September 11: Lindbergh Blames the Jews

In Des Moines, Iowa on this date in 1941, aviator hero Charles Lindbergh made a compelling speech against U.S. entry into World War II that inveighed against American Jews, whose “greatest danger to this country,” he said, “lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.” The British, the Roosevelt Administration, and the Jews, he continued, for “reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American . . . wish to involve us in the war.” Lindbergh was the celebrity leader of America First, an isolationist group, and his speeches had radio audiences of millions. Although relatively restrained in his language, he was a bona fide anti-Semite with pro-Nazi sympathies based on racialist views of history and nationhood.

“When Charles comes out here, we only talk about the Jews.” —Henry Ford