The study of history entails grappling with big changes over time: are they sudden or gradual? Or, is it a matter of ‘slowly, then all at once,’ as the old adage goes? This is the third in our series of “exhibits” that focus on and contextualize pivotal years in American history (see our previous posts: 1776 and 1861). In this case, we explore 1941, closely examining historical documents that illuminate the events before and after the breaking point.
The Great War (1914-1918) was meant to be the war to end all wars. Yet by the 1930s, another global conflict began to unfold as the Nazi party took power in Germany, ushering in a decade of brutality. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, World War II erupted. Elements within the U.S. resisted another involvement. However, in 1941, after an unprovoked attack on the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, America joined its allies to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan. In the end, the Allies won a hard-fought victory that took four years to secure.
Warnings Before WWII
In the early 1930s, Albert Einstein, the famous German-Jewish physicist, was living in Berlin, but he read the writing on the wall. The Nazi party was rising to power on a nationalist and antisemitic platform that banned Jews from holding office and accused Jewish scientists and artists of spreading propaganda.
Even before Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Einstein believed his life was at risk and left the country. Initially he had hoped to return, but once he learned that the Gestapo had raided his home, he relented and spent the rest of his life in the United States. He also helped fellow Jewish scientists flee. In a signed letter to his friend, the Swiss engineer Michele Besso, dated May 5, 1933, he discusses a scheme to save one of their colleagues from the German regime.
Echoes of that fear can be heard in an interview Einstein gave only weeks after Hitler’s rise to power. Einstein spoke on the growing global chaos and threat to minorities: “The main thing is that minority groups should be allowed security in the community.”
A very rare hand-annotated record of that interview shows the beginning of the darkness for him, his friends, his country, and the Jewish community, expressing his candid thoughts on racism, the advocacy press in forming public opinion, human nature, and establishing and enforcing peace.
German author Thomas Mann, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929, also experienced these early warning signs. As a public intellectual, Mann attacked Nazism both in his novels and in lectures throughout Europe. When Hitler became chancellor, Mann and his wife were traveling in Switzerland and warned not to return to Germany. He spent the rest of his life in exile.
Following his conscience remained central to Mann’s life and work. In a signed letter from 1935, Mann writes to his American editor of his decision not to endorse the Communist Declaration of the First American Writers Congress. “I have a true love of civil liberties, as much as I am against fascism and war. I much prefer the communist revolution to that of the fascists. Nevertheless, the wording of this appeal… does not allow me to follow your wishes to send a note of unrestricted sympathy to the congress.”
As 1939 dawned, Europe braced for war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt began to prepare; he saw before most that war was coming, and that the United States would be drawn into it. He wanted the U.S. military to be ready, believing that “We must and will marshal our great potential strength to fend off war from our shores.”
In an unpublished letter to Navy Commander George C. Sweet, written in January of 1939, Roosevelt mentions that he is off to witness naval readiness exercises–what he calls “Fleet Problem no. XX”–in an undisclosed location “eastward of Barbados.”
War Erupts in Europe
France and Britain declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had long been critical of Nazism, led the charge. Only one month after he took office in May of 1940, France had fallen, and Britain awaited possible invasion. It therefore came as unwelcome news when Italy joined the war, taking sides with Nazi Germany.
On June 10, 1940, Churchill issued a War Office order notifying British commanders and troops worldwide that Italy had declared war on the Allied powers. Bearing the “secret cipher telegraph” red stamp that marks it as the original, and marked “secret,” its message is simple and direct: “War has broken out with Italy.”
That same day, President Roosevelt addressed Americans via radio broadcast, promising support for Britain and France with “the material resources of this nation.” Not yet ready or willing to enter the war, Roosevelt did supply ammunition, guns, tanks, and planes to the Allies, in a program known as Lend-Lease.
By the end of 1940, Germany had another ally: Japan.
In the spring of 1941, Churchill attempted to forge new alliances and met with the provisional Czechoslovak government, forced into exile by Hitler. He decided to give them full diplomatic recognition. Two Americans were on hand for these talks, as well. An album leaf from that important meeting, signed by Churchill, his wife, all the major Czech players, plus two noted American observers, symbolizes their growing understanding that a global alliance was necessary to beat the Nazis. The Soviet Union joined the Allies in June after a German attack.
On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The following day, Congress declared war on Japan and its allies, Germany and Italy. The war had escalated, and the “Big Three”–Britain, the U.S., and the Soviet Union–determined that unconditional surrender was the only acceptable resolution.
A year later, Operation Torch in North Africa was the Allies’ first major operation of the war, and it was a victory, effectively knocking the Vichy French out of the war. On the final day of the weeklong assault, Churchill wrote to Major General Sir Noel Galway Holmes, commending his work and calling the operation an “unqualified success.”
