Translation of document 3358-PS

Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 83-26 19/1 Ang. II
                         Berlin, 31st January 1939

Enclosed please find for your attention a circular
which has been sent to the German authorities
abroad on the subject of “The Jewish Question As A
Factor In German Foreign Policy In The Year 1938".

By Order
                                Signed:  Hinrichs.

To All Senior Reich Authorities and NSDAP Bureau
for Foreign Affairs.
                    to No. 611--39 secret, Foreign

                           Secret

Foreign
6.2.39.
No.611  39 Secret.  Foreign If.
Copy to:
    Abw. I (Counter Intelligence I)
    W.Stab.
    Chief Dept. 3
    Att. Gr. of the Army General Staff
    OKM. Dept. 3. SKL
    Ob.d.L. (Z A)
    Ob.d.L. Dept. 5.  General Staff.
    Ausl. III
[Pencil note]
    Chief W Wi.
                   attention is requested.

By Order
1 Enclosure

                                         [Page 88]

Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Berlin, 25th January 1939.
83-26 19/1

Contents:

The Jewish Question as a factor in German Foreign
Policy in the year 1938.

1. The German Jewish Policy as basis and
consequence of the decisions for the foreign
policy of the year 1938.

2. Aim of German Jewish Policy: Emigration.

3. Means, ways and aim of the Jewish Emigration.

4. The emigrated Jew as the best propaganda for
the German Jewish Policy.

It is certainly no co-incidence that the fateful
year 1938 has brought nearer the solution of the
Jewish question simultaneously with the
realization of the “idea of Greater Germany",
since the Jewish policy was both the basis and
consequence of the events of the year 1938. The
advance made by Jewish influence and the
destructive Jewish spirit in politics, economy and
culture paralyzed the power and will of the German
people to rise again more perhaps even than the
power-policy opposition of the former enemy allied
powers of the World War. The healing of this
sickness among the people was therefore certainly
one of the most important requirements for
exerting the force which in the year 1938 resulted
in the joining together of Greater Germany, in
defiance of the world.

To All diplomatic and qualified consular
representatives abroad.

The necessity for a radical solution of the Jewish
question arose however also as a consequence of
the foreign political development, which resulted
in a further 200,000 Jews in Austria in addition
to the 500,000 of the Jewish Faith living in the
Old Reich. The influence of Jewry on Austrian
economy which had grown to enormous proportions
under the Schuschnigg Regime, made immediate
measures necessary, with the aim of excluding
Jewry from German economy and utilizing Jewish
property in the interests of the community. The
action carried out as reprisal for the murder of
Legation Councillor von Rath accelerated this
process to such an extent that Jewish shops--till
then with the exception of foreign business--
disappeared from the streets completely. The
liquidation of the Jewish wholesale trade,
manufacturing trade, and of houses and real estate
in the hands of Jews, will gradually reach a point
where in a conceivable time there will no longer
be any talk of Jewish property in Germany.
Nevertheless it must be emphasized that this is no
seizure of Jewish property without compensation,
as for instance the confiscation

                                         [Page 89]

of Church Property during the French revolution.
On the contrary the dispossessed Jew receives
Reich Bonds for his goods, and the interest is
credited to him.

The final goal of German Jewish Policy is the
emigration of all the Jews living in Reich
territory. It is foreseen that already the
thorough measures in the economic sphere, which
have prevented the Jew from earning and made him
live on his dividends, will further the desire to
emigrate. Looking back on the last 5 years since
the assumption of power, it is, however, obvious
that neither the Law for the Reestablishing of the
Professional Character of the Civil Service nor
the Nurnberg Jewish laws with their executive
regulations, which prevented any tendency of Jewry
being assimilated, contributed to any extent to
the emigration of German Jews. On the contrary
every period of domestic political tranquility has
resulted in such a stream of Jewish immigrants
returning, that the Gestapo has been obliged to
put Jewish immigrants with German passports into a
training camp for political supervision.

