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Jewish emigration 1933-1941, Hitler, Europe, USA

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  Quote Romesh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Jewish emigration 1933-1941, Hitler, Europe, USA
    Posted: 29-Dec-2013 at 09:16
I am interested in the historic data related to the 1933-1941 period in Germany. I have recently read about the Jewish emigration and NKVD crimes in the book "Ukrainian Story" by Mykola Nechitailo (2013).

In this discussion, PLEASE do not go beyond year 1942.  Please DO NOT convert this topic into the Holocaust topic.  I realize that some people wrote books about Holocaust and they are trying to sell these books; please do not use this thread for your Holocaust advertisements

I had a very good discussion and received many valuable posts on a different forum.  However, my thread was hijacked by the people arguing about the Holocaust.  The discussion went downhill, the Holocaust promoters kept labeling their opponents as anti-semates, etc. and subsequently the thread was closed.

Below is our discussion boundaries: year 1933-1941.  Countries - any countries related to the Jewish emigration during the 1933-1941 period.

I will post some of the ideas/info contributed to my previous thread.  I hope you will complement this information with your historic data and views. 




Edited by Romesh - 07-Jan-2014 at 16:20
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  Quote Romesh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2014 at 19:10
 
An interesting (suppressed) piece of history... German people elected Hitler and in 1933, he became the leader of Germany.  

Hitler kept encouraging the emigration till the end of 1941.  Till June or December 1941 he encouraged emigration of Jews from Europe. He was not the inventor of this "relocation": expulsions of Jews from one European country to another was a regular phenomenon in medieval Europe. 

There was a Madagascar plan to move 4 million of them... 

In 1938,  Evian conference involving 32 countries was a failure...  Roosevelt asked to take Jewish emigrants... only Dominican Republic  agreed to take some... 

Chaim Weizmann was quoted in The Manchester Guardian as saying: "The world seemed to be divided into two parts – those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter." 

Then this strange Jewish man Kaufman proposed to neutralize all Germans and then Jewish NKVD killed ethnic Germans in Western Ukraine... 

I am wondering why American Jews did not do enough to move those European Jews to the USA? In fact, it looks like Kaufman and others provoked Hitler to convert the final solution for Germans (by Kaufman) in to the final solution for Jews. Was this an intentional act of American Jews?
 
 
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  Quote Romesh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2014 at 19:12
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Roosevelt convened the Evian conference in July 1938, to deal with the Jewish refugee problem. 

The Jewish Agency delegation headed by Golda Meir ignored a German offer to allow Jews to emigrate to other countries for $250 a head, and the Zionists made no effort to influence the United States and the 32 other countries attending the conference to allow immigration of German and Austrian Jews.

Also: On Feb 1, 1940 Henry Montor executive vice-President of the United Jewish Appeal refused to intervene for a shipload of Jewish refugees stranded on the Danube river, stating that "Palestine cannot be flooded with... old people or with undesirables."
Wall Street Journal December 2, 1976


The Zionists had reason to not get involved. There was a division in the Jewish world about the Zionist plan; many Jews opposed it. The non-Zionist faction in Germany held to the teaching: "We have been forsworn by God "not to enter the Holy Land as a body before the predestined time", "not to rebel against the nations", to be loyal citizens, not to do anything against the will of any nation or its honor, not to seek vengeance, discord, restitution or compensation; "not to leave exile ahead of time." 
(Talmud Tractate Ksubos p. 111a).

Thus the Zionists saw it to their advantage to let things in Europe play out on it's own. They may not have known how badly things would get, but they were OK with letting the German Jews stew in their own juices.

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  Quote Romesh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jan-2014 at 19:15

Reply:

 MS St. Louis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Link about the ship with mostly Jews. Rejected by Cuba and USA...

 

Kaufman published "Germany must Perish" in early 1941:

 

Quote:

At the time that Germany Must Perish! was first published in early 1941, Germany had not yet occupied the Balkans. The German invasion of the USSR would occur in June (although the Germans had already invaded and reconquered the land, theirs before World War I, that had been given to form Poland, and had annexed Austria), and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was still nine months away.

However, the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935 and the T-4 Euthanasia Program ran from September 1939 until August 1941. TheWannsee Conference was more than a year in the future and stories of genocide by the Nazi Party were neither widely known nor believed.

