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Post by xjd on Apr 13, 2014 17:46:03 GMT -5
I'm reading "Hauptmann's Ladder", and am at the part where the first ransom bill is passed, by one David Marcus. This interests me as I've never really paid too much attention to the sequence of ransom bills turning up. While searching on this board I found:
"BRH; ransom yes, kidnapping no?" thread: As a matter of fact the first ransom bill was recovered at the East River Bank, 96th, Street and Amsterdam avenue, twenty-four blocks away from the Majestic Apartments. The State Police records show that the bill had been passed on April 4, 1932 and deposited on April 5 by David Marcus, of 215 West 91st. street, New York City. $5 Bill - A 56258526 A
And also
"Hauptmann's net worth" thread: Chase National Bank, 7th Avenue & 41st Street Branch.
Harold Asmund, teller, found bill in a deposit of J. Marcus, Treasurer, Minsky Burlesque Theater, 209 West 42nd Street, November 29th. Bill was part of the receipts of the Public Theater November 25th, 26th, and 27th.
Lieut. Finn, November 30, 1932
Maybe it's been addressed before, but two Marcus's passing ransom bills seems interesting. Looks like both guys were somehow thought not to be involved, do we know why?
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Post by Michael on Apr 13, 2014 20:30:29 GMT -5
Maybe it's been addressed before, but two Marcus's passing ransom bills seems interesting. Looks like both guys were somehow thought not to be involved, do we know why? If it has I don't ever remember it being discussed. I will pull some of these reports out to see if I can't help your theory by giving you some more information to work with.
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Post by Michael on Apr 14, 2014 8:29:53 GMT -5
Good job again in noticing these two names... I've done some searching and as a result believe you are the first person to take note of this. Here's my "take" on this:
Firstly, Richard's footnote is the FBI Summary. Unless he has a different version of that Report, nowhere (that I've been able to find) does it say Marcus was above suspicion. And when I say this I am not being sarcastic - I have skipped over quite a few documents at times only to find out later they weren't exactly the same versions.
Next, as a result of looking more closely at this its pretty obvious there is some confusion about this whole bill. Hoffman could be referring to the FBI Summary himself, or a compilation report prepared by the FBI - both of which are in the NJSP files. There's also a report written by the Treasury Department which does mention "David Marcus" but as someone who withdrew it from East River Savings Bank. This claims that Marcus is a "retired merchant and has a good reputation."
The problem is that I have (3) other and very different reports - (2) coming from the FBI, and (1) from Lt. Finn. The first is from SAC Dunn written in May of '32. He writes that everyone listed as a possible depositor was interviewed, and that Inspector Lyons had discontinued the investigation as unproductive. The list of these depositors is attached and "David Marcus" is not on that list. The other from the FBI comes from a compilation that extends all the way to Hauptmann. This says: "No information of an material value has been developed by this Bureau to date concerning this particular bill." Finn's report, written in early '34, concludes: "Investigation conducted failed to reveal the depositor."
Considering all of the above, its my conclusion that the Police trace the bill back to the bank after eliminating Marcus.
Concerning the Burlesque bill, "J. Marcus" was the Treasurer of that theater. He deposited (3) $5, and (25) singles from the theater. The FBI concluded that: "Nothing has been developed to indicated the source from which this bill had previously been obtained. It appears likely that it was tendered by someone attending a show at the threatre..."
It would be nice to know if these men are related, but there is nothing I have to show this.
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Post by xjd on Apr 14, 2014 18:07:12 GMT -5
i'm probably being too paranoid and off the wall but...if you are trying to launder hot money, what a great "cover" it would be to have a job as a treasurer somewheres. of course, probably they would use aliases but I'm wondering if it was the same guy, and the first initial/name got confused?
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Post by Michael on Apr 14, 2014 20:01:11 GMT -5
i'm probably being too paranoid and off the wall but...if you are trying to launder hot money, what a great "cover" it would be to have a job as a treasurer somewheres. of course, probably they would use aliases but I'm wondering if it was the same guy, and the first initial/name got confused? Being observant isn't being paranoid. This is something that should have been noted then checked out so I am surprised it wasn't.
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Post by chrisyb65 on Jun 16, 2014 17:35:54 GMT -5
The address listed for David Marcus is a building known as the DeSoto. In the 1930 Federal census,there was no family with the last name Marcus living in the apartment building. There was a single individual with the first name David and in the same family, one with the name Marcus. Not sure thus is highly significant, it just seems a little odd.
