in Germany. Dorothy Thompson, the first American reporter expelled from Germany for her critical articles on the Nazi regime, made an emotional plea on behalf of Herschel Grynszpan on a nationwide CBS radio program, asking, “Who is on trial in this case?” She answered, “I say we are all on trial. I say the men in Munich are on trial, who signed a pact without one word of protection for helpless minorities…. The Nazi government has announced that if any Jews anywhere in the world protest at anything that is happening further oppressive measures will be taken. They are holding every Jew in Germany as a hostage.”
26 Roosevelt told the press that “I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth-century civilization.”
27 He then recalled Ambassador Hugh Wilson from Berlin, a significant diplomatic protest that let the Nazis know that the United States condemned such anti-Jewish violence. Wilson was replaced by a chargé d’affaires, Alexander Kirk. Though diplomatic relations were not discontinued, Roosevelt showed his displeasure with Nazi mistreatments of Jews by downgrading the Berlin position to the chargé level.
28 The Germans retaliated by recalling ambassador Dieckhoff, and it looked as though diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany might be broken altogether. This did not happen, but the two sides were now steadily sliding down the slippery slope to open conflict.