 

Source: Germany Must Perish! - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

And, the decision for "Final Solution" came AFTER that, around mid to end of 1941, according to this:

 

http://www.holocaust-history.org/hitler-final-solution/

Kaufman might very well have supplied the trigger.

Please wait.  More quotes to be added tomorrow; these will include some economic reasons behind the Hitler's decisions. 


Edited by Romesh - 04-Jan-2014 at 20:55
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  Quote Romesh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2014 at 05:54
Response#5 

Responding to Evian, the German government was able to state with great pleasure how "astounding" it was that foreign countries criticized Germany for their treatment of the Jews, but none of them wanted to open the doors to them when "the opportunity offer[ed]."

This is a paragraph on the page dedicated to the Evian Conference by the United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumIf interested in reading the rest:The Evian Conference.

Response #6

I tried to source "The Ukrainian Story" and came up with nothing along the lines of your assertions. I realize that there is repressed history but I don't not think that this is a valid example. The Germans talked about Madagascar as a place to send Jews, but even after the formation of a compliant French state (Madagascar was a French colony) in 1940 nothing was ever approached. It is regrettably true that many countries refused Jews asylum including the US. In the early days, There were no death camps but the exclusionary laws were enough for Jews to try to leave. The mechanics of the Death camp did not come into being until 42 or 43 by that time, no one could leave. 


Response #7 
Good Morning,The book is on amazon.com, it is called "Ukrainian Story", written by Mykola Nechitailo. When German army crossed the border with the USSR, in June-July 1941 they found NKVD prisons filled with tortured and executed... the NKVD executed local ethnic Germans for being German.With respect to Kaufman - is it possible that he published his book in June-July 1941 and very quickly delivered it to Hitler in July 1941 - the work of one unknown man? Who can tell for sure he was alone? Was he related to a publisher? Why did the German propaganda references Kaufman and Roosevelt on the same poster ? There was no grounds for referencing them together? Was the Kaufman book the only book of provocation with detailed "medical descriptions" and calculations how to sterilize and wipe off all the Germans? Was it a coincidence that Hitler saw the book 2-3 weeks after he attacked the USSR, and the same time when he saw photos of dead Ukrainian Germans?

I did not know that "a German offer to allow Jews to emigrate to other countries for $250 a head". Who should pay $250 - Germans or other countries? I saw somewhere that Hitler allowed Jews to relocate to Palestine and take something like 1 million dollars with them. It would be great to learn the details of this financial deal. I know that the Madagascar Plan was too expensive for the Germans to move 4 million Jews to that island. It appears no-one wanted to contribute to pay the relocation expenses. Unfortunately, the truth is not always as sweet as chocolate... it can be tasteless... Very Respectfully,  Romesh
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  Quote Romesh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2014 at 05:56
Response #8

The little detail was that UK won the Battle of England and some time after the France of Vichy lost Madagascar [taken by the English power]. So ...In 1939, August 15th, Adolf Eichman seemed to be quite persuaded to make the idea of the mass evacuation operative. His notorious memorandum "Reichssicherheitshauptamt: Madagaskar Projekt" is quite clear about [he thought to transfer to Madagascar up to 1,000,000 of Jews per year].Now, I see that here we run the risk to imply that it is in some way acceptable the mass deportation of a part of the population of central and Eastern Europe on an ethnic - religious base. Sure Stalin was doing the same in USSR [may be even more than the Nazis ...], so we can think it was a kind of "fashion".A part how we can evaluate a mass deportation [which is for sure well less heavy than a mass extermination!], what about the destiny of these millions of Jews in Madagascar?Eichmann said that the Schutzstaffeln would have anyway "supervised" the local government and the Jewish organizations on the isle. In other words it would have been a giant ghetto. Btw, no words had spent about local native populations of Madagascar [and being Nazis involved this wasn't that soothing for them!].

As Goldia Meir discouraged pursuit of negotiations there aren't any details on the Evian conference offer to be had. The Germans were to receive the money as reimbursement for travel expenses. 

If you want to learn about the details of the Madagascar plan this thread will be of great help.
http://historum.com/history/60441-or...?postcount=209


And I'll save people the trouble of searching for the title:





Edited by Romesh - 05-Jan-2014 at 06:07
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  Quote Romesh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2014 at 06:13
The financial part of the deal is interesting... It is strange that the Wall Street bankers did not want to pay relocation expenses for European Jews. And "Golda Meir discouraged pursuit of negotiations"... Abandoned European Jews were left to die in concentration camps and ghettos... However, after the Holocaust these same US and Israeli non-helpers demanded the compensation for the dead European Jews. Strange financial relations... I am not sure I understand...