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Post by Ron on Aug 13, 2015 12:39:29 GMT -5
There is definitely something odd about that first $20 bill. Governor Hoffmans mentions it in Liberty Magazine as being traced to David Marcus. Many books repeat the story published by the NYT that the bill was traced to "David Issacs." Chrisby65, Did you check for Issacs at that address?
Seery at trial testifies that it was David Marcus but gives no detail about how he was eliminated. A retired merchant would have lived in the area for some time and should be repeatedly found in the census. Seery has no knowledge if the bill was a gold certificate or not. That is kind of significant since he was analyzing the bills upside down for three years.
Has anyone ever located the original report for the investigation of the first bill? The NJSP museum has reports on every bill but the first. I imagine the bill would have been investigated by Finn of NYPD or Irey and Wilson of IRS criminal investigation unit, who had been called in by Lindbergh and were active on the case for the first year.
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Post by Michael on Aug 13, 2015 16:36:00 GMT -5
Seery at trial testifies that it was David Marcus but gives no detail about how he was eliminated. A retired merchant would have lived in the area for some time and should be repeatedly found in the census. Seery has no knowledge if the bill was a gold certificate or not. That is kind of significant since he was analyzing the bills upside down for three years. According to Finn it was a $20 Federal Reserve Note - B-04173050-A. The 250 Federal Reserve Notes had a green seal and green number of the "B" series. Can I ask what you mean about Seery analyzing the bills "upside down" for three years? I imagine the bill would have been investigated by Finn of NYPD or Irey and Wilson of IRS criminal investigation unit, who had been called in by Lindbergh and were active on the case for the first year. According to Inspector Lyons, Hugh McQuillan called NY once the $20 was discovered at East River Savings and that their Officers investigated. Has anyone ever located the original report for the investigation of the first bill? The NJSP museum has reports on every bill but the first. I imagine the bill would have been investigated by Finn of NYPD or Irey and Wilson of IRS criminal investigation unit, who had been called in by Lindbergh and were active on the case for the first year. Not the original NY Report no. I checked everywhere at the NJSP Archives and it's not there. I do have Special Agent Leslie's Memo about this bill written in May, and I have Lt. Finn's NYPD Summary Report which mentions this bill as well. Both say the depositor could not be traced. The later compilations I have say David Marcus. He's not even on the list of depositors the Bank gave Police.
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Post by hurtelable on Aug 15, 2015 8:41:37 GMT -5
To All:
Wouldn't make too much about two instances of passage of ransom bills by individuals with the last name "Marcus." "Marcus" is a fairly common Jewish surname and NYC at the time had very heavy population of Jewish immigrants and their offspring. So chances are that those two were unconnected.
What may be of some significance is the ransom bill that was probably passed by a patron at the Minsky Burlesque House. Burlesque houses were frequently under police surveillance at the time because of their questionably illegal strip acts, and Minsky's was the most well known burlesque establishment in NYC. So one would think that Minsky's would be a poor choice of location for anyone who knowingly had Lindbergh ransom money in his possession to pass it.
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Post by Ron on Oct 6, 2015 18:47:27 GMT -5
"Can I ask what you mean about Seery analyzing the bills "upside down" for three years?"
Seery was the agent in charge of analyzing the bills once the FBI fully entered the case at the end of 1933. My thought is that since the treasury had pulled out before the FBI entered Seery never got everything from Wilson and Irey, especially because they would have been sore about being supplanted. Do you have the treasury file?
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Post by Michael on Oct 7, 2015 6:22:39 GMT -5
Seery was the agent in charge of analyzing the bills once the FBI fully entered the case at the end of 1933. My thought is that since the treasury had pulled out before the FBI entered Seery never got everything from Wilson and Irey, especially because they would have been sore about being supplanted. Do you have the treasury file? By "treasury file" do you mean everything they had on this case? If so, then I think anyone who says they do would be either mistaken or disingenuous. I'd say I have everything that's at the NJSP Archives, and some material that I've gotten from a couple of other sources (archival and otherwise) outside of there. I've found very few things in the other places that wasn't already at NJ, however, there were a couple of items that were not there. So the odds tell me there are sources I haven't seen. The rivalry you suggest did exist between all departments (to varying degrees) and once the "FBI" became the clearing house for all Federal sources of information the Treasury Department did in fact resist. Since it occurred right around the time of the Curtis situation, on May 16, 1932 Irey claimed Wilson was too busy working it to turn over his reports. They waited until September of '33 and it was about this time Hoover had a meeting with the President requesting a withdraw from the case. After this meeting AG Cummings ordered Commissioner Helvering to turn over the information to Hoover. As a result Wilson penned out what I call his "Summary Report." After reading it Special Agent Sisk wasn't too happy and wrote the following: ....Agent Wilson's report covering his investigation and also that of his Unit was received at the Division under date of November 11, 1933, and purported to cover the complete investigation during the period March 18, 1932 to October 14, 1933. A perusal of this report indicates that many material facts were omitted from same, and that many angles of the case worked by Wilson were not mentioned in his report.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2015 14:46:30 GMT -5
I took the Marcus - Jewish - theater connection seriously since my kidnapper, James Warburg was Jewish & was involved in the theater having written the lyrics for the 1930 musical "Fine and Dandy" and being connected with vaudeville through the star of that show. I couldn't however connect him directly to the Minsky circuit. The Damon Runyonesque gangsters and fame-driven wannabes that he hangs out with however make the Minsky world relevant to the kidnap world.
