Hitler Attacks Pearl Harbor: Why the United States Declared War on Germany

In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. politicians, policymakers, and citizens focused their desire for retribution not on the obvious target, Japan, but on Hitler's Germany. Richard Hill challenges a major point of conventional wisdom on U.S.-Axis relations to explain why the U.S. held Hitler responsible for the Japanese action - and why Hitler's December 11 declaration of war was inconsequential to the U.S. involvement in the European theatre. Hill's carefully argued analysis reveals widespread acceptance in late 1941 that the route to Tokyo was through Berlin. Despite emerging uncertainty about German guilt for Pearl Harbor, he concludes, the prevailing public opinion in the first weeks after December 7 mandated a Germany-first strategy and continued to color U.S. policy throughout the war.