The Jew was excluded from politics and culture.
But until 1938 his powerful economic position in
Germany was unbroken, and thereby his obstinate
resolve to hold out until “better times” came.
Indicative of the tactics of this “delaying '
resistance is the programme of a Jewish Party
recently formed in Poland, to fight against all
Polish measures aimed at Jewish emigration. As
long as the Jew can earn money in Germany, then in
the opinion of World Jewry the Jewish bastion in
Germany need not be given up.

But the Jew has underestimated the consequences
and the strength of the National Socialist
purpose. The powerful Jewish positions in Vienna
and Prague collapsed in 1938 at the same time as
the system of states in Central Europe created at
Versailles to keep Germany down. Italy stood at
Germany’s side, with her racial Laws in the fight
against Jewry. An expert on the Jewish question,
Prof. Goga took over the Government in Bukarest
with a programme aimed against Jewry, without
however being able to carry it out because of
overwhelming international pressure from Paris and
London. Jewry in Hungary and Poland was subjected
to special laws. Everywhere the success of German
foreign policy now begins to shake Jewish
strongholds which have been established for
hundreds of years from Munich and in far off
States, like the tremors of an earthquake.

It is also understandable that World Jewry, “which
has selected America as its Headquarters” regards
as its own downfall

                                         [Page 90]

the Munich Agreement, which in American opinion
signifies the collapse of the democratic front in
Europe. For the system of parliamentary democracy
has always, as experience proves, helped the Jews
to wealth and political power at the expense of
the people in whose country they live. It is
certainly the first time in history that Jewry
must evacuate a secure position.

This resolution was first formed in 1938. It
showed itself in the efforts of the western
democracies particularly those of the United
States of America, to put the now finally
determined Jewish withdrawal from Germany, in
other words Jewish emigration, under international
control and protection. The American President
Roosevelt “who it is well known is surrounded by a
whole row of exponents of Jewry among his closest
confidants” called a State Conference as early as
the middle of 1938 to discuss the refugee
questions, which was held in Evian without any
particular results. Both of the questions, the
answering of which is the first essential for
organized Jewish emigration remained unanswered:
firstly the question of how this emigration should
be organized and financed and secondly the
question: emigrate to where?

In answer to the first question, International
Jewry in particular did not appear willing to
contribute. On the contrary the Conference--and
later the Committee formed by it in London under
the direction of Rublee, an American--regarded its
main task as that of forcing Germany by
international pressure to release Jewish property
to the greatest possible extent. In other words
Germany was to pay for the emigration of her
700,000 Jews with German national property. It is
at the same time to be doubted whether
International Jewry ever seriously desired the
mass emigration of their fellow Jews from Germany
and other states at all, unless there was an
equivalent of a Jewish State. The tactics hitherto
employed in Jewish proposals, were in every case
aimed less at mass emigration of Jews than at the
transfer of Jewish property.

It goes without saying, that the transfer of even
a fraction of Jewish property, would be impossible
from the point of view of foreign exchange. The
financing of a mass emigration of German Jews is
therefore still obscure. Questions could be
answered casually thus, that Germany for her part
reckoned that International Jewry--particularly
relatives of Jews who have emigrated--would
support this emigration as vigorously as it made
it possible for its destitute fellow Jews to
immigrate to Germany, at a time when Germany was
so weak that she could not stop the

                                         [Page 91]

stream of Jews from the East. It should be
emphasized, however, that according to police and
taxation records, the greater proportion of Jews
immigrated to Germany without means and made money
in a few years or decades, while the German people
lost their possessions as a result of the
reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles or
joined the ranks of the unemployed. Consequently
Germany for her part had no sympathy for the
compassion, with which an ostensibly humanitarian
world accuses Germany of illegally appropriating
property which was taken away from the German
people by Jewish business methods.