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kdwv8
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Post by kdwv8 on Oct 8, 2015 21:00:31 GMT -5
I looked up "Fine and Dandy" It was written by Warburg and his wife Kay Swift. No big deal until I found her full name to be Katharine Faulkner "Kay" Swift. Is there something to be made out of this (Faulkner) or is this just another coincidence?
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Post by Michael on Oct 10, 2015 7:13:01 GMT -5
I looked up "Fine and Dandy" It was written by Warburg and his wife Kay Swift. No big deal until I found her full name to be Katharine Faulkner "Kay" Swift. Is there something to be made out of this (Faulkner) or is this just another coincidence? I think so. I can't see someone using a name that has a direct link to themselves - unless they were stupid or wanted to get caught. I do see someone using it in one of (3) ways: 1. The user "misdirecting" 2. The user "directing" them to someone or something 3. User employs a name familiar to them - but believes it cannot be discovered there is a connection to them
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2015 11:35:01 GMT -5
The use of his estranged wife's name "Faulkner" in the ransom money redemption fits in with my "smoking gun" of the James Warburg kidnapper claim - that the ransom letter telling where the baby can be found - on the "boad Nelly" contains within it the name of Warburg's Greenwich, Conn. estate "Bydale". These are two of the most important factors of the crime 1- the name of a ransom money passer, & 2- The kidnapper telling where the baby can be found - the first is the name of the kidnapper's wife, the second is the kidnapper's home address - if the kidnapper is James Warburg, whose governess is the sister of the prime suspect the Morrow household dressmaker, seamstress, Junge. As Billy Joel says in his song "I'm Gonna Start A Fire" - what more can I say? Read my book "The Lindbergh Baby Kidnap Conspiracy" and convince yourself of this truth.
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Post by hurtelable on Oct 13, 2015 14:40:11 GMT -5
It seems as if you're making too much of a stretch there. The mere fact that "Boad Nelly" contains the letters for "Bydale" is almost certainly of no significance. In fact, if you wanted to use all of the letters in "Bydale", you could have done the same thing with a lot of potential names in the form "Boad _______." All you would need is a name containing the letters e, l, and y. And as for "J. J. Faulkner," that was an alias known by NYPD to be used by Jacob Nosovitsky, which indicates that Nosovitsky, not Warburg, was very likely the person who deposited the ransom money under the "J. J. Faulkner" name. Unless you can show at the least some connection between Nosovitsky and Warburg, that Warburg theory doesn't wash.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2015 11:17:38 GMT -5
You're using the "random" issue & overlooking the fact that Warburg has personal motive - Lindy's father publicly Jew-baited his father at 1913 Congressional Hearing, that he has opportunity through his governess whose sister is in Morrow house and is prime suspect - no one else has this particular "baggage" - so when you add the "Faulkner" and "Bydale" to this, which whatever else they are - are directly connected to Warburg (who cares if other names beside "Bydale" are possible - I predicted that "Boad Nelly" would contain a major Warburg connection - rearranged the letters and found it) you are building upon a non-random situation. If Nosovitsky was a Jewish criminal Warburg's Friday night poker games with members of Murder Inc. could have put him in the know.
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Post by lightningjew on Oct 14, 2015 12:33:17 GMT -5
As entertaining as this almost cartoonishly Oliver Stone-esque crackpottery is, does anyone have anything substantive to say? Like, Michael, what's this stuff you mentioned about Sharp? Did Lindbergh really say her death was trivial?
