link Explosive book reveals former President’s praise for the Nazis as he travelled through Germany before Second World War -A new book reveals President Kennedy was a secret admirer of the Nazis -Embarrassingly close to visit being paid to Berlin next month by Obama -Comes one week before 50th anniversary commemorations of JFK's memorable 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech pledging US solidarity with Europe By ALLAN HALL A new book out in Germany reveals how President Kennedy was a secret admirer of the Nazis. The news comes embarrassingly close to a visit being paid to Berlin next month by President Obama - one week before 50th anniversary commemorations of JFK's memorable 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech pledging US solidarity with Europe during the Cold War. President Kennedy's travelogues and letters chronicling his wanderings through Germany before WWII, when Adolf Hitler was in power, have been unearthed and show him generally in favour of the movement that was to plunge the world into the greatest war in history 'Fascism?' wrote the youthful president-to-be in one. 'The right thing for Germany.' In another; 'What are the evils of fascism compared to communism?' And on August 21, 1937 - two years before the war that would claim 50 million lives broke out - he wrote: 'The Germans really are too good - therefore people have ganged up on them to protect themselves.' And in a line which seems directly plugged into the racial superiority line plugged by the Third Reich he wrote after travelling through the Rhineland: 'The Nordic races certainly seem to be superior to the Romans.' The future president's praise is now embarrassing in hindsight - a few years later he fought in War War Two against the Nazis and his elder brother Lt. Joseph Patrick 'Joe' Kennedy, Jr was killed. Other musings concern how great the autobahns were - 'the best roads in the world' - and how, having visited Hitler's Bavarian holiday home in Berchtesgaden and the tea house built on top of the mountain for him. He declared; 'Who has visited these two places can easily imagine how Hitler will emerge from the hatred currently surrounding him to emerge in a few years as one of the most important personalities that ever lived.' Kennedy's admiration for Nazi Germany is revealed in a book entitled 'John F. Kennedy - Among the Germans. Travel diaries and letters 1937-1945.' When World War II did arrive, the future president's father, Joe P Kennedy, strongly opposed going into battle with Germany and made several missteps that severely damaged his political career. He adopted a defeatist, anti-war stance and tried to arrange a meeting with Adolf Hitler without the approval of the Department of State. The reasons for this are unclear - some speculate he was eager to do anything to avoid war because he feared that American capitalism - which he profited from - would not survive the country’s entry into the conflict. In his role as US ambassador to Britain he also opposed providing the UK with military and economic aid. He said in an interview 'Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the US]. During the World War II, JFK's older brother Joe volunteered for a secret mission testing an experimental drone plane packed with explosives - a weapon the Allies hoped to use as a guided missile. On the first test flight, the explosives detonated prematurely and the plane exploded - his body was never found. March 1939, London, John F. Kennedy and his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, US Ambassador to Great Britain, board an Air France plane at Croydon Airport. He accompanied his father to Rome, where he will be representing President Roosevelt at the coronation of Pope Pius XII Pals: Kennedy and Lem Billings, right, who was a classmate from the Choate School and Princeton University, outside a drugstore in the mid 1930s The youthful president carved his own place in history when he stood outside the West Berlin town hall of Schoeneberg on June 26 1963 to declare US solidarity with the city and the continent with the immortal words; 'Ich bin ein Berliner.' The fact that, strictly speaking, he was referring to himself as a doughnut - a Berliner - did not diminish the wild enthusiasm for him. But his praise of Hitler in a country still struggling to come to terms with his legacy may prove awkward for Obama who will visit Berlin for wide-ranging talks with Chancellor Merkel on June 18 and 19. But his praise was not entirely without caveats. 'It is evident that the Germans were scary for him,' said Spiegel magazine in Berlin. In the diaries of the three trips he made to prewar Germany he also recognised; 'Hitler seems to be as popular here as Mussolini in Germany, although propaganda is probably his most powerful weapon.' Observers say his writings ranged between aversion and attraction for Germany. The book also contains his impressions when walking through a shattered Berlin after the war: 'An overwhelming stench of bodies - sweet and nauseating'. And of the recently deceased Fuehrer he said; 'His boundless ambition for his country made him a threat to peace in the world, but he had something mysterious about him. He was the stuff of legends.' The book editor's believe that he was 'eerily fascinated' by fascism. --------------------- How do you think he would feel about our current administration?
