The American Axis: Henry Ford Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of the Third Reich

About this book

Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh have long been exalted as two of the greatest American icons of the twentieth century. From award-winning journalist Max Wallace comes groundbreaking and astonishing revelations about the poisonous effect these two so-called American heroes had on Western democracy. In his wide ranging investigation Wallace goes further than any other historian to expose how Ford and Lindbergh-acting in league with the Nazis-almost brought democratic Europe to the verge of extinction. With unprecedented access to declassified FBI and military intelligence files Wallace reveals how the close friendship and ideological bond between automotive pioneer Ford and aviator Lindbergh culminated in an abuse of power that helped strengthen Hitlers regime and undermined the Allied war effort. Wallace traces Henry Fords ties to Nazi Germany back as far as the 1920s presenting compelling evidence of a financial paper trail proving that Ford subsidized the rise to power of Adolph Hitler who described Ford as "my inspiration." For the first time the genesis of Fords notorious Anti-Semitism is uncovered: The American Axis proves that Fords private secretary and life-long confidante was a German spy who channeled his employers Jew-baiting crusades to further the cause of the Third Reich. Lindberghs own anti-Semitism and white-Supremacist views captured the attention of the Nazis who soon manipulated him in their clandestine Fifth Column efforts. As the first unauthorized biographer to gain access to the Lindbergh archives Wallace paints a substantially more chilling portrait of Lindberghs pre-war activities than any previous historian and produces new evidence that the Nazis secretly plotted to install Lindbergh as the leader of the movement to keep America out of World War Two. The most controversial corporate investigation since IBM and the Holocaust the book reveals that the Ford Motor Companys military and political complicity in the Third Reich war effort was considerably stronger than the company has acknowledged and that a US Army post-war investigation concluded that the company had become "an arsenal of Nazism." Wallace disputes a recent internal investigation into the use of slave labor at Fords German plant during World War II - which company officials claimed as a vindication of its wartime activities - and reveals that corporate President Edsel Ford was about to be indicted by the US government for "Trading With the Enemy" at the time of his 1943 death. The American Axis is not only a mesmerizing cautionary tale but a compelling historical expos.