Outspoken Anti-Semites

From The Peopling of NYC

Henry Ford

Henry Ford By 1920, Ford had become publicly anti-Semitic and in March of that year, began an anti-Jewish crusade in the pages of his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. Along with the Protocols, anti-Jewish articles published by The Dearborn Independent were also released in the early 1920s as a set of four bound volumes, cumulatively titled The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem. Vincent Curcio writes of these publications that "they were widely distributed and had great influence, particularly in Nazi Germany, where no less a personage than Adolf Hitler read and admired them. Hitler, fascinated with automobiles, hung Ford's picture on the wall; Ford is the only American mentioned in Hitler's book, Mein Kampf. Steven Watts writes that Hitler "revered" Ford, proclaiming that "I shall do my best to put his theories into practice in Germany," and modeling the Volkswagen, the people's car, on the Model T."

Charles Lindbergh

The other famous American often accused of being an anti-Semite was Charles Lindbergh. He may or may not have been an anti-Semite, but most certainly claimed publicly that Jews were trying, partly through their ownership of the media, to draw America into the war. Lindbergh represented America First, the powerful isolationist organization. The organization was more concerned with keeping the U.S. out of the War in Europe than persecuting Jews at home. However, the delayed U.S. entry into WWII and the restrictive immigration policies resulted in the deaths of many European Jews.