VCU news

By Mary Beth Alford

RICHMOND, Va. – A new book asserts that from the turn of the century through World War II, anti-Semitism pervaded the U.S. Army Officer Corps. Prejudice affected the official activities of some of the biggest names in American military history, according to a decade of research by a Virginia Commonwealth University historian and author.

In his most recent book, The "Jewish Threat: Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army," published by Basic Books, Joseph W. Bendersky, Ph.D., a history professor at VCU, offers the only fully documented study of an anti-Semitic worldview by an American government institution, adding an entirely new dimension to U.S. Army history.

Bendersky researched more than 35 public and private archives across the U.S., including The National Archives in Maryland and the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania. Through his research, he revealed that many U.S. military officers believed Jews were physically, intellectually and morally inferior and feared that Jews threatened America’s culture, gene pool, government and national interests. This institutionalized anti-Semitism had a crucial impact on the U.S. response to the Holocaust, Bendersky asserts.

"Many of the officers that held such anti-Semitic views at relatively low ranks in the beginning of their careers rose to important positions, some even becoming generals," said Bendersky. "They included Gen. George Patton, Col. Ralph V. Van Deman, the father of American military intelligence, his successor, Marlborough Churchill, and Lt. Gen. Van Horn Moseley, a close friend of Eisenhower’s and one of the Army’s most decorated officers who demanded sterilization of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany."

Through his research, Bendersky found that the Army’s Military Intelligence Division created a totally separate categorization for Jews in response to substantial reports, correspondence and memorandums. He also discovered that racist theories and eugenics were taught to and used by officers at the Army War College, an institution that trained future generals. Similar documentation showed that for decades some officers warned of international Jewish conspiracies, ranging from Communism and Zionism to international finance.

"This path-breaking study provides crucial new information that will certainly affect the way the we look at U.S. military history, the history of American anti-Semitism and America’s response to the Holocaust," said David S. Wyman, author of "The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust."

Bendersky, director of graduate studies in history, is also the author of "Carl Schmitt: Theorist for the Reich and A History of Nazi Germany." He is book review editor for the journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies and has received numerous fellowships and grants throughout his career, 26 years of which have been with VCU.