|
Foreign
Ministry Circular
Berlin,
January 25, 1939
8326
19/1
Subject:
The Jewish Question as a Factor in Foreign Policy in 1938.
1.
Germanys Jewish policy as condition and consequence of foreign
policy decisions in 1938.
2.
The aim of German Jewish policy: emigration.
3.
Means, ways and destinations of Jewish emigration.
4.
The Jewish émigré as the best propaganda for
Germanys Jewish policy.
It
is probably no coincidence that the fateful year of 1938
brought not only the realization of the concept of a Greater
Germany, but at the same time has brought the Jewish question
close to solution. For the Jewish policy was both precondition
and consequence of the events of 1938. More than the power
politics and hostility of the former enemy Allies of the World
War it was the penetration of Jewish influence and the
corrupting Jewish mentality in politics, economy and culture
which paralyzed the strength and the will of the German people
to rise once more. The cure of this disease of the body
politic was probably one of the most important preconditions
for the strenuous effort which in 1938 enforced the
consolidation of the Greater German Reich against the will of
a whole world.
But
the need for a radical solution of the Jewish question also
resulted from the developments in foreign affairs which added
200,000 persons of the Jewish faith in Austria to the 500,000
living in the old Reich. The influence of the Jews in the
Austrian economy, which had increased beyond measure under the
Schuschnigg system, made it necessary to take immediate steps
to eliminate the Jews from the German economy and to apply
Jewish financial resources in the public interest. The
campaign launched in reprisal for the assassination of
Secretary of Legation vom Rath has speeded up this process so
greatly that Jewish retail trade so far with the exception of
foreign-owned stores has vanished completely from our streets.
The liquidation of Jewish wholesale and manufacturing
enterprises, and of houses and real estate owned by Jews, is
gradually progressing so far that within a limited period of
time the existence of Jewish property will in Germany be a
thing of the past....
The
ultimate aim of Germanys Jewish policy is the emigration of
all Jews living in German territory....
The
Jew has been eliminated from politics and culture, but until
1938 his powerful economic position in Germany and his
tenacious determination to hold out until the return of
"better times" remained unbroken.
...As
long as the Jew could still make money in the German economy
there was, in the eyes of world Jewry, no need to give up the
Jewish bastion in Germany.
But
the Jew had underestimated the consistency and strength of the
National-Socialist idea. Together with the complex of states
in Central Europe created at Versailles for the purpose of
holding Germany down, the Jewish position of strength in
Vienna and Prague also collapsed. With its race legislation,
Italy took its place by the side of Germany in the struggle
against Jewry. In Bucharest Professor Goga, an expert on the
Jewish question, took over the government with a program
directed against the Jews, but was unable to assert himself
against the overwhelming international pressure from Paris and
London. In Hungary and Poland the Jews were subjected to
special legislation. The German political success at Munich,
like an earthquake with distinct tremors, is beginning to
shatter the position which the Jews have consolidated for
centuries even in distant countries.
It
is understandable that world Jewry, which "has chosen
America as its headquarters," recognizes as its own
defeat the Munich agreement, which in the American view
signifies the collapse of the democratic front in Europe.
Experience has shown that the system of parliamentary
democracy has always aided the Jews to obtain wealth and
political power at the expense of the host nation. It is
probably for the first time in modern history that Jewry must
now retreat from a previously secure position.
This
decision was only taken in 1938. It took shape in the efforts
of the Western democracies, and the United States of America
in particular, to extend international control and protection
to the now-finally decided Jewish withdrawal from Germany,
that is, the emigration of the Jew. The American President
Roosevelt, "who, as is known, included a number of
spokesmen of Jewry amongst his close advisers," convened
an international conference to discuss the refugee question as
early as the middle of 1938, which took place in Evian without
producing any notable practical results. The two questions
which needed to be answered as a condition of organized Jewish
emigration remained open: first, of how this emigration
was to be organized and financed; and secondly, the question
of where the emigration was to be directed.
International
Jewry, in particular, seemed disinclined to make a
contribution towards the solution of the first question.
Rather, it considered the Conference and the Committee
subsequently established in London by the Conference under the
leadership of an American named Rublee as having for its main
aim to create international pressure on Germany to enforce the
release of Jewish funds to the largest possible extent....
