In a recent article, it was claimed that:
In early 1941, a significant percentage of the American population was still staunchly isolationist. Yet more Americans were pro-Axis. The Nazi Party was not the unquestionably evil cartoon villains we’re familiar with today; coming out in strong opposition to them was not a given. It was a risky choice.
A question from a couple of days ago got an answer adding nuance to Americans' positions on the Axis and the war itself, but I was wondering about the other part. I'd be most interested in reactions of the time to the cover of Captain America #1 (showing Cap punching Hitler), but in general - was it seen as really edgy to use the actual Nazis as villains in American fiction before America's entry into the war, or disrespectful to depict Hitler? Did any works of American fiction outside the superhero comics genre at this time do something similar?
The 1940 movie The Great Dictator is another famous anti-Nazi piece of American entertainment.
http://i.imgur.com/yVYnbqx.jpg
The movie brutally mocks its faux-Hitler character, especially having him appear terrified of being overshadowed by faux-Mussolini as they try to one-up each other.
The movie also features mistreatment of Jews and culminates with a Jewish barber (also played by Chaplin) who looks like the dictator taking the dictator's place and gives a stirring speech in opposition to everything Naziism stands for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKm_wA-WdI4
I highly recommend clicking on that link and remembering that this movie was made a year before the US went to war with Germany.
With regard to other anti-Nazi works of fiction, The Three Stooges made a short film in 1940 called You Nazty Spy! which satirized Nazi Germany. It takes place in a fictional country called Moronika. A scene in the film shows a flag with a swastika made of snakes over the slogan "Moronika for Morons".
Moe played a character based on Hitler, Curly played the Goerring character, and Larry played the Goebbels character. The film ends with them being overthrown and eaten by lions.
Regarding the reception to Captain America #1 there's a Comic Book Legends Revealed that quotes from Joe Simon's memoir, The Comic Book Maker:
There was a substantial population of anti-war activists in the country. “American Firsters” and other non-interventionist groups were well-organized. Then there was the German American Bund. They were all over the place, heavily financed and effective in spewing their propaganda of hate; a fifth column of Americans following the Third Reich party line. They organized pseudo-military training camps such as ‘Camp Siegried’ in Yaphank, Long Island and held huge rallies in such places as Madison Square Garden in New York. Our irreverent treatment of their Feuhrer infuriated them. We were inundated with a torrent of raging hate mail and vicious, obscene telephone calls. The theme was “death to the Jews.” At first we were inclined to laugh off their threats, but then, people in the office reported seeing menacing-looking groups of strange men in front of the building on Forty Second Street and some of the employees were fearful of leaving the office for lunch. Finally, we reported the threats to the police department. The result was a police guard on regular shifts patrolling the halls and office.
No sooner than the men in blue arrived than the woman at the telephone switchboard signaled me excitedly. ‘There’s a man on the phone says he’s Mayor LaGuardia,’ she stammered, ‘He wants to speak to the editor of Captain America Comics.’
I was incredulous as I picked up the phone, but there was no mistaking the shrill voice. ‘You boys over there are doing a good job, ‘ the voice squeaked, ‘The City of New York will see that no harm will come to you.’
There's also a story about some American Nazis rocking up to their studio and Jack Kirby personally rolling up his sleeves and heading downstairs to sort them out mentioned in Grant Morrison's Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero and I suspect either Simon's other memoir My Life in Comics or the rather splendid Kirby: King of Comics but I'm in the process of moving house and they're all boxed up so I can't confirm which!
There are a couple things at play here. While Americans were certainly isolationist, there was a large anti-Nazi feeling in the country. That anti-Nazi feeling was enough to create a market for Captain America and other heroes who fought against Nazis (or bad guys who looked a whole lot like Nazis). That same feeling was enough to empower FDR to do everything to oppose the Axis, but take the country to war (i.e. Lend/Lease, Convoying, ect). In the sense that a market definitely existed for this material (and indeed Cap was not the first superhero to fight Nazis), the choice was not risky.
It's also worth noting that while Captain America's debut seems impressive in retrospect (particularly after three recent great movies), at the time of his creation he was just one of literally hundreds of characters being churned out in the Golden Age of comics rush to attempt to echo the success of Superman. If the Cap magazine had failed, the writers and artists could've just come out with a different character and today we might go and see movies about Stardust the Super-Wizard.
There might have been a way in which it was rather risky though. The writers of Captain America (like the writers of virtually every comic book in the Golden and Silver Ages of comics) were Jewish. In so blatantly attacking Nazism, there might have been the fear of blow back on them or on other Jews. Either in the form of business damage of physical threats. Aside from these comics being banned in Germany, I don't know that there was any other blowback.