Very well said, AlpinLuke. It appears that the choice was to deport or to kill. Deportation was not supported by other countries. "Do nothing" was not the option for the Nazi. They saw what Jews did in eastern Poland almost immediately after the Red Army occupied eastern Poland in Sep 1939. Basically, local Jewish population turned against the local Polish people, they started arresting and sending wealthy Poles and politically active Polish intelligentsia to the NKVD for execution. And the NKVD shot these enemies of the people...The book of Kaufman painted even uglier picture for the German nation... and the Nazi could not ignore the Kaufman final solution.

Response #9
The Madagascar plan would be as much of a violation of the rights of the native Malagasy people as expelling Palestinians out of their homeland, why do some people think the Madagascar Plan and the plan to create a Jewish homeland in Uganda is perfectly okay and example of how "magnanimous" the Nazis were? Because Malagasy people are not caucasian?If the Nazis didn't want Jews in their land (Jews who were born there, lived there for hundreds of years and spoke German), then the Malagasy people have a right not to have millions of Jews dumped on their land. Those Jews belonged in Europe and not anywhere else.

My apology for not being clear about this. We do not discuss occupation of Madagascar by "other" people. The main question is why this plan failed? Why the Wall Street and other presumably related parties refused to accept the Jews? To move them somewhere? For example to neutral European countries like Portugal or Switzerland or Sweden, anywhere? Why these Jews were left in ghettos and concentration camps? Expulsion of Palestinians out of their homeland is wrong. Solving other people's problems at the expense of Malagasy people would be wrong.

Response #10 
On the other side there were countries in economical and political conditions suggesting not to accept such a cohesive immigration. The most suitable "host" was the American country, but the United States public opinion wasn't that ready for such an event. And politicians follow the public opinion in democracies.Anyway the alternative to give a land to the Jews wasn't that odd [also Fascists in Italy offered a part of the African Horn to Jews, Rome even trained some Jewish brigades].So, why not?The possible geopolitical answer is "not to allow the creation of a new German colony". The other powers saw German Jews as Germans and the control that the Nazi authorities would have kept of Madagascar [or an other land] would have made it a German colony "de facto". In the colonial world of the 30's this was a trouble.

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Some food for thoughts (from the Wikipedia):Golda Meir was born in Kiev, Ukraine. She spoke Yiddish. In July 1938, Golda Meir was the Jewish observer from Palestine at the Évian Conference, called by President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States to discuss the question of Jewish refugees. Hitler responded to the news of the conference by saying that if the other nations would agree to take the Jews, he would help them leave.I can only hope and expect that the other world, which has such deep sympathy for these criminals [Jews], will at least be generous enough to convert this sympathy into practical aid. We, on our part, are ready to put all these criminals at the disposal of these countries, for all I care, even on luxury ships.Delegates from the 32 invited countries repeatedly expressed their sorrow for the plight of the European Jews, but they made excuses as to why their countries could not help by admitting the refugees.Chaim Weizmann was quoted in The Manchester Guardian as saying: "The world seemed to be divided into two parts – those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter." (sounds like the Old Testament?)

Thank you for your posting. The numbers presented by Hitler (1 million passengers per year) and other somewhat higher numbers were manageable and Jewish relocation (and provide luxury ships - per Hitler statement) was possible. There was a good chance that the Nazi would pay all relocation expenses. The problems: other countries turned their back on European Jews and left them stay in ghettos and concentration camps. This was similar to the Red Army soldiers left in similar concentration camps: Stalin refused to help them and the Red Cross was not able to feed 3-5 million prisoners.

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How could poles flee to Russia? Provide real evidence. The Movement of millions of people in war time, across the front line is pretty hard to accept.Talk the the Nazis would pay for Jews to immigrate is plan wrong. Germany did not have the foreign exchange was simply too broke to do so, and every scheme put forward by Hitler was always aimed at getting that foreign exchange as part of the deal ( as well as confiscated their property)

Poles (you mean Polish Jews?) could NOT flee to Russia. The NKVD started executing Polish officers and intelligentsia as soon as they occupied Poland in 1939. The USSR would not take Polish Jews. It looks you are right about the financial capabilities/difficulties Hitler experienced. The war was expensive. And on top of that relocation of 1 million of Jews per year to Madagascar would cost him a fortune or it would financially break the Nazis.

