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President Roosevelt was concerned-he suspected these groups were allying themselves to foreign political movements seeking to overturn democracy and were crossing the line into criminal activity. And Americans were increasingly becoming enamored of communism and its seductive promise of a classless state the Communist Party of the United States and other like-minded organizations soon boasted more than a million members. Groups like the German American Bund and the Silver Shirts that embraced the Nazi vision were becoming more and more vocal. The lingering Great Depression provided fertile ground for fascism. But, remembering how helpless it was against German sabotage in the years leading up to World War I, the nation wasn’t taking any chances at home. It formally joined with Germany and Mussolini’s Italy to form the Axis powers in September 1940.Ĭushioned by twin oceans, an isolationist America was staying out of the fray-for the time being. It invaded China in 1937, seized its northern capital, began taking control of coastal areas and nearby islands dotting the Pacific, and even deliberately sank an American gunboat. In the Far East, Japan was making military waves as well.
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England and France had seen enough and declared war. But in 1939, Hitler seized the rest of the Czechoslovakia and invaded Poland. England and France, hoping to cut their losses through appeasement, acceded to the takeovers. He meant to build an empire-the Third Reich-and within a few years he’d annexed Austria and the Sudetenland, a German-speaking region in Czechoslovakia. Hitler wasted little time rearming the country. Five years earlier, less than a month after a cornered Dillinger had reached for his gun the last time, a power-hungry Adolph Hitler had declared himself “Führer” and taken total control of Germany. They threatened not only the fate of peoples and nations, but the survival of democracy itself.Īcross the Atlantic in Europe, 1939 was a dark turning point. They were hyper-aggressive fascist dictators, fanatical militarists, and revolution-exporting communists-along with their legions of spies, saboteurs, and subversive agents-who sought to invade, infiltrate, or even conquer entire swaths of territory, if not the world. But now, with the world rushing headlong into war and the pendulum swinging back towards national security concerns, the FBI would need to refocus and retool its operations once again.Īt the start of the decade, the public enemies were almost entirely homegrown-from “Scarface” to “Baby Face.” The next wave of villains would come primarily from afar, and they were in many respects bigger and badder still. The Bureau had reformed itself on the fly it was stronger and more capable than ever.
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Heading into the late 1930s, fresh off a victory over the gun-slinging gangsters, the FBI hardly had time to catch its collective breath.