• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Fearing Nazi Spies, the U.S. Government Turned Away Thousands of Jewish Refugees

PoS

PoS

Minister of Love
DP Veteran
Joined
Feb 24, 2014
Messages
33,935
Reaction score
26,643
Location
Oceania
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Libertarian
The U.S. Government Turned Away Thousands of Jewish Refugees, Fearing That They Were Nazi Spies | History | Smithsonian

In late 1938, American consulates were flooded with 125,000 applicants for visas, many coming from Germany and the annexed territories of Austria. But national quotas for German and Austrian immigrants had been set firmly at 27,000.

Immigration restrictions actually tightened as the refugee crisis worsened. Wartime measures demanded special scrutiny of anyone with relatives in Nazi territories—even relatives in concentration camps. At a press conference, President Roosevelt repeated the unproven claims from his advisers that some Jewish refugees had been coerced to spy for the Nazis. “Not all of them are voluntary spies,” Roosevelt said. “It is rather a horrible story, but in some of the other countries that refugees out of Germany have gone to, especially Jewish refugees, they found a number of definitely proven spies.”

Read more: The U.S. Government Turned Away Thousands of Jewish Refugees, Fearing That They Were Nazi Spies | History | Smithsonian
Click to expand...

Seems we havent learned much from history...
 
It seems that folks are willing to grasp at anything in order make untenable comparisons when it comes to Trump. :shrug:
 
Excon said:
It seems that folks are willing to grasp at anything in order make untenable comparisons when it comes to Trump. :shrug:
Click to expand...

Thanks for proving my point.
 
They were turned away because they were Jews, pure and simple. The US, like most of the world at the time, was very anti-Semetic and trying to cover that up by a lame ass excuse "they were Nazi spies" is pathetic. The US already targeted Jews in the 1920s for special treatment by putting low quotas from areas with high Jewish populations.
 
Excon said:
It seems that folks are willing to grasp at anything in order make untenable comparisons when it comes to Trump. :shrug:
Click to expand...

Yup every president hates being compared to FDR
 
PeteEU said:
They were turned away because they were Jews, pure and simple. The US, like most of the world at the time, was very anti-Semetic and trying to cover that up by a lame ass excuse "they were Nazi spies" is pathetic. The US already targeted Jews in the 1920s for special treatment by putting low quotas from areas with high Jewish populations.
Click to expand...

so to be the same we would have had to turn away all people fleeing fascists which would have been the sensible and moral policy?
 
PeteEU said:
They were turned away because they were Jews, pure and simple. The US, like most of the world at the time, was very anti-Semetic and trying to cover that up by a lame ass excuse "they were Nazi spies" is pathetic. The US already targeted Jews in the 1920s for special treatment by putting low quotas from areas with high Jewish populations.
Click to expand...

Reality strikes again. (Not a slam)
 
PoS said:
The U.S. Government Turned Away Thousands of Jewish Refugees, Fearing That They Were Nazi Spies | History | Smithsonian



Seems we havent learned much from history...
Click to expand...

But we kept over 400,000 German prisoners of war in our own country... At the time, it seemed best to divert people from Germany. There were Italians and others that were held in camps or moved from their homes inland. When we consider that, for US, it had only been 76 years since the Civil War and 23 years since WWI, I think its appropriate to cut the US government a little slack on a world war immigration policy.

Addendum: Just prior to and during the American revolution, New York became the Loyalist flood victim , so refugeeism is old news for us.
 
Last edited:
PeteEU said:
They were turned away because they were Jews, pure and simple. The US, like most of the world at the time, was very anti-Semetic and trying to cover that up by a lame ass excuse "they were Nazi spies" is pathetic. The US already targeted Jews in the 1920s for special treatment by putting low quotas from areas with high Jewish populations.
Click to expand...

Anti Jewish sentiment was still pretty high in the US in those days, and there was a radio personality priest by the name of Charles E. Coughlin who spread a lot of anti Jewish propaganda during that time, that true to form got the extremists very upset had a great deal to do with public opinion on the issue. The country had all but shut the doors, which was a pretty good idea at the time. As for the Jews, terrible ting; they did get stranded and we did nothing until the Holocaust became an issue of the war.
 
Excon said:
It seems that folks are willing to grasp at anything in order make untenable comparisons when it comes to Trump. :shrug:
Click to expand...

