The Transfer Agreement (14 page)

In a desperate attempt to mollify the Nazis, the Committee portrayed the Jewish War Veterans and boycott-leaning officials of the Congress as "irresponsible." This deepened the disunity between the Committee and popular Jewish organizations and forced the Committee into an even more isolated anti protest corner. But the men of the Committee were agonizing over how best to ameliorate the plight of their friends and relatives in Germany. Their legendary judgment and foresight was now narrowed to simply avoiding the calamity of the coming weekend.

To back up the Committee's official statement, Frederick Warburg cabled Eric the following response:
"WILL DO AND HAVE DONE MY BEST BUT RECENT GOVERNMENT BOYCOTT ANNOUNCEMENT VIEWED HERE AS CONFIRMATION PREVIOUS REPORTS OF DISCRIMINATION STOP RESENTMENT SO WIDESPREAD NO INDIVIDUAL EFFORTS TO STEM IT LIKELY AVAIL UNLESS GOVERNMENT CHANGES ATTITUDE STOP WILL CONTINUE TO DISCOURAGE MASS MEETINGS AND UNFOUNDED ATROCITY STORIES STOP NO RESPONSIBLE GROUPS HERE URGING BOYCOTT GERMAN GOODS MERELY EXCITED INDIVIDUALS."
¹⁷

The Committee's statements and cables painted the best picture possible for the German authorities. The Nazis, however, convinced that all Jews were part of an international conspiracy, could not understand why the Committee could not control the Jewish organizations of New York and, for that matter, the world. So the Committee's reassurances were ignored. Julius Streicher in his paper
Der Sturmer
described the Jewish threat: "They agitate for a boycott of German goods. The Jew thus wants to increase the misery of unemployment in Germany and ruin the German export trade. German men and women! The instigators of this mad crime, this base atrocity and boycott agitation are the Jews of Germany. They have called those of their race abroad to fight against the German people."
¹⁸

The reaction around the world was immediate. Those who had been reluctant to escalate anti-German protests into declared anti-German boycotts now felt compelled to take the step. During the next two days at neighborhood schools, civic auditoriums, synagogues, and churches, ordinary citizens of every religion and heritage assembled to promise or actually threaten boycott resolutions. Three thousand protesters representing over 100,000 orthodox Jews in Brooklyn vowed a comprehensive boycott. Six thousand in Baltimore, drawn from interfaith circles, gathered to protest at the Lyric Theatre. In Chicago, numerous organizations jammed the mailboxes and telephone lines of the German consulate with anti-Hitler declarations. The Chicago campaign was intensified following a mass protest rally at the great Auditorium Theatre that spilled over into adjacent streets.
¹⁹

In Salonika, Greece, the Jewish community organized a boycott of German trade, especially Germany's locally successful film business. In London,
boycott activities escalated with a growing number of previously hesitant trade unionists adding their support. In Paris, in Warsaw, in Cairo, in Dublin, in Antwerp, more protesters were becoming active boycotters.
²⁰

By midday Thursday, March 29, German business and non-Nazi government officials were alarmed about the consequences should the boycott expand. The disjointed worldwide anti-German boycott was causing millions of reichmarks of lost business. German steamship lines, machinery firms, banks, chambers of commerce, chemical concerns, toy manufacturers, fur companies, every form of exporter—all appealed to the Nazis to halt the anti-Jewish boycott.
²¹

There was no time to develop long-range statistics. Forecasting the full damage was impossible because additional thousands were joining the movement each day. Some joined to protect the Jews, some to fight Fascism, some to fight Hitler's anti-union policies, some to fight the party's anti-church activities. And some were joining merely to cut in on lucrative markets Germany had traditionally dominated, such as gloves, toys, cameras, and shipping. But the net result was that jobs and capital would shift from Germany to the economies of other nation—this as the world struggled to lift itself out of the Depression.

A worldwide purchasing embargo now loomed as Germany's major national economic question. And all of it was inextricably bound up with Hitler's treatment of the Jews and the coming April First boycott action.

