13. Did Hitler plan on an invasion of the United States?
Adolf Hitler told Life Magazine that an invasion of the United States by the Germans was a fantasy which existed only in the minds of those in America who hoped to profit from a war. His comments were made in the spring of 1941. Nazi spies and intelligence agents operated within the United States in the years before America entered the war, but contrary to popular belief the Nazis in Germany did not provide financial support to American Nazi groups such as the German-American Bund. The Germans did however attempt to gain the support of the American Indian tribes, classifying them as Aryans, and Hitler enthusiastically endorsed plans to help the American Indians regain their lost tribal lands. A fact largely forgotten to history, which records Hitler as a fan of German propaganda films, is that he was an aficionado of western films, in particular those based on the novels of German writer Karl May. He was fascinated by American Indians.
Hitler knew that even were he to subjugate the Soviet Union and Great Britain, complete hegemony over the western world meant conflict with the United States. To that end he authorized a massive enlargement of the German navy through Plan Z and pursued the alliance with Japan to offset the American fleet. Hitler did not want to destroy the British Empire; on the contrary he wanted and believed that the British and Germans could be allied together against the United States, and a strong British Empire was critical to success, as well as for trade with Germany. As late as July 1941, German naval planners continued to consider the probability of war against Japan rather than the United States. In 1942, with Germany and its Japanese ally at war with the United States, Hitler commented to Joachim Ribbentrop, “Sooner or later there will have to be a showdown between the white and the yellow races”.