Haavara Agreement ex
Wiki
The Haavara Agreement (Hebrew:
הסכם העברה
Translit.:
heskem haavara
Translated: "transfer agreement") was an agreement between
Nazi
Germany and
Zionist
German Jews signed on 25 August 1933. The agreement was finalized after
three months of talks by the
Zionist Federation of Germany, the
Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the directive of the
Jewish Agency) and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany. It was a major
factor in making possible the immigration of approximately 60,000 German Jews to
Palestine in the years 1933–1939.
[1]
The agreement was designed to enable Jews fleeing anti-Semitic persecution under the new Hitler regime to transfer some portion of their assets to their refuge in British Mandatory Palestine. It provided some relief for Jews fleeing by allowing them to recover some of the possessions and assets they were forced to surrender before departing.[2] A portion of those possessions could be re-obtained by transferring them to Palestine as German export goods.[3][4] The agreement was controversial at the time, and was criticised by many Jewish leaders both within the Zionist movement (such as the Revisionist Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky) and outside it.[5] For German Jews, the Agreement offered a way to leave an increasingly hostile environment in Nazi Germany; for the Yishuv, the new Jewish community in Palestine, it offered access to both immigrants and some economic support; and for the Nazis it was seen as a way of breaking the Anti-Nazi boycott of 1933, which had mass support among European Jews and was thought by the German state as a potential threat to a fragile German economy.[6][7]
Background
Although the Nazis won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two
Reichstag general elections of 1932, they did not have a majority, so Hitler
led a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and the
German National People's Party.[8]
Under pressure from politicians, industrialists, and the business community,
President
Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as
Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. This event is known as the
Machtergreifung (seizure of power).[9]
In the following months, the NSDAP used a process termed
Gleichschaltung (co-ordination) to rapidly bring all aspects of life
under control of the party.[10]
All civilian organisations, including agricultural groups, volunteer
organisations, and sports clubs, had their leadership replaced with Nazi
sympathisers or party members. By June 1933, virtually the only
organisations not in the control of the NSDAP were the army and the
churches.[11]
Hanotea company
Hanotea (Hebrew: הנוטע) was a Zionist citrus planting company which served to assist German Jews' emigration to Palestine as part of the Zionist endeavor. In a deal worked out with the German government, Hanotea would receive money from prospective immigrants and use this money to buy German goods. These goods, along with the immigrants, would then be shipped to Palestine. In Palestine, import merchants would then buy the goods from the immigrants, liquidating their investment. This arrangement appeared to be operating successfully, and so paved the way for the later Haavara Agreement. Connected to Hanotea was a Polish Zionist Jew, Sam Cohen. He represented Zionist interests in direct negotiation with the Nazis beginning in March 1933.[12] In May 1933 Hanotea applied for permission to transfer capital from Germany to Palestine.[12]
The Transfer
Agreement
The Haavara (Transfer) Agreement was agreed to by the German government
in 1933, and continued in effect until the German government ceased to
support it in 1938. Under the agreement, Jews fleeing persecution in Nazi
Germany could use some of their assets to purchase German manufactured goods
for export, thus salvaging some part of their personal wealth during
emigration. The agreement provided a substantial export market for German
factories in British-ruled Palestine. Between November, 1933, and December
31, 1937, 77,800,000 Reichmarks, or $22,500,000, (values in 1938 currency)
worth of goods were exported to Jewish businesses in Palestine under the
program.[13]
By the time the program ended with the start of World War II, the total had
risen to 105,000,000 marks (about $35,000,000, 1939 values).[14]
Emigrants with capital of £1,000, (about $5,000 in 1930s currency value) could move to Palestine in spite of severe British restrictions on Jewish immigration under an Immigrant investor program similar to the contemporary EB-5 visa. Under the Transfer Agreement, about 39 percent of an emigrant's funds were given to Jewish communal economic development projects, leaving individuals with about 43% of the value of whatever assets they were able to transfer out of Germany after administrative and shipping costs.[15]
