FDR: The Non-Neutral 1939-41

[Klaus1943]

Franklin Roosevelt is one of those US Presidents who is admired and worshiped most by the American left as well as British citizens. He and Hitler came to power legally within two months of each other and FDR never kept his disgust for Hitler a secret while at the same time recognizing the Soviet Regime under Uncle Joe. With the war clouds gathering over Europe, FDR took the first steps that would eventually lead to war between the US and Germany.

The first step FDR took was to prevent the German liner Bremen from leaving the port of NYC on 29 August 1939 in order to give the Royal Navy time to sail toward America and then intercept and capture the passenger liner. The excuse used was that the Bremen would be converted to a armed raider and thus port authorities searched again and again for weapons which of course were never found. Repeated time-consuming counts of life preservers were made in order to give alibi to the delay. FDR even compared the event to the Confederate raider Alabama which had been armed by Britain during the Civil War and caused much damage to Union shipping. FDR wanted to do the same with all German ships in American ports but his Attorney General advised that this would be an act of war.

In October 1939 FDR anounced the creation of a security zone around the Americas. US Navy ships would patrol 200-300 miles out and if any German ships were spotted, the report thereof would be sent back to the unit and eventually reported to the Royal Navy. The American warship would then continue its surveillance of the German ship and report on its progress. FDR also placed restrictions on German ships entering territorial waters of the US.

The German passenger liner Columbus was in the Mexican port of Vera Cruz in December 1939. When the ship left harbor, she was shadowed by American warships including the DD Jouett which reported the progress of the German ship. Off the coast of New Jersey, the cruiser Tuscaloosa was nearby when the British DD Hyperion intercepted the Columbus which was scuttled. The American cruiser had notified the British of the position of the liner. Many more German merchant ships met the same fate and Hitler, when he declared war on the US, mentioned these war-like acts of FDR.

FDR again violated American neutrality when he gave 50 destroyers to Britain in exchange for leases of military bases on British colonies in the Western Hemisphere. The Lend-Lease Act gave to Britain and the USSR all the war materials that American could spare without having to pay for them. The facade of American neutrality was gone. American warships escorted the convoys and it is no surprise that some of them were sunk by the U-Boats. FDR naturally blamed the Germans for these sinkings as an act of war.

FDR even produced a map, provided by British intelligence, which was supposed to have come from Germany showing that Hitler would take over South American and then Central America with the implied object being the conquest of the US. FDR was getting his people ready to enter WW 2 with the conspiratorial assistance of the war criminal, Winston Churchill.

[Rob Stuart]

... FDR took the first steps that would eventually lead to war between the US and Germany.

Wrong. The fist step which led to war between the US and Germany was Hitler's invasion of Poland.

While I think you've included a number of other dubious statements in your post, I would agree that the US took a number of un-neutral steps between September 1939 and December 1941. As a citizen of a country which went to war with Germany in September 1939, I heartily approve of all of these un-neutral steps. In fact, I wish they had all come sooner than they did.

Anyway, Hitler had no right to complain about America's un-neutral acts against him, considering his far more un-neutral intervention in the Spanish Civil War.

[Klaus1943]

Franco asked for Hitler's help. The alternative would have been Stalin in Spain which would have made FDR happy.

[David Thompson]

Klaus1943 -- Our readers aren't much interested in subjective personal opinions without supporting facts.

Since the purpose of this section of the forum is to exchange information and hold informed discussions about historical problems, posts which express unsolicited opinions without supporting facts and sources do not promote the purposes of the forum. Consequently, such posts are subject to deletion after a warning to the poster.

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[Carl Schwamberger]

Thank you David. There are certainly other forums where these posts would be less invasive.

[Sheldrake]

The OP has a point. There was a political struggle within the USA between the pro intervention FDR and Democrats and the more isolationist Republicans. Dan PLeisch's America Hitler and hte UN covers this shift in US opinion and the role that FDR and the UN played. http://www.amazon.co.uk/America-Hitler- ... 1784533076

US opinion shifted between 1939 - 1941 with the proportion of Americans who thought America SHOULD enter the war increasing over the period. There was always a majority of Americans who thought/. feared that the USA WOULD become involved.

