April 2004 Newsletter

Responses to Richard Hill

Richard Hill claimed in his SHAFR Newsletter article last year that historians have agreed since World War II that Hitler's declaration of war was the cause of America's entry into the European War and called this "a concoction invented by historians in 1945." He repeated this misinterpretation in his book with the appropriately counterfactual title, in which he also alleged there existed "a curious cover-up of the real and purposely forgotten U.S. justification of that war." At the SHAFR session we tried, apparently in vain, to explain to him the actual consensus we had a hand in fashioning. Hill, far from seeing the error of his ways, now claims that we reversed ourselves. We did nothing of the sort.

Those wishing to make sure can obtain a copy of my Washington comments from www.jonasm@union.edu. My long-established views on America's entry into World War II and on Hitler's declaration can be found in The United States and Germany, pp 240-260.

Manfred Jonas is the John Bigelow Professor of History, Emeritus, at Union College

There is no change of mind on my part, either directly or indirectly. In my remarks at the SHAFR session of June 6, I took no stand either explicitly or implicitly on the importance of Hitler's December 11 declaration of war. Half my remarks involved my challenging Dr. Hill's assertion that, as he now repeats, "Hitler had retracted his declaration [of war on the US] the day after he made it." To my knowledge no reputable historian, living or dead, has ever supported Hill's claim. For my full remarks on Hill's June 6 paper, e-mail me at doenecke@ncf.edu or write me at Division of Social Sciences, New College of Florida, Sarasota, 34243. For my treatment of the crucial days December 7-11, 1941, note the following work of mine: pages 47-48, 459-69 of my book In Danger Undaunted (1990), a book that contains internal communications of the America First Committee during these four days; pp. 321-22 of Storm on the Horizon (2000); and From Isolation to War (3rd ed.; 2003), pp. 185-87."

Justus Doenecke is Professor of History at the New College of Florida

Dr. Hill clearly is unhappy that the three of us did not embrace the thesis he advanced to the effect (as he put it in the title of his book) that "Hitler Attacks Pearl Harbor." We have read the book and paper and remain unpersuaded.

If any readers of Passport are sufficiently interested in what I said in the paper that I presented at the SHAFR session, please send me an e-mail at wc14@umail.umd.edu or a snail mail at 10203 McGovern Drive, Silver Spring, Maryland 20903-1612. requesting a copy of my paper and I shall provide it. For the treatment I advanced on the subject some twenty years ago I suggest you read or reread chapters 29 and 31 in my book, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932-45. For my mature conclusions on the America First Committee read chapter 4 in my book, Determinism and American Foreign Relations during the Franklin D. Roosevelt Era. That chapter originally was published more than a decade ago. Readers may then evaluate my treatment of the subjects for themselves.

Wayne S. Cole is Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Maryland - College Park