Early warnings: How American journalists reported the rise of Hitler

This was made in 2012 so modern analogies are null.

What did Americans think of Hitler when they first met him in the 1920s and 1930s? You write that some of them burst out laughing at his shrill voice and jerky hand movements and refused to take him seriously.

That's true. In fact, some of the first people who met him did take him quite seriously. Truman Smith, who was a junior military attaché in the 1920s, came away from meeting Hitler and said, "This is a marvelous demagogue who can really inspire loyalty." It was the same with Karl von Wiegand, a Hearst correspondent who was the first American journalist to interview Hitler back in 1922. He was struck by Hitler's oratorical skills and his ability to whip people into a frenzy.

Then you had this period after the Beer Hall Putsch where Hitler came out of prison and a lot of people had forgotten about him. After the Great Depression hit, suddenly the Nazi Party became a major contender for power. Yet you had Americans meeting Hitler and saying, "This guy is a clown. He's like a caricature of himself." And a lot of them went through this whole litany about how even if Hitler got into a position of power, other German politicians would somehow be able to control him. A lot of German politicians believed this themselves.

Of course, everyone began to reassess that very quickly after he took power. But some of the Americans were much more prescient -- for instance, Edgar Mowrer, the Chicago Daily News correspondent, kept frantically trying to warn readers and the world, "What he's saying about the Jews is serious. Don't underestimate him."

Even the German Jews didn't seem to realize the danger they were facing. It's interesting to see that the American journalists were sometimes the first ones to warn them about it.

Yes. Edgar Mowrer, the Chicago Daily News correspondent who was basically run out of Germany in September of 1933, kept advising Jews, "Get out of Germany!" There's a scene in the book where Mowrer is having lunch with group of Jewish bankers in Germany, and it becomes clear that each of them has given some money to Nazi Party at the urging of non-Jewish industrialists. They were told it would be a way of protecting themselves a bit, and they believed it. Just like a lot of Americans, the German Jews thought, "This can't really be happening."

But one of the things I found fascinating in writing this book was to put myself in the shoes of the people there, who didn't have the benefit of hindsight, and wonder, 'What would I have understood? What would I have done?" I came away from it all knowing that I couldn't, with any assurance, say I would have been any smarter.