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we are discussing the period of 1933 - 1941. One of the questions is the Evian conference (1938) and why the participating countries did not help the European Jews. Why the Wall Street did not offer any help, why the USA did not agree to take any refugees? Évian Conference - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaWe are also discussing the role of a Jew, a former German citizen, Mr. Kaufman and his professional publishing relatives from New York in generating the document called "Germany Must Perish" with the "Final solution for Germans" through the sterilization and gradual extermination of the German nation and German culture. How did this and other New York publications of 1941 helped Hitler to make his final solution? How did this help the Jews remaining in Europe? 

http://en.metapedia.org/m/images/thu...man_german.jpg

Was this a series of provocations pushing Hitler and his associates over the edge?
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I am just waiting for the other item that is usually brought up in discussions like this besides Kaufman's book: the title story of the London Daily Express ("JUDEA DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY") from March 24th, 1933. Even if we look at the non-German Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, they in no way would have represented a danger to Germany. In contrast, many of them would have been good allies since they spoke Yiddish, a language very close to German, and were very often attracted to German cultural and academic life.

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Unless you genuinely believe that a very thin book with an extremely limited readership in a foreign language could have enraged a bunch of politicians so much that they decided genocide was the only appropriate response. The Nazi attitude towards Jews was well established long before this book was ever written.

The inferences in the OP, pamphlets, allusions and veiled efforts here to blame Jews for Hitler under Germany's pogroms during World War Two; in my humble opinion show an ignorance of Soviet and Nazi histories, from Cheka to GPU, later to NKVD, the KGB, the Holocaust/Shoah, and the "final solution of the Jewish question" . The histories are much too complicated to lay the catalyst of Holocaust actions at one door. Kaufmann's book is widely quoted as "advocating genocide by a Jewish conspiracy against the German people. Therefore the Nazis had to strike back". Dr. Goebbels wrote, ‘Thanks to the Jew Nathan Kaufman, we Germans know only too well what to expect in case of defeat.’ Nazi propaganda denounced the book as an “orgy of Jewish hatred” and accused President Franklin D. Roosevelt of having inspired it. In fact this book had little to do with the Holocaust and seems to be favoured by revisionists.

Kaufman, whose comments horrified German Jews, was merely a godsend to Nazi propaganda.






Edited by Romesh - 05-Jan-2014 at 06:22
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  Quote Romesh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2014 at 06:38
Response #11
In exploring this subject, I would advise that those seeking further explanatory evidence (as to the nature of emigration of German Jewry in the '30's) would be well advised to read the relevant pages in Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction". During the period under discussion (pre-war; mid-late 1930's) Germany's (i.e. the Reichsbank's) supply of foreign currency was always a concern. Paramount among the points made by Tooze?Germany could not afford to convert the assets held by these people (who wished to emigrate) and by decree, imposed very punitive legislation to this effect. Tooze gives this a rather detailed treatment held against the realities of the the fiscal situation present in Germany during the period. Understandably, many of the "well to do" chose to remain in Germany, rather than selling their net worth for "pennies on the pound". In actuality, a large percentage of the Jewish emigrants who left Germany during the period were from a social "caste" of a much lower standing...with much less to lose.As I had seen no mention of this particular matter in the thread, I felt it should be raised. From memory (I'm too lazy to pull the book off the shelf) the figure Tooze gave for domestic Jewish equity was in the 4-6 Billion RM range. A "run on the Reichsbank" of this magnitude would have seen the utter collapse of the German financial system. IIRC, Schacht had "blood on his hands" with regards to the matter, but I really must pull the book down to verify it as such; it might well have been later and all on Goering and Funk.

