Erin Gruwell Quotes
Remember not all Germans were Nazis.
Gruwell, Erin, and The Freedom Writers. The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. Doubleday, 1999.
He had abdicated and was serving as the Governor of the Bahamas at the time. While the public was given the reason for has abdication as his love for a divorced woman, his pro Nazi viewpoints which were not publicly known in England, made him unacceptable and his treason a danger to England at war with Nazi Germany.
Although Churchill, FDR, and a few other world leaders also recognized this reality, most people, even in America and Europe were not yet knowledgeable about the danger of Hitler and Nazi Germany. What is fascinating is that a theoretical scientists—one whose work had little to do with reality could be that perspicacious to identify major political trends. But Einstein was not only one of the world’s great scientific thinkers but he was a very sophisticated political and philosophical thinker.
This new form of patriotism, this encouragement of pregnancy—even outside of marriage—was just too controversial. Himmler withdrew the order. It illustrates that even in a brutal dictatorship, public opinion can influence government.
The general was replacing George S. Patton as commander of the Third Army. Patton had opposed the deNazification policy of the allies and caused a great deal of public relations difficulty for the army command and the administration, as reporters would frequently print his views. Truscott was one of Patton’s loyal assistants. The minute he took over, the press wanted to find out if his views were the same as his former boss regarding the Nazis. They were quite different. Reporters had no story.
He was an intellectual precursor of the Nazi movement. He was also one of Hitler's favorite authors. See {77545}.
All German Jewish Citizens were immediately disenfranchised including decorated military veterans.
The military security people were so used to ferreting out communists in the 1930s that they had a hard time adjusting to the fact that the security risks or people who might have German connections or backgrounds. Many immigrant scientists were recruited for work on the Manhattan project to build the atomic bomb and they only did security clearances. The military security people kept checking on any communist background they might have had as opposed to possible connections with fascist organizations. By the end of the war they had adjusted but then had to go back to looking for communists as the Cold War evolved.
In 1918 the Treaty of Versailles—peace treaty ending WWI—was signed. Many Germans felt that their defeat in WWI forced them to sign the treaty which weakened Germany and assured that they would be a 2nd rate power thereafter. After that Germans blamed every negative aspect of their government, economy and society on the treaty that was “forced” on them. Nazism was a consequence of these feelings, and the Nazis adopted policies and practices to get around their anti-military obligations and have a strong government so that the allies could not enforce the treaty obligations on Germany.
Ford was a great admirer of Adolf Hitler who thought Ford was the greatest of the Americans. He was an inveterate Fascist—racism and all. He vehemently opposed United States entry into WWII against the Nazis. He was awarded a medal by Hitler, and he had no qualms about taking it.
His belief and that of a great number of peop[le who have studied the era was that the refusal of most countries, including the United States, to accept Jewish Refugees casueing so many to remain in Europe where they were murdered by the Nazis would have been mitgated if there were a nation that would welcome them/ While that was true certainly for the early years of the Nazi persecution, the largest number of Jews were killed when the Germans overran Poland, France, Hungary, and many other countries including Eastern Europe and Russia. But there are other scholars who believe that the Nazi hatred and feal fo Jews was so great that they would not have allowed the Jews to be gone. While namy Jews woulld have been saved were Israel in existance, there would still have been a Holocaust, only one of smaller proportions they argue.
Erin Gruwell is an American teacher known for her unique teaching method, which led to the publication of The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them (1999). The 2007 film Freedom Writers and 2019 PBS documentary, Freedom Writers: Stories from the Heart, are based on her story. She was an incredibly influential teacher who not only taught her students, but ensured their safety at home. She inspired her students to be successful by giving them guidance and being the role model they needed.