The second question, to what country should an
organized Jewish emigration be directed, could
similarly not be answered by the Evian Conference,
as each of the countries taking part having
announced that they were fundamentally concerned
with the refugee problem, declared that they were
not in a position to take large numbers of Jewish
emigrants into their territory. After over 100,000
Jews even in 1933/34 had succeeded either legally
or illegally in escaping abroad and establishing
themselves in someone else’s country either with
the help of their Jewish relatives living abroad
or circles sympathetically disposed from a
humanitarian point of view, almost every State in
the World has in the meantime hermetically sealed
its borders against these parasitical Jewish
intruders. The problem of Jewish emigration is
therefore for all practical purposes at a
standstill. Many States have already become so
cautious, that they demand a permit made out by
German authorities from Jews travelling in the
ordinary way with German passports, saying that
there is nothing against them returning.

The emigration movement of only about 100,000 Jews
has already sufficed to awaken the interest if not
the understanding of many countries in the Jewish
danger. We can estimate that here the Jewish
question will extend to a problem of international
politics when large numbers of Jews from Germany,
Poland, Hungary and Rumania are put on the move as
a result of increasing pressure from the people of
the countries where they are living. Even for
Germany the Jewish problem will not be solved when
the last Jew has left German soil.

It is even today an important duty of German
policy to control and when possible direct the
flow of Jewish emigration to be sure there is no
incentive to cooperate with other countries such
as Poland, Hungary and Rumania, who themselves are
striving for the emigration of the Jewish sections
of their population, in an attempt to solve this
problem. From experience with this

                                         [Page 92]

procedure interests clash, although directed
towards the same goal, and retard the realization
of Germany’s urgent claim for German Jews to be
admitted into other particular countries.

It is true that the Rumanian Government sent an
official appeal to the Reich Government in the
name of human ethics and justice, to join with
them in an international action to solve the
Jewish question. On the other hand, Poland at the
end of October last year issued a decree, the
execution of which has made it practically
impossible for 60,000 Jews of Polish Nationality
residing in Germany to return to Poland. As is
well known, the Reich Government had then to
decide to deport to Poland 60,000 Jews of Polish
Nationality who will be followed by their
families, shortly before the Polish Decree came
into force. The Hungarian Government, it is true,
appreciates the German Jewish policy in so far as
they themselves have in mind the “Aryanization” of
Hungarian-Jewish businesses in Germany, that is,
Jewish owners of firms will be replaced by
Hungarians. In general, however, it is apparent
that the States concerned are more egotistically
interested in deporting their own Jewish elements
than in any international solution. Germany will
therefore take the initiative herself, in order
next of all to find ways, means and destination
for Jewish emigration from Germany.

Palestine--which has already become the slogan of
world opinion, as the land for the emigrants--
cannot be considered as the target for Jewish
emigration, because it is incapable of absorbing a
mass influx of Jews. Under the pressure of Arab
resistance, the British-Mandatory Government has
restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine to
the minimum. For the time being Jewish emigration
to Palestine was helped to a great extent, as far
as Germany was concerned, by the signing of an
agreement with the representatives of Jewry in
Palestine, which made it possible to transfer
Jewish property in the form of additional exports
(Haavara-Agreement). Apart from the fact that
emigration was made possible by this method for a
small number of wealthy Jews only, but not for the
mass of Jews without means, [Pencil note: Are
there such people?] there were fundamental
considerations of foreign policy against this type
of emigration: the transfer of Jewish property out
of Germany, contributed to no small extent to the
building of a Jewish State in Palestine. Germany
must regard the forming of a Jewish State, as
dangerous, which even in miniature would form just
such an operational base as the Vatican for
political Catholicism. The realization that World
Jewry will always be the irreconcilable

                                         [Page 93]

enemy of the Third Reich, forces the decision to
prevent any strengthening of the Jewish position.
A Jewish State however would bring an
international increase in power to World Jewry.
Alfred Rosenberg expressed this idea in his speech
in Detmold on 15 January this year as follows:

"Jewry is striving today for a Jewish State in
Palestine. Not to give Jews all over the world a
homeland but for other reasons: World Jewry must
have a miniature State, from which to send
exterritorial ambassadors and representatives to
all countries of the world and through these be
able to further their lust for power. But more
than anything else they want a Jewish centre, a
Jewish State in which they can house the Jewish
swindlers from all parts of the world, who are
hunted by the Police of other countries, issue
them new passports and then send them to other
parts of the world. It is to be desired, that
those people who are friendly disposed to Jews,
above all the Western Democracies who have so much
space in all parts of the world at their disposal,
place an area outside Palestine for the Jews, of
course in order to establish a Jewish Reserve and
not a Jewish State.”