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Thank you very much for your post. It is a valuable piece of inf about the financial burden. It looks like all the deportation plans were way too expensive for Germany. In your opinion, with limited monies available to Hitler, what alternatives did he have with millions (one thread contributor mentioned up to 1 million Jews and someone mentioned up to 3.5 million) of Jews?During the Civil War in the USA, the Federal Army expelled local Jews from Georgia and other places, (for their business/nuisance activities during the war and the headache they created for Grant and Sherman if my Wikipedia-related memory is right). And it was a relatively small, expellable number of Jews in Georgia. From the book ... On December 16, 1941, Hans Frank said, “The Führer once put it this way: if the combined forces of Judaism should again succeed in unleashing a world war that would mean the end of the Jews in Europe. ... save your sympathy for the German people alone. … Here are 3.5 million Jews that we can't shoot, we can't poison. But there are some things we can do, and one way or another these measures will successfully lead to a liquidation. They are related to the measures under discussion with the Reich.”From what I have read so far, it looks like for almost any other country outside Germany, the fate of the Jews in ghettos and camps (in 1933-1941) was of little or no interest. Would you agree with this observation?

Hm-m-m-m.... How many pages the book needs to be to impress the readers? How thin or thick a propaganda pamphlet should be to catch attention of the readers? "Extremely limited readership"? - you mean half of the western world including Hitler? "Foreign language" - foreign like the language of Navajo Indians ?

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The Nazi attitude to the Jews went hand-in-hand with their fear/aggression towards Bolshevism. Hitler stated several times that he wasn't talking about ordinary Jews but against Jewry as a 'carrier' for Bolshevism. The Jews were the 'contagion' within the body (Germany) through which Bolshevism moved - this was the fear.

"When I speak of Jewish capital, Jewish politics and Jewish domination I do not necessarily mean Jews. I mean, rather, all that is not truly German. The Jews have infected culture and German politics with their views. By trying to transform themselves into Germans they have turned Germans into Jews. They influence business and politics with their internationalistic ideas. The only way in which Germans who have become infected with Judeophilia can be saved is by labeling everything un-German Jewish." http://fotos.fotoflexer.com/920ab7c6...69e1e7f4d0.jpg 

This letter has been abused for years by the promoters of the holocaust.

"It is customary to quote this (Goering's) letter with deletion of the reference to "emigration and evacuation"." http://fotos.fotoflexer.com/204c8931...b84e531ef5.jpg

"The present writer has to agree that this is "customary": he examined thirty-eight near-at-hand books on the Holocaust and Second World War which mention this particular directive (Goering's letter July 31, 1942), and found that twenty-seven leave out the words "emigration and evacuation". They either quote just a fragment of the directive – usually the last line, so that it will read something like "on July 31, 1941, Göring directed Heydrich to solve «the final solution of the Jewish question» " – or they simply replace the three words, "emigration and evacuation", with an ellipsis (" ... ")." http://www.fpp.co.uk/BoD/origins/Hay...ard_Thesis.zip 

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Poles Thrust Threat To Jewry at Powers
[The Sentinel (The American Jewish Weekly, Chicago), Vol. 128, No. 2, February 2, 1939, p.39.]
Warsaw, -A Polish warning was given to the Western powers today that if they do not assist the emigration of Jews from Poland, then "we will have to solve the problem in our own way." The statement was made in the Sejm (chamber of deputies) by Deputy Surzynski of the government party, rapporteur on the Foreign Office estimates, who complained that Western governments were considering only the problem of emigration from Germany and were neglecting the Polish question despite its urgency. The Jews must remember, the government spokesman asserted, that the Polish people will carry out measures dictated by their own interests, despite difficulties, unless a solution of the emigration problem is achieved soon.

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But was this really an option once Hitler and Co. had consolidated their position of power?
For the previous ten years, the Nazi's had built a following/organization based on the premise that the Jewish capitalist represented all that was wrong with the current political/economic situation in both Germany, and on the global scale.

By 1935 they've achieved total control over the key legislative functions in the country.

Dealing from such a position as this, they were now to suddenly reverse their position 180 degrees (on such a integral component of the platform that saw them reach the lofty perch on which they now sat)? IMHO, it would be a pretty long stretch at the bounds of credibility.

The entire Nazi system was built on a continually expanding group of men that fundamentally AGREED with this basic premise of the NSDAP's political platform.
By the time that the repressive measures were starting to appear on the law books of the nation, it was far too late to expect any such change.

Any such "softening" of the viewpoint would certainly not come from those who actually held all of the key positions within the organization. From my readings on the period, I would suggest that the ONLY chance for such a change would have to come in the form of a military coup, backed by a large segment of the prominent industrialists. The problem with this is that at the time, a substantial proportion of these people didn't really view the matter of escalating Jewish repression by the Nazi's as a problem. That said, they most certainly didn't anticipate the fact that repression would ultimately escalate to the level of genocide either.

