The Sheila Variations

Dorothy Thompson, 1939: testifying in Congress to repeal the Neutrality Act.

“They are holding every Jew in Germany as a hostage. Therefore, we who are not Jews must speak, speak our sorrow and indignation and disgust in so many voices that they will be heard.” — journalist Dorothy Thompson, radio broadcast, 1938

American journalist Dorothy Thompson, whose birthday it is today, wangled and manipulated her way into an interview with Adolf Hitler in 1931. Before he even became Chancellor. Thompson had been keeping a close eye on him ever since the “beer hall putsch” in 1923, which launched him into national prominence.

Thompson was one of the few American journalists – hell, European journalists, ANY journalist – who recognized the threat of him instantly, and devoted her career to warning people about him in her regular radio broadcasts, and devoting columns to him.

Her interview with Hitler is absolutely fascinating, and was published in a 1932 issue of Cosmopolitan. It caused a firestorm of horror and revulsion, as well as envy from other journalists. It was a major SCOOP. Her article was eventually published in book form.

“[Hitler] is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones. He is inconsequent and voluble, ill-poised, insecure. He is the very prototype of the Little Man. A lock of lank hair falls over an insignificant and slightly retreating forehead. . . .The nose is large, but badly shaped and without character. His movements are awkward, almost undignified and most un-martial…The eyes alone are notable. Dark gray and hyperthyroid—-they have the peculiar shine which often distinguishes geniuses, alcoholics, and hysterics…There is something irritatingly refined about him. I bet he crooks his little finger when he drinks a cup of tea.” — Dorothy Thompson, “I Saw Hitler”, 1932

She posed as a Red Cross worker and infiltrated the German High Command, getting interviews with high-ranked generals. She peppered Hitler with requests for an interview until finally he granted her one, probably assuming he could snow her because she was a woman. He underestimated her. Her article has generated criticisms that she underestimated him. He seemed like such a nonentity to her, such a Nobody, no way could he do a lot of damage. This criticism seems to me to ignore the deeper psychological insights her interview provided. What she was seeing, what she saw, was a nobody, a Little Man, not a powerful intimidating warrior at all but … a little bone-less guy with a bad haircut who put on airs. There have been many many scholars since the 30s who have examined Hitler as a Nobody, a Little Man, an uneducated and easily-swayed nonentity. An incel, really. It’s very dangerous when a “Nobody” gains power. (J.P. Stern expanded on this idea in his excellent book, Hitler: The Fuhrer and the People – which I wrote about here). Hitler had a “revelation” about Germany’s destiny while he was in the trenches of World War I (he describes this in Mein Kampf: nobody can say they weren’t warned), and he then set about bringing his prophetic “vision” to completion. This is a deep topic, and goes far beyond the scope of this “birthday post” but what I want to point out is: Thompson didn’t say “I don’t think he can do much damage.” She knew he and his rhetoric were ALREADY damaging: she perceived it earlier than most journalists (the populations Hitler targeted felt it immediately, of course). Her perception of Hitler as a man prone to “hysterics”, her perception that his “refinement” was bogus … it all adds up to a hit piece not on his policies, but on his psychology, it’s a hit piece on him PERSONALLY. Her article says: “I see through you, you bully.” “I Saw Hitler” was particularly damning because a woman wrote it. Nazis extolled womanhood but only of the domestic breeder variety. Sounds familiar. But men who prefer women submissive forget something very important: due to political and social/cultural oppression for literally millennia, many women are accustomed to keeping their mouths shut and navigating AROUND men, who have been mostly barriers to their advancement. Women are far more familiar with male psychology than men are familiar with female psychology. Because of this, women see through male bullshit. Men are more prone to buy each other’s bullshit. Thompson got up close, did not buy the bullshit, perceived the Emperor had no clothes, but she also – importantly – perceived the dangerous sway he held over Germany, and called it out. Hitler was, of course, apoplectic when the article came out.

Thompson was bureau chief in Berlin. She was considered so dangerous she was expelled from Germany, the first foreign journalist to get that “honor.” She came back to America, continuing to sound the alarm, to urge Americans to take the threat seriously. She testified before Congress in 1939, asking them to repeal the Neutrality Act (see photo above).

Also in 1939, a terrible year, maybe the worst in the 20th century, Thompson attended the Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden organized by the German American Bund Society. 20,000 people were there, arm bands ON, Sieg Heils at the ready. Terrifying. An almost forgotten moment in US history, although we’re seeing it play out again in real time.

Dorothy Thompson was there as a journalist. Journalists are supposed to be objective, right? Put their “biases” aside, right? Well, Thompson had different ideas. She saw her job as a truth-teller and she knew the Nazis were dangerous and if the Nazis won millions would die. So she sat there in the press area, and loudly heckled the speakers. She burst out in derisive laughter at their statements. She caused a scene.

At the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden: Dorothy Thompson heckles the speakers.

The Nazis around her were so furious at how she was raining on their fascist parade, a ruckus ensued. She kept heckling. The people around her heckled her. The situation was about to spin out of control when the police intervened and escorted Thompson out of the arena. Just like she was expelled from Germany for speaking out. So think about that: in the land of the free and the brave, she was criticized for speaking the truth, too.

She wrote about the vulnerabilities in our political system and how America should not be complacent about our immunity from this mental disease:

No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument – the Incorporated National Will. When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say “Heil” to him, nor will they call him “Führer” or “Duce.” But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of “O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!”

Thompson was married to Sinclair Lewis. Her work inspired him to write his spookily prophetic novel with the bitterly sarcastic title It Can’t Happen Here. Lewis speculates on the kind of man who could swerve America away from democracy, echoing his wife’s prophetic words above. Lewis, too, sensed our vulnerabilities, the cracks in our system through which tyranny could slip. They both were right on the money.

Along those lines, Thompson wrote a fascinating piece for Harper’s Bazaar called “Who Goes Nazi?“. In the article, she looks around a hypothetical dinner party filled with a diverse group of Americans, and guesses which ones will “go Nazi” and which ones would be immune. It’s really something, that piece. It checks out.

Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.

This brave smart woman was on the right side of history. To quote contestants on reality TV shows: Thompson wasn’t “here to make friends.” But she was right about the Nazis and she knew she was right. In situations where peer pressure acts as a silencer – where consensus is stifling – think WWDTD? (What Would Dorothy Thompson Do?) Journalists especially should ask themselves that question. They should be asking it now. They are failing.

Dorothy Thompson is a role model and hero.

“A little more matriarchy is what the world needs, and I know it. Period. Paragraph.” — Dorothy Thompson