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Donald Trump během své první inaugurace v roce 2016 vzýval heslo America First. Co všechno v sobě toto heslo obsahuje? Není to pouhý bonmot, ale historický odkaz amerického antiimigračního hnutí první poloviny 20. století v čele s Ku-Klux-Klanem. V novém dílu podcastu Dějiny bez konce jsme se proto rozhodli podívat na ideologické kořeny americké ultrapravice v meziválečné éře 20. století. Vliv hnutí se následně ve třicátých letech transformoval ve spolupráci s nacistickým Německem a gradoval až do prvních let druhé světové války, kdy se hnutí America First v čele s Charlesem Lindberghem snažilo držet USA mimo evropský válečný konflikt. Japonský útok na Pearl Harbor jejich snahy nakonec definitivně zhatil. Do jaké míry ve světě dominoval vědecký rasismus a jak ovlivňoval imigrační politiku USA? Tyto a další otázky jsme probírali v novém dílu podcastu Dějiny bez konce. Součástí dílu je také rozhovor s australskou historičkou Sheilou Fitzpatrick o její nové knize Lost Souls (Ztracené duše). Ta se věnuje osudu nuceně vysídlených osob ze zemí východní Evropy, které se po konci války ocitli z různých důvodů v Německu a Rakousku. Velká část z těchto lidí se následně nechtěla vrátit zpět do svých rodných zemí, které byly nyní pod kontrolou Sovětského svazu. Jak tuto situaci řešily Spojenci? Jak na to reagovali Sověti? A jaký byl život v táborech? Sheila Fitzpatrcik patří k výrazným postavám světové historiografie. Svou vědeckou kariéru zasvětila zejména studiem stalinismu a Sovětského svazu, obdobím čistek a politických procesů, na který se dívala mimo jiné také pohledem zdola. Mezi její nejznámnější tituly patří například kniha Každodenní stalinismus, ve kterém zkoumá stalinismus a Sovětský svaz ve třicátých letech pohledem různých společenských vrstev. Playlist:
OA1077, Part 2 of Matt's MAGA is Fascist series. The MAGA movement has just taken a hard turn to the extreme right with openly fascist messaging from Donald Trump about “migrant crime,” “occupied cities,” and “bad genes.” We take a moment to absorb this alarming reality before Matt also explains how US immigration policy has always been the leading edge of American protofascism--and why Adolf Hitler personally admired it--before taking a look at Trump's actual 2024 immigration promises and what keeping them would mean for us all. Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law, James Q. Whitman (2017) “Trump Apparently Has a List of Things He Loves About Adolf Hitler,” Tori Otten The New Republic (3/11/24) “Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps, and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump's 2025 Immigration Plans,” Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, The New York Times (11/23/2023) If you'd like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!
The Nazis regularly cited the United States as the key inspiration for their infamous Nuremberg Laws; Rey explains the many reasons why. Reading: Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Whitman Subscribe to patreon.org/tenepod and twitter.com/tenepod.