The invasion of North Africa achieved much for the Allies. Perhaps most important, American and British forces had finally seized the offensive. In January 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill held a meeting in Casablanca, Morocco, to determine how to further deter their opponents.
Later that month, another major German defeat, at the hands of the Soviets, again bolstered the Allies. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev credited Lend-Lease aid from the U.S. for the victory.
As the United States amped up its manufacturing to fuel the war effort, however, Roosevelt found himself having to defend the Lend-Lease Act, which he does in a stirring letter from March, 1943: “Our war production obviously has one purpose – use against the enemy.”
In May, 1943, Churchill came to the United States to attend the Trident Conference, a strategic meeting during which leaders discussed the invasion of Sicily, the progress of the war in the Pacific, and the date for invading Normandy (which would prove to be June 6, 1944, forever known as D-Day).
During that visit, Churchill addressed a joint session of Congress on the progress of the war. In this speech, Churchill stated that the war “will continue ceaselessly with ever-increasing weight and intensity until the German and Italian peoples abandon or destroy the monstrous tyrannies which they have incubated and reared in their midst…” Churchill made clear, at least according to the New York Times, that a major military surge was forthcoming.
Off the battlefield, the U.S. and Britain continued to bolster industrial cooperation. During one event, sponsored by both governments, eight union workers–4 British and 4 American–visited each other’s homeland and learned about its wartime manufacturing infrastructure, an exchange that cemented the fact that we were all ‘in this together.’
A newly discovered photograph is emblematic of the transatlantic cooperation that won World War II. It is signed by Churchill, Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, the 8 men who participated in that mission of solidarity, as well as others involved in the 1943 trip and related conference. It is a unique and consequential collection of World War II autographs.
The war dragged on into 1944. The success of Operation Overlord (D-Day), the largest amphibious invasion in history, gave the Allies a foothold in Continental Europe. It was, many believed, the beginning of the end for the Axis powers.
One of the ways we learn the stories of those most closely involved in the war during this time–the soldiers with boots on the ground–is through their preserved correspondence. For example, a collection of approximately 115 letters from an American B-17 bomber pilot back home to his wife offers historical details about his life in camp and the missions he flew in 1944-45.
By the spring of 1945, the Allies put the stranglehold on German forces, General George S. Patton’s U.S. 3rd Army, in conjunction with the U.S. 7th Army, dealt a devastating blow to the Germans. In five days of battle, from March 18-22, Patton’s forces captured over 68,000 Germans. On April 4, the US 4th Armored Division and a division of Patton’s US 3rd Army, came face to face with the horrors of the Holocaust when soldiers discovered Ohrdruf, a Nazi labor camp.
Patton continued to march east to meet the Russian Army and cut off the German forces. In a letter dated April 25, 1945, Patton rejoices with General Henri Giraud, former leader of the Free French, at the impending end of the war. He also updates Giraud on the safety of a key member of the French resistance, saying he had evaded the German SS and lives.
Victory was indeed at hand. On May 7, 1945, Germany signed its first Instrument of Surrender.
Churchill wrote a now-famous letter congratulating the British people on their victory in the war, written later that month. It is signed, on paper marked with the official stamp of the Prime Minister and the address of 10 Downing Street. Churchill writes: “I have been deeply touched by all the messages of good will which have reached me at this time. Thank you so much.”
General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, returned to the U.S. on June 18, 1945. The purpose of the visit was to give Eisenhower a proper homecoming, complete with parades and other celebrations, to recognize his remarkable efforts in leading the Allies to victory in Europe, and to strategize the final few months of war against Japan.
An extraordinary signed photograph taken that day captures the newly arrived Eisenhower, with General George C. Marshall, heading to the White House to meet with President Truman.
Truman and the Founding of the United Nations
In late June, 1945, fifty nations signed the new United Nations Charter, the founding document of the largest international organization in world history. In a preamble and 19 chapters, the Charter lays out the rules and structure of the U.N. and describes how the body works for global peace, security, and human rights in the new post-war world. President Harry Truman was one of its biggest proponents. As he said at the Charter conference: “Upon all of us, in all our countries, is now laid the duty of transforming into action these words which you have written. Upon our decisive action rests the hope of those who have fallen, those now living, those yet unborn — the hope for a world of free countries — with decent standards of living — which will work and cooperate in a friendly civilized community of nations. This new structure of peace is rising upon strong foundations. Let us not fail to grasp this supreme chance to establish a world-wide rule of reason — to create an enduring peace under the guidance of God.”
The United States became the first nation to complete the ratification process and join the new international organization. Other nations followed suit, and the Charter went into effect on October 24, 1945. Ten years later, in celebration of the organization’s tenth anniversary, Truman wrote a letter recalling with fondness the role he played in establishing the U.N.
World War II Documents
To learn more about historical documents and autographs from the World War II era, please visit our dedicated WWII page.
