***
The inter-ware era was a time of disarmament in most countries. Military budgets were pared back in Britain, france, and America. This was not the case in Japan. After Hitler seized power in 1933, he ordered a major rearamanent program in violation of the Versailles Peace Treaty. The democracies did not respond. The public after World War I was apauled by war and desired to avoid another war. As a result, militry expenditures were not poltically popular. The democracies by the 1930s were more concerned with domestic issues--especially efforts to fight the depression. The German rearament program, especially the Luftwaffe, had by 1938 had given NAZI Germany a significant militay advantage in Europe. The same was occuring in the Pacific with the Japanese. There were warnings about German rearmament. Churchill in particular spoke out on the subject. Hitler demonstrated the force of the Luftwaffe in Spain beginning in 1936. Hitler beginning in 1938 began to use his military advantage. He seized Austria in the Anschluss (March 1938) and then turned toward Czecheslovakia. The Munich Conference (October 1938) was a shock to the democracies. The character of the enemy they faced was made manifest in Kristallnacht. The shocked democracies began a rearmament program. This included America, although there was still considerable public opposition to arms spending in the United States. Germany's seizure of the rest of Czecheslovakia (March 1939) in violation of the Munich Agreeement made in obvious as Churchill had warned that appeasement would not work.
Hitler concluded that Munich had been a mistake. He was not to be denied his war. Germany invaded Poland September 1, 1939. The results of the German rearmament program were immediately apparent as Poland was quickly defeated. Next Hitler turned west. The allies (Britain and France) were rearming assisted by the Roosevelt Administration in America. The question became whether the democracies could rearm fast enough to close the German advantge, epecially the inballance in airplanes, before Hitler struck in the West. The German Western Offensive (May 1940) shocked the world. France fell within weeks and many thought that Britain would oon follow. President Roosevelt had to decide if scarce arms needed by the American military should be sent to Britain. They were and made a crucial difference in Britain's fight for survival. President Roosevelt first used the term "Arsenal of Denocracy" on December 29, 1940 in one of his Fireside Chats, radio boradcasts, to the American people. He expalined the importance of supplying the people of Europe, at the time primarily Britain with the "implements of war". He said that the United States "must be the great arsenal of democracy". The very day he spoke, a Luftwaffe raid on London severly damaged famous buildings and churches in the city center and engulfed St. Paul's Cathedral in flames. [Gilbert, p. 356.] Hitler feared America more than any other country, but was convinced that Britain could be defeated before America could be mobilized or American industry could be effevtiverly harnassed for the war effort.
America had begun expanding its military production beginning in the late-1930s. Here orders from Europe (especially Britain and France) Olayed an imprtant role. Itwas the stunning German military success that set the Arsenal of Democrcy in motion, albeit vto a still limited extent (1940). The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into the War and this unleased the full potential of Americn ondustrial mite. The Roosevelt Administrtion organized the most expansive armaments program ever conducted in world history. An American industrialists responded. The output American factiries mot only armed the American military, but its allies as well. The quantity and quality of those arms astonished America's enemies and allies alike. Neither the NAZIs or the Japanese had any idea just how rapidly and effectibely American industril production could be converted to war production. Air Marshall Göring whose Luftwaffe terriruzed Europe for 2 years sneared. "The Americans only know how to make razor blades." Four years later, Göring said he knew that the War was lost when American P-51 Mustangs appeared over Berlin escorting endless waves of bombers. His vaunted Luftwadde within months was soon in tatters. The record of American war production is staggering and in large measure determined the outcome of the War.
During the war. President Roosevelt relied heavily on businessmen like Baruch, Knudsen, and Nelson (the Bollar a Year Men) to run the war effort. After the War there was a shift in the narative as the businessmen left Wahington and went back to their corportatiions. First Stalin began saying that Lend Leease was not all that important. Then the New Dealers who were astoinished by the raw power of free market capitalism began claiming that it was their heroics in Washinjgton that was the real genius behind America's remrkable war-tine industrial achievemnts. Mind you, these were the same people that despite massive spending had failed to end the Deopression and who had to explain away the Roosevelt Recession (1937-38). New Deal economist John Kenneth Gailbraith argued that it wasn't untramblked capitalism, but New Deal beureaucrats and the abetnce of free market structures was what turned on Americsan indusdtry. They believed it was impossible that a free market mdechanisms simply could not achieve such stunning results. An important historian bekieves that just the oppodite is true and has discussed the Arsenal of Democracy in great detail. He argues powerfully thar the results chieved were not do to rationing, but in increasing supply and that almost entirely capitalist ebnterrprises with capitalist mansgers were reponsible for Americam industrosl success. [Herman]
Freidel, Frank. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Rendezuous with Destiny (Little Brown: Boston, 1990), 710p.
Gilbert, Matin.
Herman, Arthur. Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.
Kimball, Warren F., ed. Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence 3 vols. ( Princeton University Press, 1984). This is a remarable collection of Roosevelt and Churchill's communications. Kimball has written excellent books on both Lend-Lease Act and on the Morgenthau Plan for occupied Germany. The collection came from presidential, State Department, prime-ministerial, Foreign Office files, and even German intercepts of previously unpublished transatlantic telephone conversations.
Sawyer, L.A. and W.H. Mitchell. The Liberty Ships (Lloyd's of London Press, 1985).
Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. "The Supreme Partnership," The Atlantic Monthly (October 1984).
Schama, Simon. A History of Britain.
Sherwood, Robert E. Roosevelt and Hopkins (1948).
Trapani, Carol, "Letters cemented partnership," Poughkeepsie Journal (December 8, 2001).
Navigate the CIH World War II Section:
[Return to Main World War II Arsenal of Democracy page]
[Return to Main World War II President Roosevelt page]
[Return to Main World War II American isolation page]
[Return to Main World War II page]
[About Us]
[Biographies]
[Campaigns]
[Children]
[Countries]
[Deciding factors]
[Diplomacy]
[Geo-political crisis]
[Economics]
[Home front]
[Intelligence]
[Resistance]
[Race]
[Refugees]
[Technology]
[Bibliographies]
[Contributions]
[FAQs]
[Images]
[Links]
[Registration]
[Tools]
[Return to the Main World War II page]