Darting through enfilades of machine-gun fire to carry urgent messages to the front lines, the young dispatch runner frequently came within inches of being killed in the First World War. Twice he was struck by shrapnel, and once he barely survived a lethal gas attack. His name was Adolf Hitler and, after Germany’s crushing defeat, he vowed revenge for the draconian sanctions imposed by the Allies at Versailles. (Stripped of over 10 percent of its prewar territory, Germany was required to pay tens of billions in reparations and prohibited from amassing an army of more than 100,000 troops.) Just months after the war Hitler became the chief propagandist for the National Socialist German Workers Party, which blamed all of the nation’s woes—particularly soaring inflation and unemployment—on Jews and Marxists. Hitler became president of the organization, better known as the Nazi Party, in 1920. Imprisoned in 1924 for trying to overthrow Germany’s new government, the Weimar Republic, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a bestselling anti-Semitic screed that outlined his blueprint for world conquest. After his release he swiftly rose to national prominence by preying on Germans’ postwar humiliation, and, on January 30, 1933, he was appointed chancellor of Germany. The United States was in the throes of the Great Depression and paid scant attention to Hitler, who, from across the Atlantic, seemed little more than a megalomaniacal buffoon easily caricatured for his shrill, almost convulsive oratorical style. American Jews, however, were considerably more wary. They knew that German Jews were being harassed and persecuted and that Hitler’s rhetoric was becoming increasingly venomous. Alexander Goode, twenty-three years old and studying to be a rabbi, was especially mindful of the ominous developments unfolding thousands of miles away. In a letter to his sweetheart, Theresa Flax, Goode reflected on Hitler’s anti-Semitism and its inevitable consequences, both to Jews and Germany itself. The letter, dated April 3, 1933, was written well over eight years before the U.S. went to war against Germany. (The long ellipses are in the original.)
Cincinnati, Ohio
Darling….
Theresa, dear, why don’t you write me sometime more intimately about yourself, what your opinion on things is, what you think about, what your interests are, anything at all so that I can feel I am closer to you when I read your letters, something that will reveal you yourself, in all your charm and sweetness, just say anything at all as long as it concerns you and I will love it…….
Recently I have cultivated a taste for poetry, a sure sign that I have become a mere shadow of my stern self and now am as sentimental and love-smitten as all the fellows I used to laugh at in former years. Keats and Shelley are my high-brow recreations now and fine fare they are too. If it were not for my infernal habit of reading so terrifically fast I could no doubt appreciate far more their charm and beauty. It is not at all mushy either. Perhaps when I become more familiar with them I’ll try to impart some of the joy I get from reading their poetry to you. The Bible is not so bad for poetry either. Just read the Song of Songs sometime. It is not long, but its beauty is overpowering. They are the lovesongs of the ancient Hebrews and as love poetry they have never been surpassed.
Speaking of the Bible I might mention that by this time in my preparation for the career of a Rabbi I have read most of the Bible, and when I say read I really mean studied carefully, at least three times, so that I am more familiar with this great library of our people than I am with any other volume I have ever studied or read. In it is stored such a mine of information and beauty that I am tempted to think with our ancestors who absolutely believed that everything in the Bible was true and that all things that man can experience under the sun are contained therein. So much is treasured up that I could not begin to describe its contents. It really is heartrending that more people do not seek out its treasures. Perhaps if Hitler read some of its valuable sayings he would be a wiser ruler than he is destined to become.
His policy now means utter ruin, not only to the Jews, but to the whole of Germany itself. He can no more injure the Jews of Germany without seriously depriving the nation itself of all its wealth and position than he can cut off his nose without detriment to his Charlie Chaplinesque physiognomy. I see no hope for our kinsman abroad. Germany’s loss, however, is our gain for expulsion of the Jews from Germany means that many of the greatest Jews alive today will emigrate to America and greatly promote the development of Jewish culture in this country. As long as their lives are not injured it will be a gain to American Jewry to have these Jews here. There should be no difficulty in the way of their entering America. This country will be glad to have them.
There I go veering off at a tangent. I am grateful to this letter indeed because it has caught my interest and made me lose sight of my own mood, blue as blue can be, of an hour ago. I think I feel better now. May my slumber be as peaceful as I hope yours will be tonight … so with a tender caress ….. goodnight.
Alex
What is extraordinary about Goode is not merely the prescience of his observations, but what he, himself, would go on to do in the war. Five years after beginning his rabbinical studies at Hebrew Union College in 1930, Goode and Theresa Flax married. Four years later they had a baby daughter, Rosalie Bea. Fiercely patriotic, Goode had trained as a national guardsman in high school, and, when war was declared in December 1941, he volunteered to serve as a U.S. Army Chaplain. After completing his orientation at Harvard University, Rabbi Goode, age thirty-one, headed overseas. Hours before embarking on the USAT Dorchester in early January 1943, he dashed off the following message to Theresa, now settled in Washington, D.C., with Rosalie.
Wednesday
Darling:
Just a hurried line as I rush my packing. I’ll be on my way in an hour or two. I got back yesterday afternoon just before the warning. Hard as it was for us to say goodbye in N. Y. at least we could see each other before I left.
Don’t worry—I’ll be coming back much sooner than you think.
Take care of yourself and the baby—a kiss for each of you. I’ll keep thinking of you.
Remember I love you very much.
Alex
It was the last time Theresa Goode ever heard from her husband. At 1 A.M. on February 3, 1943, 100 miles from the coast of Greenland, a German torpedo exploded in the Dorchester’s engine room. The ship immediately rolled to its starboard side and began to sink. Panic ensued. Goode, along with three other chaplains—George Fox (Methodist), John Washington (Catholic), and Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed)—calmed frantic and wounded men and helped them with their life jackets. But only minutes later they made a horrible discovery: there were not enough life preservers for everyone onboard. According to eyewitnesses, the chaplains removed their own preservers and, without hesitation, gave them to the first young soldiers they could find. The last anyone saw of the chaplains was the four of them standing on the Dorchester’s hull, arm in arm, praying together as the ship went down.