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Over at the Atlantic, Anne Applebaum has a long though I would say probably not definitive piece on the undeniably repulsive Mypillow guy, Mike Liddell, citing, among other things, some historical precedents regarding the damage Mike might do:
Wacky though it seems for a businessman to invest so much in a conspiracy theory, there are important historical precedents. Think of Olof Aschberg, the Swedish banker who helped finance the Bolshevik revolution, allegedly melting down the bars of gold that Lenin’s comrades stole in train robberies and reselling them, unmarked, on European exchanges. Or Henry Ford, whose infamous anti-Semitic tract, The International Jew, was widely read in Nazi Germany, including by Hitler himself. … Aschberg, Ford, and Lindell represent the extreme edge of that phenomenon: Their business success gives them the confidence to promote malevolent conspiracy theories, and the means to reach wide audiences.
In the cases of Aschberg and Ford, this had tragic, real-world consequences. Lindell hasn’t created Ford-level havoc yet, but the potential is there.
The record of Aschberg is sordid in the extreme, repeatedly supplying the fledgling Soviet regime with cash when they were desperate for it and when no legally or morally responsible banking firm would touch them, but to blame the rise of Hitler on Henry Ford, as Applebaum explicitly does, is ridiculous. Ford was notoriously anti-Semitic, running an infamously anti-Semitic newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, whose articles were repackaged in a four-volume set called The International Jew, published in translation in Germany and praised by Hitler, who called Ford “a great man”, but Ford and his foul books had no virtually impact on the future course of German history. Hitler and his rise to power were the disastrous product of a home-grown, European-bred anti-Semitism, festering in the social and economic chaos of continental Europe that followed World War I, supercharged by the German hungering for revenge. In America itself, Ford’s anti-Semitism had little effect.
Okay, that’s the last time I do Henry Ford or any other anti-Semite a favor, though I understand the frustration that Anne and other American Jews feel at the lack of attention paid in American history to Ford's intense bigotry.1 But I will point out there was one American big shot, unmentioned by Anne, who did the Soviets if not the Nazies a solid: Andrew Mellon. Secretary of the Treasury under both Presidents Coolidge and Hoover, Mellon had a fancy for truly classic art, which was still on the market back in the day.
The United States had not recognized the Soviet takeover of Russia, but the United Kingdom had, and when Mellon happened to be in London on government business, he took the opportunity to spend about $6.6 million on 21 extremely valuable paintings from a consortium that had picked them up from a secret sale from the cash-hungry Soviets, all taken from Russia’s legendary Hermitage Collection. The paintings included Raphael’s Alba Madonna, whose $1.6 million price tag was then the highest ever recorded. Today, of course, people would say that Mellon, and Washington, D.C.’s National Gallery of Art, which ultimately ended up with all 21 paintings, got the better of the deal, but at the time the Soviets needed truncheons and barbed wire far more than great art.
1. I once saw an early, experimental talking film circa 1928 that featured comedian Eddie Cantor (Jewish) telling the following not very kosher joke: “I know why Henry Ford doesn't like the Jews. They make more money selling Fords second hand than he does selling them new.” Ninety years ago, that joke would have been funny.
Hitler turned in his grave…