Churchill appealed to the US speeches reminding the new world oif the threat posed by the fascist regimes. We will fight them on the Beaches is aimed at a transatlantic audience. The US had a futther reminder in the form of Japanese imperialism and aggression in China

Churchill and Roosevelt came up with the liberal and democratic ideology of the Atlantic Charter to oppose totalitarian ideology. The United Nations was created as an anti fascist alliance with the aim of delivering a batter world. Arguably they were proven right. The Four Freedoms have survived far longer than any of the Totalitarian ideologies in vogue in the mid C20th. They were cited by Nelson Mandela and by the leaders of the Arab Spring.

[South]

Good afternoon Sheldrake,

Concur that US opinion shifted 1939-41. A major reason for the shift starting in 1939 was because Japan's imperialism in China involved Japan's straffing/bombing the USS Panay, 12 December 1937, in China. Besides being a USN vessel, Panay was a designated diplomatic facility.

The UN was created as an anti-fascist alliance? Glance at the membership.

Warm regards,

Bob

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Klaus,

I tend to agree with the general drift of your proposition but, in your enthusiasm to make it, you are overstating your case almost everywhere.

Yup, Roosevelt "and Hitler came to power legally within two months of each other....." but there the analogy ends.

Thereafter, Roosevelt followed the existing Constitution by repeatedly submitting himself for competitive elections. Hitler altered the constitution to ensure he might stay in power without further competitive elections.

The Bremen may well have wanted to leave New York, but elsewhere in the Americas the Germans ordered around 100 other merchant ships to head for neutral ports (including dozens to the USA) to evade the Royal Navy. Around ten Latin American countries also ended up confiscating German ships while still neutral.

The reports by US warships on German shipping movements were not "sent back to the unit (what unit?) and eventually reported to the Royal Navy". They were deliberately transmitted by radio in clear (without coding) which the British, as fellow English-speakers, had no trouble understanding in real time. That is what happened to the Columbus.

No, the Lend-Lease Act did not give the UK war materials without having to pay for them. For example, the 50 destroyers were exchanged for base leases. There was also Reverse Lend-Lease under which British technology and weapons went to the USA. Finally, the residue had to be made up by later payments. It is only about five years since the UK paid off the last of its WWII debts to the USA.

Yes, FDR did produce a false map provided by British intelligence regarding purported German plans for South America, though he did not get it directly from them. Like several other supposed Axis documents that surfaced in the Americas, this was a fake, but Roosevelt was a compliant victim of the scam rather than the perpetrator. Credit for passing it off on him goes to the British, who pulled similar stunts in Brazil and Bolivia.

Cheers,

Sid.

[South]

Good afternoon Sheldrake and all,

This morning in my post I omitted a key sentence.

Apology. (Not poor proofreading here....just NO proofreading.)

FDR placed 100% effort - successfully - to supress the Japanese bombing/straffing of the USS Panay from the US public. The US just wasn't ready for large scale war.

After Poland and the fall of France, FDR had it relatively easy to mold domestic public opinion.

Warm regards,

Bob

[Hoist40]

Yes the US did give material for free to the British and other allies from March 1941 to August 1945. If the British kept the material after the war they had to pay 10% of the cost and were given a low interest loan to pay for that as well as another billion on top of that. The reason the British took so long to pay it back was because the interest was so low it was cheaper to pay other debts first.

So the US paid for all Lend Lease material to Britain during the war, of what the British kept the US paid for 90% of that, and the low interest loan was a subsidy so good the British did not want to pay it back

Destroyers of Bases was not part of Lend Lease, it came before Lend Lease. It was also a great deal for the British, they got 50 old but low mileage DD for free and also got the US to not only build new bases in British colonies but also defend them. The British had spent very little on military facilities in these locations and also had little money to boost the local economies, getting the US involved helped in both areas

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Hoist 40,

The clue is in the name - Lend-Lease. It was never free.

