Chapter 6

(SEP 1939 UNITED STATES DECLARES NEUTRALITY)

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields...”
John McCrae (1872 – 1918), “In Flanders Fields,” in Punch (London), 1915

The month of September 1939 was crammed with new developments in the unfolding of World War Two.

Lost in the mix was the problematic declaration of the United States to the world that it was officially “Neutral” with regard to hostilities in Europe. Most of the historians of that era see it as a culmination of a long anti-war struggle going on in American politics with the print media being slanted in favor of a non-involvement posture. It was one of those times when media bias actually helped to shape public opinion regardless of the facts of the situation and the logical conclusion that a world under Hitler or Stalin was not one where the American people could either feel free or prosper in a free society.

The truth of the matter was that the average American citizen never had a desire to be neutral about anything no matter how distant or how negligible the impact would be on life inside the borders of the United States. Some of the theories that abounded were that Poland was blowing hot and cold between the right wing fascism of the Third Reich and the Leninist teachings of Communism from the Soviet Union. They tried to play one against the other and were split in two like King Solomon’s baby by mortal enemies that were willing to play the game in order to get half a victory rather than none at all.

With the advantage of an entire ocean between their country and the hostilities in Europe, the political pundits decided that it was best to see which way the wind was blowing before committing to one side or the other. It was at best a contradiction to American values to not do anything and at worst a risky strategy to allow the Axis of Evil comprised of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini as well as the devious warlords in the land of the rising sun to fester and grow like a rash in a hard to reach spot on the skin.

Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and other concerned allies wanted to act in concert but the chains of public opinion and a hostile media prevented them from cutting out the malignant cancer before it grew too large to defeat.

The whole concept of “Neutrality” was similar to those times when an elected representative of the people decides to vote “Present” rather than take a position that would be too difficult to explain at a later date when the forces of logic and common sense met the light of day.

This month of September, 1939 was speeding by so quickly that I was staggered at the wind shear of global conflict. Country after country lined up on this side or that and then there was those that sat on the fence and tried their best not to fall off on one side or the other because the view below was shrouded in fog.

The trams and buses ran up and down the street uninterested in the foolish machinations of mankind.

People went to work, to school and to bureaucratic Offices under the control of the all-powerful Nazi party. One didn’t see many smiles on faces. There was no laughter or the sense of gaiety in the somber atmosphere. Instead, the citizens moved like “The Walking Dead” from a future time horror film that shocked the senses.

I walked the streets cautiously these days because one never knew when their documents were determined to be “not in order”. My papers were authentic, but sometimes the validity of the papers is not the issue. If one is the subject of a pick-up order, no amount of documentation would stay the handcuffs.

The radio hub was almost deserted and that was the signal that the propaganda ministry didn’t want unauthorized transmission of any news not fully vetted for every last word.

I sat at a desk littered with scattered scraps of paper cut out from teletype machines and taped together to mash up a piece of approved “content” for outside the country distribution. I had an innocuous article about the unexpected conflicts of “Lebensborn” and the baby factories that filled certified Aryan female bellies with new “Stormtroopers” for the Third Reich. I had done it with a humorous vein that highlighted the difficulties of strictly racial purity goals at a time when young people were more interested in the joys of copulation rather than in Aryan pride.

Of course, my article was so heavily censored that the humor was all but eliminated and I didn’t recognize the result at all. I just junked the entire thing and replaced it with an article about the genius of German auto production that was advancing at a pace that surprised even the authors of the system. It was just the sort of thing the propaganda ministry wanted to hear and they stamped it “Approved” without any changes for the first time during my entire assignment. Even the redheaded woman supervisor on my floor patted my shoulder like she was testing my muscle mass to see if I might qualify as a possible baby-making mate for her own personal sacrifice to the thousand year Reich.