When the Spanish fascist General Franco, enlisting the aid of Hitler and Mussolini, initiated a civil war that would eventually see the Republican government of Spain fall, the United States not only stood by, it prohibited American citizens from helping the Republican cause. Why would an apparently democratic, presumably antifascist country, prevent its citizens from fighting fascism and restoring democracy?
Flush with success in Spain, European fascism struck again. Mussolini bombed desperately poor Ethiopia. And not to be outdone (by far), Nazi Germany invaded more than a dozen European countries, establishing a front with the Soviet Union, whose destruction the Nazis desperately sought. Washington still did nothing.
In June 1941, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, launching a campaign that would eventually cost the Soviets eight to 12 million men and usher 16 million Soviet civilians into an early grave. And still, the United States did nothing.
Instead, as the Nazis pushed into the Soviet Union, Washington watched, and US businesses, among them, the Wall Street powerhouse Brown Brothers/Harriman, profited. The firm, two of whose principals were Prescott Bush and Herbert Walker, great-grandfather and grandfather of President George W. Bush, eventually had its assets seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act, when Washington finally got around to deciding Nazi Germany was an enemy (on paper, anyway.)
The Bush family, by the way, has curious connections. Apart from its wartime links to the German Nazi government, the Bushs are also linked to the family of John Hinckley, the man who tried to assassinate former President Ronald Reagan. Had Hinckley been successful, George H.W. Bush, the vice-president at the time, would have moved into the Oval Office. Hinckley's family had made large contributions to Bush's political campaigns. On the day John tried to transform himself into a latter day John Wilkes Booth, Neil Bush, brother of George W., and campaign manager for George W.'s failed congressional bid, was scheduled to dine with Scott Hinckley, John's brother. George W. told the press, "It's certainly conceivable that I met (John Hinckley) or might have been introduced to him." By itself, the connection means nothing, but it is fishy, to say the least. Fishier still is the Bush's connections with the bin Laden family. It's certainly conceivable that John Hinckley isn't the only Bush family friend George W. met, or might have been introduced to.
By December, 1941, six months after the Nazis had overrun much of Europe and launched their Soviet campaign, the Soviet's had rallied, and counterattacked. On Dec. 6th, the counterattack began. On Dec. 7th, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, plunging the United States into war in the Pacific.
Formally, US involvement in the war in Europe came a few days later -- but only after the Nazis declared war first.
Still, despite the United States formal commitment to war in Europe, American forces were to undertake no significant action in Europe until D-Day, June 6, 1944, at which point the defeat of Germany by Soviet forces was all but inevitable. The US had tarried, watching as Nazi Germany plundered the Soviet Union and entered the war in a significant way only when it seemed clear resurgent Soviet forces would crush the Nazis and take most of Europe.
After Berlin fell, the US took over where the Nazis had left off, salvaging assets from the ruins of what the Nazis left behind, to continue the fight against Communism. Washington quickly allied itself with Germany, Italy and Spain, subordinating those parts of Europe the Soviets couldn't control, while scouring the ranks of the defeated Nazis for engineers, technicians, scientists and intelligence experts. They would be pressed into service on Washington's payroll to do what they had been doing for Hitler -- fighting Communism.
