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Lillian E. Smith

“You Would Make Little Nazis of Them”: Lillian Smith, Jim Crow, and Nazi Germany

Smith understood why so many white Americans, especially white Southerners, struggled to accept that their society was not so far removed from Hitler’s Germany.

American Exchanges: Third Reich’s Elite Schools

How the Nazi government used exchange student programs to foster sympathy for Nazism in the United States.
Four typewriters including the Nazi-built Urania model.

Why the World of Typewriter Collectors Splits Down the Middle When These Machines Come Up for Sale

In this new hobby, I found so many stories.

US Prep Schools Held Student Exchanges with Elite Nazi Academies

The American exchange organizers were unaware that the German pupils and staff were charged with an explicitly propagandistic mission.
People standing in the National WWII Museum

What Should You Do With a Captured Nazi Flag?

During WWII, American soldiers brought the flags home as a remembrance. Now, family members and historians must decide what should become of them.

How American Racism Influenced Hitler

Scholars are mapping the international precursors of Nazism.

How American Racism Shaped Nazism

Nazi Germany has closer ties to America and its history of institutionalized racism than some may think.

The Nazis Were Obsessed With Magic

What can their fascination with the supernatural teach us about life in our own post-truth times?

Hitler's American Dream

The dictator modeled his racial campaign after another conquest of land and people-America's Manifest Destiny.
Prescott Bush, Dorothy Bush, and George H. W. Bush at the White House.

How Bush's Grandfather Helped Hitler's Rise to Power

Rumors of a link between Prescott Bush and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. They were right.
Henry Ford

Ford and the Führer

Ford Motor Company claims its Cologne plant was confiscated by Nazis, but newly discovered documents and correspondence prove otherwise.
A group of demonstrators at the Stonewall National Monument carrying transgender flags and signs.

No History Without the T

When the National Park Service removed trans people from the webpages of the Stonewall National Monument, it echoed one of the darkest chapters of the queer past.
Parade of cars with Donald Trump flags and American flags.

The “Fascist” With a Popular Majority

Donald Trump’s victory will inevitably reopen the “fascism debate.” But does a populist whose appeal cuts across diverse groups truly fit the fascist profile?

Today’s Echoes of the First ‘America First’

Charles Lindbergh’s ideology prefigured Donald Trump’s—and was rightly disgraced.
Two newspaper workers flip a first proof of a page off the printing press at the offices of the Daily Mail, 1944.
partner

Perhaps the Most Influential Single Propagandist for Fascism

On the lengths newspaper publishers took to reach new subscribers — and then drive them away — in the 1930s.
4 photographs of Josie Rudolph Thurnauer through the years 1874-1938.

Josie’s Story: From 19th-Century Sitka To Her Escape From The Holocaust

Josie Rudolph’s life, in an era of worldwide migration and colonial ambition, offers a new perspective on the familiar tale of modern Alaska’s birth.
A ragpicker collects recyclable materials at a landfill.

Why Recycling Is Mostly Garbage

In two new books, the rise of recycling is a story of illusory promises, often entwined with disturbing political agendas.
Storefront of Nazi-owned "Aryan Book Store" called "Silver Shirt Literature."

Bigoted Bookselling: When the Nazis Opened a Propaganda Bookstore in Los Angeles

On Hitler’s attempt to win Americans over to his cause.
Zdeněk Koubek's ID card.

Discrimination Against Trans Olympians Has Roots in Nazi Germany

1934 world champion runner Zdenek Koubek, boxer Imane Khelif, and how far we haven’t come on gender in sports.
A crowd at an American Nazi Party rally raising their hands for the Nazi salute.

What Is the History of Fascism in the United States?

Bruce Kuklick traces the meaning of the term “fascist” from its origins to the present day and how it has, over the years, gradually lost its coherence.
A collage of images of Henry Ford and newspaper articles about him.

America’s Most Dangerous Anti-Jewish Propagandist

Making sense of anti-Semitism today requires examining Henry Ford’s outsize part in its origins.
Rachel Maddow speaking

Rachel Maddow Offers a Chilling History Lesson — and Hope for Today

In her new book, ‘Prequel,’ she looks at a past moment of crisis that might help us understand both the threats we face today and how we can endure them.
Kaiser Wilhelm II and his generals during World War I.

The Rise and Fall of the Project State

Rethinking the twentieth century.
English representative Lord Winterton delivers a speech at the Evian Conference, 1938.

Inside America’s Failed, Forgotten Conference to Save Jews from Hitler

Franklin D. Roosevelt called the Evian Conference in France in 1938, as the Holocaust loomed. It remains “an indelible stain on American and world history.”
Goldfish bowl superimposed on close-up of eye.

Queer History Now!

“Queer” has experienced a loss of meaning and a curdling of political potential. To reinvigorate it, we need a new approach to history.
Gelringer family, who were later deported to Auschwitz.

The Millions We Failed to Save

The recent documentary "The US and the Holocaust" is a scathing, even bombastic indictment of US immigration policy over the past 160 years.
Harry Truman, left, holds a copy of the Torah presented to him by Israeli leader Chaim Weizmann in May 1948.

How A U.S. President Known to Disparage Jews Became Godfather of Israel

Harry Truman used antisemitic slurs in private. But his surprise decision 75 years ago to recognize Israel, launching a fierce alliance, was a long time coming.
A photograph of Josephine Herbst overlaid on a newspaper article she wrote titled "The Soviet in Cuba."

How Josephine Herbst, 'Leading Lady' of the Left, Chronicled the Rise of Fascism

During the interwar years, the American journalist reported on political unrest in Cuba, Germany and Spain.
The Armed Services Edition of the book "The Grapes of Wrath."
partner

America Fought Its Own Battle Over Books Before it Fought the Nazis

Recent years have witnessed a record number of challenges against books, especially in school libraries. But attempts to ban certain books isn't new in the U.S.
Ken Burns speaking into a microphone.

Shaming Americans

Ken Burns’s "The U.S. and the Holocaust" distorts the historical record in service of a political message.

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