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Post by Michael on Oct 14, 2015 15:51:24 GMT -5
As entertaining as this almost cartoonishly Oliver Stone-esque crackpottery is, does anyone have anything substantive to say? Like, Michael, what's this stuff you mentioned about Sharp? Did Lindbergh really say her death was trivial? It's the conclusion I've drawn. Walsh went to Lindbergh and asked for a letter exonerating him from the Sharp's death which many were blaming him for claiming it was due to his " 3rd degree" tactics. Lindbergh refused saying it was " too trivial." There's a couple of explanations which can be made for this depending upon the eye of the beholder. My eye beholds that he's talking about her suicide, and that is because of the research I've done concerning this man and what his attitude and reactions were towards things. I've read Berg's book some time ago and he nibbles around the edges of it but it's far worse then that.
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Post by hurtelable on Oct 14, 2015 16:02:15 GMT -5
To alan:
Nosovitsky would have had a much stronger motive than Warburg: He thought had been underpaid by the J. P. Morgan firm (in which Dwight Morrow had been a partner) for private intel work he had done in Mexico while Dwight Morrow was U. S. ambassador there. So, in Noso's mind, he could well have considered the Lindbergh ransom his just compensation from the Morrow family. Aside from that, kidnapping was not the kind of crime that fabulously wealthy individuals like Warburg would typically engage in. On the other hand, Noso was down on his luck and needed the payoff at the time a lot more than Warburg would.
I know you have posted before that Congressman Lindbergh (CAL Sr.'s father) "Jew-baited" Warburg at a 1913 Congressional hearing. Can you cite a source for that and perhaps post the relevant part of the transcript of that hearing?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2015 11:43:13 GMT -5
There is a Minnesota newspaper report that actually refers to Jew-baiting; many other reports characterize the anti-Federal Reserve tirades of Lindbergh Sr. and point to the Jewish banker aspect, but Paul Warburg himself gives the most telling evidence when he refuses to accept a second term as Fed Chairman (almost every Fed chairman has accepted a second term)because of the "amount of personal abuse" he has been forced to endure. Needless to say Charles Lindbergh Sr. led that personal abuse. And he passed it down to his son Charles, whose comments about "New York Jews" and attacks on Wall Street Jews had their origin, no doubt, at home with Papa - and he went along with Papa on his Governor races where he heard stump speeches which contained this kind of anti-Jewish rhetoric.
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Post by Ron on Oct 26, 2015 0:42:00 GMT -5
I don't believe Lindbergh was consciously anti-Semitic. Bigotry was common and largely accepted before WWII. He admired Hitler for Germany's racial stance and technological prowess. In short Lindy was enthralled and blind to the ego-centrism as were millions of Germans and German-Americans. He had built a relationship with German pilots through his friend Howley Bowles, (sp?) the manager of Ryan Aircraft, who built the Spirit of St. Louis and a later plane for CAL. in early 1930. So he was far from anti-German either. Like many in his adopted class, his world view was to contain the communist menace. Embracing fascism as a bullwork against communism was the elite consensus until the paradigm shift with Hitler's expansionism. There were many leads in the crime regarding geopolitical motivations, Noso included. They all were a waste of time in my opinion.
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Post by Ron on Oct 26, 2015 0:55:06 GMT -5
The US Treasury had its own file. I got a copy of it in 1998. There is not much that added to my interest but there is investigations that are not part of the NJSP or FBI file. I just finished reading through it all again and found no investigation into the first $20 bill. It was noted that it was the only bill that was recovered before it became nationally known that the bills had been marked. One would think they would have redoubled their effort on it. They revisited almost all the leads many times. I am thinking more and more that there might have been some embarrassment about the tracing of the first bill. The NYT reported it was traced to David Isaacs but I found that was the person who got the reward money for turning it in. It does not look like he was a teller though, he is labeled a "retired merchant."
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Post by hurtelable on Oct 27, 2015 9:57:32 GMT -5
I don't believe Lindbergh was consciously anti-Semitic. Bigotry was common and largely accepted before WWII. He admired Hitler for Germany's racial stance and technological prowess. In short Lindy was enthralled and blind to the ego-centrism as were millions of Germans and German-Americans. He had built a relationship with German pilots through his friend Howley Bowles, (sp?) the manager of Ryan Aircraft, who built the Spirit of St. Louis and a later plane for CAL. in early 1930. So he was far from anti-German either. Like many in his adopted class, his world view was to contain the communist menace. Embracing fascism as a bullwork against communism was the elite consensus until the paradigm shift with Hitler's expansionism. There were many leads in the crime regarding geopolitical motivations, Noso included. They all were a waste of time in my opinion. Regardless of the type and degree of anti-Semitism that Lindbergh has been said to be guilty of, it is far-fetched to claim that it had any relevance to the LKC. In 1932, the issue of anti-Semitism with respect to Lindbergh had not yet arisen; he was still an untainted American hero. It was not until the late 1930s, when Lindbergh had lived in Europe, that he made three trips to Nazi Germany where he appeared to be sucking up to his hosts. Back in the US just months before Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh gave what today would be considered a hate-tainted speech to the isolationist America First Committee assembly in Des Moines, Iowa, where he spoke of "Jews in media" overly eager to get the US into a war with Germany. (His remarks did not go over well with his audience.) There is an interesting book titled "Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt," published by Regnery in 2010, in which author James P. Duffy claims that Lindbergh's trips to Nazi Germany were actually pro-American anti-German intelligence missions aimed at a technical analysis of Germany's air force's military capabilities, information later passed on by Lindbergh to appropriate US military authorities. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, quickly tarred Lindbergh with a pro-Nazi, anti-American label, and eventually saw to it that Lindbergh didn't get a military officer commission during WWII. Duffy notes that despite Roosevelt's public lambasting of Lindbergh as pro-Nazi, Roosevelt himself could be more appropriately considered an anti-Semite than Lindbergh when the entire historical record is evaluated.