That is the programme expressing the foreign
policy attitude of Germany towards the Jewish
question. Germany is very interested in
maintaining the dispersal of Jewry. The
calculation, that as a consequence boycott groups
and anti-German centres would be formed all over
the world, disregards the following fact which is
already apparent, the influx of Jews in all parts
of the world invokes the opposition of the native
population and thereby forms the best propaganda
for the German Jewish policy.

In North America, in South America, in France, in
Holland, Scandinavia and Greece, everywhere,
wherever the flood of Jewish immigrants reaches,
there is today already a visible increase in anti-
semitism. A task of the German foreign policy must
be to further this wave of anti-semitism. This
will be achieved less by German propaganda abroad,
than by the propaganda which the Jew is forced to
circulate in his defense. In the end, its effects
will recoil on themselves. The reports from German
authorities abroad, emphasize the correctness of
this interpretation:

The press and official correspondents continually
report anti-semitic demonstrations by the
population of North America. It is perhaps
indicative of the domestic political development
in USA, that the listening-audience of the “Radio
Priest” Coughlin, who is well known to be Anti-
Jewish, has grown to over 20 millions. The Embassy
in Montevideo reported on 12 December last

                                         [Page 94]

year “that the Jewish influx continues for months,
week by week. It goes without saying, that anti-
semitism is growing--"Salonica reported on 30
November 1938: “that forces are at work to stir up
the hate against the Jews” and that at the same
time Greek Freemasonry is endeavoring to stem the
anti-semitic movement. In France, the Paris Town
Council (Stadtversammlung) was in April of this
year to discuss a proposal, by which the
naturalization of Jews was in future to be
refused. The meeting on the Jewish question ended
with the speaker being beaten up--Lyon reported on
20 December last year: “The immigration of Jewish
refugees has lately led to undesirable
occurrences. The antipathy towards the new
intruders based on business and competitive
grounds, which is general throughout France, is
unmistakable.” This aversion has grown to such an
extent meantime that a Jewish defense has already
been organized against the anti-semitism in France
(Report Paris dated 19 November last year).The
Embassy at the Hague reported on 30 December last
year: “Under the pressure of countless immigrants
from Germany, who make themselves objectionable
particularly in Amsterdam anti-semitism is growing
very much in Holland. And if this continues, it
can easily come to pass that Dutchmen will not
only appreciate Germany’s action against the Jews
but will also find themselves wishing to do the
same as we.  --"The embassy at Oslo reported on
8th April last year: “While only a few years ago,
the streets of Oslo were hardly marred by Jews at
all, lately a great change has come about here. On
the streets, in restaurants and above all in the
coffee houses, Jews sit around in hideous cluster.
The Norwegians are being crowded out, more and
more. The Norwegian Press, which formerly did not
understand the Jewish question at all, suddenly
realized what it meant to have the Children of
Israel invade the country like a swarm of locusts.
It will be a very salutary lesson, which is being
meted out to the Norwegians".

These examples from reports from authorities
abroad, can, if desired be amplified. They confirm
the correctness of the expectation, that criticism
of the measures for excluding Jews from German
Lebensraum which were misunderstood in many
countries for lack of evidence-would only be
temporary and would swing in the other direction
the moment the population saw with its own eyes
and thus learned, what the Jewish danger was to
them. The poorer and therefore the more burdensome
the immigrant Jew is to the country absorbing him,
the stronger this country will react and the more
desirable is this effect in the in-
terests of German propaganda. The object of this
German action is to be the future international
solution of the Jewish question, dictated not by
false compassion for the “United Religious Jewish
minority” but by the full consciousness of all
peoples of the danger which it represents to the
racial composition of the nations.

By Order

                                        Schaumburg