The
second question, to which countries the organized emigration
of the Jews should be directed, could be solved just as little
by the Evian Conference;* each of the countries taking part
expressed its agreement in principle to help solve the refugee
problem, but declared that it was unable to accept large
masses of Jewish émigrés into its territory.
While in the years 1933/34 more than 100,000 Jews from Germany
made their way abroad, legally or illegally, and were able to
gain a foothold in a new host nation, either with the aid of
relatives living abroad, or the pity of humanitarian circles,
by now almost all countries in the world have sealed their
borders hermetically against the burdensome Jewish
intruders....
Even
the migration of only about 100,000 Jews has been sufficient
to waken the interest in, if not the understanding of, the
Jewish danger in many countries, and it can be foreseen that
the Jewish question will develop into an international
political problem when large numbers of Jews from Germany,
Poland, Hungary and Rumania are set in motion by the
increasing pressure of their host nations. Even for Germany
the Jewish question will not be solved when the last Jew has
left German soil....
Palestine,
which has already been designated by a popular catchword as
the target of emigration, cannot be considered as such because
its absorptive capacity for a mass influx of Jews is
insufficient. Under pressure of Arab resistance the British
Mandatory Government has limited Jewish immigration into
Palestine to a minimum.
At
first the emigration of German Jews to Palestine received
extensive support from Germany through the conclusion of an
agreement with Jewish representatives in Palestine permitting
the transfer of Jewish funds by means of additional exports
(the Haavara Agreement).** Apart from the fact that this
method enabled only a small number of well-to-do Jews to
emigrate, but not the mass of Jews without property, there
were also basic considerations of principle and of foreign
policy which created an objection to this form of emigration:
the transfer of Jewish property from Germany contributed in no
small measure to the development of a Jewish State in
Palestine. But Germany is obliged to discern the danger in the
creation of a Jewish State, which even in a miniature form
could provide world Jewry with a basis for action similar to
that of the Vatican State for political Catholicism, and could
absorb only a fraction of the Jews. The realization that Jewry
will always be the implacable enemy of the Third Reich forces
us to the decision to prevent any strengthening of the Jewish
position. A Jewish State would give world Jewry increased
power in international law and relations. Alfred Rosenberg
formulated this thought in his address at Detmold on January
15, 1939, in the follmanner:
"Jewry
is striving today for a Jewish State in Palestine. Not in
order to offer a home to Jews from all over the world,
however, but for other reasons: world Jewry must have a little
miniature state in order to send ambassadors and delegates
with extraterritorial rights to all countries in the world and
through them to promote its lust for domination. But above all
they want a center for Jewry, a Jewish State where Jewish
swindlers from the whole world can be given refuge when they
are pursued by the police of other countries, supplied with
new passports and then sent to other parts of the world. It
would be desirable if the friends of the Jews in the world,
and particularly in Western democracies, which have at their
command so much space all over earth, were to provide the Jews
with an area outside Palestine, but
of course not in order to set up a Jewish State, but a
Reservation for the Jews."
That
is the program of German foreign policy as regards the Jewish
question. Germany has an important interest in seeing the
splintering of Jewry maintained. Those who argue that this
will cause the creation of sources of boycott and anti-German
centers all over the world disregard a development already
evident, that the influx of Jews arouses the resistance of the
native population in all parts of the world and thus provides
the best propaganda for Germanys policy towards the Jews.
In
North America, in South America, in France, in Holland,
Scandinavia and Greece wherever the stream of Jewish migrants
has poured in, a clear increase in anti-Semitism has already
been recorded. It must be an aim of German foreign policy to
strengthen this wave of anti-Semitism....
The
poorer the Jewish immigrant is and the greater the burden he
constitutes for the country into which he has immigrated, the
stronger the reaction will be in the host country, and the
more desirable the effect in support of German propaganda. The
aim of this German policy is a future international solution
of the Jewish question, dictated not by false pity for a
"Jewish religious minority that has been driven out"
but by the mature realization by all nations of the nature of
the danger that Jewry spells for the national character of the
nations.
for/Schumburg
Akten
zur deutschen auswaertigen Politik 1918-1945
("Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945"),
series D (1937-1945), Vol. V, Baden-Baden, 1953, pp. 780-785.
*
See Document 45.
**
See Document 20. |