Direct answer to the quoted post?
With all due respect...
The utterly naive nature of the statement you make, displays a complete lack of understanding of the fundamentally putrid nature of Naziism, as well as a complete lack of understanding of the socio/economic tenor of the times that nurtured it.

You can't just throw a switch in the timeline...

"Oh? All that 'Jewish' business?"
"We were just kidding about that...

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A sensible and logical response, but you miss the premise being pushed - that Jews are responsible for the Holocaust, that Hitler had no choice. That somehow, people how had lived in areas which became Germany and Austria for over 1,700 years were no longer entitled to live there.
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This is a rather strong summary. I will not interfere with respect to the first two conclusions.

However, I will remind the “fuzzy” geographic and clear historic (1933-1941) limits of our discussion. In 1941, the Nazi-occupied territory was well beyond Germany and Austria. As one gentleman mentioned, Poland was a significant geographic component… France, Czechoslovakia, etc…

With respect to 1,700 years – I did not know that German Jews stayed in the same country for so many years… The history of European Jews for the past 500 years was a history of expulsions from one country to another, pogroms, and burnings at stake. For centuries, European natives (including the Inquisition) did not exhibit much tolerance… However, we do not need to go to the dark ages. We should stick with the period between 1933 and 1941. 

Well... it was 1931... and it was a very different time as compared to 1939-1941. Even if he had good intentions in 1931, he simply could not do much in 1941. As one participant of this discussion pointed out, the financial situation was tough and he had to find more affordable ways. I visualize millions of prisoners including Soviet prisoners of war in his concentration camp - how do you feed them? What do you do with them? Do you apply for a loan from a British bank? Economy is a tough thing... 


Edited by Romesh - 05-Jan-2014 at 07:05
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  Quote Romesh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jan-2014 at 07:48
Quote:
In exploring this subject, I would advise that those seeking further explanatory evidence (as to the nature of emigration of German Jewry in the '30's) would be well advised to read the relevant pages in Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction". During the period under discussion (pre-war; mid-late 1930's) Germany's (i.e. the Reichsbank's) supply of foreign currency was always a concern. Paramount among the points made by Tooze?


Germany could not afford to convert the assets held by these people (who wished to emigrate) and by decree, imposed very punitive legislation to this effect. Tooze gives this a rather detailed treatment held against the realities of the the fiscal situation present in Germany during the period. Understandably, many of the "well to do" chose to remain in Germany, rather than selling their net worth for "pennies on the pound". In actuality, a large percentage of the Jewish emigrants who left Germany during the period were from a social "caste" of a much lower standing...with much less to lose.

As I had seen no mention of this particular matter in the thread, I felt it should be raised.
That problem was obviated through the Transfer Agreement between the German Government and the Jewish Agency for Palestine, generally known by its Hebrew name "Ha'avara".

Under that agreement, German Jews wishing to emigrate to Palestine deposited their assets with the Reichsbank, which used them to buy goods manufactured in Germany.

Those German-made goods were then exported to Palestine where they were bought by the Jewish Agency using convertible currency such as dollars or sterling. The Jewish Agency then sold the goods in Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East.

When the German Jew arrived in Palestine, the Jewish agency paid him in Palestinian pounds the proceeds of the sale of the imported German goods bought with his German assets, less a cut it took for himself. Thus, the Jewish emigrant did not receive the full value of his German assets, but he received the greater part of them, contrary to what is often claimed about those emigrants being "robbed" by the German Government.

The value of the agreement to the German Government was that it allowed German goods to be sold overseas for convertible currencies, thereby circumventing the boycott mounted by non-Zionist Jewish organisations in the West. Thus, it did not need to "rob" the Jewish emigrant, since his German assets were being converted, through the purchase and export of German goods, into much-needed convertible currency that could be used to fund imports.

The disadvantage of the agreement from the German Jewish point of view was that it only applied to emigration to Palestine, where most German Jews did not want to go. However, from the Zionist point of view, it was highly beneficial, since it stimulated Jewish settlement in Palestine, and transferred assets to that country which financed such settlement and helped to build the Jewish economy there.

The Ha'avara Agreement was trenchantly criticised by non-Zionist Jews in the West because it severely undermined the Jewish boycott of German goods, which was their main weapon against the German Government's anti-Jewish measures.
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