The United States and the Nazi Threat: 1933–37

Early Reports of the Nazi Persecution of Jews in the American Press (Spring 1933)

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. Immediately, newspapers in the United States printed articles speculating about how the Nazi Party’s political goals and antisemitic policies might transform Germany. The Boston Globe, for example, reported on February 1 that the Nazis were already warning that “Jews who got out early would be wise.” Nevertheless, some American journalists wondered whether power would curb Hitler’s radicalism. Others, however, feared that Hitler would act on his antisemitic rhetoric and considered some Jews’ fear of Hitler as justified. 

In the spring of 1933, Nazi attacks on German Jews increased. Dozens of American journalists stationed in Nazi Germany submitted reports to US newspapers nationwide about what they were witnessing. On the front pages of their newspapers, Americans could read about the April 1 boycott of Jewish businesses; the April 7 “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service,” which excluded Jews and the “politically unreliable” from the civil service; and about the May 10 book burnings. Americans could see photographs of these events in popular magazines such as Time, Newsweek, and others. Journalists also reported that Americans were being attacked by Nazi storm troopers (Sturmabteilung, or SA) or by pro-Nazi crowds on the streets of Germany for laughing at an anti-Nazi joke, refusing to salute the Nazi flag, or just because the attackers thought the victim looked Jewish. US diplomats protested some of the three dozen attacks on Americans in Germany in 1933, but did not issue a formal statement against the Nazi treatment of Germany’s Jews.

As Americans read these press reports, the United States was in its fourth year of suffering through the effects of the Great Depression. Some twenty-five percent of workers were unemployed. The new US President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, inaugurated on March 4, 1933, promised the country a “New Deal” and immediately embarked upon an ambitious agenda to repair the US economy. The president, as well as many Americans, was more focused on the serious domestic problems than on the persecution of a minority group thousands of miles away in Nazi Germany.

Demonstrations in the United States against the Nazi Persecution of Jews

In response to these news reports about Nazi anti-Jewish policies and violence against Jews, American Jewish organizations and labor unions drew tens of thousands of people to demonstrations and marches in major US cities. These demonstrations were organized in hopes of calling Americans' attention to the Nazi maltreatment of Jews.

Other types of protests and demonstrations were also organized. More than five hundred organizations—Jewish and non-Jewish—from across the United States sent petitions to government officials demanding an official response to Nazi antisemitic actions. The Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America and the American League for the Defense of Jewish Rights (which soon became the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League) advocated boycotting German-made goods and the US stores that carried them. However, some Jewish organizations, which also opposed Nazism, argued against holding these rallies and boycotts, claiming that the Nazi regime might retaliate even more violently against Jews in Germany. Furthermore, these groups worried that such public protests might contribute to widespread antisemitic stereotypes that grossly exaggerated Jewish influence in the United States.

US Immigration and Policy

Immigration to the United States was controlled by Congress, which had passed the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act or the National Origins Act. The act set “national origins” quotas which privileged immigrants from northern and western Europe, who were believed to be able to assimilate more easily into the United States. After 1929, the act capped overall quota immigration at 153,879 people per year. It also allocated 25,957 slots per year to immigrants born in Germany. This was the second highest quota for any country. There were no specific quotas for Jewish immigrants.

At the beginning of the Great Depression in 1930, President Herbert Hoover issued instructions banning immigrants “likely to become a public charge” (LPC), meaning those who might not be able to financially support themselves. Immigration fell dramatically as a result of this “LPC” clause being strictly enforced. In 1933, only 8,220 quota immigrants arrived in the United States, a ninety-five percent decrease in immigration compared to the years prior to Hoover’s instruction. Although President Roosevelt liberalized Hoover’s instruction shortly after taking office, 83,013 prospective German immigrants were on the waiting list to enter the United States in June 1934. Most of them did not have the financial resources necessary to prove they would not become a public charge, but wanted to remain on the list in anticipation of the US economy recovering and the restrictions being lifted. 

In 1933, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, whose department housed the Immigration and Naturalization Service, drafted orders to rescind Hoover’s instruction and give preference to people seeking to escape racial or religious persecution. The Labor Department also planned to allow Americans to place bonds demonstrating financial support for relatives seeking to immigrate, which would have exempted applicants from being rejected under the “LPC” clause. The State Department opposed Perkins’s efforts, however, citing the facts that unemployment was still high, that consular officers were sympathetic to Jews, and that the quotas were still unfilled. President Roosevelt did not intervene in the debate, and none of Perkins’s proposals succeeded. Though 29,456 German-born immigrants entered the United States between 1933–1937, this number represents about 23% of the number of immigrants who could have legally arrived within the existing German quota.

In March 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria, launching a refugee crisis, as hundreds of thousands of Jews joined the waiting lists for US immigration visas hoping to escape a worsening situation in Europe.

Attempts to Boycott the 1936 Olympics

In 1935, Americans debated whether to boycott the 1936 winter and summer Olympics, which were both scheduled to be held in Germany. Jeremiah Mahoney, the President of the Amateur Athletic Union, opposed US participation in the Games, claiming that it would “mean giving American moral and financial support to the Nazi regime, which is opposed to all that Americans hold dearest.” Avery Brundage, the chairman of the American Olympic Committee, went on a fact-finding tour of Germany, and was persuaded by the Nazis’ false assertions that Jewish athletes were being treated fairly. Brundage claimed that boycott advocates were injecting political concerns where they did not belong and implied that the boycott was a Jewish-led conspiracy of radicals and Communists.

African American athletes, including track-and-field star Jesse Owens, were pressured by both supporters and opponents of the boycott. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) initially favored a boycott as a measure of solidarity with the persecuted German Jews, while others in the African American community saw potential Olympic victory as a way to disprove the Nazi regime’s claims to “Aryan” superiority. 

Public opinion polls indicated that the American people were split on whether to boycott. In March 1935, fifty-seven percent of Americans said the United States should participate in the Games, while forty-three percent supported the protest. In a close vote in December, the Amateur Athletic Union voted to participate in the Olympics. Eighteen African American athletes ultimately participated in the summer Games in Berlin. Although they won fourteen medals, their victories did little to change racial prejudices in Germany or the United States. The 1936 Olympics were also a public relations success for Hitler. Americans attending the Games were largely impressed by the Nazi regime, which temporarily hid the overt persecution of Jews and Roma, and newspapers predicted that Germany would now be "back in the fold of nations.”

A month after the closing ceremonies, prominent Nazi publisher Julius Streicher gave a speech to an international audience, explaining “to secure the safety of the whole world, they [i.e., the Jews] must be exterminated.” American newspapers reported on Streicher’s prediction, but with nearly seventeen percent of the US workforce unemployed, the statement did not garner the same protests, rallies, petitions, and marches in the United States as the initial Nazi antisemitic attacks had three years earlier.

The US Congress Passes Two Neutrality Acts (1935 and 1937)

International unrest in the 1930s—including Japan’s occupation of Manchuria, Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, Nazi Germany’s remilitarization and territorial seizures, and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War—tested the ability of the United States to remain isolated from affairs abroad. To ensure this commitment to isolationism, the US Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts designed to prevent American involvement in these conflicts.

The Neutrality Act of 1935 prohibited exporting arms and ammunition to any foreign nation at war. Two years later, the Neutrality Act of 1937 reasserted the commitment to keep the United States out of war, but allowed the president to distinguish among nations at war when enforcing neutrality. The 1937 act permitted favored nations to purchase non-military products in the United States, provided they paid with cash and transported the goods on their own ships, an arrangement known as “cash and carry.” The 1937 act was revised in 1939 to include arms sales.

Still, the vast majority of American people hoped that the United States would remain isolated from foreign conflicts. In 1937, 67% of Americans polled believed there would be another world war, and 73% agreed that a national vote should be required before the United States could declare war.