Discover the life of Charles Lindbergh, who inspired Philip Roth when he wrote the novel “The Plot Against America” from which the series “The Plot Against America” is adapted.
What follows reveals important plot elements of the series “The Plot Against America”. Stop reading if you don’t want to divulge his storyline to yourself.
In The Plot Against America (2004), the novelist Philip Roth offers an uchronie in which he revisits the year 1940 in the United States and in particular the life of the aviator and politician Charles Lindbergh. Discover the true story and what the novel and the series offer instead.
Who was the real Charles Lindbergh?
Born in 1902, Charles Lindbergh is an American aviator who became internationally famous for having flown from New York to Paris alone, traveling alone more than 5,800 kilometers non-stop. 33h30 flight made in May 1927, when he was therefore only 25 years old. In March 1932, Charles Jr., her 20 month old infant, was kidnapped and murdered. After two years of investigation, a German carpenter is suspected and convicted of the crime, which results in US law recognizing the kidnapping as a federal crime. Following this tragedy, the Lindberghs settled in Germany until 1939.
From 1936 and several times in the years that followed, Charles Lindbergh was sent to Germany by the United States to examine the Nazi naval air force. From 1938, he also supervised the development of this same force in the Soviet Union.
In November 1939 Lindbergh wrote a disputed article in the Reader’s Digest : “a war [avec l’Allemagne] would reduce the force and destroy the treasures of the white race, a war that could even lead to the end of our civilization.on. “At the end of 1940, he was the spokesperson for the” America First “committee, a movement against US interventionism in World War II, whose important members held anti-Semitic statements and defended fascist ideology.
This group will be dissolved in December 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Lindbergh will not find employment in the military and will serve as a consultant to various aircraft manufacturing companies. After World War II, Lindbergh moved to Connecticut and served, among other things, as a consultant to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He ended his life on the island of Maui and died at the age of 72 from lymphoma.
The Lindbergh of the novel
Author Philip Roth changes reality by revisiting the kidnapping and murder of Charles Jr Lindbergh. Indeed, in his novel, he invented that in 1942, Charles Lindbergh gave a speech in Louisville, then that the plane which transported him was never found. German radio broadcasts as it has evidence that Lindbergh’s disappearance and that of his son a few years ago were the result of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to bring down the US government.
The news spreads, and anti-Semitic riots are increasing on American soil. In the novel, Lindbergh launches into the presidential campaign and defeats President Roosevelt in the presidential elections of 1940. He reproaches American Jews for wanting at all costs that the United States go to war and signs a non-aggression pact with the ‘Nazi Germany.
The novel follows the way in which a Jewish family (inspired by the childhood of Philip Roth) will experience this climate and in particular the fact that a rabbi who is close to them will start to support Lindbergh.
To learn more about the serial adaptation of the novel from the creators of The Wire, and Ben Cole’s performance as Charles Lindbergh, visit OCS.
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