Do you know if you have ever been a part of a cultish or high-demand community? Do you know what qualities to look for in a high-demand community?High-demand communities may bring images of cults with extreme behaviors, demands, and rituals to your mind. But when you examine the communities you love, some fall on the spectrum of cultish or high-demand communities. Cultish and high-demand communities fall on a spectrum, and not everyone associated with a group or organization with those tendencies necessarily falls into the trance of these spaces–but many of us do–often without noticing. Today's guest got me thinking more about the high-demand or cultish communities we choose. His most recent book was inspired by his experience watching the January 6th insurrection on TV and wondering if he had not left his high-demand faith community, would he have been at the US Capitol with many who showed up that day, including some from his former community.Bradley Onishi is a social commentator, scholar, writer, teacher, coach, and co-host of the Straight White American Jesus (SWAJ) podcast. In everything he does, Bradley seeks to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange by providing insight into life's most fundamental questions. He often speaks about topics related to the radical conservatism and extremist religions that shape our world, some of it right in our own neighborhoods. He is the author of Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism – And What Comes Next.Listen to the full episode to hear: Defining white Christian nationalism and why it's key to understand the role of whiteness in its ideology How nostalgia is manufactured and co-opted to sell a mythology of what America was and could be again How Christian nationalism is more mainstream than we want to believe Why we need to keep talking about January 6 How authoritarianism makes itself appealing in times of anxiety and fear The rise of purity culture and how it is fundamentally tied to white Christian nationalism Learn more about Bradley Onishi: Website Straight White American Jesus Podcast Instagram: @straightwhitejc Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism--And What Comes Next Learn more about Rebecca: rebeccaching.com Work With Rebecca Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email Resources: Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, Amanda Montell Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free, Linda Kay Klein Evangelical Christian Women: War Stories in the Gender Battles, Julie Ingersoll Sara Moslener Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law, James Q Whitman Inspector Maigret Omnibus: Volume 1: Pietr the Latvian; The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien; The Carter of 'la Providence', Georges Simenon Ted Lasso Succession Back to the Future The Karate Kid
This is a recording of the Lillian E. Smith Lecture Series Panel "Jim Crow, The Holocaust, and Today." We apologize about any moments where the audio may be unclear. In John A. Williams' Clifford's Blues, the protagonist Clifford Pepperidge is placed in Dachau in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. Originally from New Orleans and the United States, Clifford came to Europe to play music in the jazz scene, and he experienced freedom as a Black man. However, once the Nazis rose to power, he was arrested. Clifford writes in his diary from Dachau, “If you ain't for the Nazis, you're against them, and you wind up here. The South was like that. That's why I left.” Individuals such as Lillian Smith, Kelly Miller, William Patterson, and more saw the links between the Jim Crow South and Nazi Germany. They pointed out, as Morehouse student Henry E. Banks did in April 1933, following the Nazi boycott of Jewish business, the need “to condemn the racial policies of Hitler and oppose injustice wherever it is found” and to recognize the same impulses in the United States. James Q. Whitman, in Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law points out how Nazi lawyers used Jim Crow laws to inform the Nuremberg Laws and more. Through a panel discussion, “Jim Crow, the Holocaust, and Today” will explore the intersections between the Jim Crow South and Nazi Germany, discussing the historical context and also the importance of knowing this history for today. The panel will consist of Dr. Thomas Aiello (Professor of History and Africana Studies at Valdosta State University), Dr. Chad Gibbs (Director of the Zucker/Goldberg Center for Holocaust Studies at the College of Charleston) and Dr. Jelena Subotić (Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University).
Did you know Hitler and the Nazi party revered President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the racist laws he introduced? Have you ever learned about how America's Jim Crow and other discriminatory legislation inspired the 400+ Nuremberg laws that regulated the private and public lives of Jewish people? Were you aware the U.S. State Department denied a vis request from Otto Frank and his family shortly before they were executed in Nazi death camps? I boldly suggest America's standard curriculum that teaches World War II is incomplete without this information. Take a listen and complete your understanding of America's participation in World War II! This episode is dedicated to Charlene Schiff. In honor of her bravery, and out of responsibility to her request, I ask that we all take the time to learn about these events so that we will not allow history to repeat itself. I have included her voice in part of this episode. Her voice recording came from a project created by the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum. Episode Information Sources:-https://www.ushmm.org-Hitler's American Model: The United States and The Making of The Making of Nazi Race Law by James Whitman-Framing the Moron: The Social Construction of Feeble-Mindedness in the American Eugenic Era by Gerald O'Brien
Episode 100: On February 20th, 1939, twenty thousand American Nazis held a rally in Madison Square Garden, declaring George Washington as the “first fascist.” How did Nazi movements come to thrive in the United States, and what were the social and historical conditions that paved the way for their success?Hidden History Patreon: LinkSources and Further ReadingHitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law: LinkNazi action T4 euthanasia programme: historical research, individual life stories and the culture of remembrance: LinkThe Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism: LinkThe Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics: LinkLegalizing Hate: The Significance of the Nuremburg Laws and the post-War Nuremburg Trials: LinkHenry Ford and "The International Jew": LinkHenry Ford and the Jews : The Mass Production of Hate: LinkAnti-Semitism and American History: LinkCannistraro, Philip V. Blackshirts in Little Italy: Italian Americans and Fascism, 1921-1929. Vol. 17. Bordighera Incorporated, 1999.Wolf, Cameron. "Fritz Kuhn's Nazi America: Kuhn's Growth and Destruction of the German American Bund in the 1930s." PhD diss., Department of History, University of Kansas, 2019.Post-War Further ReadingVeil of Protection: Operation Paperclip and the Contrasting Fates of Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph: LinkAmerican Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party: LinkThe dialectics of historical fantasy: The ideology of George Lincoln Rockwell: LinkDr. Space: The Life of Wernher von Braun: LinkBecoming a Racist: Women in Contemporary Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazi Groups: LinkThe Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups and Right Wing Extremists: LinkReichsrock: The International Web of White-Power and Neo-Nazi Hate Music: Link
Dave and Chris are joined by Yale professor James Q. Whitman, author of ‘Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law,’ to discuss how Nazi Germany drew from American race laws in crafting the Nuremberg Laws.
