bedraggled and de-feathered dove returning  from Europe while FDR says: “Well at least you got back alive.” Like many comments at the time, the cartoon holds out a thin hope of peace. The original newspaper is available on Google.

Forebodings of War in 1939

This editorial from the Spartanburg Herald (South Carolina) appeared on 17 April 1939. Franklin Roosevelt had just issued an appeal to Hitler and Mussolini not to attack a list of 31 countries.  Hitler’s 50th birthday was three days away, and people were speculating that the Nazis might occupy the free city of Danzig as a birthday present. The editorial was one of many from the period longing for a peace that was not to be. The full newspaper is available on Google News.