Windy April and Much More Lindbergh

April has blown by, and it's taken me right along with it. Such weather! A few days ago it was 90 degrees. Today is very chilly, jacket weather, overcast but still breezy.

Oriental dragon card!

I've been too busy. If I were 35, this wouldn't even be enough to keep me occupied, but I'm not 35 anymore. I'm 55, and I can't do as much. Mostly, my legs hurt -- I have bad veins. But enough of that whining!

The garden is still a mess, but things are coming along. Adam has to do the heavy work, and he can only do that on warm sunny days when his lungs (asthma) are willing to cooperate. Quite a bit has been done -- beds dug, potatoes in, mowing and weed-eating, planting and transplanting -- but there's always more to be done.

basil, for the farmer's market

I promised a final talk on Anne Morrow Lindbergh's diaries from 1936-1939, The Flower and the Nettle. I most enjoyed the section when they were living on the tiny island (really a rocky shoal) of Illiec in Brittany. I didn't enjoy reading the sections when they flew together, nor when they were visiting other countries. Increasingly the diaries concerned the looming war and how the Lindberghs responded to its coming. This was fascinating.

When we think of World War II and Hitler, our minds go directly to the Holocaust and the plight of the Jews. At the time however, anti-Semitism was common and many Americans and Europeans either didn't care much, or weren't aware of Hitler's plan to eradicate the Jews. Reading Lindbergh, one must patch together from little bits of her thoughts the understanding she had of this time. Here's how I read her:

1. Germany was treated badly after the first World War. They were reduced in land, put in a straight-jacket as punishment.
2. Hitler wanted more land for each German, and by "German" he meant those of his Master Race -- a North European/Aryan people. His Germans were dispersed a bit, living in other countries. I thought (from high school history class) that Hitler's goal was to overpower other nations. From Lindbergh's writing I'd say he wanted to separate out his Germans from the rabble (other races) among which they were living, gather the Germans together, and have enough land for each German -- "lebensraum" or living space. This sounds crazy to us now, but it was real then.


3. Germany had limited access to shipping on the North Sea. She was hemmed in, her location making her dependent on the goodwill of others for trade and prosperity. Hitler's desire was to have more land, and to rid his population of the races and people groups whom he deemed inferior, leaving a larger Germany for only his Aryan race.

Lindbergh doesn't talk much about it, but I was puzzled that she seems aware of this ideology but doesn't challenge or disparage it. She's a thinking, well-educated woman of only 80 years ago. Hitler's treatment of the Jews in the 1930's did offend her, but the thinking behind his actions -- his enthusiasm for eugenics (viewing humans as breeding stock and controlling that breeding), the separation of intellectuals and human "desirables" from the other undesirables, the roles assigned to these upper-crust intellectuals and their lower, common servants -- she seems in absolute support of this thinking. She lives it out every day.

Lindbergh repeatedly (and I mean on every other page) describes people's physical traits, emphasizing their faces and physiques, strength, intellect -- the brilliance in their eyes and their conversation. She tests people's dinner party conversations to determine their intelligence. As a wealthy, famous woman, when she describes the workers and servants around her, she seems to take them for granted and see them as utilitarian. In evaluating people groups, she respects Germans most because of their intellectual superiority and raw courage, and dislikes Russians most because of their vulgarity and drunken laziness. She leans toward generalizations like these, although she states them in more nuanced and elegant terms.

Here are some quotes, usually from highly-intellectual dinner parties:

* "We also talk politics. We come down to the conclusion that eugenics, birth control, etc., is the only thing that can save our civilization -- but no one can suggest how it can be brought about." (485)
* "Prince Kinsky ... said he was afraid that the English Empire could not stand another war; it would break to pieces, and that would be a great loss to civilization and to the white race (with the underlying thesis that we must look at the world in terms of races and of civilizations now, not merely in terms of nations) .... But the last part of the evening [at a dinner party in Germany] was spent in listening to a terrific blast of anti-Jewish propaganda. I had never had it quite so strongly before from an intelligent person. I was depressed. He had no use for them at all. Said they were 'creepers,' parasites, and could not be used even by our civilization and recommended expelling them all to Madagascar. I listened shocked, open-mouthed, offering arguments here and there as best I could." (431/432)
* "A nice talk with Silvia Monnet about women's struggle to choose between husband and children." (427)
Of course, one of the primary points of women's rights and women's independence, even in the 1930's, was access to birth control. Here we find a sore dilemma. Eugenicists wanted birth control (often sterilization) for the under-classes. They wanted less breeding of the lower races and more breeding from the intellectual classes. But women's rights groups wanted birth control access for wealthy women, educated woman, professional women who want to work and choose freedom in their lives. 
* "I feel I have wasted the winter, not learned French, not written anything, not started a child (which is the cause of my real gloom)." (552) In spite of her support of birth control, Anne clearly wants to be part of that upper-class breeding stock who contribute more population to the world. She's had 3 babies, will have 3 more, and her husband will father an additional 7 children with 3 other women. They believed in expanding the upper-class population.
* Father Chardin, a Jesuit priest, comes for dinner. "From talking of old races we went on to talk of new, the modern problems of race. And it was marvelous to hear him talk from that point of view, as though it were all history we were looking back on. He says race is not all physical but a very subtle complicated mixture of physical, mental, moral, cultural elements. Nevertheless it is a very real and precious thing and to be jealously guarded; and that the emphasis must be on race in the modern world. He regretted that Hitler should attack the problem wrongly. He should not go back, turn the eyes backward to try to fine a 'pure' race, physically, which is impossible in the first place and undesirable in the second (because that is a purely physical definition). One should rather look forward, keep one's eye on race, yes, but on a broader conception of race, a synthesis of the best in many ways, physical, mental, spiritual, cultural .... I felt so relieved to hear someone argue without passion, clearly, objectively, wisely .... But I felt better for knowing his mind is in the world." (514)

In the early 20th century, the scientific/intellectual world was excited about DNA, about genetics. Eugenics seemed a noble goal, especially to the elite. It seems horrifying now to listen to this woman, a loving mother and wife, a gifted writer, speak this way about race. When a lover of eugenics says "a synthesis of the best" regarding the races, she means a calculated breeding of individuals to produce the best possible humans -- elite, superior humans who could best rule the rest of the humans and assess which humans can be best utilized in which roles. Such curtailing of individual rights and freedoms is repulsive to us now. But it was not a rare view at the time, only 80 years ago. She published this diary in the mid-1970's, only 40 years ago, and did not remove these portions in her editing. Was she unashamed to show she had held these views? (For more reading about Hitler's breeding program, read this.)

The end of this book takes us right up to the gateway of war, April 20, 1939. Charles Lindbergh has already been recalled to the U.S., and Anne follows with the two children on an ocean liner. They no longer feel safe, even in France, even on their beloved Illiec. Her world is falling apart. She must return to her home country, where her baby was murdered, where the press and general public hound them at every turn. They have no privacy except inside a gated family compound. They cannot enjoy eating at a restaurant or strolling through a park, as they do in France. She returns to the U.S. reluctantly and decides too late that of all Europeans, the French are her favorite, and France her favorite place to live. 

In spite of her disappointing views on race (which constitute a small portion of the diaries) I found myself fascinated by this nervous, insecure, sometimes petty, introverted woman who has such unsatisfied longings. Knowing her future a bit, I see the crushing disappointments coming her way. So I jumped over to Abebooks and ordered her next diary, War Within and Without, Diaries from 1939-1944. What will she say as Germany crashes and burns and its sins against minorities spread out for the world to see? Will she change her views on race and eugenics? I'll let you know!