Lindbergh's purported Nazi sympathies

Great Debates
1

I recently happened upon “Lindbergh – The Last Hero” by Walter Ross, which filled in my knowledge considerably.

I had known the basics – the historic 1927 flight, the stratospheric celebrity, the tragedy of his infant son’s kidnapping and murder.

And I’d heard tell of his supposed affinity for the Nazis in the build-up to WWII.

Ross’s book, which seems pretty unbiased, gives strong evidence that Lindbergh was never sympathetic to the Nazi cause. He was opposed to America’s involvement in a war against Germany, partly because he had seen firsthand that we were no match for German air power, and partly because a war involving England and France could lead to “the destruction of civilization” - air power was a new, fearsome, unchecked force. He also believed that Germany had no designs on the western hemisphere, since the Luftwaffe was designed for close support of ground troops.

Lindbergh’s hope was that if Germany got into a war, it would be with communist Russia, which he staunchly opposed.

For speaking out against US involvement in a war against Germany, the Roosevelt administration slammed him hard. (Lindbergh’s 1934 criticism (proven tragically correct in short order) of the administration’s decision to cancel air mail contracts and fly air mail with Army pilots also figured in this).

My question for those more knowledgeable: is there a concensus on the issue of Lindbergh’s purported Nazi sympathies?

The most hilarious piece of trivia I have ever heard about Lindbergh:

His grandfather Ole Lindbergh had changed his name, choosing the name Lindbergh at random when he found himself living in a town where lots of people shared his surname (as is fairly common in Sweden).

The surname Ole Lindbergh changed his name from: Manson.

That’s right – the hero of the first solo non-stop trans-Atlantic flight would have then been named Charles Manson.

I wonder why Ross made no mention of this conicidence, until I saw that the book was copyrighted 1968, a year before ‘Charlie’ hit the big time. (Kinda makes you wonder if the murderer’s life would have turned out differently if he’d grown up hearing, “Wow, Charles Manson – like the HERO!”)

2

Interesting, I have read and heard that Lindbergh was a Nazi sympathizer all my life and yet I have never seen any proof of it. You raise a very interesting question. The only clear “proof” I have ever seen is he accepted a Medal of Honor from Goering and refused to return it. I have seen a few snippets of anti-Semitic speech from him, but I am not sure where I read them or if they were probably annotated or just attributed.

Jim

3

As I recall the affair, there was a sort of split personality among the public as to Lindberg. Although the public in general was against getting into the war (typical comment: We pulled their chestnuts out of the fire in '18, why should we do it again?) Lindberg’s seeming admiration for Germany’s military strength was unpopular.

There was also asuspicion of anti-semitism and that too was anomalous since the US public was pretty anti-semitic pre WWII. For example my own father, speaking of a fellow business man in town, said that he was a “pretty straight shooter for a Jew.” and he would have been insulted if you called him anti-semitic.

From the cite:

I do think that your author is largely correct. That Lindberg didn’t particularly want the NAZI program to win. He just was afraid that we couldn’t succesfully fight Germany from such a long distance and our trying to do so would be ruinous. Maybe he assumed that the German’s would roll over France and conquer Britain and we would have no bases from which to conduct such a war.

4

There’s a pile of relevant speeches and radio addresses by Lindbergh here:
Charles Lindbergh’s Noninterventionist Efforts & America First Committee Involvement

5

Ross claims that Goering practically ambushed Lindbergh with the medal, at a small dinner at which Army Major Truman Smith, military attache to Berlin, hoped to persuade Goering to allow Jews leaving Germany to bring along some of their assets. (Lindbergh had knowledge of this).

Lindbergh refused an invitation to throw away the medal at a 1942 ceremony in New York. An unnamed friend quoted in Ross’s book claimed that it would have been out of character for Lindbergh to “take part in a stunt to curry public favor”, and I would say the events of his life bear this out.

The book discusses whether Lindbergh was anti-semitic, and offers no supporting quotes or other evidence.

It does note the influence on Lindbergh by Alexis Carrel, a Nobel laureate who had some kookily Darwinian theories about breeding “better” humans. Amazingly, Lindbergh worked in confidence with Carell on inventions that furthered surgical technology, notably devising a pump that could keep organs alive outside the body.

Everybody, fill in you own “They saved Hitler’s Brain” joke here.

Lindbergh is one of those rare, hyper-famous characters who gets more interesting the more you learn about him. I re-invite those who know more to surprise me further.

6

For those who don’t know the story, Lindberg as a civilian cotributed quite a bit to the success of theP-38 Lockheed Lightning in the Pacific.

He was in the South Pacific and heard complaints that the Lightning was having difficulty making the long flights needed for missions in that area. The range was limited. Based on his work with Pan American Airways China Clipper he suggested that they run at reduced RPM and higher manifold pressure than the pilot’s operating manual called for. Commanders refused to do it but did give him a plane with which to demonstrate his proposal. So he flew the plane on combat missions with the group (Strictly verboden) and always returned with reserve fuel while the others were making emergency landing at temporary jungle fields or running out of fuel on landing roll out. After quite a few flying hours the plane’s engines were thoroughly inspected and tested and found to be in just as good condition as all the others in the group. As I understand it this information was passed up the chain of command, which had to redo the tests, of course, and a special low fuel-consumption engine operation section was written into the manuals.