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Post by Ron on Oct 27, 2015 16:43:07 GMT -5
<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=x33cjhYYoKQC&lpg=PT125&ots=a6s2bM2tfL&dq=If%20I%20die%20tomorrow%20let%20I%20am%20absolutely%20convinced%20Lindbergh%20is%20a%20Nazi&pg=PT125#v=onepage&q=If%20I%20die%20tomorrow%20let%20I%20am%20absolutely%20convinced%20Lindbergh%20is%20a%20Nazi&f=false">"If I should die tomorrow, I want you to know this: I am absolutely convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi."</a> -Roosevelt to Henry Morgenthau, May 20, 1940.
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Post by Ron on Oct 27, 2015 16:50:17 GMT -5
Detective,
Sorry about the mess. I did not realize this is not HTML aware. The link is to the quote about FDR believing Lindbergh to be a Nazi. It is well known.
BTW, have you stated your opinion of who and what happened in the LKC? Do you think Isadore Fisch passed any ransom money, for example?
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Post by Ron on Oct 27, 2015 17:25:14 GMT -5
Another reason the police would not have tried to connect the two Marcus deposits is if the first one was absolutely above suspicion to the point of being well known. This would also explain the most important ransom bill, the one before the public was aware the money was marked, is apparently scrubbed early on from all agency's files. On the 1938 list of rewards that Hoffman was issuing to those who found ransom bills he lists the first one as "David Isaacs (retired merchant)." David Isaacs was getting the reward so he must have been a teller, not a merchant. The Lyons investigation says David Marcus is a retired merchant. The NYT reports the David Issacs was the bill passer. Gov. Hoffman in Liberty Magazine writes David Marcus was the bill passer. How could this all be that screwed up unless intentional? The only David Marcus in NYC, not only above suspicion but needed to be scrubbed from the file is Assistant United States Attorney of New York, David Daniel Marcus. He is also known as Mickey Marcus, who was played by Kirk Douglass in "Cast a Giant Shadow." Wouldn't that be a hoot?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2015 21:55:26 GMT -5
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Post by hurtelable on Oct 28, 2015 11:55:59 GMT -5
Yes, I'm familiar with that quote, but you have to take into account the fact that Roosevelt had a personal grudge against Lindbergh dating back to the early months of the Roosevelt Administration (1933-34). That's when Roosevelt instituted a new program (one that got very little public attention at the time) by which the job of carrying domestic civilian air mail was taken away from private contractors and given to military pilots flying military planes. Lindbergh, although only in his early 30s at the time but with much practical expertise from his background, wrote to Roosevelt vehemently criticizing the new program, stating that existing military aircraft and pilots could not handle the air mail safely. As a subsequent sequence of fatal military aircraft crashes proved, Lindbergh was correct in his assessment, much to Roosevelt's chagrin. It didn't take too long before the government was forced to return to a private contracting system for transport of air mail. Roosevelt, the big government advocate that he was, undoubtedly remembered that the much younger Lindbergh had "shown him up," and that could have very well figured into the later "Nazi" and "traitor" remarks.
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Post by Ron on Oct 28, 2015 13:28:55 GMT -5
Anne Lindbergh wrote "The Wave of the Future" in 1940, the wave being the inevitable and proper course of fascism. Goebbels would not have changed a word. As a matter of fact he had high praise for it in his diaries as well as Charles Lindbergh's speeches. Hitler gave him a medal in 1937. Lindbergh was ready to move to Berlin in the fall of 1938, only dissuaded from the plan by The Night of Broken Glass. Roosevelt's remark was not due to a personality rift IMO.
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