American White Awareness during World War II
World War II is often referred to as the war against racism, as if it were fought to prevent future racial discrimination. This is far from the truth. In fact there are numerous accounts which show explicit White consciousness. This piece does not pretend to give a complete picture, but rather points out some illustrative examples.
Pearl Harbor and war in the Pacific
The editorial of Life magazine in May 1945 included the following remarks: “Americans had to learn to hate Germans, but hating Japs comes natural—as natural as fighting Indian wars once was.” This is in a nutshell is the difference between the average American attitudes towards the enemy during World War II: the Japanese were a different race. Besides this, the Americans felt treacherously attacked by Japan in Pearl Harbor, but they did not feel any need for revenge or hatred against the Germans. In the government propaganda the emphasize in the war against Germany was placed on the National Socialist (commonly referred as Nazi) regime rather than the Germans, preventing the feeling among second-generation German-Americans that they were fighting their own kind. Read more