Later on droppable fuel tanks were developed and, as I recall, using Lindbergs idea the range of the Lightning with droppable tanks was nearly 1000 miles. That’s a 10 or 11 hour mission. Try doing that without taking a leak, or something, sometime.

7

Against all the “he was only an isolationist” perspective, there are numerous statements that Lindbergh made defending various “racial” declarations. I suspect that he was not really a Nazi sympathizer. I have never seen any statement from him that praised the Nazis or Hitler unconditonally. In may ways he was simply a man of his time, accepting much of the common “folk wisdom” about race that was easily manipulated by the Nazi ethnologists. On the other hand, while he issued several statements warning of the troubles to be had if America did not defend its “racial” heritage, he was also on record as scorning the sort of racist denigration of other peoples that was part and parcel of Nazi ideology.

However, I also saw an interview of Anne Morrowe Lindbergh by either Mike Wallace or Harry Reasoner (but not as part of an episode of 60 Minutes) around 1980 in which she was asked (rather rudely) about her continued support of him during the period when he “supported” the Nazis, and rather than denying he had voiced any support, she noted that one does not turn off one’s love because the person one loves has made bad choices. That would seem to indicate that he was, indeed, somewhat supportive of the Nazi cause for some period during his life.

8

Or she might have just wanted to deflect the question quietly. Answering that he wasn’t really sympathetic to the Nazis might have stirred up a lot of noise that she didn’t want to deal with. And that’s a nice non-committal answer; perhaps she did feel that he made some bad choices, whether or not he was pro-Nazi.

9

Perhaps, but it was a recorded, not live, interview and she went out of her way to talk about him engaging in speech that she found upsetting. Her words were along the lines of one does not stop loving a person just because they are making bad decisions and it was in direct response to a question about his Nazi sympathies.

10

Lindbergh’s own words could certainly convict him of pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic sympathies:

Of course, calling Lindbergh a “Nazi sympathizer” shouldn’t imply that he approved of the Holocaust, or of concentration camps, or of the destruction of Europe. He most certainly did not. His casual anti-Semitism, and his admiration of the “efficiency” of a dictatorship in contrast to depression-riddled capitalism, were quite common in the 1930’s.

But not any more admirable now then they were then.

11

Lindbergh qualifies as a dupe of the Nazi regime during peacetime. He had plenty of company here and abroad among people who were either sympathetic to Nazi principles or admired Germany’s “efficiency”. Some of his statements come across as odd to say the least, including this post-WWII comment (he argued that we actually “lost the war” - link):

"“Much of our Western culture was destroyed. We lost the genetic heredity formed through eons of many million lives.”

I’m not sure how much Western culture would have been left if we’d taken his advice and softpedaled opposition to the Nazis.

To his credit, Lindbergh volunteered to take an active military role after America entered the war. As I recall, he was denied re-enlistment in the Army Air Corps by the Roosevelt administration. Instead he worked as a consultant to the aviation industry and toward the end of the war took part in some combat missions in the Pacific.

12

NPR did an interview with one of Linbergh’s more recent biographers (as well as Lindbergh’s granddaughter or daughter, I forget), and he spent a great deal of time trying to pin down if Lucky Lindy was anti-semetic or not. According to him, Lindbergh wasn’t what anyone would really call anti-semetic, though he did allow himself to be manipulated by those who were before the war.

Lindy was kept out of the military by FDR because FDR was angered by Lindy’s isolationist stance before the war. They passed it off as him being a national treasure, too valuable to risk. As David Simmons mentions above, Lindy served as a consultant, and was instrumental in training pilots.

13

I remember reading (I think it was in Reader’s Digest) that during his “consulting” missions he shot down at least two Japanese planes. This was a while ago and I can not recall what book it was excerpted from.

14

You’d pee in a jar, right? :slight_smile:

Was there a two seater P-38, or am I thinking of something that looked like two Mustangs stuck together at the wingtips?

15

It was his daughter Reeve and Scott A. Berg, if it was the program I’m thinking of. I set up some of the research opportunities for Berg for that book when I worked at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis. I get the impression – not necessarily from Reeve or Berg – that Lindbergh’s biases emerged more from favoring eugenics than an active anti-semitism, though it came to much the same thing in many instances. I also believe that his later (non-wartime) favorable view of Germany was influenced by his affection for his at least one other, German family. The children of that union were born between 1958 and 1967.

Tabby

16

Both. There was a reconnaissance version of the P-38 that had an observer and window in place of the gun pack in the nose. The F-87 Twin Mustang was used briefly in Korea.

17

BUt he couldn’t help you pee or fly the airplane from there.

18

Usually all over yourself. I don’t know what the arrangement in the P-38 was, but the Douglas A-26 (also a single pilot airplane) had a relief tube with a funnel top that stowed under the seat. You pulled it up between your legs - and mostly missed it.

Put on a pair of bulky coveralls, add a couple of wide belts between your legs to simulate a parachute harnes, sit in a low seat with your legs extended out in front of you and then try to take a neat leak.

Ah how I miss the romance of military flying.

19

Craziest dang airy-o-plane I ever done seed.

20

Nitpick. It was the F-82, not the F-87. But it’s still the craziest dang airy-o-plane I ever done seed.