Trump, Eisenhower, and Hitler’s Autobahn

The ignorance astounds.

As the 2024 campaigns winds to a close, former President Donald Trump is being raked over the coals for saying, according to Gen. John Kelly, that Hitler “did some good things.” (And under the circumstances, it wouldn’t surprise if Kelly made it up. Trump Derangement Syndrome has the ability to get those suffering from it to make up all kinds of bizarre things about Trump.)

But taking Kelly at his word, apparently an appalled Kelly is clueless that there was another American president who was not only aware of a Hitler “good thing” — but went out of his way to duplicate that Hitlerian “good thing” in America.

The president? Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In 1919 as a young Army officer, Ike had endured a rugged cross-country trip by car. The trip was a mess, hampered considerably by a collection of roads that were decidedly haphazard.

Over there at the Linda Hall Library, which bills itself as “one of the world’s leading independent science research libraries,” is this bit of history: 

During the 1930s, Germany’s Autobahn became a showpiece of Nazi engineering. The multilane, limited-access freeways connected many of the major cities in Germany. The first section of freeway opened in 1932 between Cologne and Bonn. When Adolf Hitler became Reich Chancellor in 1933, he embraced the idea of building a national system of roadways alongside many other ambitious construction projects. He saw that the project would not only serve military and civilian transportation needs, but it would also provide work for tens of thousands of unemployed men.

Over here at the History Channel’s website is this about Eisenhower: 

As Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II, Eisenhower saw first-hand how Nazi Germany’s high-speed autobahn network allowed its troops to mobilize quickly to fight on two fronts. “After seeing the autobahns of modern Germany and knowing the asset those highways were to the Germans, I decided, as president, to put an emphasis on this kind of road building,” Eisenhower wrote. The 1919 trip, however, also remained in the forefront of his mind. “The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways, but Germany had made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons across the land.” With America’s roads remaining in poor condition decades after his arduous cross-country trip, Eisenhower championed the creation of the American Interstate Highway System, which was officially named in his honor in 1990.

In other words? The American Interstate Highway System, which millions of Americans use everyday, was, yes indeed, inspired by Eisenhower’s admiration of Hitler’s own high-speed autobahn. Leading Ike himself to write: “I decided, as president, to put an emphasis on this kind of road building.”

Let’s be clear. Adolf Hitler was the very embodiment of evil. He will forever be held out as the most infamous evil figure in all of world history. Donald Trump, with a Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, is decidedly not antisemitic. He is hardly either a Hitler fan or, as his poisoned political detractors would have it, a would-be Hitler himself. 

But the hard historical fact is that no less than President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a staunch admirer of Hitler’s autobahn, bringing the idea of a ribbon of modern highways back to America with him after the war, making it a reality as president. 

A decidedly good thing.

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