Son of Sandor
Levka"Texan’s anti-nazi warning fell on deaf ears
Globe-trotting newspaper reporter Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker spoke in Dallas at Southern Methodist University on Nov. 20, 1941, but as usual his pro-war message fell on deaf and hostile ears.
For years the award-winning journalist had implored the public to take a hard look at Adolph Hitler and the threat fascism posed to democracy around the world. But he was drowned out by the greatest American hero of the century, who emphatically insisted that events in Europe did not concern this country.
(. . .)
He moved to Berlin and by 1928 was the chief correspondent for the New York Evening Post and the Philadelphia Public Ledger. Mastering the unfamiliar foreign language, he wrote two regular newspaper columns and six books all in flawless German.
A 1931 Pulitzer Prize did not protect Knickerbocker from the wrath of the Nazis after they took power two years later. Quickly deported for his critical coverage of the fascist regime, he interviewed dozens of important Europeans for a bestseller that accurately predicted the Second World War.
(. . .)
n the weeks following the recruitment of the Lone Eagle, the membership of the America First Committee nearly tripled to more than 800,000. Although the organization included the standard assortment of kooks and crackpots, the overwhelming majority was made up of respectable citizens committed to keeping the U.S. out of another bloodbath in Europe.
Although President Roosevelt had confided the previous year to a key aide, “I am absolutely convinced that Lindbergh is a Nazi,” he dared not openly attack the national idol. But after Lindbergh officially endorsed the America First movement, FDR compared him to the northern “copperheads” that sided with the South in the Civil War.
However, it was Lindbergh himself who orchestrated his own downfall. In a September 1941 speech he expressed pity for the plight of persecuted Jews in Europe but in the next breath warned American Jews of similar treatment, if they insisted upon pushing the country into war.
The rash remark was immediately condemned by prominent figures from all walks of life. With a thundering crash Charles Lindbergh fell off his unique pedestal leaving his priceless reputation in pieces. America’s love affair with the conqueror of the Atlantic was over.
(. . .)
Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker derived no personal satisfaction from Lindbergh’s disgrace nor the tragic fact that it took an act of Japanese aggression to bring Americans to their senses. He would have much preferred to have been wrong and have world peace than to be right and watch the world go up in flames."
https://www.easttexasnews.com/stories/texans-anti-nazi-warning-fell-on-deaf-ears,65997
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