"into the banking company. This money would then be used to buy German exports for import to Palestine.[16]
The Haavara Agreement was thought among some Nazi circles to be a possible way to rid the country of its supposed "Jewish problem." The head of the Middle Eastern division of the foreign ministry, the anti-Nazi Werner Otto von Hentig, supported the policy of concentrating Jews in Palestine. Hentig believed that if the Jewish population was concentrated in a single foreign entity, then foreign diplomatic policy and containment of the Jews would become easier.[18] Hitler's own support of the Haavara Agreement was unclear and varied throughout the 1930s. Initially, Hitler criticized the agreement, but reversed his opinion and supported it in the period 1937-1939.[19]
After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the program was ended.[14]
Anti-Nazi
Boycott Of 1933 ex Wiki
QUOTE
The Anti-Nazi Boycott of 1933 was a
boycott
of German products by foreign critics of the
Nazi Party in response to
antisemitism in
Nazi Germany following the rise of
Adolf Hitler, commencing with his appointment as
Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. Those in the
United Kingdom,
United States and other places worldwide who opposed Hitler's
policies, developed the boycott and its accompanying protests to
encourage Nazi Germany to end the regime's anti-Jewish attitude.
Events in Germany
Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as German Chancellor in January
1933, critics responded with worldwide calls for protest and boycotting; for
example, an editorial in
The Harvard Crimson in 1933 states that "The role of the neutral
nation will be, as always, a difficult one. But those nations sincerely
desirous of European peace still have an opportunity to preserve it. An
economic boycott of Germany to force its government to terms would so
multiply its target as to make a shot impractical."[1]
Calling for an economic boycott against Hitler revealed an interventionist
attitude, and such an economic boycott would also necessitate an
international alliance against Hitler. These editorials allegedly revealed
the beginning stages of a conflict the American youth faced throughout the
1930s
interwar period leading to the
Second World War, having to wrestle with their anti-fascist and
anti-Hitler feelings in an anti-war age.[2]
However, the Central Jewish Association of Germany, denied that the Nazi government was deliberately provoking anti-Jewish pogroms. It issued a statement of support for the regime and held that "the responsible government authorities [i.e. the Hitler regime] are unaware of the threatening situation," saying, "we do not believe our German fellow citizens will let themselves be carried away into committing excesses against the Jews."[3] Nevertheless, even though vandalism of Jewish businesses and property across Germany occurred, prominent Jewish business leaders wrote letters in support of the Nazi regime calling on officials in the Jewish community in Palestine, as well as Jewish organizations abroad, to drop their efforts in organizing an economic boycott.[4]
In March 1933, the international critics, usually Jewish organizations, transformed their verbal protests into a worldwide, organized economic boycott against German goods. The Nazis in turn responded back with a boycott of their own, against all Jewish stores in Germany.[5]
Events in the United States
Mass meetings
The boycott started in March 1933 in both Europe and the US.[6] It continued until the entry of the US into the war.[7]
In a contentious four-hour meeting held at the Hotel Astor in New York City on March 20, 1933, 1,500 representatives of various Jewish organizations met to consider a proposal by the AJCongress to hold a protest meeting at Madison Square Garden on March 27, 1933, as an additional 1,000 people attempting to enter the meeting were held back by police. New York Supreme Court Justice Joseph M. Proskauer and James N. Rosenberg spoke out against a proposed boycott of German goods that had been introduced by J. George Freedman of the Jewish War Veterans. Proskauer expressed his concerns against "causing more trouble for the Jews in Germany by unintelligent action", protesting against plans for mass meetings and reading a letter from Judge Irving Lehman that warned that "the meeting may add to the terrible dangers of the Jews in Germany". Honorary president Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise delivered a rejoinder to Proskauer and Rosenberg, criticizing their failure to attend previous AJCongress meetings and insisting that "no attention would be paid to the edict" if mass protests had been rejected by the group. Wise noted that "The time for prudence and caution is past. We must speak up like men. How can we ask our Christian friends to lift their voices in protest against the wrongs suffered by Jews if we keep silent? … What is happening in Germany today may happen tomorrow in any other land on earth unless its is challenged and rebuked. It is not the German Jews who are being attacked. It is the Jews." The group voted to go ahead with the meeting at Madison Square Garden.[8][9]