Stephen Miller is one of President Trump’s senior policy advisors. This week, Michael Hayden from the Southern Poverty Law Center joins us to speak about the disturbing leaks and the history of America’s immigration policies. Miller backs immigration policies Hitler once praisedMiller refers to President Calvin Coolidge multiple times in emails to Breitbart. Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924. The legislation was based on eugenics and severely limited immigration from certain parts of the world into the United States. White nationalists lionize Coolidge, in part for his remarks condemning race mixing.“There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons,” Coolidge wrote in a 1921 magazine article, as quoted on American Renaissance. “Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. … Quality of mind and body suggests that observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.”In “Mein Kampf,” Hitler portrayed the U.S. law as a potential model for the Nazis in Germany. James Q. Whitman, the Ford Foundation professor of comparative and foreign law at Yale Law School, noted this detail in his book “Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law.”“Absolutely, Hitler talks about the law in ‘Mein Kampf,’” Whitman told Hatewatch. “He suggests that the U.S. was the only country making the type of progress the Nazis were trying to establish.”Miller brings up Coolidge on Aug. 4, 2015, in the context of halting all immigration to America. Garrett Murch, who also was an aide to Sessions, starts the conversation by emailing McHugh, Miller and three other Breitbart employees, including Hahn, to note something he heard on a right-wing talk radio show:Murch, Aug. 4, 2015, 6:22 p.m. ET: “[Show host] Mark Levin just said there should be no immigration for several years. Not just cut the number down from the current 1 million green cards per year. For assimilation purposes.”Miller, Aug. 4, 2015, 6:23 p.m. ET: “Like Coolidge did. Kellyanne Conway poll says that is exactly what most Americans want after 40 years of non-stop record arrivals.”Another example of Miller mentioning Coolidge happens Sept. 13, 2015, when he criticizes Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham for appearing too sympathetic to refugees. Miller sends an email to McHugh and Hahn with the subject, “Tucker asks McCain, Graham how refugees are good for Americans,” with a transcript of a discussion between the two senators and Tucker Carlson of Fox News.Miller, Sept. 13, 2015, 7:53 p.m. ET: “this is a good chance to expose that ridiculous statue of liberty myth. Poem has nothing to do with it: [Link] Indeed, two decades after poem was added, Coolidge shut down immigration. No one said he was violating the Statue of Liberty's purpose. BTW: have you noticed how [Ben] Carson and [Carly] Fiorina are preening [Marco] Rubio-like daily in front of the media to show them how they are good and decent Republicans unlike Mr. Trump? Finally, speaking of refugees, did you see the expanded list I emailed of foreign-born terrorists on Friday afternoon?”McHugh said the email exchange led to her Breitbart post called “Lindsey Graham: Pretty Poem Says USA Must Adopt Unknown Muslim Men from Jihad-Syria." McHugh’s Sept. 14, 2015, story treats Arab men as a danger to Americans in the suburbs: “Graham’s position is almost a threat: Boots on the ground in Syria, or your sleepy suburb gets a ‘diverse’ surprise.”Miller cites Coolidge again in the context of Ellis Island on April 28, 2015, when he sends McHugh a New York Times article that the immigration museum there would be adding new galleries:Miller, April 28, 2015, 11:38 p.m. ET: Something tells me there is not a Calvin Coolidge exhibit.Miller also brings up Coolidge in the context of Immigrant Heritage Month on June 2, 2015. He sends a link from an MSNBC report about the start of the month:Miller, June 2, 2015, 7:05 p.m. ET: This would seem a good opportunity to remind