AboutMichael FitzGerald Expertise I am an expert in German history between 1918 and 1945, particularly with regard to the Nazi era. I am also very knowledgeable about most areas of philosophy (I have an honours degree in the subject) and am able to answer questions on that subject too. In addition, I am very knowledgeable about poetry. One of my hobbies is also politics, mainly British and European though I follow the US political scene as well. Another one is the history of crime and punishment and British social history (the two often overlap!) I am willing to answer questions on all the above issues.
Experience Author of two published works, 'Storm Troopers of Satan,' an account of the lunatic fringes of Nazi ideology, and 'Adolf Hitler: A Portrait,' a biography of the German dictator. 'Adolf Hitler' was published in July 2006 by the top history publisher Spellmount and was named historical biography of the month by the Good Book Guide. I correspond with Ian Kershaw, Peter Stachura, Jeremy Noakes, Roger Moorhouse and Stan Lauryssens. I have undertaken research for radio, television, newspapers and magazines
Organizations Society of Authors
Education/Credentials I have an Honours degree in philosophy.
Awards and Honors LT prize for poetry
Historical Biography of the month, Good Book Guide
Question Why didn't the Americans declare war on Germany in 1939?
Answer Dear Kay,
Thank you for your interesting question. To begin with, I am a British historian and an American might emphasise other factors to a greater or lesser degree. The factors that I feel were involved primarily were the following:
1) Britain and France were bound by an international treaty to declare war on Germany in the event of their invasion of Poland. The United States was not. That is the technical answer.
2) The Americans knew that World War One had led to the death of millions of people and if possible preferred to avoid exposing their own troops to that experience again.
3) There was strong resentment among many Americans about the idea of 'pulling the Europeans' chestnuts out of the fire' again. There is no doubt that, but for the American troops arriving in numbers during 1918, the Germans would have won World War One. Many Americans felt that the war in Europe was nothing to do with them and that the Europeans should sort it out themselves this time.
4) There was a strong isolationist lobby within America that felt that the United States should concentrate purely on affairs in its own hemisphere of the world and leave the rest of the world alone.
5) There were many Americans who at least sympathised with the Nazis, most notably Father Coughlan, a semi-fascist priest who made many inflammatory and rambling speeches. William Pelly's 'Silver Shirts' was another organisation that had at least fascist sympathies, though Pelly's own political views were so confused that he also sympathised with Communism. The Ku Klux Klan and even some members of Frank Buchman's Moral Rearmament movement were at times known to express views that could be interpreted as being sympathetic to or at least resembling in some ways the Nazi position.
6) President Roosevelt, although personally anti-Nazi and pro-Allied, knew that he could not have carried a war policy through Congress.
7) Roosevelt also had his own hidden agenda, which was the destruction of the British Empire and its replacement by the United States as the world's leading superpower.
Conspiracy theorists will put forward all kinds of other explanations but these seem to me to be the most valid and reasonable.
