Say Casablanca and many people think first of Hollywood’s classic wartime film, with its smoky intrigue and unforgettable closing lines.
For students of Jewish history, the Moroccan city also recalls King Mohammed V’s refusal to hand over Morocco’s Jews to Vichy France.
But Casablanca carries another association, as well. In January 1943, it was the site of a pivotal Allied summit – the Casablanca Conference – where President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, standing beside Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill, announced that the Allies would pursue the Second World War until the complete defeat of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan and accept nothing less than their unconditional surrender.
Roosevelt didn’t coin the phrase. He borrowed it from another president – Ulysses S. Grant. Steeped in the lessons of American history, Roosevelt recalled how Grant, as a Union general in the Civil War, had demanded “unconditional and immediate surrender” from Confederate forces at the battle of Fort Donelson in 1862. The Confederate general accepted, giving the North a much needed victory that was a turning point in the war; and Grant’s uncompromising stance earned him the nickname “Unconditional Surrender Grant.” Roosevelt revived the phrase to give the Allied cause the same unmistakable sense of mission.
Roosevelt knew his words had to do more than rally the public – they had to silence powerful and influential Americans who still imagined a deal with Germany might be possible. Before Pearl Harbor, America’s establishment was deeply entangled with Germany. Wall Street law firms like Sullivan & Cromwell handled the affairs of German cartels. Major corporations – from General Motors to IBM – had built profitable subsidiaries in Germany. Ivy League universities cultivated cozy relationships with German counterparts. Columbia, for example, welcomed German delegations and maintained academic ties even as Jewish professors were purged from German faculties.
When war broke out in Europe in 1939, these ties didn’t dissolve. Payments still flowed, often routed through Swiss banks. Subsidiaries in neutral countries continued to trade with German firms, sometimes supplying strategic goods such as oil and tungsten through Spain and Portugal. Even after Pearl Harbor, some of this commerce persisted. Roosevelt’s administration quietly tolerated it, calculating that cracking down too harshly might alienate the very business leaders whose support was needed to mobilize America’s vast industrial capacity for war.
In short, many powerful and influential Americans were hedging their bets – preparing for a future where Hitler’s Reich might survive in some supposed moderate form.
The most striking example of this mindset could be found in the Dulles brothers. John Foster and Allen Dulles embodied the prewar entanglements of Wall Street and Washington with Germany. John Foster, a Sullivan & Cromwell partner, had represented German industrial giants before the war. Allen, stationed in Bern during the war as OSS operations chief for Switzerland, cultivated contacts with German officers such as SS General Karl Wolff, who had been SS head Heinrich Himler’s chief of staff.
Officially, these were exploratory surrender talks. In reality, they reflected a hope that German aristocrats or senior military officers might overthrow Hitler and cut a separate peace with the West, creating a nominally de-Nazified Germany to counter possible future Soviet expansion.
Roosevelt’s Casablanca declaration was designed to slam the door on this illusion.
Churchill had misgivings. He feared that demanding unconditional surrender might stiffen German resistance and prolong the war at terrible cost. Britain had already endured years of bombardment and sacrifice. Yet Churchill also saw Roosevelt’s larger purpose – to block any faction in Berlin, London, or Washington from cutting a premature deal. To his credit, Churchill overcame his doubts and threw his weight behind the policy, demonstrating once again his instinct for alliance unity.
Roosevelt also had an audience far from Casablanca. Joseph Stalin, locked in the desperate struggle at Stalingrad, feared that the Western Allies might strike a separate peace with Germany and leave the Soviet Union to bleed alone. Roosevelt’s call for unconditional surrender was meant to erase that suspicion. By making the pledge public, he reassured Moscow that there would be no backroom bargains or negotiated settlement. The Allies would fight together until Germany was utterly defeated.
There were doubts even within the U.S. military. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then commanding Allied forces in North Africa, initially opposed the unconditional surrender policy. He worried that if Germany believed it had nothing to gain by surrender, it would fight all the harder, costing more Allied lives.
But once the policy was announced, Eisenhower gave it his full support. Over time, he came to see its immense value. For soldiers in the field, unconditional surrender offered clarity of purpose. They were not risking their lives for a compromise that politicians might later dilute. They were fighting for the destruction of the murderous Nazi regime and its war machine, and for the liberation of Europe. That defining objective sustained morale through the brutal campaigns ahead.
Roosevelt’s insistence on unconditional surrender doesn’t erase his failings. His administration’s refusal to act decisively on behalf of Jewish refugees remains a profound moral stain. The refusal to admit the more than 900 Jewish passengers of the SS St. Louis ocean liner is the most notorious example, but not the only one. The U.S. didn’t bomb the rail lines leading to Auschwitz, though it had the capacity to do so. On this front, Roosevelt failed, and history will never absolve him.
Yet when it came to defeating the Nazi enemy, he showed great resolve and political courage. He resisted isolationists at home, businessmen looking to salvage German assets, intelligence officers chasing phantom moderates, and even close allies counseling caution. His declaration of unconditional surrender shut down equivocation and fixed Allied aims on total victory.
The parallel for today is unmistakable. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a lifelong admirer of Churchill, faces mounting pressure – at home and abroad – to end Israel’s war with Hamas through a negotiated deal that would leave thousands of armed terrorists and their arsenal intact. Roosevelt’s stand at Casablanca reminds us of the perils of leaving implacable enemies half-defeated.
As the leader of the nation state of the Jewish people, whose very existence was targeted for destruction, Netanyahu understands better than most that lasting security can never be built with those sworn to annihilate you.
One can only hope that, like Roosevelt, Churchill and Grant, Unconditional Surrender Netanyahu will prevail.