April 28, 1939: We've all seen footage of Adolf Hitler when he was angry. Few people have seen him when he was having fun. On this day, the Chancellor of Nazi Germany speaks before the country's national legislature, the Reichstag, at the Kroll Opera House in Berlin, the building which served as the Reichstag's meeting place after the original building burned in 1933.
On this occasion, Hitler decides to have a little fun with Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President of the United States. Worried about his ambitions after he'd taken over Czechoslovakia the previous month, after promising to take only the Sudetenland section of it the previous September, FDR had sent Hitler a message asking, "Are you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory or possessions of the following independent nations?" Thirty-one countries were then listed.
A lot of Americans who didn't want to go to war, just 21 years after World War I -- either because they were afraid of a potential World War II (this was true of people in both major parties); or because they were of German descent, and didn't want to go to war against their ancestral homeland (this was true of people in both major parties); or because they were of Irish descent, and didn't want to go to war on behalf of their historic oppressors, Great Britain (these people were mainly Democrats); or because they saw Hitler as having held off the Soviet Union abroad, and, domestically, restoring his country's economy while putting down labor unions (these people were mainly Republicans).
Between these various groups, they had elected majorities in both houses of Congress that didn't want to go to war. There was also a Neutrality Act, which prevented the federal government, including the President, from aiding either side in a war in certain ways.
Hitler was insane, and his stubbornness would eventually blind him to the obvious, but he wasn't stupid. He knew was why FDR didn't intervene in the Munich Conference the preceding September. He knew that FDR's hands were tied. And so, this is where the fun came in. Hitler told the Reichstag:
Herr Roosevelt demands that German troops shall not attack the following independent nations: Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iraq, Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt!
By the time Hitler got to Ireland, the members of the Reichstag had started to laugh. And with each name Hitler rattled off, the members' laughter got louder and louder. This wasn't out of fear of their leader, Der Führer: They were enjoying it, too.
As historian Robert Dallek put it, in a documentary about FDR, of whom he'd written a biography, this response was Hitler's way of telling FDR, "You're not a player in this world political game. We don't count you for very much. And we know that you've got a big political headache: Your isolationists are not going to let you do anything. You have all these neutrality laws. If we go to war against Britain and France, you're not going to have a significant say in things." So it was best for him to stay out of it.
FDR did not stay out of it. Within weeks, he was entertaining King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the White House and at his estate in Hyde Park, New York, beginning what Winston Churchill would later call "the special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom.
A little more than 6 years after this day, FDR would be dead -- but, shortly after that, so would Hitler, his Thousand Year Reich over after 12 years, and his continent-wide empire reduced to the size of his underground bunker in Berlin.
Over 75 million people, military and civilian combined, had died because of Hitler's ambition. No one was laughing anymore.
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April 28, 1939 was a Friday. There were only 2 scores on this historic day, both of them baseball games, and both of them in Ohio. The St. Louis Browns beat the Cleveland Indians, 9-8 at League Park in Cleveland. Johnny Berardino, the Browns' 2nd baseman, went 3-for-4 with 5 RBIs. He would later drop the 2nd R in his name, becoming an actor under the name John Beradino, and played Dr. Steve Hardy on the ABC soap opera General Hospital from its 1963 premiere until his death in 1996.
And the Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-6 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Cubs led, 6-2, at the 7th inning stretch, but the Reds scored 2 runs in the 7th and 3 in the 9th to win it, on a home run by Ival Goodman.
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