Looking back on the first few years of Roosevelt’s presidency, the time when the United States was chiefly preoccupied with overcoming the Great Depression, it appears to be the climax of ‘isolationism’ in The American Century. The broad public and many of the countries leading politicians (particularly in Congress) had a strong desire for tranquillity that they failed to perceive or even consciously clo- sed their eyes at the bad omens from Europe and Asia.[228]

   National-Socialist Germany just like Japan had left the League of Nations in 1933 and with the restraints of supervision gone, Germany's Führer Adolf Hitler sought to annihilate the national disgrace: the Versailles Peace Treaty. He rearmed the new German army, the Wehrmacht, built up its forces, stationed troops in the ‘demilitari- zed’ Rhineland in 1936, intervened in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the fascist General Franco and put opposition and Jews into concentration camps. He transfor- med Germany into a totalitarian state and put it on the road to war.[229]

   Italy that had been under fascist government since 1922 wanted to renew the glory of the Roman Empire and become a world power. The Italian Duce Benito Mussolini sent troops in 1935 to conquer the last uncolonized nation in Africa, Ethiopia, and joined Hitler and Franco against the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 on.[230]

   Japan was still cutting into China and expanding its sphere of influence - and it got closer and closer to the French, British and Dutch colonies; the Philippines came into reach as well. In 1934 Japan issued the ‘Amau statement’ declaring that Tokyo possessed the sole right of controlling Asian ‘peace and order’ and that any inter- ference (i.e. military aid to China) was considered a hostile act. This warning direct- ly addressed Washington to stay out of Asia.

   The United States had been giving credits to China and started to spend $238 million on naval build-up as a ‘New Deal’-measure for government funded work. [231]  But U.S.-German trade was left unhampered, Americans only weakly protes- ted discrimination against Jews and the U.S. even lobbied to exclude petrol from the economic blockade against Italy after invading Ethiopia.[232]

   But public opinion was even more reluctant to have the nation actively involved in international affairs. „Das Problem mit der ‘öffentlichen Meinung’ (...) lag darin, daß sie zum größten Teil der schönen Vision (...) Wilsons von einer liberalen, gebil- deten, aufrichtigen Bevölkerung erfüllt von internationalistischen Ideen und uti- litaristischen Annahmen (...) nicht entsprach,“[233] points out Paul Kennedy. (transl.: The problem with 'public opinion' was for the main part it did not equal Wilson's pretty vision of a liberal, educated, sincere society full of internationalist ideas and utilitarianist concepts.  -B. Wahler)  Caught up in unemployment, poverty and despair and in the painful remembrance of the horror of a world war, the Ame- rican people appeared to have lost its missionary zeal. The failure of the European nations to repay their war debts was considered utter fraud and added to the senti- ment of never again wanting to entangle in the filthy European affairs.[234]

   It did not take long until politicians got the message. In 1934/35, a congressional committee led by Republican Senator Gerald P. Nye from South Dakota inquired into the causes of World War I.
Its ‘revelations’ reaffirmed Americans in their convictions. It had been the arms exporting industry which had lobbied for a U.S. entry into the war, hoping to ex- pand their profits. They and selfish banking interests had pushed the nation into the catastrophe. An outcry against the merchants of death and the mistake of 1917 went through the United States; Americans vowed never again to be easily taken to war by foreigners and industry interests[235].  A survey in 1937 showed the impressive ‘isolationist desire’ in the American public, 97% considered the prime objective of U.S. foreign policy to keep the nation out of war instead of preventing wars to break out. The marginal internationalist movement did, however, receive some ‘new blood’ as young, pacifist intellectuals came to see fascism as a major threat to world peace and 3,000 of them -i.e. Ernest Hemingway- even fought actively in the ‘Lin- coln Brigades’ in the Spanish Civil War.[236]

   But Congress took action to prevent the nation from ever again stepping into an ‘Wilsonian trap’ like that of 1917. In 1935 it rejected an agreement to send U.S. judges to the World Court of the League of Nations at The Hague; entanglement might lure.

   Neutrality acts were to proscribe the actions Congress deemed responsible for having pulled the U.S. away from neutrality. The first Neutrality Act of 1935 prohi- bited the shipment of arms or other weapons to any belligerent nation (aggressor as well as victim) and warned U.S. citizens that they embarked on ships of belligerents at their own risk once the president had declared the existence of a war.

   The Neutrality Act of 1936 further outlawed loans to nations at war and extended the weapons embargo to cases of Civil War (the Spanish Civil War had started earlier that year).[237]  As a result of these limitations on support of belligerents, France and Britain grew very cautious at dealing with an aggressive Hitler, they attempted to ‘appease’ the German Führer by conceding to his demands.[238]

   The Neutrality Act of 1937 finally provided a loophole, which fitted into the New Deal’s efforts to revive the economy; belligerent nations could purchase certain war materials from the United States on a ‘cash and carry’ base: the buyer nation would have to pay promptly and had to transport the materials on their own ships.[239]  Americans seemed to have conceived „an ingenious method of preserving the pro- fits of neutral trade while minimizing the risk of involvement in a major war.“ [240]   Again, domestic needs had dictated the foreign policy of the nation.

   However, on the first precedent, Roosevelt did not apply the Neutrality Acts. In July 1937 Japan had renewed its attack on mainland China and was about to seize Beijing and Shanghai. The ‘cash and carry’ addition would have favored Japan dis- posing over a large navy. Thus U.S. support for China could go on. But this new as- sault by Japan, had visualized for Roosevelt the threat that the Nippon posed to world peace. In a speech in Chicago on October 5, 1937 he tried to sensitize the
nation for a new foreign policy.

„Innocent peoples, innocent nations are being cruelly sacrificed to a greed for power and supremacy.(...)[It is] impossible for any nation completely to isolate itself from economic and political upheavals in the rest of the world.(...) It seems to be unfortunately true that the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading (...) [The community of nations must join] in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease.“[241]

   With the context of the militaristic nations Japan, Germany and Italy having for- med an Axis earlier this year, it becomes evident why Roosevelt considered the time to be right to take a first step „eines (...) konsequent geführten Aufklärungs- und Erziehungsfeldzugs.“[242]  (transl.: of a consequently led education campaign. -B.Wahler) But the nation was not yet ready for the swing back to a Wilsonian mis- sion. The public was upset about the new course the president wanted to chart for foreign policy. In the next time, FDR would confine himself to pursuing his ‘quaran- tining’ not as publicly.

   In Europe, Germany was the elephant in the china shop. ’Appeasement’ had allowed Hitler to annex Austria and in September 1938 he demanded the cession of the mainly German-populated Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Yet in his way stood Britain and France who had guaranteed the Czech borders. But as Roosevelt told them that he could not possibly support them if a conflict erupted, having no intention of accepting Stalin’s proposal of cooperation and they fearing the super- iority of the Wehrmacht, they concluded to surrender the Sudetenland to Hitler. At the Munich Conference, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain signed an agreement handing Germany the region without Czech consent. Roosevelt applau- ded this high point of ‘Appeasement’.[243]

   Nevertheless Roosevelt wanted to prepare the nation for the worst-case, build up a position of strength and get some more work for the unemployed. He proposed a bill to spend $1 billion to increase the navy’s power and in spring 1939 another half a billion dollars for building an airforce.[244]

   Yet, the world seemed to have been saved from war. Not for long though. As Yale historian Paul Kennedy explains, ‘Appeasement’ had the fundamental flaw that Hitler could not be appeased; he was so determined to shape the face of Europe anew that he would not be content with minor variations.[245]