What might happen?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

I think eventually, the US would find a way to declare war on Germany. Hitler would get fed up with Roosevelt's naval assistance to Britain's convoys, there may end up being another Lusitania incident to prompt The US declaration.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Yes, it would be a matter of time. "Time, time, time is on my siiiide, yes it iiiiis"

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Hum, assuming that Japan still attacks Pearl Harbour, the US attakcs tehm, but without the German dec of war, where would all the US bombers have gone? Possible to China or to GB or Russsia as lend lease, the Pacific campaign would have been quicker, finished perhaps in 44 if war with Germany had been avoided, this would leave a nearly defeated Germany in Europe. Hum... interesting... I honestly can not inmage what the Germans could have done to get the US to declare war on them short of another Pear Harbour type incident.

Hitler's U-boats would have to hold off downing US ships. IMO. Still, I wonder if we could sit idley by watching the Holocaust and not do anything.

With the US supporting the UK as actively as it was in 1941, with Roosevelt and other leaders as keenly interested in a European involvment as they were and with the US population already stirred up about the war following Pearl Harbor, I have no doubts that the US would have, at some point, gotten involved in the European fighting. That we did in 1942, very well likely prevented Stalin from realizing communist plans of control of Western Europe, as has been alluded to in other threads. Britain, as resolute as they were, could not have engineered a cross channel invasion as early as they were able to with US assistance and I have my strong doubts that they would have not been able to conclude the North African campaign alone as early as was in May 1943.

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Best Regards,
JW

I would never support the idea that people, like the Americans, would sit and watch the Holocaust.

In 44 had the isolationist been able to prove the Roosevelt had let Pearl Harbour happen, he would not have been re-elected. I would think this and indicator that most Americans while willing to confront the evil that came looking for them were hesitant to go looking for a fight.

What could have been said to convince the American public that they needed to go and fight Germany?

The holocaust was never a reason to go to war. The US was aware of it there were articles in the NY Times before the war started but they were always buried in the back. If Germany hadn't declared war on us and without a reason like in WWI to declare, we would have fought in Asia first instead of Europe and by the time we had defeated the Japanese the Soviets would have been all the way to the Atlantic. The big question then is how would the cold war and post-war development change when the Iron Curtain was the English Channel?

Maybe there would be a Missile Crisis when Mr. Khruschev protested against installation of US IRBMs in Britain

By the way, welcome to the forum, PLBogen.

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Just out of curiosity, just how much did the US know about the holocaust? I was under the impression that the government knew about the concentration camps but not of the details such as the death camps and of the einzatgruppen.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Good point PzJgr,

If im not mistaken, I believe that everyone was aware of how Germany felt towards the Jews and how the Jews just started to disapear, but know one know of their fate..... Not the Allies, not the Soviets, it was not until the discovery of the camps the German documents and possibly interrogations, that the truth was known.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Enough of the evidence for the Jewish Holocaust was there. Unfortunatly a lot of folks in the US did not care.

What did get the front page headlines were events like the bombing of Warsaw, Rotterdam, Belgrade... the crowds of frightened refugees along the European roads caught the Americans attention. Amoung my wifes family heirlooms are letters from their cousins in Holland describing how painfull the German occupation had become, in less than year. Americans still attempting to do business in Europe were bring back more and more storys that were difficult to ignore. There was a growing awareness that this went far beyond some "...mistrreated Jews..." that the entire population of occupied Europe was losing their liberty, independance, property rights, employment, and their lives.

The isolationists were many & had some powerfull organizations but there were many anti Germans (including my father and grandfather) and pro British. The pro British had considerable organization and political leverage as well. This was not a one sided political fight.

I also belive that the Americasn knew that Jews were bheing murdered but not the full extent of it.

I still stand by my original post, the Holocaust would not have provocated a declaration of war from the Americans.

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The Muslim Brotherhood “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands..." — Mohamed Akram. http://jihadwatch.org/

I agree, but wouldnt the statement above contradict the one made by you earlier?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

May I try to clarify.

If the American people had known that millions of people were being murdered, I think that there would have be outcries, protests, diplomatic (before hostilities) pressure, and so on. I do not think that knowledge of these attrocities would have given rise to a declartion of war though. This is what I meant by "watching". Did this help?

I will endevor to be more clear.

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The Muslim Brotherhood “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands..." — Mohamed Akram. http://jihadwatch.org/

Understood and well put.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

I've never had any real problem with the thought that America could have very easily stayed out of the European war, sorted out Japan, and eventually traded with a Nazi europe once the fighting had died away.
Her basic isolationism was cracked in WW1 but certainly not completely thrown away as a reasonably popular point of view amongst the people of a state that had always (and most successfully) held trade as one of it's most important national priorities.
There could even be great advantage in dealing with a more unified future structure under Hitler, alongside the sweeping away of major and long established trade players like Great Britain & France.

The thought just adds to my relief, and sometimes even astonishment, that she did join in and allowed herself to be persuaded onto the 'Germany first' strategy. Those thousands of dead and wounded blokes across Western Europe who called places like Ohio, Alabama, Texas, etc. etc. their homes really didn't have to be there, but they still came.

Cheers,
Adam.

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It's only the Internet.

I have no reason to think that the US would have gone to war from 1939 on to help save the Jews, nor would have any other country, as it seems that none did for that singular reason.

As strong as the isolationist and anti-semitic lobbies were during that time and considering some of the powerful isolationist like America First or pro-Germany voices (C. Lindbergh, J. Kennedy), it was going to take something like Pearl Harbor and Hitler's Dec 11 declaration of war to get the US into the fight. The average US citizen was too worried about their own difficulties related to the depression to worry about a "bunch of Jews" or "them Gypsies" all half way around the world. Sad by true.

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Best Regards,
JW

Lets also not forget the fact that if the US had not stepped in to Europe, then Stalin would have liberated all of it. Im sure this helped in the decision making.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler