9 ms·

Then why wasn't the US in the war from the beginning? Did it take 2 years to discover that Hitler was bad?

• fastball 9y ago
  It took 2 years for a country that values personal freedoms and international free trade/security to decide that the Axis powers winning the war would be bad for both. Also, the US formally joined the war in 1941, but were providing material support to the Allies and otherwise prepping before then.
• Anon1096 9y ago
  The US was always on the allied side, through funding and supplies. The whole reason the Lusitania was sunk was because the US was sending arms to support the Allied war effort, even if it wasn't officially declared. Even if it wasn't until Pearl Harbor that the US joined the war officially, there is little doubt what side Roosevelt and much of the American people wanted to win.
  • omegaworks 9y ago
    > The US was always on the allied side, through funding and supplies. Businesses in the US were serving both sides of the conflict. http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
    • Nimitz14 9y ago
      Holy cow do I feel bad for the people that grow up with education system of your country. Look up Lend Lease.
      • omegaworks 9y ago
        Lend-lease was enacted March 11, 1941. IBM was cataloguing religious and other minorities for the Nazis in the 30s. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust#cite_ref-15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust#cite_ref...
  • scarmig 9y ago
    ...the Lusitania was two decades before Hitler even came to power.
    • Anon1096 9y ago
      You're right. I messed up WWI vs WWII for a second there. The rest of the comment stands though that the US provides major aid to the Allied powers.
• jcranmer 9y ago
  The US in the early 20th century had a very strong non-interventionist policy, at least vis-a-vis Europe (Latin America was a different story). The general standpoint was "we don't want to get involved with whatever mess is going on in Europe." Note that this strain was so strong that one Congresswoman actually refused to vote for war even after Pearl Harbor. However, by 1940, it was very clear that the US was going to get dragged in anyways, and it would serve the US interests first to start preparing for war before it starts (note that the draft was instituted over a year before Pearl Harbor). Moreover, the US was neutral only in name: various acts passed more or less saying that the US would give aid to anybody so long as they were British or French. (Originally, it was cash-and-carry, but when Britain exhausted its cash reserves, it became Lend-Lease instead).
  • pm90 9y ago
    A correction to your otherwise correct comment: Lend-Lease was extended to the Soviets as well (and perhaps equally if not much larger than to the Franco-British military).
    • jcranmer 9y ago
      Lend-lease was the last of the neutrality gimmicks, and was the first one that really applied to the Soviets--mere weeks before the US entered the war proper and lend-lease became the vehicle for general military and logistical aid to all Allies.
• pfarnsworth 9y ago
  No one knew about the death camps until basically the end of the European stage of WWII.
  • will4274 9y ago
    > No one The intelligence services knew. The general public didn't.