In a meeting held at the Hotel Knickerbocker on March 21 by the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America, former congressman William W. Cohen advocated in support of a strict boycott of German goods, stating that "Any Jew buying one penny's worth of merchandise made in Germany is a traitor to his people." The Jewish War Veterans planned a protest march in Manhattan from Cooper Square to New York City Hall, in which 20,000 would participate, including Jewish veterans in uniform, with no banners or placards allowed other than American and Jewish flags.[10]
A series of protest rallies were held on March 27, 1933, with the New York City rally held at Madison Square Garden with an overflow crowd of 55,000 inside and outside the arena and parallel events held in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia and 70 other locations, with the proceedings at the New York rally broadcast worldwide. Speakers at the Garden included American Federation of Labor president William Green, Senator Robert F. Wagner, former Governor of New York Al Smith and a number of Christian clergyman, joining together in a call for the end of the brutal treatment of German Jews.[8][11][12] Rabbi Moses S. Margolies, spiritual leader of Manhattan's Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, rose from his sickbed to address the crowd, bringing the 20,000 inside to their feet with his prayers that the antisemitic persecution cease and that the hearts of Israel's enemies should be softened.[13] Jewish organizations — including the American Jewish Congress, American League for Defense of Jewish Rights, B'nai B'rith, the Jewish Labor Committee and Jewish War Veterans — joined together in a call for a boycott of German goods.[8]
Nazi counter-boycott
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The Nazis and some outside Germany saw the boycott as an act of aggression, with the British newspaper the Daily Express going so far as to use the headline: "Judea Declares War on Germany".[6] Nazi officials countered the protests as slanders against the Nazis perpetrated by "Jews of German origin", with Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels proclaiming that a series of "sharp countermeasures" would be taken against the Jews of Germany in response to the protests of American Jews. Goebbels announced a one-day boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany of his own to commence on April 1, 1933 that would be aimed by Aryan Germans against Jewish-owned businesses, which would be lifted if anti-Nazi protests were suspended.[6] which was the German government's first officially sanctioned anti-Jewish boycott. If the protests did not cease, Goebbels warned that "the boycott will be resumed... until German Jewry has been annihilated."[8][14][15]
The Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses threatened by Goebbels came to pass, with brownshirts of the SA standing menacingly in front of Jewish-owned department stores, retail establishments and professional offices. The Star of David was painted in yellow and black on store entrances and windows, and placards stating "Don't Buy from Jews!" (Kauf nicht bei Juden!) and "The Jews Are Our Misfortune!" (Die Juden sind unser Unglück!) posted. Despite physical violence against Jews and Jewish-owned property, the police intervened only rarely.[16]
Aftermath
The
Haavara Agreement, together with lessened dependence on trade with the
West, had by 1937 largely negated the effects of the Jewish boycott on
Germany.[17]
According to a December 1936 book review in
Time, an author called Robert Gessner had met with the then-already
dissolved[18]
Association of German National Jews. This marginal group,[19]
which had supported Hitler, had been fighting against the Jewish boycott of
German goods.[20]
The boycott (which lasted until the entrance of the US into WW2) did
nothing to stop the harassment of Jews in Germany; in fact it provoked the
first official anti-Jewish sanctions by the new state, which eventually
culminated in
the Holocaust. Rabbi Wise, however, characterized the boycott as morally
imperative expression, stating, "We must speak out," and "if that is
unavailing, at least we shall have spoken."[8]
UNQUOTE
Reference to this event seemed to be at rumour level or slightly better.
This put it on a more solid footing.