people about the heritage established by Calvin Coolidge, which covers four decades of the 20th century.Miller’s comment about “four decades” refers to the time between the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, or Hart-Celler Act, which abolished racial quota laws for immigration. Miller’s vision on immigration equates “heritage” with a time in which American laws were dictated by discredited race science.Miller posits conspiracy theories about immigrationMiller helped shape one of McHugh’s stories for Breitbart titled “Ted Kennedy’s Real Legacy: 50 Years of Ruinous Immigration Law,” the emails show. The story focused on the legacy of the Hart-Celler Act from the perspective that the removal of racial quota laws harmed the country. Miller flagged the story idea to McHugh:Miller, March 30, 2015, 1:49 p.m. ET: “They opened the Ted Kennedy center today in Boston. Another opportunity to revisit the ’65 immigration law.”After McHugh’s story was published, Miller emailed her, “The eds should make your piece the overnight lead.” He went on to suggest that the reason no other publication covered the anniversary of the law the same way Breitbart did was because elites wanted to keep the country in the dark about immigration. White nationalists typically argue that whites are being replaced in the United States because outside forces seek to do them harm.Miller, March 30, 2015, 10:24 p.m. ET: “Just let this sink in: Kennedy was honored today, fifty years after pushing through this law, and you're the only writer in the country who published a piece even mentioning the law and what it did.”McHugh, March 30, 2015, 10:31 p.m. ET: “That is … very disturbing.”Miller, March 30, 2015, 10:35 p.m. ET: “Elites can't allow the people to see that their condition is not the product of events beyond their control, but the product of policy they foisted onto them.”McHugh, March 30, 2015, 10:42 p.m. ET: “Right. Immigration is something that we can only vote to have more of — immigration ‘reform’ is a moral imperative — but it’s impossible, evil, racist to reverse immigration, and you don’t think that the government can deport 11 million anyway, do you?”Miller, March 30, 2015, 10:44 p.m. ET: “They want people to feel helpless, retreat into their enclaves, and detach. Our job is to show people they can still control their destiny. Knowledge is the first step. Btw - Bannon was praising your work on this to me again.”In his emails, Miller uses slang and rhetoric about immigration that would be familiar to people who read white nationalists discussing the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. He refers to demographic changes brought about by immigration as “new America” multiple times in the emails. It’s a phrase VDARE sometimes uses. Here are some examples of Miller using similar language in emails to Breitbart over nearly a week in July 2015:“The ruined city of L.A.,” referring to his hometown on July 9, 2015.“New Charlotte,” pointing to an article about employers in Charlotte, North Carolina, hiring more bilingual staff on July 14, 2015.“New English,” about then-current GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush speaking Spanish on the campaign trail on July 14, 2015.“More lies about new america[sic],” linking to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece from July 2015 that lays out the degree to which immigrants are less likely than native-born Americans to commit crimes.Excerpt written by Michael Hayden. Please go to Hatewatch to learn more about Stephen Miller and his disturbing ideology. Get full access to Historic.ly at historicly.substack.com/subscribe
With James Q. Whitman, Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School. His books include Harsh Justice, The Origins of Reasonable Doubt, The Verdict of Battle, and his latest, Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. The post The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law appeared first on KPFA.
