The Transfer Agreement (45 page)

Transfer was crucial to the Third Reich. Both sides knew it.

The Wilhelmstrasse meeting took place just before the July
16
Board of Deputies vote on the boycott and on the Joint Foreign Committee takeover. The Reich made clear what
it
expected the Zionist herarchy to do. The German Zionists made clear what they expected in return. Nazi Germany was ready to deliver. The next move was up to the Zionist hierarchy.

T
HE
WORLD JEWISH ECONOMIC CONFERENCE
was still waiting for a new date, but once scheduled, its success seemed assured. It would rally the Jews of the world in a new sense of self-defense. They would replace their leaders with men who accepted the credo so aptly described in the premiere issue of Lord Melchett's boycott journal,
The Jewish Economic Forum:
"In these days, when international wars are fought with economic weapons, and peace treaties and alliances take the form of trade agreements, a conscious awareness of the economic role of Jewry in the affairs of the world is not only desirable but necessary for the preservation and future development of our people. From this day forth we shall confront our enemies not with weak appeals to their dormant humanity, but with the irresistible argument that it does not pay to persecute us."
¹
Late on July
13,
the rallying slogan "Germany will crack this winter" appeared to be a promise the Jews would keep.

But things started to change the next morning. On July
14,
Joint Foreign Committee co-chairman Neville Laski called an emergency meeting to rescind Lord Melchett's takeover resolution of July
12.
Melchett himself did not attend the sudden session.
²
After little discussion, the abdication of July was unanimously rescinded. Melchett's original eight-point takeover memorandum was then redebated clause by clause, with a shorter seven-point proposal resulting. The new proposal covered much of the same ground but in more ambiguous language. More important, the revised proposal changed Melchett's status. Instead of Melchett leading a panel that would
supersede
the Joint Foreign Committee, the JFC voted to remain active, but
include
Lord Melchett and other representatives of popular organizations previously beyond the JFC's horizon. While the vital clause advocating boycott was toned down, the boycott suggestion itself was not deleted.
³
In short, the JFC retained control of foreign policy for the Jewish community, but agreed to become more responsive to popular demands.

Lord Melchett went along with the replacement proposal for the sake of unity. He was convinced there was too much "squabbling over mere words." Whether the boycott bore an "official" imprint was not as important to him as that the boycott became
organized.
If
working through established channels instead of around them was the best way to create a unified anti-Nazi front, so be it.
⁴

But the new question was: Would Melchett sway establishment Anglo-Jewish leaders to boycott, or would they convince Melchett to join the ranks of quiet diplomacy and foresake his movement?

The Board of Deputies, co-parent body of the Joint Foreign Committee, was prepared to induct Lord Melchett. But a sudden "technical arrangement" delayed board ratification.
⁵
The
technical problem was not explained, but the JFC probably could not formally induct Lord Melchett for one embarrassing reason. He was not Jewish.

In fact, Lord Melchett was of assimilated German Jewish stock that in the late nineteenth century relinquished its Jewish identity. His father married a Christian woman, and Melchett himself was raised Anglican. On July
15,1933,
he was still a prominent member of the Anglican Church. Despite his Anglican affiliation and a Christian mother, which under Jewish law established that he was indeed not Jewish, Lord Melchett maintained a considerable Jewish identity. Somewhere deep inside he knew he was a Jew. This Jewish identity could not find expression in ritual because he was an Anglican. Instead, Melchett became a leading funder and organizer of Zionist projects, including Palestine's embryonic industrial works. When Hitler rose to power, Melchett's inner summons propelled him to the forefront of the boycott movement.
⁶
A good Zionist and a good boycotter he was. But neither of those distinctions earned him a place on the Board of Deputies or the Joint Foreign Committee. The JFC had restructured itself twice in two days to accommodate MeIchett. But one precept could not be overridden. He had to be Jewish.

So on June
15,
Lord Melchett converted. It was planned as a secret ceremony, but it quickly produced headlines from New York to Jerusalem, as all the picturesque details were chattily published below banners such as
"WELCOME BACK"
or
"LORD MELCHETT COMES HOME."
⁷
This done, he was now ready to assume his place spiritually as well as physically in the economic war against Germany.

Melchett now came under increasing pressure from those who opposed the boycott conference. The traditional leaders of British Jewry, such as Neville Laski, rejected any formal boycott in fear of Reich retaliation against German Jewry. But Anglo-Jewish leaders also harbored a special fear that transcended the Hitler emergency. For decades, the Jewish people had fought the fallacies of economic internationalism contained in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And here was the very proof Jew-haters would use to verify their claims.
⁸
After all, was not the boycott conference's avowed goal to smother Germany's industries, choke off its foreign exchange, and topple its government?

The Zionist hierarchy in London continued its active resistance to the conference because boycott and transfer were mutually exclusive. Ironically, in expressing themselves, the Zionist hierarchy in London could speak with three voices. First, they were the voice of Zionism. Despite popular Zionist demands for protest and boycott, the hierarchy was denouncing any anti-Nazi agitation as a barrier to a Reich accommodation for Palestine. Second, the Zionist hierarchy functioned in England as the voice of Germany's Jews. German Zionist Martin Rosenbluth had set up the official German Jewish liaison office in London.
⁹
Third, Zionists often spoke for popular Anglo-Jewry. The men at the helm of the Zionist Organization frequently held key leadership positions in Diaspora Jewish groups. Most of these groups were actively Zionist, so it was only natural that Zionist notables should lead them.