At the end of the war the US had produced so much that it was anxious to sell off materiel to almost anyone at knock-down prices. 10% might well have been a real market value by 1946.

The destroyer bases were mentioned because someone else brought them up earlier. Not all transactions need be in cash. The obsolescent destroyers were in exchange for bases. The destroyers proved of limited value, but were a useful stop-gap.

The British defence establishment in the Americas was minimal, because the threat was minimal and because, apart from Trinidad, the colonies were of limited economic value to the defence of the UK and could not afford much themselves. However, they were of strategic importance to the defence of the USA, so it invested heavily in building bases there. The considerable benefit to the local economies was fortuitously incidental to this act of self interest, not a specific policy goal of either the USA or the UK.

Cheers,

Sid.

[South]

Good morning Hoist 40,

A great post.....premier info.

Post WWII Lend Lease supplies generates a tangent. It's very close to the specific discussion you and Sid and involved in. Thus, let me ask for readers' patience if I'm wrong. Again, it's a tangent as to payment for Lend Lease after the war.

If Lend Lease material was to be charged to the account of the new politico-military organization NATO, it was not a financial obligation of the British treasury. (The US has world class bookkeeping....state-of-the-art.)

Aforesaid generates another question. The UK could use Lend Lease material for British NATO obligations. Does this include British Crown Colony Hong Kong?

And related: Could Lend Lease material post WWII be used by NATO member Portugal in Angola? in Macao Portugese China ? Could NATO member France use Lend Lease in support of NATO obligations throughout the French Departments (frequently called Provinces) ? Three Departments were in Algeria. The overall answer was found in French IndoChina.

As an aside, the "Destroyer Deal" of 2 September 1940 listed Newfoundland and Bermuda as part of the trade. Other statements called Newfoundland and Bermuda "gifts" and not part of the explicit trade.

A footnote: The Honk Kong Police Force museum at Mid-Levels, Honk Kong, displays the various small arms used by the Force. I recognized several of the display items.

Warm regards,

Bob

[Hoist40]

Hi Hoist 40,

The clue is in the name - Lend-Lease. It was never free.
.

If you lend or lease someone something and that person either uses it up as in food/fuel or its destroyed like a truck in an accident and they don’t pay for it then its free.

Though in another way it was not free, that is it was not free to the taxpayers of the US who not only had to pay for everything that Britain got and used up during the war , it also had to pay 90 percent of the cost of what Britain kept after the war and on top of that had to pay for the subsidized low interest loan that Britain got

So yes it was free to Britain, it was not free to the US taxpayers who are probably still paying for it in the national debt.

[Hoist40]

As to NATO and Lend/Lease, NATO did not start until 1949 and Lend/Lease ended in August 1945 so it would be hard to charge NATO for costs before it even existed.

The Allies had declared themselves part of a “United Nations” in 1942 but officially todays UN did not start until October 1945

Any material kept after the end of WW2 was owned by Britain or any other country that got lend Lease and could be used for whatever they wanted as long as they paid the 10 percent cost of the material or whatever was determined at the end of the war for each country.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Hoist,

.....but if you have to give it back it was never yours in the first place - for free or otherwise.

Furthermore, if it is being used by the other party to your advantage, you gain in other less tangible ways. For example, every Briton burnt to a crisp in a Sherman was one less American likely to suffer the same fate.

In addition, if you are getting part of the value back in kind, cash, technology, bases, etc., it is not free.

Lend-Lease was not an entirely one-way charitable activity. It was a calculated policy done for the material advantage of the USA. And why not? The duty of a government is to act in the national self interest.

The UK finally paid off its war debt to the USA in 2006. You write that US taxpayers, "are probably still paying for it in the national debt". This is a history site. Are they, or aren't they?

The USA gained enormously as a result of WWII. Lend-Lease was part of the down payment on that.

Cheers,

Sid.