He's talking about ethno-religious exclusions. Look, the reason Trump's plan crashed like - a - Stuka was because of piss poor planning and unpure motivations. Big mouth Rudy Guliani spilled the beans and told the whole world that it "was Muslim ban" right from the beginning. So that's why Trump got slapped by the country. Had the man exercised just a modicum of common sense and professional decorum, his "vetting process" might have gone somewhere. But of course, as we see every day now, you just about cannot trust anything the man says or does, so it's all on him.
 
wolfman24 said:
Reality strikes again. (Not a slam)
Click to expand...

The world can be a very very hard place when it's at war. I'd like to suggest that you spend some more time reading about it.

(Not a slam either)
 
jet57 said:
He's talking about ethno-religious exclusions. Look, the reason Trump's plan crashed like - a - Stuka was because of piss poor planning and unpure motivations. Big mouth Rudy Guliani spilled the beans and told the whole world that it "was Muslim ban" right from the beginning. So that's why Trump got slapped by the country. Had the man exercised just a modicum of common sense and professional decorum, his "vetting process" might have gone somewhere. But of course, as we see every day now, you just about cannot trust anything the man says or does, so it's all on him.
Click to expand...
iLOL
No. Simply no.
 
No one has been turned way from countries more than Jews through out history. FDR is to blame for the WWII incident.
 
Excon said:
It seems that folks are willing to grasp at anything in order make untenable comparisons when it comes to Trump. :shrug:
Click to expand...

So you don't think ISIS is as bad as the Nazis? Huh.
 
Excon said:
Wtf? :shock:
Click to expand...

You complained the comparison was "untenable". In both cases, Americans were turning away people who were unquestionably in danger because of fear they fight be spies. Are Syrian refugees in any less danger from ISIS than the Jews were from Nazi Germany? Do you think that for some reason ISIS is going to be decent to people who are fleeing from them?
 
Tigerace117 said:
You complained the comparison was "untenable". In both cases, Americans were turning away people who were unquestionably in danger because of fear they fight be spies. Are Syrian refugees in any less danger from ISIS than the Jews were from Nazi Germany? Do you think that for some reason ISIS is going to be decent to people who are fleeing from them?
Click to expand...
What I said was.
It seems that folks are willing to grasp at anything in order make untenable comparisons when it comes to Trump.
​

My understanding of the gist of the OP's argument was that both actions are comparable as wrong.
That is an untenable comparison because both actions were/are correct/just/right when it comes to the safety of this nation.
(and if I got that geist wrong, that is a whole other matter.)

So back to your question. "So you don't think ISIS is as bad as the Nazis? Huh."
Did I say that? No I didn't.
 
Last edited:
PoS said:
Seems we havent learned much from history...
Click to expand...

Remember, there were many ways to be put into a concentration camp. And here are some of those that were not based upon religion or race.

Primarily, most of the "Politicals" were Communists. Anywhere from a more Liberal Socialist professor all the way to bomb throwing riot causing Anarchists. Do we want to accept huge numbers of people like that into the country? And remember, this was less than 2 decades after a string of Anarchist inspired attacks and bombings inside the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1919_United_States_anarchist_bombings

In fact, the first waves of prisoners in these camps were almost universally political in nature. The placing of Jews and other religious and racial inmates did not really come about until after WWII started.

But you even had Nazi officials placed in the camps, as well as soldiers and even Lutheran ministers. Anybody who stood up against (or pissed off) the Nazi Party could potentially be sent off to a camp.

And just because they opposed the Nazis, that did not necessarily mean they were our allies.
 
Tigerace117 said:
You complained the comparison was "untenable". In both cases, Americans were turning away people who were unquestionably in danger because of fear they fight be spies.
Click to expand...

Actually, the US at the time was turning away almost everybody. In the decades prior to WWII the US was very isolationist, In 1940 the US accepted 2 million less immigrants thatn it had a decade prior. Deflation, the depression, and the dustbowl all added to the US greatly restricting immigration in fear it would make employment even worse here at home.
 
The more I learn about World War II, the more I realize there wasn't much moral high-ground to stand on. While we weren't attempting to literally erase entire countries, we were interning Japanese-Americans in squalid conditions and now this. I mean, we were basically a co-belligerent like Finland until Japan attacked us in 1941 - WWII had already been ongoing between two to three years before we decided to do anything.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom