Reference no: EM133764546

Assignment:

Instructions: To complete this assignment, you must read Hitler's American Model, by James Whitman, and answer the questions below. Refer to Canvas for information on obtaining the book. Each question is worth two (2) points, for a total of two hundred (200) possible points. Credit will only be given for correct answers. You must stick to the following guidelines to get credi

You must list the page number(s) where you found the answer in parentheses-for example, (p. 132)-at the end of your answer. Answers with no page numbers will receive zero credit.

Tips for Success:

The questions are listed in the order that they appear in each chapter. If you find the answer to the second question for a specific chapter before you find the answer to the first question, you know you have passed over the answer to the first question!

If you get stuck on a question, do not waste more than ten (10) minutes trying to locate the answer. Move on to the next question and come back to the one(s) you skipped if you have time at the end.

Introduction

• How do historians like Whitman know everything that was said at the June 5, 1934 meeting where Nazi officials, including Franz Gurtner, planned what would eventually become the Nuremburg Laws?
• What have scholars other than Whitman and Mark Mazower "insisted on" regarding the idea that America influenced Nazi race law?
• What was historian Andreas Rethmeier's conclusion about the relationship between the U.S. and Nazi race law?
• What has historian Richard Bernstein said about the relationship between the U.S. and Nazi race law?
• What has historian Jens-Uwe Guettel said about the relationship between the U.S. and Nazi race law?
• What "picture" does Whitman claim the available sources actually "paint" regarding the relationship between the U.S. and Nazi race law?
• What did historian Stefan Kuhle "demonstrate" in his 1994 book The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism?
• Why were the Nazis, including Adolf Hitler, very interested in "the American conquest of the West"?
• Why does Whitman assert that "it is surely too much to call the U.S. 'the' model for Nazi Germany without careful qualification"?
• According to Whitman, what does "all this research" on links between the U.S. and Nazi Germany "reveal"?
• What does Whitman mean when he says that historians have not written the full history of the links between the U.S. and Nazi Germany because they "have been looking in the wrong place"? (This one requires you to paraphrase, in your own words, several paragraphs. Take your time with it.)
• What does Whitman mean when he says that historians have not written the full history of the links between the U.S. and Nazi Germany because they "have been using the wrong interpretative tools"? (This one requires you to paraphrase, in your own words, several paragraphs. Take your time with it.)
• Identify at least two reasons that Whitman gives for why "it is hard to look coolly on the question of whether the racist program of the Nazis was influenced by...other Western regimes".

PART 1- Making Nazi Flags and Citizens

• What did the second and third Nuremberg Laws say?
• Briefly describe the Bremen Incident of 1935.
• Who was Louis Brodsky and what role did he play in the Bremen Incident?
• How did the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt respond to Louis Brodsky's handling of the Bremen Incident?
• How did Adolph Hitler respond to the Roosevelt administration's handling of the Bremen Incident?
• During the early 1930s, what aspects of the U.S. did German Nazis dislike?
• What did Nazi historian Albrecht Wirth say about the U.S. in his 1934 book Volkisch World History?
• What did Nazi historian Wahrhold Drascher say about the U.S. in his 1936 book The Supremacy of the White Race?
• What was the larger "aim" of the Reich Citizenship Law?
• What were anti-miscegenation laws?
• What was the U.S. Naturalization Act of 1790 and why did some Nazi commentators view it as interesting?
• Briefly describe how American immigration law changed beginning in the late 1870s. Provide at least one specific example of such a change.
• Identify at least two "distinctive forms of second-class citizenship" developed in/by the U.S. in the late nineteenth century (late 1800s).
• After the Civil War and the passage of the 15th Amendment, how did Southern states deny the right to vote to "virtually all" blacks?
• What was the result of the Insular Cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1901?
• In Mein Kampf, what did Hitler say about immigration law in the U.S.?
• What did the Nationalist Socialist Monthly say about American immigration law in November 1933
• According to Whitman, what was the "initial aim" of the Nazis regarding the Jewish population living under their control?
• What did the Nazi lawyer Otto Koelreutter have to say about American immigration law in his 1933 book on the Nazi "National Revolution"? (Be sure to paraphrase using your own words.)
• What is the first "observation" Whitman believes is "warranted" with regard to Koelreutter's discussion of American immigration law? Why is this observation important? In other words, what does it suggest, in big-picture terms, to historians?
• What is the second "observation" Whitman believes is "warranted" with regard to Koelreutter's discussion of American immigration law? Why is this observation important? In other words, what does it suggest, in big-picture terms, to historians?
• What was the purpose of that National Socialist Handbook and what "point of some significance" does Whitman make about it?
• Which article from the National Socialist Handbook does Whitman describe as "particularly striking"? Why?
• Briefly describe the content related to American law contained in Johann von Leers' 1936 pamphlet Blood and Race.
• What is the source of the image below and what does it show?
• Why did the Nazi propaganda newsletter Neues Volk discuss and publish photos of the famous African American boxer Jack Johnson?
• According to Whitman, what larger point does the Neues Volk article "How Race Questions Arise" "show" about the Nazi "effort to publicize" details of American race law?
• What evidence/example does Whitman point to to back up his claim that "it is simply false to assert...that America was of no interest to Nazi Germany because the Jews were not expressly persecuted there"?
• Why, according to Whitman, is Detlef Sahm a "particularly noteworthy" author with respect to Nazi discussions of American race law? Identify at least one example from Sahm's writing that proves this point.
• Why, according to Whitman, was there "never any possibility that the Nazis would copy the [Nazi] Citizenship Law directly from what they found in American parallels"?
• According to Whitman, if the Nazi's engagement with U.S. race law does not suggest "direct borrowing from America", what does it suggest about the relationship between Nazi and American law?
• In the end, according to Whitman, what did American law "offer" the Nazis?

• What was the "aim" of the Nazi Blood Law?
• Why does Whitman argue that "it is with the Blood Law that we discover the most provocative evidence of direct Nazi engagement with American legal models"?
• Why does Whitman say it should "come...as no great surprise" that America influenced Nazi race law? Provide as least one example from the U.S. that Whitman cites to prove his point.
• Explain what Whitman means when he asserts that "the United States offered the model of anti-miscegenation legislation".
• What "exceptional legislative practice" existed in the U.S. when it came to anti-miscegenation laws?
• What, according to Whitman, is the "most uncomfortable irony" in the history of American influence on Nazi race law?
• What did Nazis mean when they used the term "individual actions" to discuss race relations in Germany?
• Why did central Nazi leadership view "individual actions" as "deplorable"?
• According to Whitman, how did the Citizenship and Blood laws address Nazi leaders' concerns about "individual actions"?
• What was the Prussian Memorandum and what was its "main aim"?
• What "two examples for the new Nazi order" did the Prussian Memorandum refer to in the passage laying out what would become the Nazi Blood Law?
• Why does Whitman assert with respect to the Prussian memorandum that "there are few documents that show more provocatively how mistaken it is to imagine that American segregation law was of no interest to the Nazis"?
• Why, according to Whitman, were American Jim Crow laws more "radical" (i.e., extreme) than the laws that the Nazis "envisaged"?
• Who were Franz Gurtner and Bernhard Losener and why does Whitman say they were "relative moderates" within Nazi Germany?
• Give at least one example of a "difficulty" that "moderates" like Gurtner and Losener identified with respect to enforcing the "measures called for by the Prussian memorandum"?
• How did the July 1933 Law on Revocation of Naturalization and the Withdrawal of German Citizenship define "Jewish"? How did this compare to racial definitions used in the U.S.?
• What was the first example of an anti-miscegenation law in North America?
• What "efforts" did pre-World War I German imperialists make to learn about anti-miscegenation in the U.S.?
• What were the "principal legal questions" discussed at the June 5, 1934 meeting of the German Commission on Criminal Law Reform?
• Why were the "radicals" present at the 1934 meeting of the German Commission on Criminal Law Reform "forced to give up on the full-scale implementation of the Prussian Memorandum"?
• How does Whitman, in general, describe the "discussion of the American example" at the 1934 meeting of the German Commission on Criminal Law Reform?
• Why did Nazi Party official Fritz Grau believe that Jim Crow-style segregation would not work with Jews in Germany?
• What does Whitman infer from the fact that "Grau went out of his way to dismiss the option of Jim Crow segregation" at the 1934 meeting of the Commission on Criminal Law?
• What specific statements by German Minister of Justice Gurtner at the 1934 meeting of the Commission on Criminal Law prove that his ministry had been "working hard to collect information" on race law in the U.S.? (Be sure to paraphrase in your own words.)
• According to Whitman, what evidence did Justice Minister Gurtner have for his assertion that Americans did not actually prosecute miscegenists?
• What point was the Nazi Judge and Professor Karl Klee trying to make by bringing up the American example at the 1934 meeting of the German Commission on Criminal reform?
• What general point about "racist legislation" did Nazi judge Roland Freisler attempt to make at the 1934 meeting by citing the example of the U.S.?
• How does Whitman refute the idea that that the 1934 meeting demonstrated the "astonishing insignificance" of American law?
• According to Whitman, what is the "bottom line" when it comes to the American model of race law and the discussions that took place at the 1934 meeting of the German Commission on Criminal Reform?
• Who was Heinrich Krieger and what first-hand experience did he have in the U.S.?
• What was the subject of Krieger's article in the George Washington Law Review and what conclusion did he draw in it?
• Who were Krieger's heroes and what statements had these "heroes" made about race that were particularly appealing to him?
• According to Whitman, what was the connection between Krieger's research and the 1934 planning meeting of the Commission on Criminal Reform?
• Why does Whitman suspect that Herbert Kier's article on "Volk, Race and State" in the National Socialist Handbook for Law and Legislation was a source used by Gurtner and Freisler at the June 1934 meeting of the Commission on Criminal Reform?
• Why does Whitman point to Kier's article as evidence that Nazi engagement with American race law was not "somehow meant as mere propaganda"?
• Why does Whitman assert that "it is simply nonsense" to suggest that Nazis could not have made use of American race laws since in the U.S. such laws did not include formal measures against Jews?
• Explain why Whitman detects American "influence" in the German Law on the Protection of German Blood and German Honor.
• Why does Whitman reject the idea that talking of American "influence" on Nazi race law is pointless because "Nazi radicals would have succeeded in criminalizing racially mixed marriages" even without access to examples from the U.S.?
• Which groups of Nazis besides lawyers were interested in American race law and what evidence do we have of this interest?
• Why, according to Whitman, did the "one-drop rule" used in American race law "limit" the "influence of American [racial] classification schemes" on the Nazis?
• How did the Nuremberg laws "ultimately" classify someone who was half Jewish?
• According to Whitman, what "ultimately matters" about the Nazis' relationship to American race law?

Conclusion- America through Nazi Eyes

• Why did forty-five Nazi lawyers travel to the U.S. in September 1935?
• According to Whitman, what does the history discussed in his book "not tell us"?
• What "truth that wise scholars have recognized" is reinforced by "seeing American through Nazi eyes"?
• According to Whitman, what did America, Australia, and South Africa all have in common in terms of their historical development (other than language and a link to Britain)?
• What does Whitman mean when he states that Nazism "was a movement for equality, if not for liberty"?
• According to Whitman, why was America the "natural geopolitical model for Nazi Germany"?
• Identify two important differences cited by Whitman between American and Nazi race law?
• Who was Gunnar Myrdal and why did he reject the argument that the American South was "fascist"?
• What is meant by the phrase American "common law" and why did the "American common-law approach" appeal to the Nazis?
• What is meant by the term "legal realism" and why did this approach to legislation appeal to the Nazis?
• According to Whitman, what is a major risk associated with having a "common-law system like that of America"? Identify an example that he offers to prove his point.