The final months of the Nazi regime are usually described in terms of apocalyptic chaos. A society in catastrophe. A spiral of violence. A state of confusion tinged with security paranoia that allowed individual actors to wield unchecked power over life and death. In this episode, Gerhard Paul’s chapter on executions in the Endphase outlines explanations for the escalation of violence and provides a great jumping off point for discussion. Chris and Ryan make the case that, rather than being swept away by crisis, the state’s use of violence shows a deliberate and structured response intended to master the situation. H-net News: A review of James W. Whitman, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law
James Q. Whitman is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He is the Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School and author of the new book Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. During this episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Professor Whitman and Chauncey discuss the connections between American "race scientists" and their peers in Germany, what the Nazis and Adolf Hitler learned from America's racial order, as well as how American anti-miscegenation laws and Jim and Jane Crow were admired by the Nazis. Professor Whitman also shares his thoughts on the troubling parallels between Donald Trump's rise to power, the recent events in Charlottesville, and Hitler's genocidal authoritarian regime. On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega reflects on Hurricane Harvey and what its devastating aftermath reveals about the color line, income inequality, and disaster capitalism. Chauncey also ponders the morality of trying to profit from the inevitable rebuilding efforts. At the end of the this week's podcast Chauncey also "connects the dots" between the high level of support for Donald Trump among America's police, disinformation about the Black Lives Matter movement, and how the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies have now labeled anti-fascists as "terrorists".
James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School, began researching the book that became Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton University Press, 2017) by wondering whether Jim Crow laws in the U.S. had any impact on the development of the Nuremberg Laws. Some scholars have denied any influence. Professor Whitman came to a very different conclusion, and what he learned deserves to be much more widely appreciated than it is. For the United States was the global pioneer of explicitly racist law–and not just, by any means, in the Jim Crow South. Strikingly, American law was most helpful to the most radical Nazi jurists. In the early years of the Third Reich, 1933 to 1936, conservative nationalist lawyers in Germany debated with Nazi radicals about how to create a body of anti-Semitic law, but one consonant with German legal traditions, which emphasized strict adherence to carefully-articulated concepts. The radicals found their model in U.S. citizenship and anti-miscegenation law, and in a legal culture that, from their point of view, was refreshingly open to innovation. Yet even the most radical Nazi jurists found the notorious one-drop rule, and the extreme punishments some U.S. states meted out for entering into racially-mixed marriages, too harsh and inhumane. Professor Whitman’s unsettling, learned, and deeply-engaging book deserves a large audience. Monica Black is Associate Professor and Lindsay Young Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She teaches courses in modern European and German history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School, began researching the book that became Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton University Press, 2017) by wondering whether Jim Crow laws in the U.S. had any impact on the development of the Nuremberg Laws. Some scholars have denied any influence. Professor Whitman came to a very different conclusion, and what he learned deserves to be much more widely appreciated than it is. For the United States was the global pioneer of explicitly racist law–and not just, by any means, in the Jim Crow South. Strikingly, American law was most helpful to the most radical Nazi jurists. In the early years of the Third Reich, 1933 to 1936, conservative nationalist lawyers in Germany debated with Nazi radicals about how to create a body of anti-Semitic law, but one consonant with German legal traditions, which emphasized strict adherence to carefully-articulated concepts. The radicals found their model in U.S. citizenship and anti-miscegenation law, and in a legal culture that, from their point of view, was refreshingly open to innovation. Yet even the most radical Nazi jurists found the notorious one-drop rule, and the extreme punishments some U.S. states meted out for entering into racially-mixed marriages, too harsh and inhumane. Professor Whitman’s unsettling, learned, and deeply-engaging book deserves a large audience. Monica Black is Associate Professor and Lindsay Young Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She teaches courses in modern European and German history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School, began researching the book that became Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton University Press, 2017) by wondering whether Jim Crow laws in the U.S. had any impact on the development of the Nuremberg Laws. Some scholars have denied any influence. Professor Whitman came to a very different conclusion, and what he learned deserves to be much more widely appreciated than it is. For the United States was the global pioneer of explicitly racist law–and not just, by any means, in the Jim Crow South. Strikingly, American law was most helpful to the most radical Nazi jurists. In the early years of the Third Reich, 