Hitler's plane arrived from Munich shortly before noon on March 29,
1933.
From Berlin's Tempelhof Field he was shuttled under heavy guard to Wilhelmstrasse for a cabinet meeting. Fresh from April First planning at NSDAP headquarters, Hitler was determined to resist the mounting pressure to cancel the
aktion.
The anti-Jewish boycott would continue until the anti-Nazi campaign around the world "abated" or until the Nazis dismantled the alleged Jewish "economic grip on the Reich" and instituted occupational quotas for Jews. Unemployed rank-and-file Brownshirts were already jockeying over anticipated job vacancies.
²²

But Hitler's notions about anti-Jewish boycott benefits were rejected by the non-Nazi cabinet majority, which was convinced the April First action would bring economic disaster. The non-Nazis believed that millions of non-Jewish Germans would suffer as well. Every closed Jewish department store would produce dozens of unemployed clerk—almost
all non-Jewish. Every
Jewish factory forced out of business would produce hundreds of unemployed labore—almost all non-Jewish. It was folly to think that inexperienced and largely uneducated Brownshirts could step in and run efficient moneymaking companies. Even if they could, an "Aryanized" company would surely lose most of its foreign business as a result of anti-Nazi boycotting.

The stock market had been plummeting since the original announcement. Siemens electrical manufacturers, down seven points. I. G. Farben chemical trust, down seven points. Harpener Bergbau mining works, down six points. Most other stocks closed three to nine points off. Bonds closed their lowest in years. The initial excuse—end-of-month fluctuations—was no longer believable.
²³

The non-Nazis, led by Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath, decided to oppose Hitler's anti-Semitic campaign at the March
29
cabinet meeting. Von Neurath's broad understanding of foreign trade compelled him to defy Hitler—not to save the Jews, but to save Germany. However, when aides handed out the agenda, the boycott issue was not listed. Unwilling to delay any longer, cabinet opponents raised the matter on their own, demanding Hitler rescind the boycott orders.
²⁴

Hitler refused and reminded the cabinet that the boycott was a defensive action to fight "atrocity propaganda abroad." Hitler insisted that if the NSDAP had not organized a disciplined anti-Jewish boycott, a spontaneous violent one would have risen from the populace. Under party control, violence would be averted. He argued that only when Jews in Germany felt the full effects of the campaign against Germany would foreign Jewish agitators desist. Hitler rebutted the notion that the Nazi action would provoke an international counterboycott, saying that as far as he was concerned, the anti-German boycott was already well organized and under way. To dramatize his point, der Führer described several telegrams from London reporting automobiles cruising the streets displaying large boycott posters. He added that in the United States, anti-Nazi mass meetings and New York radio broadcasts were continuing to harm the Reich.
²⁵

Goering told the cabinet that he was doing his part to counter Jewish atrocity articles abroad. Describing the feuding between the Zionists and other Jewish groups during the March
25
conference in his office, Goering stated that Zionists had agreed to use their influence to stop the newspaper accounts; this proved it was Jews who controlled the anti-German agitation.
²⁶
Goering's point: The anti-Jewish boycott was merely a defense against a great enemy threatening the Reich.
It
could not be canceled.

The March
29
cabinet meeting ended without compromise, but with Hitler determined to avoid violence. Hitler had not admitted that he was incapable of canceling the boycott. Goebbels, who forcefully lobbied for the original idea, and Goering, who wielded the "rough and ready" Storm Troopers, were both insisting that Jewish economic expulsions commence at once. The opening of vacancies for unemployed Brownshirts could not wait.
²⁷

Regardless of the Nazi rationales, von N eurath saw the anti-Jewish boycott as the beginning of a diplomatic and economic war Germany was too weak to win. Immediately after the March
29
cabinet meeting, von Neurath conferred with Finance Minister Schwerin von Krosygk, Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, and even Hitler's own confidant, Hjalmar Schacht. The three agreed that only President Hindenburg could stop April First. Their aides would provide Hindenburg with reports proving that if Germany boycotted her Jews, the world would launch a retaliatory boycott that would devastate the entire nation.
²⁸

