American attitudes to and treatment of other Germans/Axis nationals (not Japan)

You mentioned in your between two wars on Lend Lease that the majority of people in America supported the defensive, democratic British cause.

Was there any discrimination towards people from Axis countries in neutral America and then after Pearl Harbor, that weren’t Japanese?

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Do you mean the major countries or major and minor axis countries?

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Yes, Italians. Much of the population was wary of the Italian(mostly Sicilian) population in America at the time. There were localization orders often once the US entered the War. The German-American population was so heavily assimilated, largely due to assimilation efforts during and following WW1, that there was little anti-German sentiment.

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There were some consideration of Germans of recent extraction as a security concern, but publicly, this pushed aside.

we know this from two ways

  1. Frank Capra specifically edits in sections in the “Why We Fight” series about German Americans being Americans

  2. There are reports from recent Jewish German and other immigrants and the army involving the formation of the Ritchie Boys. The Pentagon had to do a lot of extra work to get the unit formed. That unit was VERY reliant on recent immigrants and 2nd generation Americans because translation and interrogation work in the field and security issues involved.

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