[J. Further
happenings in Europe 1938-1939]
[6.31. Last negotiations on the Coordinating
Foundation for Schacht-Rublee emigration plan 02]
[British Jewish funds
limited for Coordinating Foundation - steamer St. Louis
Jews need support]
The negotiations in London made another fact clear: it was
doubtful if any money at all would be forthcoming from
British Jews. The reason was that British Jewry was
contributing very large sums to refugee absorption in
Britain and elsewhere; American Jewry was richer and
larger, and so far had contributed proportionately less
than had British Jewry. JDC at first thought that (p.281)
its preliminary contribution to the Coordinating
Foundation would be $ 500,000; this was a reasonable sum,
if one remembers that the total income in 1939 was $ 8.1
mio. But two weeks later half a million dollars was
pledged to the support of the St. Louis refugees, so that
one-eighth of JDC's money was now gone. Pressure by
President Roosevelt caused JDC to reconsider its
contribution.
[It's president Roosevelt's industry which is rearming the
NS army and supporting the Hitler regime: against
Communism, and Communism is financed: by "American" banks.
The world war is well organized by ... "USA". And the Jews
and the peaceful have to look where they will stay...].
[6 June 1939: JDC gives 1
mio. $ for a Coordinating Foundation]
On June 6 it [JDC] decided on a risky step: it would
provide $ 1 mio. and would set up the foundation whether
the British participated or not - a complete reversal of
JDC's position in March. The lack of realism in these
negotiations is perhaps made clearer if one remembers that
the foundation , with its $ 1 million in capital, was to
serve as a counterpart to the trust fund in Germany with
its $ 600 million.
(End note 152: Executive Committee, 6/5/39 [5 June 1939],
6/16/39 [16 June 1939])
At a meeting of the Administration Committee, Rosenberg
stated the reason for accepting the additional burden:
there should be no uncertainty "as to our readiness to
carry through a commitment which in effect was desired by
Mr. Taylor and the president."
(End note 153: AC [Administration Committee files],
6/26/39 [26 June 1939])
[17 June 1939: Some
Jewish leaders are against participation at the
Coordinating Foundation]
In the wake of the June 6 decision, another informal
meeting of Jewish leaders was convened on June 17. At this
meeting Wise voiced hesitation regarding the step taken by
JDC; but only Joseph Tennenbaum of the American Federation
of Polish Jews and the American Jewish Congress, a leading
proponent of the boycott movement and later to be a
historian of the holocaust, voted against the JDC action,
on the grounds that the Coordinating Foundation would
finance German exports and hinder the anti-German boycott.
(End note 154: Executive Committee, 7/17/39 [17 July
1939]; 9-30, 6/17/39 [17 June 1939] meeting)
In the meantime, Baerwald and later Linder were
negotiating with British Jews and non-Jews in London and
with Emerson of ICR [Intergovernmental Committee on
Refugees (ICR) (set up at Evian 1938)]. It soon became
apparent to them that they were, in fact, negotiating with
the British government. Between June 5 and June 7 Baerwald
met Wohlthat, who had come to London ostensibly to attend
a conference on whaling.
(End note 155: 9-30, 6/7/39 [7 June 1939] memo (by J.C.
Hyman)
Informed of the negotiations in London, Wohlthat expressed
the German government's willingness to carry on
negotiations with even a purely American foundation, in
case the talks between American and British Jews broke
(p.282)
down. In such a case, Wohlthat stated that "probably from
5 to 10 % of the Jewish assets in Germany would be turned
over to the trust fund there."
(End note 156: Ibid. [9-30, 6/7/39 [7 June 1939] memo (by
J.C. Hyman)])
Though we lack the documentary evidence to prove it, it
seems that the talks with Wohlthat convinced JDC that this
was a project that had to be pursued with the greatest
energy. JDC had come full circle.
The basic difference of opinion with British Jews lay in
the fact that JDC was unwilling to spend money on
settlement schemes that were too expensive to be
implemented without governmental help. Also, in New York a
delegation from the American Jewish Congress and the
Jewish Labor Committee met with JDC leaders on July 13 and
demanded that the Coordinating Foundation charter clearly
declare that no foreign currency would accrue to the
Germans and no additional exports would result from the
foundation's operations.
(End note 157:
-- 9-30, 7/15/39 [15 July 1939] cable by Jaretzki and
Hyman to Linder. See also:
-- Adolph Held's letter to JDC, 7/12/39 [12 July 1939], in
9-30.
Held thought that "before giving our consent to the Rublee
plan, which is but a modified version of the notorious
Schacht plan, we should at least try to find an answer to
the most burning question of the day: Where will the
emigrants, supposedly helped by the Rublee plan, go?")
[19 July 1939: Britain
announces to participate settlement projects when others
also do - the published Charter on Coordinating Foundation
(Schacht-Rublee plan) on 20 July 1939]
The British government, possibly at the suggestion of Sir
Herbert Emerson, then went a step further. On July 19 the
Foreign Office declared in a communique that, contrary to
its previous policy, the British government would be
prepared to participate in settlement projects, provided
other governments were ready to do the same.
(End note 158: 9-30, text of communique by Lord Winterton
after a meeting of ICR, 7/19/39 [19 July 1939])
The charter of the Coordinating Foundation made it clear
that the new organization would be quite independent of
anything that happened in Germany, that it would
facilitate emigration and settlement and "provide land
services" - whatever that meant - and facilities for
emigrants. While it was not expressly stated that it would
engage in colonization, this was hinted at broadly. A
hesitant JDC signed the charter on July 19. The next day,
July 20, it was published.
