16. Charles Lindbergh was given one of Nazi Germany’s highest honors for his outspoken support for the evil regime.
As most students of history know, American aviator Charles Lindbergh won the Orteig Prize for being the first person to make a one-man, non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. But, what far fewer people know is that Lindbergh was also awarded the Commander Cross of the Order of the German Eagle. Indeed, the ‘honor’ was awarded to him by Herman Goering – acting on behalf of Adolf Hitler himself – at the American Embassy in Berlin in 1938. It was awarded in recognition of Lindbergh’s pro-German lobbying in his own country. In fact, if Lindbergh had had his way, the United States would have become a Nazi ally in the 1940s.
Lindbergh traveled to Germany on several occasions during the 1930s. And without exception he returned to his native America full of praise, not just for the state-of-the-art air force but for the Nazi regime in general. Lindbergh urged his fellow Americans to recognize the superiority of the Nazi regime, often in radio broadcasts steeped in antisemitic rhetoric and language. He was shocked, then, when the U.S joined the Second World War. While he begged to be allowed to fight, Roosevelt banned him from joining up. He died in 1974, his flirtation with Nazism still a stain on his reputation.