James Madison wrote, “Equal laws protecting equal rights [are] the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country.” If that is true, as the mid-term election approaches, why do polls show voters equally divided between candidates who claim to protect rights and those who cheerily explain how they wish to take rights away? Why would anyone fall for autocratic guff?
Charles Lindbergh—Lucky Lindy, the Lone Eagle, an American hero—fell for that guff. Maybe if we trace Lindbergh’s journey from All-American boy to the man who accepted Hitler and fascism, we will better understand.
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Mich. in 1902. In 1927, Lindbergh was hailed for making the first nonstop solo flight from New York to Paris. He and his single-engine plane, “The Spirit of St Louis,” were acclaimed worldwide. He was the symbol of America—young, brave, and accomplished. Lindbergh was 25.
Five years later, Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., was kidnapped. Though Lindbergh paid the ransom, the child was later found dead, his tiny skull fractured. A German immigrant, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, was arrested, tried, and convicted of the crime. He was executed. Even then, the hysteria did not die down. In the midst of it, a photographer broke into the morgue and took a photograph of the infant’s corpse.
Lindbergh and his wife, Ann Morrow Lindbergh, fled the country. According to Lindbergh biographer, A. Scott Berg, it was during his time in Europe that Lindbergh became fascinated with German technology.
In 1938, the Lindberghs visited Berlin. The death camps were in full operation, and word of the millions of deaths had seeped out. Against that backdrop, Lindbergh, very publicly, received the Service Cross of the German Eagle, decorated with swastikas, from Nazi air minister Hermann Göring on behalf of the Fuhrer Adolph Hitler. The ceremony was just two nights before Kristallnacht, “night of broken glass,” in which Jews were beaten and their homes, businesses, and places of worship, were destroyed.
Lindbergh, a hero worldwide, came under attack all over the world for being pro-Nazi. In 1939, he returned to the United States. He took the position as the leading isolationist. As such, in the run up to World War II, he was seen as protecting Germany against his own country. His status as an American hero and symbol of America, was tarnished.
He destroyed the last shreds of his reputation in a speech delivered that year. Lindbergh stated, “The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt Administration … [the] greatest danger to this country lies in [the Jews’] large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”
Lindbergh was denounced as an anti-Semite. His mother-in-law, Elizabeth Cutter Morrow, poet and educator, and his sister-in-law Elisabeth, publicly denounced his views. Organizations cut all ties and even his hometown removed his name from the water tower.
After December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor Day, things changed. Lindbergh wanted to fight for his country. He resigned his military commission in 1939, but now Lindbergh was eager to re-up.
FDR was opposed. FDR heard Lindbergh speak on the superiority of Germany. “You can’t have an officer … who thinks we’re licked before we start,” the President said.
Unable to join the military or work anywhere in the government, Lindbergh worked in the private sector. Henry Ford was manufacturing B-24 bombers in a Michigan plant, and Lindbergh signed on.
In 1943, Lindbergh convinced United Aircraft to send him to the Pacific as an observer and instructor. He did more than that. He flew more than 50 combat missions. He was an effective enemy of the Axis. Had he reformed his views?
He never indicated that he was wrong in his assessment of the Nazis. After the war, he did, however, speak of the misuse of power as the greatest threat facing mankind. In 1945, he said, “there is no better example of power without morality than Nazi Germany …”
Did it rehabilitate his image? No. A historian spoke for many when he wrote, “In promoting appeasement and military unpreparedness, Lindbergh damaged his country to a greater degree than any other private citizen in modern times. That he meant well makes no difference.”
What can we learn from Lindbergh? Why would any people abandon their freedom and give away their part in governing? Was Lindbergh swayed for positive reasons—respect for German progress and efficiency? Were the grieving parents swayed for negative reasons—discouraged with their own country’s crime and intrusive press? When the Lindberghs left the country physically, did they leave behind their love and loyalty for America as well? Was their affinity for Nazism born of hatred of “the other,” the British, the FDR Democrats or the Jews?
Is that what happened to Lindbergh? Is that what is happening in our country today? If so, whether immigrants, people of color, or people of a different religion, people of a different philosophy, to turn our backs on democracy out of hate is the worst possible reason of all. In that case we lose more than a decent form of government—we lose decency itself.
