Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews by Peter Longerich (booksvooks TXT) 📕

will be not the

Bolshevization of the world and therewith a victory of Jewry, but on the contrary, the

annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe. 4

These extermination declarations, which strikingly accumulate between November

1938 and January 1939, cannot simply be interpreted as a revelation of the

programmatic intention of leading National Socialists, under the effects of the

intoxication of violence unleashed in November 1939. But one must consider

closely the situation of the regime around the turn of the year 1938/9 to recognize

that these declarations were framed in highly ambiguous terms.

The tactical intention of these declarations, particularly Hitler’s speech on 30

January, is clear: by means of the threat of annihilation the pressure of expulsion

upon the German Jews was to be heightened and the willingness of foreign powers

to receive them extorted through a form of blackmail. In this context the contacts

that began in November 1938, leading to negotiations between the Reich govern-

ment and the Intergovernmental Committee created in Evian, are of the greatest

importance; the governments of the potential receiving countries and ‘inter-

national financial Jewry’ were to be forced to agree to an extensive solution

through emigration by threats, with the help of a loan and the facilitation

The Politics of Organized Expulsion

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of German exports (the final abandonment of the boycott against Germany). 5

Secondly, the declaration of the annihilation of the Jews under German rule in the

event of a world war was intended to prevent the formation of an anti-German

alliance of the Western powers in the event of German military action on the

continent. If a war begun by Germany became a world war through the interven-

tion of the Western powers, the Jews in the German sphere of influence would

automatically assume the role of hostages under the threat of death. But the threat

of extermination contained one further perspective: if it remained ineffective, that

is, if emigration made no significant progress and in the event of war the Western

powers could not be restrained from intervening, the locus of ‘guilt’ for a further

intensification of the German persecution of the Jews was, in the view of leading

National Socialists, already clear.

The Negotiations for an International Solution

through Emigration

The international soundings and negotiations which were to be considerably

influenced by the ‘extermination declarations’ had begun in November 1938.

While the German government had consistently refused over the previous few

months to negotiate with the Intergovernmental Committee formed at the Evian

Conference over a financial agreement concerning the promotion of emigration,

Goering’s instruction of 12 November to encourage emigration ‘with all means’

created a new situation.

Early in December Schacht had proposed that the emigration of German Jews be

financed by an international loan; Schacht was thus picking up the initiative of the

Austrian Economics Minister, Hans Fischböck, who had already proposed and

concretely pursued a similar plan. 6 According to Schacht’s plan, the loan was to be underwritten by foreign Jews and guaranteed by the remaining assets of the

German Jews and paid off, like the Haavara Agreement, through additional

German exports. Jewish assets not transferred in this way were to be used for the

maintenance of Jews unfit for emigration, and would pass to the Reich after their

death. In this way Schacht hoped within three to five years to make emigration

possible for around 400,000 emigrants who were fit for gainful employment and

their families. 7

After Hitler had agreed to these propositions in principle, at the end of

December 1938 Schacht began making the relevant soundings in London. 8 In January he began negotiations with the chairman of the International Committee

for Political Refugees, George Rublee. 9 When Schacht was after a short time relieved of his office as President of the Reichs bank, the negotiations were to be

concluded by Ministerial Director Wohlthat of the Reich Economics Ministry,

126

Racial Persecution, 1933–1939

by the end of February. However, the plan was not realized as it was only

half-heartedly pursued both on the German side (refusal of initialling by the

Foreign Ministry) and on the part of the Committee, and rejected both by foreign

governments and by Jewish circles. 10

In the light of these events the question—unanswerable for the time being—

arises whether the negotiations with Rublee were really seriously pursued by the

regime, or whether they were carried out predominantly for reasons of propa-

ganda. For, however they ended, the German side had grist for its propaganda

mill: if agreement was reached, the power of ‘international financial Jewry’, not

leaving its ‘racial comrades’ in the lurch, was proven; if no solution was reached,

this could be seen as proof of a lack of solidarity and ‘typical Jewish’ egoism and

the great influence of the Jews upon governments abroad.

Central Office for Jewish Emigration

In line with the proposals which Heydrich had already made on 12 November, and

which had subsequently been given concrete form by the SD, to ensure both the

‘final emigration of all Jews’ and the ‘care of less well-off Jews and those unfit for

gainful employment’, 11 on 24 January Goering set up a ‘Central Office for Jewish Emigration’ and parallel with this got under way the subsumption of all Jewish

organizations into a single compulsory organization. 12

The decision to set up the Central Office was made in a series of meetings of

government representatives on 18 and 19 January 1939, after the conviction had

been reached that the negotiations between Schacht and Rublee would lead to

concrete results in terms of emigration. 13

The Central Office, which was to operate according to the model of the Vienna

‘Reichszentrale’, employed representatives of the Foreign Office, the Economics

and Finance Ministries, and the Ministry of the Interior. 14 The direction of the Reich Central Office was formally undertaken by Heydrich, the manager was the

Head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller. With the assumption of responsibilities for

the emigration of the German Jews which, in the opinion of all the offices

involved, was the paramount goal of further persecutory measures, the SS/SD

had finally managed to assume a key role in future Judenpolitik.

Parallel with this the regime initiated the establishment of a unified organization

that would independently secure the minimum level of maintenance and care

required for the remaining Jews, and thus make a considerable contribution to the

complete isolation of the German Jews from the rest of the population. By February

1939 the structure of this new organization was already in place; called ‘the