[1 September 1939: The
Coordinating Foundation charter is worthless by war]
Six weeks later, on September 1, it was killed with the
first shots fired in [European] World War II.
[Question: Why Roosevelt
was that engaged in Jewish dislocation to Guiana?]
One of the perplexing questions that came out of the
complicated negotiations in the spring and summer of 1939
is this: Why should the president of the United States
have been so insistent that American Jews spend large sums
of money to settle Jewish emigrants in as yet undefined
and remote places? Why should he have been so concerned
that an agreement be reached between American (p.284)
and British Jews? The president's humanitarianism, while
not itself in doubt, was always tempered with political
astuteness. The Coordinating Foundation, from Roosevelt's
point of view, must have had a political purpose, possibly
that of gaining international prestige by attempting a
settlement of the refugee problem - outside of the U.S.,
of course.
[Question: Could the
German side have been taken earnest for the Coordinating
Foundation?]
The second problem is no less vexing, but relatively
easier to answer: Did the Germans really intend to
implement some such scheme as the [Schacht-]Rublee plan?
It seems quite clear that Hitler was informed in detail of
the negotiations with Rublee. Schacht's dismissal in
January does not seem to have had any connection with the
Rublee plan. True, there was a rivalry between Ribbentrop
on one hand and Schacht and Göring on the other. In
January a circular letter from Ribbentrop declared that
the Jewish emigration problem was for all practical
purposes insoluble, and a more radical solution was hinted
at.
(End note 159: Documents on German Foreign Policy, series
D, 5:927)
But the negotiations proceeded despite Ribbentrop's
objections.
(End note 160: Hilberg, loc. cit.)
In his famous instructions to Frick, Nazi minister of the
interior, on January 24, Göring expressly included among
the members of the planned central bureau of Jewish
emigration Helmut Wohlthat, whom he designated as the man
responsible for the Rublee plan negotiations.
It appears that the plan became a bone of contention
between Göring and the SS. Heydrich, Himmler's chief
deputy, declared on February 11 that the implementation of
the Rublee plan was by no means certain, so that forced
emigration should in the meantime be continued. Hitler
himself - as opposed to his henchmen - may have already
been thinking in terms of the destruction of the Jews, as
evinced in his famous speech to the Reichstag on January
30, 1939, and even more clearly in a talk with the Czech
foreign minister, Chvalkovsky, on January 21, where he
threatened to eliminate the Jews of Europe. In the
meantime, extermination was impractical, and any method of
expulsion that produced results was good.
(End note 161: Broszat et alia, op. cit. [Broszat, Martin
et alia: Die Anatomie des SS-Staates [Anatomy of the SS
state]; Olten und Freiburg 1965], pp. 340-45)
On the whole, it seems that the Nazis took this plan
seriously and were willing to consider it as a possible
solution to the Jewish question. Meanwhile, this did not
prevent them, as long (p.284)
as there was no agreement on emigration, from intensifying
their persecutions and driving out people who had no money
or visas. But it would be wrong to assume from this
behavior that they had scrapped the Rublee plan.
One author expresses regret at the fact that the
Coordinating Foundation was set up so late, that valuable
time was lost, and "that so little was accomplished in the
year before the war began."
(End note 162: Wyman, op. cit. [Wyman, David S.: Paper
Walls; Amherst, Mass., 1968], p. 56)
The evidence does not seem to support this conclusion.
Voluntary Jewish sources were quite unable to collect the
vast sums of money necessary for the foundation's
successful operation; areas of settlement were not, in
fact, available, and to arrange for settlement in places
like the U.S., Australia, South America, or even Palestine
would have required time.
Time was certainly not available between January and
September 1939. Had the foundation been set up in January,
nothing much could have been done before the [European]
outbreak of the war.
[End Sep 1939: Poland:
"Close to 2 million Polish Jews in the hands of the
Nazis"]
[Poland was split and big parts of Polish Jewry took the
flight to the Russian part which was occupied only 2 weeks
afterwards. By this about 1.8 mio. Polish Jews come unter
NS law].
At the end of September, with close to two million Polish
Jews in the hands of the Nazis, Hitler and the SS turned
to other solutions for the Jewish question. The foundation
passed into history.
[The anti-Semitic Catholic Polish population supported all
measures against the Jews and was willing to help, and
even made mass shootings without Nazi order. At the same
time Jews also could hide themselves with Christian
families etc.].
German Jewry, it must be added, was very bitter about the
negotiations. It felt the whole weight of Heydrich's cold
terror directed against itself. The "negotiations of the
Evian committee", wrote the Hilfsverein to Lord Samuel on
February 10, "have definitely done more harm than good."
(End note 163: 31-Germany, refugees 1939-42, letter to
Lord Samuel, 2/10/39 [10 February 1939])
[May 1939: German Jewish
representatives in London without result]
In May some representatives of German Jewry were allowed
to go to London; they were expected to come back with some
positive replies regarding places of settlement and the
setting up of the Coordinating Foundation. They came back
with empty hands, having been callously rebuffed by the
heads of ICR [Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees].
Emerson, the ICR director, even refused to give them a
letter stating that every effort was being made to help
German Jewry."
(End note 164: Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.: While
Six Million Died; New York 1968], pp. 248-49)