Holy crap, people in the 30s believed in the superiority of different races and were fascinated by Hitler/fascism? NO WAY.
No breaking revelation, but very interesting to peer into the mind of a president when he was younger.
Pretty much everyone outside of Germany admired what Hitler had done with Germany post WWI during the 30's. Hell, the 36 Olympics were held in Berlin. The nazis were masters at propaganda and up until Hitler started upping his rhetoric about invading Poland (and ultimately carried it out), no one really had much of a problem with Germany - even as they were annexing territories taken away from them post WWI.
This will indeed prove embarrassing to Obama being that it is neither explosive nor new nor related to Obama in any way. The diary was published in 1997: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/585899.Prelude_to_Leadership Also, selective reading is selective. Here's a full quote that is corrupted in the piece: That shows a little more context methinks. In the Nordic quote, he prefaces it by talking specifically about how clean and well-maintained Germany is. Not the most elegant phrasing, but I doubt he was thinking about his future position in history at that point and I don't read it in a way that suggests racial superiority. On the "Hitler will emerge" quote, if you read it carefully, it belies the sensationalistic spin put on in this article. He's speculating on where Hitler will end up in history. He was a little off on some of it, but was right that Hitler will be one of the most significant people that ever lived. Additionally, the quote was made in 1945 just after the war ended anf I can imagine him struggling to find a way to make sense of what he, his country, and the rest of the world had just been through. In short, mush ado about nothing and the very fact that the author brought Obama into it should tell you everything you need to know. Neither JFK's nor Hitler's legacy has changed because of this.
Googling "JFK Hitler" one comes up with a long list of right-wing sites hyping the article, led by TheBlaze and Stormfront mixed in with a few tabloids. The first serious treatment on the topic appears on the third page and is a link to this thread. I went ten pages in and found nothing better than this thread. Must suck to be a wingnut. One the one hand, it burns that Americans still like JFK and FDR. On the other hand, the Right has made the argument that JFK would be a Republican today because of taxes. Back to the other, he was a Democrat and there's now a chance to slander him by using the diary he wrote in his 20's, even if we have to take it out of context. I guess the other hand won (whichever one that is), since you can slander him and try to make the argument that Democrats are not that far from Nazis. Congratulations on your closed loop ideology.
I have the wingnut OP on ignore (him, basso, and one or two others), so I normally don't even open their threads, but the title was so rediculous that I looked a bit at this one. Your comment sums things up nicely. Currently, 8 of the threads on the first page of D&D were started by the two, this dude and basso, so it's cut down on my reading time in D&D quite a bit, which isn't really a bad thing at all. Thought I'd mention it if people noticed that I didn't post on topics in those particular threads, and maybe wondered why. I enjoy their posts in other forums, but in here they're just trolls.
Just posting the article. Thought of this more jokingly than anything. I feel privileged to be on Deckard's ignore list.
the lengths people will go to avoid leftists, and socialists. The whole thing about Nazi Germany---always try to know about what your government is doing in your name.
What would the Founding Fathers do about this, except pork their slaves and remove women of their rights? MMMMmmmm the Good Ol Days...
Now I know you're trollin. Libby con Teabaggers HATE pork. ...or at the very least, they claim they hate spending on it. Gotta take a bite or two to see if it's Kosher.
Maybe we should try to limit our "scandals" to political figures that haven't been dead for 50 years. Fact of the matter is that JFK was a good President. Had he not been assassinated, I do not think we would have committed so many American lives to the effort in Vietnam.