That night, Goebbels completed a fourteen-point boycott program that stressed the avoidance of ostentatious violence. There was to be no visible breach of any law. But other instructions overturned any concept of law. For example, Jewish store owners were forbidden to discharge their non-Jewish employees and required to pay two months' advance wages in anticipation of closing. All this was to avoid the criticism that the boycott would increase Aryan unemployment. The NSDAP was now issuing binding directives not only to its party members but to Jews as well.
²⁹

The next morning, March
30,
Goebbels' fourteen points were published in newspapers throughout Germany. The separation between party and state was blurring as boycott directives became publicly accepted. The blur became a total merger later in the day when Prussian Justice Minister Hans Kerrl, a Nazi, officially ordered the dismissal by "persuasion" of all Jewish judges. Kerrl's undersecretary issued a formal declaration: "The boycott received the stamp of legality when it was proclaimed by the National Socialist Party as the expression of the supreme right of the people." The statement qualified, however, that the boycott "must proceed within the limits prescribed by the National Socialist Party."
³⁰
The Justice Ministry statement made abundantly apparent that NSDAP edict was now in fact supralegal.

By Thursday, March
30,
no one believed that April First was simply a private party matter. Clearly, this was nothing less than the first official step down the road of Jewish economic annihilation. The British and U.S. governments could no longer stay aloof.

Rabbi Stephen Wise, Bernard Deutsch, and Congress legal experts arrived at Undersecretary of State Phillips' office that Thursday. The department had already learned that the "nonviolent" Nazi boycott was indeed likely to include outbursts of physical violence and mass economic expulsions. Earlier in the day, the outgoing German ambassador had paid a courtesy call on Phillips, ostensibly to introduce his interim replacement. Phillips insisted on arguing against the Nazi boycott, but it was fruitless speaking with the outgoing German ambassador, himself out of favor with the current regime. Now, as Wise entered Phillips' office, the situation was acknowledged critical and getting worse. Shortly thereafter, a cable from chargé d'affaires Gordon in Berlin was brought in describing a violent mood growing among the unpredictable Storm Trooper units throughout Germany. Renegade Brownshirts on a rampage in Gleiwitz had slaughtered four Jews during the night, and Berlin was trying to suppress the report. Other Storm Troopers, loyal to Goering, not Hitler, were planning "a veritable reign of terror" for April First.
³¹

Gordon's cable went on: A moderate-minded industrialist, who enjoyed excellent relations with both the United States embassy and Hitler, was recommending that Gordon pay a private visit to der Führer. According to the industrialist, Hitler would be more receptive to a U.S. diplomat than any other foreign liaison. Gordon agreed to bypass the protocol of consulting the foreign minister first, if the State Department in Washington arranged the meeting with Hitler through the German embassy in Washington. Gordon ended his cable with the warning that "almost any development ... is possible within the near future." Speed was essential.
³²

Phillips had spent much of the day on the telephone relaying news, formulating positions, and doing everything he could to defuse the coming catastrophe.
³³
Despite all his efforts, the Nazi boycott was still scheduled to commence Saturday and continue indefinitely as the backdrop for medieval-style rioting, lynching, and plunder throughout Germany. Since the pretext for this rampage was a "defensive" reaction to the Jewish-led, anti-German campaign, Phillips wondered if subduing anti-Reich agitation in the United States could influence the Nazis. But Rabbi Wise and the Congress could not renounce their anti-Hitler protest, nor could they publicly oppose the rapidly expanding independent anti-German boycotts.
³⁴

These days and nights were a personal hell for Wise as he contemplated what he called his "awful responsibility." Nonetheless, the choice in his mind was clear. "Virtual silence—and silence is aquiescence ... or supporting this tremendous protest. No matter what the Hitlerites do now, it will be nothing more than ... [what] would have been covertly performed, protest or no protest."
³⁵

When Rabbi Wise and his delegation took leave of Undersecretary of State Phillips on March
30,
the rabbi insisted that neither he nor the Congress nor the Jews nor the world could back down.
If
Saturday was to be Day One, so be it.