1933 to 1936, conservative nationalist lawyers in Germany debated with Nazi radicals about how to create a body of anti-Semitic law, but one consonant with German legal traditions, which emphasized strict adherence to carefully-articulated concepts. The radicals found their model in U.S. citizenship and anti-miscegenation law, and in a legal culture that, from their point of view, was refreshingly open to innovation. Yet even the most radical Nazi jurists found the notorious one-drop rule, and the extreme punishments some U.S. states meted out for entering into racially-mixed marriages, too harsh and inhumane. Professor Whitman’s unsettling, learned, and deeply-engaging book deserves a large audience. Monica Black is Associate Professor and Lindsay Young Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She teaches courses in modern European and German history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School, began researching the book that became Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton University Press, 2017) by wondering whether Jim Crow laws in the U.S. had any impact on the development of the Nuremberg Laws. Some scholars have denied any influence. Professor Whitman came to a very different conclusion, and what he learned deserves to be much more widely appreciated than it is. For the United States was the global pioneer of explicitly racist law–and not just, by any means, in the Jim Crow South. Strikingly, American law was most helpful to the most radical Nazi jurists. In the early years of the Third Reich, 1933 to 1936, conservative nationalist lawyers in Germany debated with Nazi radicals about how to create a body of anti-Semitic law, but one consonant with German legal traditions, which emphasized strict adherence to carefully-articulated concepts. The radicals found their model in U.S. citizenship and anti-miscegenation law, and in a legal culture that, from their point of view, was refreshingly open to innovation. Yet even the most radical Nazi jurists found the notorious one-drop rule, and the extreme punishments some U.S. states meted out for entering into racially-mixed marriages, too harsh and inhumane. Professor Whitman’s unsettling, learned, and deeply-engaging book deserves a large audience. Monica Black is Associate Professor and Lindsay Young Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She teaches courses in modern European and German history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School, began researching the book that became Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton University Press, 2017) by wondering whether Jim Crow laws in the U.S. had any impact on the development of the Nuremberg Laws. Some scholars have denied any influence. Professor Whitman came to a very different conclusion, and what he learned deserves to be much more widely appreciated than it is. For the United States was the global pioneer of explicitly racist law–and not just, by any means, in the Jim Crow South. Strikingly, American law was most helpful to the most radical Nazi jurists. In the early years of the Third Reich, 1933 to 1936, conservative nationalist lawyers in Germany debated with Nazi radicals about how to create a body of anti-Semitic law, but one consonant with German legal traditions, which emphasized strict adherence to carefully-articulated concepts. The radicals found their model in U.S. citizenship and anti-miscegenation law, and in a legal culture that, from their point of view, was refreshingly open to innovation. Yet even the most radical Nazi jurists found the notorious one-drop rule, and the extreme punishments some U.S. states meted out for entering into racially-mixed marriages, too harsh and inhumane. Professor Whitman’s unsettling, learned, and deeply-engaging book deserves a large audience. Monica Black is Associate Professor and Lindsay Young Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She teaches courses in modern European and German history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School, began researching the book that became Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton University Press, 2017) by wondering whether Jim Crow laws in the U.S. had any impact on the development of the Nuremberg Laws. Some scholars have denied any influence. Professor Whitman came to a very different conclusion, and what he learned deserves to be much more widely appreciated than it is. For the United States was the global pioneer of explicitly racist law–and not just, by any means, in the Jim Crow South. Strikingly, American law was most helpful to the most radical Nazi jurists. In the early years of the Third Reich, 1933 to 1936, conservative nationalist lawyers in Germany debated with Nazi radicals about how to create a body of anti-Semitic law, but one consonant with German legal traditions, which emphasized strict adherence to carefully-articulated concepts. The radicals found their model in U.S. citizenship and anti-miscegenation law, and in a legal culture that, from their point of view, was refreshingly open to innovation. Yet even the most radical Nazi jurists found the notorious one-drop rule, and the extreme punishments some U.S. states meted out for entering into racially-mixed marriages, too harsh and inhumane. Professor Whitman’s unsettling, learned, and deeply-engaging book deserves a large audience. Monica Black is Associate Professor and Lindsay Young Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She teaches courses in modern European and German history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
James Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School, began researching the book that became Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton University Press, 2017) by wondering whether Jim Crow laws in the U.S. had any impact...
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