Summary
Highlights
The 1936 Berlin Olympics served as a propaganda spectacle for Nazi Germany, presenting a facade of prosperity and normalcy while hiding the regime's antisemitic policies. Jewish American athletes were controversially benched, and the games were used to promote Aryan racial superiority, despite Jesse Owens's four gold medals defying Hitler's ideology. Germany won the most medals, cementing a perceived international success for Hitler at the time.
In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt grappled with the Great Depression, using new mass media like government-hired photographers, magazines (especially Life), and radio 'fireside chats' to unite the nation and address the economic crisis. Newsreels also played a role in showcasing national progress and infrastructure projects, helping Americans feel a sense of national identity and collective effort.
Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, effectively used mass media, including cheap radios and films like Leni Riefenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will,' to spread Nazi ideology and glorify Hitler. This period saw book burnings, the establishment of concentration camps like Dachau, and the implementation of Nuremberg racial laws, which stripped Jews of citizenship and subjected them to increasing discrimination and violence, fostering a pervasive climate of fear and antisemitism.
In March 1938, Hitler made good on his promise to annex Austria, a move broadcast live on American radio. The takeover was met with initial jubilation by Austrian Nazis, but led to immediate and brutal persecution of Austrian Jews, including forced public humiliation. This rapid escalation of Nazi aggression in Austria, compared to Germany's five-year path, shocked many.
Growing anxieties over the Third Reich culminated in the 1938 heavyweight boxing match between Joe Louis (US) and Max Schmeling (Germany). Louis's victory became a powerful symbol of defiance against Nazi ideology and fascism, offering a much-needed morale boost to Americans and those fighting against Hitler's growing influence, such as American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War.
In September 1938, Hitler's demand for the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia) intensified fears of war. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's efforts to appease Hitler resulted in the Munich Agreement, ceding the Sudetenland in exchange for a false promise of 'peace in our time.' Shortly after, the Nazis orchestrated Kristallnacht (the 'Night of Broken Glass'), a violent pogrom against Jews across Germany and Austria, signaling the dire future for Jewish communities.
In 1939, Marian Anderson's historic concert at the Lincoln Memorial, after being barred from Constitution Hall, became a powerful symbol of racial justice in America, offering hope to many. However, America's strict immigration quotas during this period were highlighted by the tragic fate of the SS St. Louis, a ship carrying Jewish refugees denied entry to Cuba and the US, forcing them back to Europe where many perished in the Holocaust.
Despite America's strong isolationist sentiment and focus on the 1939 World's Fair's vision of 'The World of Tomorrow,' Hitler continued his aggressive expansion, seizing all of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. By September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, marking the beginning of World War II. As Europe plunged into conflict, with France falling and Britain under attack, the US began to prepare, initiating its first peacetime draft to address its woefully unprepared armed forces.