African Americans and World War II
American Christians, Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust
American College Students and the Nazi Threat
Displaced Persons and Postwar America
Nazi Ideals and American Society
Propaganda and the American Public
US Government Rescue Efforts
Letter from Yale Students to Charles Lindbergh
Yale University Libraries
View this Letter
tags: antisemitism US armed forces
As German forces invaded Poland in September of 1939 and World War II began, some American college students voiced their opposition to potential US involvement in another global conflict. Many young Americans had grown up learning about the horrors of World War I and did not want to be drafted into what might become another long and bloody conflict in Europe. Some socialist and pacifist students were ideologically against war even if they opposed Nazi Germany.1 Other students allowed antisemitism to mold their opinions, claiming that the conflict was part of a Jewish conspiracy to weaken the United States.2
The most prominent group that emerged to advocate against involvement in the war was the America First Committee (AFC), which was founded on the campus of Yale University in September of 1940.3 At the time of the AFC's formation, many Yale students appeared indifferent or even sympathetic to the Nazi regime. From discrimination against Jewish applicants in the 1920s to the widespread hostility shown to Jewish refugees by the undergraduate student population in the 1930s, antisemitism was not uncommon at Yale. Some—though not all—members of the Yale University community did not see Nazi Germany's antisemitic policies or its aggressive expansionism as sufficient reasons for US intervention.4
The featured letter from a small group of Yale students to celebrity aviator Charles Lindbergh5 on November 1, 1939, demonstrates that the foundations of the AFC took shape well before its official establishment almost a year later.6 In their plea to Lindbergh—already well-known for his anti-war opposition and his sympathetic stance toward Nazi Germany—these Yale students also seem to have identified a potential spokesperson for their cause in the early days of the war.
The letter also suggests that the group hoped to capitalize on the university's reputation to advance their cause. Touting the "size," "nation-wide membership," and "prestige" of Yale, the students insisted that the American public would likely value their opinion. Lindbergh ultimately granted the students' request, speaking at Yale in October of 1940. The AFC, however, disbanded shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941—but not before it had attracted as many as 800,000 paying members nationwide.7
See the related item in this collection, "Strike Against War!"
For an example, see the item "The Jewish Hymn: Onward Christian Soldiers" in the Experiencing History collection Nazi Ideals and American Society.
For more on the America First Committee, see Wayne S. Cole, America First: The Battle against Intervention, 1940-1941 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971).
Stephen Norwood, The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 235. See also Wayne S. Cole, America First: The Battle Against Intervention, 1940–1941 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971).
For more on Lindbergh, his anti-interventionist stance, and the American public's reaction, see the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's citizen history project, History Unfolded.
Three of the letter's signatories were enrolled at Yale's law school: Potter Stewart (later a Supreme Court Justice), R. Douglas Stuart (later the CEO of Quaker Oats cereal company and the US Ambassador to Norway), and Sargent Shriver (later the founding director of the Peace Corps).
For more on the AFC and its appeal among the American public, see the related item in Experiencing History, "America First" License Plate Attachment.
All 13 Items in the American College Students and the Nazi Threat Collection
"Can America Afford to Condemn Hitler for His Racial Policies?"
tags: antisemitism fear & intimidation group violence
"Plan to Bring German Refugees Here Approved in Survey of College Opinion"
tags: antisemitism education Jews in North America refugees & immigration
"Nazi Exchange Students at the University of Missouri"
tags: activism antisemitism education Jews in North America propaganda
"Strike Against War!"
tags: activism education
Striking Students Take Oath at Campus Recreation Hall
tags: activism
"Sponsors Needed: New DPs Will Enter 'U'"
tags: activism community education relief & rescue
Carl Schurz Tour of American Professors and Students through Germany in Summer 1934
tags: Americans abroad propaganda
"As Others See It: The Olympic Question"
tags: activism leisure & recreation
Oral History with Drexel Sprecher
tags: antisemitism community education law & the courts
"What War? it's Homecoming at Illinois!"
tags: community humor & satire leisure & recreation
"Anti-Jewish Movement Opposed"
tags: Christianity group violence Kristallnacht
Letter from James Conant to Charles Singer
External Website Charles Augustus Lindbergh papers (MS 325). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
Potter Stewart
Sargent Shriver
R. Douglas Stuart
D.V. McNamee Jr.
Willard W. Brown
Wyndham L. Gary
Document Type Letter