Waking to Danger

This intriguing study is the first comprehensive survey of American public opinion about Nazi Germany in the prewar years. The 1930s were years when Americans struggled to define their country's role in a dangerous world. Opinions were deeply divided and passionately held. Waking to Danger: Americans and Nazi Germany, 1933-1941 traces the evolution of American public opinion about Germany as it spiraled from ignorance and isolationism to a sense of danger and interventionism. This brief, but broad survey fills a gap in the historical literature by bringing together, for the first time, the reactions toward Nazi Germany of a variety of groups—peace advocates, Jews, fascists, communists, churches, the business community, and the military—that have hitherto only been treated separately in monographic literature. The result is a picture of evolving national public opinion that will be a walk down memory lane for the members of The Greatest Generation, while offering those who did not live through these turbulent years a fresh understanding of the era.