# Did Hitler Help American Civil Rights? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 5, 2001, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854 "2001-09-05T13:41:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/1 "2001-09-05T13:41:02Z")
[disclaimer] This is borderline-GQ, but I suspect it’ll raise more debate than fact, so I’ll start it here in GD. [/disclaimer] Over in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=84718), **frinkboy** said: > [@](#): > > I think that the world would be a much darker place if Hitler never existed! I’m not trying to be provocative…let me explain… > \ > The biggest “Hitler” factor contributing to the rise of “equality” in the US was no doubt the Holocaust. Americans (and people worldwide) were disgusted by his attempted annihilation of selected groups of people. The racism of the Nazi Party was held up as an example of their “evil”. As a roundabout result of this perception, it became utterly unacceptable for any mainstream political group to ever overtly advocate racist values–lest they be compared to the Nazis (George Wallace notwithstanding).\ Now, I’m not sure that **frinkboy** is entirely correct, but he’s got an interesting point: Did the war against Hitler’s facist Germany accelerate the civil rights movement in the United States? Would America be a less integrated and tollerant (not saying we’re even close to perfection as it stands) if WWII hadn’t happened? For that matter, what about the rest of the world? Would the colonial empires still be running the daily lives of millions of people like so many menials? Or would we be in pretty much the same shape as we are now, or perhaps even better off? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/2 "2001-09-05T15:03:16Z")
Well sure Hitler helped the US Civil Rights movement. Don’t y’all remember his famous “I have a dream” speech? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tranquilis \* > \*\* > > Now, I’m not sure that **frinkboy** is entirely correct, but he’s got an interesting point: Did the war against Hitler’s facist Germany accelerate the civil rights movement in the United States? Would America be a less integrated and tollerant (not saying we’re even close to perfection as it stands) if WWII hadn’t happened? \*\* I may be mistaken but I don’t think that during the 50’s and 60’s there was a whole lot of talk about the holocaust in mainstream America. I’m not saying people didn’t know it happened. I just don’t think it was given the same attention it is today. > [@](#): > > \*\* > For that matter, what about the rest of the world? Would the colonial empires still be running the daily lives of millions of people like so many menials? Or would we be in pretty much the same shape as we are now, or perhaps even better off? \*\* The Holocaust really didn’t have anything to do with the ending of empires. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/3 "2001-09-05T16:11:40Z")
I’ll tell you one way Hitler helped. In the late fall of 1944 and spring of 1945 in Europe the US was in the midst of an extreme manpower crisis. It was at that point that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower decided that African-American troops should be invited to serve in combat duty. Furthermore, he decided it would be administratively cumbersome to create segregated units, so in many instances he sent black soldiers into the front line just like everyone else–as replacements. It was the first time the US Army fought as an “integrated” force on a large scale, and African-American soldiers did just fine for the most part. They earned the respect of their fellow soldiers and paved the way for future, official, integreation. It was a pragmatic decision which likely would not have happened had not Hitler been the reprehensible SOB that he was. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/4 "2001-09-05T16:29:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MGibson \* > \*\*The Holocaust really didn’t have anything to do with the ending of empires. \*\* No, but WWII did. Had there not been a Hitler, or had he been a reasonable human being instead of a syphlitic megalomaniac, would, say, the Brittish Empire have suffered the collapse it did after the end of WWII? Would it have still collapsed, but in a slower manner (I think this most likely), or would it have continued on in some fashion? What about France and Italy? Both had extensive colonial possesions, which were either expropriated, or more-or-less abandoned as unsupportable during the reconstruction after WWII. What about Palistine? With no holocaust, would the impetus for the creation of Israel have been successful? And importantly, with no world war (not saying that there’d have been no war: Europe was an armed camp, and that bodes ill for peace), would there have been an United Nations? How about the chaos in post-colonial Africa? Would that have been ameliorated by a slower demise to the Brittish Empire? Or would the pain just have been prolonged? Let’s not forget the American empire, either. Would the Phillipenes have been kept under the American thumb, or would they, as they have now, gone their own way? ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/5 "2001-09-05T16:29:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sofa King \* > **In the late fall of 1944 and spring of 1945 in Europe the US was in the midst of an extreme manpower crisis. It was at that point that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower decided that African-American troops should be invited to serve in combat duty. Furthermore, he decided it would be administratively cumbersome to create segregated units, so in many instances he sent black soldiers into the front line just like everyone else–as replacements.** I may be misreading you, **Sofa king** , but this sounds a little bit like you’re saying that segregated units of black soldiers were not sent into combat, but instead replaced white casualties in white units. I do not think this is the case. For instance the 761st Tank Battalion, which first saw action in November 1944, was segregated, composed entirely of black soldiers. See [this link](http://www.thehistorynet.com/WorldWarII/articles/1998/01983_text.htm).\*\* I have also seen a picture of a segregated black unit digging their Long Toms (155mm guns, I think?) into position, which I think is another instance of a segregated black unit being committed to combat. You may be right about black soldiers also being used as replacements and thereby integrated into white units during World War II, but I have never heard of it. It certainly was not the only way in which black soldiers were committed to combat. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2001, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/6 "2001-09-05T16:41:54Z")
**Danimal** , from [this page](http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/usarmy/manpower.htm): > [@](#): > > Another use of African-American manpower was a result of the massive attrition that was suffered in the winter of 1944 in Europe. As the infantry replacement pool evaporated in the ETO, radical steps were taken. In January 1945 General Eisenhower took the then unprecedented step of allowing African-American soldiers to volunteer as combat infantry replacements. The response was overwhelming, soldiers accepted reductions in rank in exchange for the chance to fight. These men were assigned to hard-hit divisions where they soon made an impression. Eager to prove critics of African-American combat prowess wrong, these men made up for their lack of experience with a reckless bravery. Most of the replacements continued to serve in effectively segregated units however, most of the divisions formed them into separate platoons or companies that were attached to White units. Both you and **Sofa King** are correct. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2001, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/7 "2001-09-06T19:20:14Z")
More to it than that, if oversimplifying: The African-American soldiers, and the whites who served with them, quickly became used to the situation and thought it was the normal, right way to live. When the blacks returned home, largely to the South, and had to submit to the same old Jim Crow crap, their resentments over the situation became especially acute, and they became a prime source of the power of the desegregation movement in the Fifties. The Southern whites they had served with were part of the movement, too. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Stewart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Dave\_Stewart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Stewart)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2001, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/8 "2001-09-07T12:20:04Z")
You go off to risk your life to fight for freedom and against racist facism, and come home to racism. I’d be interested to know if discharged African-American servicemen were in the forefront of the civil rights movement. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2001, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/9 "2001-09-07T12:36:30Z")
> [@](#): > > I’d be interested to know if discharged African-American servicemen were in the forefront of the civil rights movement. Run down a list of black congressmen or Civil Rights leaders and note how many show a bographical entry as a Tuskeegee airman (just for an example). The aspect of putting their lives on the line for a country in which they were second-class citizens, the military training and organizational skills that those who became officers learned, and their treatment by many whites who dismissed the deeds where they had proved their equality of performance made a _big_ impression on a lot of guys who decided that they had had enough. ---
**Author:** ![Danimal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bb73d2/32.png) [@Danimal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danimal)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2001, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/10 "2001-09-07T13:44:37Z")
And WW2 didn’t just motivate the black soldiers, sailors, and airmen themselves to fight for civil rights; it also motivated a lot of white people to agree with them. Many whites who hadn’t cared one way or another about civil rights effectively said, “Damn, if they can fight for the country I’m damned if they can’t sit at the same lunch table with me.” ---
**Author:** ![puk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ea5d25/32.png) [@puk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puk)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2001, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/11 "2001-09-07T14:06:47Z")
WW2 did accelerate a whole bunch of events such as civil rights, decolonisation, the foundation of Israel and globalisation, no question about it. Note that these events where inevitable. Hitler or no, the origin of every single one of these events can be traced to well before his rise to power. What the war did was take away some important hurdles. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2001, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/12 "2001-09-07T17:47:03Z")
Sorry, I didn’t mean to give the impression that segregated units didn’t see combat. The [442nd RCT](http://www.thehistorynet.com/WorldWarII/articles/07965_text.htm) was, of course, the most decorated unit for its size in American history. I agree with **Danimal** that the war changed American attitudes dramatically. I once had the amazing opportunity to shoot the breeze with cruise ship full of WWII veterans. One of them was an African-American fellow who told me he witnessed the immolation of a recruit by white non-commissioned officers while in training somewhere in the deep South (sorry, I’m having trouble finding a reference, but the incident is mentioned in Ronald Spector’s _Eagle Against the Sun_). When he was asked what was done about it, he responded roughly, “there was nothing we could do, except try not to get killed before we could help win the war.” ---
**Author:** ![dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f19dbf/32.png) [@dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dude)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2001, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/13 "2001-09-07T19:37:37Z")
Well, yes, a lot of good things came about because of WWII but a lot of people got killed as well. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Stewart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Dave\_Stewart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Stewart)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2001, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-hitler-help-american-civil-rights/79854/14 "2001-09-08T03:50:56Z")
I have some moral trouble digesting the cause-effect logic in “a lot of good things came out of the war”. Rather, it was an ideological victory on more than one front: over facism in Europe, and in establishing a beachhead on racism in the US.