Read Online Double Agent by Peter Duffy - Free Book Online
Authors: Peter Duffy
Tags: United States, General, Historical, History, Biography & Autobiography, World War II, Military, 20th Century, Political Science, Intelligence & Espionage
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principally the Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 “Flying Pencil.” For one, the “mammoth bureaucracy, composed of mediocrities,” favored “increasingly sterile regimentation” over creative interplay with gifted designers, according to Ernst Heinkel, one of the most gifted. For another, Ernst Udet was becoming so obsessed with the dive-bomber concept that he was thinking of ending the production of horizontal bombers altogether. Third, the force had to be ready
now
. On July 8, Hermann Göring told German aircraft executives to increase production so exponentially that the bankruptcy of their companies might be the result. “If we win the fight, then Germany will be the greatest power on earth; the world’s markets will belong to Germany, and the time will come for abundant prosperity in Germany,” he said. “But we must venture something for this; we have to make the investment.”
His service complete, Lang and his wife returned to Queens. They moved from the apartment building at the corner of Seventieth Avenue and Sixtieth Street in Ridgewood where they had been living to a nicer residence several blocks to the southeast, a single floor of a three-story structure on Sixty-Fourth Place in Glendale, around the corner from a young shortstop just out of high school who had signed with the Yankees, Phil Rizzuto. On his second day back, Lang resumed his work as an assistant inspector on the sixteenth floor of 80 Lafayette Street. Two weeks later, he submitted his petition for naturalization, his “second papers,” affirming his desire to become an American citizen before a clerk of the federal court and two witnesses, both of them German American friends employed by Norden. He sought to blend back into the bustle of city life, just another immigrant striver hoping to achieve his share of the American dream. “I am sorry that I did not go back to Germany right away,” he would later say.
▪ ▪ ▪
Most Americans had few illusions about Hitler’s motives. Although polls showed the public viewed the German and Soviet systems with about equal levels of disdain, 82 percent said they would support the Soviets over the Nazis if the two ever fought a war against each other. Hitler had “resurrected tribal instincts and the mystical sanctions of a savage society,” which of necessity would lead to a fight against all inferior races on the ultimate stage of history, according to a writer for
Reader’s Digest
, the voice of Middle America. The
Atlantic Monthly
said that Germany stood “in clattering armor before the world demanding vengeance,” less interested in territory or raw materials than in fighting a war for the sake of victory to relieve the shame of Versailles. Yet while
Newsweek
detected an “increased backing for a sterner foreign policy” among the populace, the country was still resolutely isolationist, willing to support FDR’s $1.1 billion naval expansion plan (which passed both houses of Congress in May 1938) for the purposes of self-defense but unwilling to consider joining a distant fight. The plight of the Jews would not bring a call to arms: according to Gallup, 65 percent of Americans thought anti-Jewish persecution in the Reich was either partly or completely the fault of the Jews themselves. In an editorial about the anti-Semitic violence committed by rampaging hordes of Nazis that followed the
Anschluss,
the
Daily News
mused that a respected statesman should avoid fanfare and “slip word” to Hitler “on the matter of calling off or toning down his vendetta against the Jewish race.”
The new German ambassador in Washington, Hans Dieckhoff, was worried that the German American Bund would be just the thing to inflame the Americans from their isolationism and into a war on the side of France and England, the potentially devastating eventuality he was working so hard to prevent. He penned two long memos to Berlin suggesting that unambiguous action be taken to shutter the
now
. On July 8, Hermann Göring told German aircraft executives to increase production so exponentially that the bankruptcy of their companies might be the result. “If we win the fight, then Germany will be the greatest power on earth; the world’s markets will belong to Germany, and the time will come for abundant prosperity in Germany,” he said. “But we must venture something for this; we have to make the investment.”
His service complete, Lang and his wife returned to Queens. They moved from the apartment building at the corner of Seventieth Avenue and Sixtieth Street in Ridgewood where they had been living to a nicer residence several blocks to the southeast, a single floor of a three-story structure on Sixty-Fourth Place in Glendale, around the corner from a young shortstop just out of high school who had signed with the Yankees, Phil Rizzuto. On his second day back, Lang resumed his work as an assistant inspector on the sixteenth floor of 80 Lafayette Street. Two weeks later, he submitted his petition for naturalization, his “second papers,” affirming his desire to become an American citizen before a clerk of the federal court and two witnesses, both of them German American friends employed by Norden. He sought to blend back into the bustle of city life, just another immigrant striver hoping to achieve his share of the American dream. “I am sorry that I did not go back to Germany right away,” he would later say.
▪ ▪ ▪
Most Americans had few illusions about Hitler’s motives. Although polls showed the public viewed the German and Soviet systems with about equal levels of disdain, 82 percent said they would support the Soviets over the Nazis if the two ever fought a war against each other. Hitler had “resurrected tribal instincts and the mystical sanctions of a savage society,” which of necessity would lead to a fight against all inferior races on the ultimate stage of history, according to a writer for
Reader’s Digest
, the voice of Middle America. The
Atlantic Monthly
said that Germany stood “in clattering armor before the world demanding vengeance,” less interested in territory or raw materials than in fighting a war for the sake of victory to relieve the shame of Versailles. Yet while
Newsweek
detected an “increased backing for a sterner foreign policy” among the populace, the country was still resolutely isolationist, willing to support FDR’s $1.1 billion naval expansion plan (which passed both houses of Congress in May 1938) for the purposes of self-defense but unwilling to consider joining a distant fight. The plight of the Jews would not bring a call to arms: according to Gallup, 65 percent of Americans thought anti-Jewish persecution in the Reich was either partly or completely the fault of the Jews themselves. In an editorial about the anti-Semitic violence committed by rampaging hordes of Nazis that followed the
Anschluss,
the
Daily News
mused that a respected statesman should avoid fanfare and “slip word” to Hitler “on the matter of calling off or toning down his vendetta against the Jewish race.”
The new German ambassador in Washington, Hans Dieckhoff, was worried that the German American Bund would be just the thing to inflame the Americans from their isolationism and into a war on the side of France and England, the potentially devastating eventuality he was working so hard to prevent. He penned two long memos to Berlin suggesting that unambiguous action be taken to shutter the
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