Franklin Roosevelt: Preparing for War
In 1940, Nazi Germany overran France. Britain looked to be the next target. President Franklin Roosevelt knew he had to prepare America for war. But how? Arthur Herman, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of Freedom’s Forge, tells the amazing story.
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Script:
In May 1940 the Nazi Blitzkrieg was overrunning France. Great Britain would be next.
British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill sent a telegram to the American President, Franklin Roosevelt.
“I trust you realize,” Churchill wrote, “the voice and the force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.”
Roosevelt was a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and a student of naval strategy. If Hitler were to take control of Britain, he would take control of the Atlantic. This, Roosevelt knew, would pose a grave threat to America.
Roosevelt also knew America wasn’t ready for war—not psychologically (most Americans didn’t want to get involved in a conflict on the other side of the ocean) and not militarily.
The United States had the world’s eighteenth largest army. Hungary and even Holland had bigger armies, while Hitler commanded the most advanced military machine ever seen.
The Army’s Chief of Staff General George Marshall told Roosevelt that if Hitler overran Europe and landed seven divisions on the East Coast, there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.
With all this staring Roosevelt in the face, it would have been irresponsible for the Commander in Chief not to arm the United States for war.
But how?
Many in his administration believed then, as many Americans believe now, that the only way to deal with an extreme crisis was to give the government as much power and authority as possible.
But FDR had the insight to realize that a massive wartime buildup during what was still peacetime wouldn’t succeed unless he harnessed the productive power of American business; that is to say, American free market capitalism.
The federal government could help coordinate industry’s efforts; it could make sure resources like steel and aluminum got to the places where they were most needed, but otherwise the government would have to back off.
To the president who had created an alphabet soup of Federal agencies to dig the country out of the Great Depression, this was about as un-Roosevelt as you could get.
But to his everlasting credit, the President realized that what he and the Democrats had tried with the Depression and failed—to manage the economy through government decree—wasn’t going to work when it came to preparing for war.
The man Roosevelt called for help was General Motors CEO William Knudsen, a Danish-born immigrant who had worked his way up from the Brooklyn shipyards to head the largest automobile company in the world.
Knudsen told the president that if he gave him 18 months, America would have more planes, tanks, and warships than it would know what to do with.
Roosevelt gave Knudsen what he wanted. In one of his most famous radio speeches in December 1940, a year before Pearl Harbor, the President told the American people that “we must be the great arsenal of democracy.” He backed up his words with action.
For the full script, visit: https://www.prageru.com/video/franklin-roosevelt-preparing-for-war
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franklin's plan wanted to occupy weak europe and create a military gouvernement in france italy etc. called AMGOT.
France fought, thanks to de gaulle. Franklin was a bitch to us french
Frinklin Roosevelt: preparing for war
We were fortunate that Roosevelt had the good sense to build up America's defenses and military to one day take on Nazi Germany.
Here folks is how the WAR INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX had started.
what would America be like if we had democratic leaders like President Roosevelt?
I can't belive this needs explaining, but the new deal worked. It created jobs and business opportunities, and yes, it was big government. Without the new deal, the US economy would never have become suitable for war, and the axis would have won.
Also, I find it funny how you admit that the government made sure things got to where they had to, and then claim that this was solely because of capitalism. Isn't that literally the point of the government?
I award Roosevelt no points for his conducting of the war effort. He displayed bizarre favoritism towards the Soviets and prioritized tbem for lend-lease (basically floating their entire war effort) and was naively trusting of Stallin, essentially surrendering half of Europe to him in disastrous conferences. He also set up Shang Kai Shek for failure and accidentally armed Mao (oops). Communists also infiltrated every government body under his watch, including Los Alomos.
Wasn't the US space programme started by former Nazis? Didn't Americans think Hitler was doing a great job for Germany prior to 1939?.Didn't members of the Nazi party visit the Southern States in the 1930s to learn lessons from the Jim Crowe laws.So much so that they were so impressed they implemented some of them against the Jews?
Excellent
the government set prices centrally and nationalized more industry than ever in it's history to win WW2
you are liars
I believe in Devine intervention. There is still hope for this great land of our if we turn back to God and abandon our evil ways.
Borrrring!!!!
when you show ww2 but don’t even use the right borders for the time it really degrades the feeling of trustworthiness of the video. please, if you are still sane, click off of this far right propaganda
Classic workers did all the work and capitalists get all the praise and money. Prager making sure to spread that rich people propganda though; "if you make sure rich people pay no taxes and have no regulation, they will be moral and everything will trickle down and you will be richer."
Today the democrat descendants of FDR are clueless.
(Or just plain fascists.) đź¤
If the American public knew then what we know now they would never had gone! What they fail to tell us here is it was England and France that first declared war against Germany over basically a border dispute, but not why against the Soviets who who took thw Baltic's and eastern Poland? Churchill who was funded through dirty money through a group called The Focus had to do what ever he had to to draw us into the mess. As far as British intelligence creating a fake invasion map of the America's. One other thing the mention here is that Churchill had bankrupted the British Empire by 1940.
FDR needed WWII to rebuild the US economy. He knew Japan was coming for 3-4 months
So let me understand this. Franklin Roosevelt founded Social Security and Public Works Projects and when he created the military industrial complex that was his biggest accomplishment.
Roosevelt was not a great President. We now know that both Hitler and Stalin used the Roosevelt (Democrat Socialist policies) GREAT DEPRESSION to support their narratives in imposing their tyranny. Roosevelt just happened to be the president at the time. Roosevelt and Churchill allied with Stalin who was probably five times worse than Hitler. Stalin murdered maybe 4 or 5 times more people, started earlier and continued after Hitler was defeated. After the war Stalin was allowed to keep nearly half of Europe.?? The only difference between Hitler and Stalin besides their political philosophy is that Stalin didn't intend to take the world by force 🤔. But looking across America and Europe today 🤔 maybe they didn't win the battle but they are winning the war.
We had endless population and industry. There was no way we we're gonna lose the war