The triple Zionist voice in London was becoming increasingly assertive. For instance, Zionist Organization president Nahum Sokolow was also the president of the Federation of Polish Jews in Britain. The Federation reflected the boycott fervor of their landsmen in Poland, America, and Palestine. Yet at a mid-July rally held at the height of London's anti-Nazi agitation, Sokolow, in his capacity as Federation president, advised an anti-Nazi Polish-J ewish rally to forgo boycott plans.
¹⁰
And Chaim Weizmann and other key Zionist figures repeatedly advised the Deputies to persist in their non-boycott policy.
¹¹

The Zionist hierarchy and establishment Anglo-Jewish leaders knew they would have to abort Melchett's conference decisively-and quickly. By mid-July, American boycotters Samuel Untermyer and George Fredman were already in London conferring with European boycott advocates. All were anxious for Melchett to reschedule the conference.
¹²
However, Zionist and traditional Anglo-Jewish leaders suddenly learned that they would be joined in opposing the conference by one of the boycotters' own, one whose counsel would be heeded. No one could accuse this opponent of not being in the forefront of the anti-Nazi movement. He had just arrived in London from America, and he was as determined as anyone that the World Jewish Economic Conference never take place. His name was Rabbi Stephen Wise.

Wise was dedicated to a worldwide boycott of Germany and equally committed to supplanting the old Jewish leadership that advised silence in the face of Hitlerism, but Wise was against the conference. His reasons were political, strategic, and personal.

Politically, Melchett's convention was openly intended as a counter-convention to the World Economic Conference then meeting in London. As such, the boycott convention would undercut President Roosevelt's initiative to revive the world's depressed economies.
If
the London intergovernmental meeting failed alongside a World Jewish Economic Conference that claimed success, Jews would surely be blamed. Wise believed that major Jewish American involvement in the counterconvention would only alienate FDR, whose sympathies Wise was still trying to arouse.
¹³

Strategically, the Melchett conference had divided Anglo-Jewish leaders from the masses. Like Melchett, Wise saw the advantage of working within the established leadership system and creating a united front. A publicly discredited boycott convention in London would hurt the boycott's quest for legitimacy and broad acceptance. Moreover, Wise was hoping to maneuver such establishment leaders as Neville Laski and Leonard Montefiore into a coalition with American and East European Jews that would create the World Jewish Congress.
¹⁴

Personally, and perhaps most important, while Melchett was the spiritual sponsor of the conference, it was clear that Wise's old rival Samuel Untermyer was the popular hero of the boycott movement. Conference organizers openly agreed that their conference represented a
coup
d'etat
among the Jewish people. They announced that the anti-Nazi boycott would be the springboard for a worldwide Jewish organization that would supplant all major established groups.
¹⁵
If
the World Jewish Economic Conference did convene, Untermyer would be catapulted to a dominant position in both the anti-Nazi movement and world Jewish leadership. Wise was convinced this leadership belonged to him and to his long-sought and soon-to-be World Jewish Congress.
¹⁶
Two world Jewish organizations could not exist side by side. It would be Wise or Untermyer to lead the Jewish people to battle against Adolf Hitler. And so, as is often the case, the struggle to achieve justice was subordinated to the struggle to claim the credit.

Therefore, Wise urged Lord Melchett to turn away from an ad hoc boycott and instead join him in creating the World Jewish Congress. Once constituted by such organizations as the American Jewish Congress, the Board of Deputies, and France's Alliance Israelite Universelle, the new World Congress-imbued with Wise's fighting spirit-would be a powerful defense force. This new Congress would dramatically proclaim the coordinated global boycott.
¹⁷

Suspicion and confusion had spread among the world's boycott circles from the moment in early July when Lord Melchett announced the postponement. Although calculated to strengthen the offense against Hitler, the postponement in fact delivered a damaging blow to boycott momentum.
Many boycott organizers had already journeyed to London to participate. Their time, effort, and money was now wasted. By the second week of July, with no new conference date set, Polish boycotters warned Lord Melchett that with numerous boycott committees ready to assemble, they might insist on going ahead without him in either Paris or Amsterdam.
¹⁸

The fear of a sell-out by their own leaders was intensified following the publication oftwo news items. The first was an early-July story in the
Frankfurter Zeitung
alleging that Anglo-Zionist leader Sir Herbert Samuel, former high commissioner for Palestine, had promised Germany's ambassador in London that any formal British boycott action would be stymied by public denunciations from Neville Laski and Leonard Montefiore. Normally, such German press notices were viewed skeptically.
¹⁹

But then the Jewish Telegraphic Agency distributed the story un-challenged on its international wires. In an accompanying report, the JTA announced that its London bureau had verified the
Frankfurter Zeitung
claim: "It is definitely learned here that an agreement was reached during the latter part of March between certain Jewish leaders and the German Ambassador." The JTA juxtaposed this confirmation to a reminder that Laski had promised to resign should a formal boycott resolution be adopted by Melchett's groUp.
²⁰

The JTA's confirmation was given the widest credence in Jewish newspapers throughout Europe and America.
²¹
Since it came at the same time as vague media reports about reversals of the Joint Foreign Committee takeover, boycott organizers concluded that Lord Melchett was caving in to establishment pressure to kill the World Jewish Economic Conference slowly, via a series of postponements. The London
Jewish Chronicle,
acknowledging the demoralizing effect of the
Frankfurter Zeitung
story, staunchly denied that Melchett had capitulated, and even castigated the JTA's London bureau "confirmation" as a false item that really originated in the JTA's Paris office.
²²

Clearly, each day that passed without a firm boycott announcement only heightened the suspicion and rebelliousness of the boycott community. Then Neville Laski used his authority as president of the Board of Deputies to postpone until July 23
both the boycott vote and ratification of the JFC's new composition.
²³
No reason was given. Lord Melchett's people, sensing further disaffection in the boycott movement, issued statements that the conference would definitely take place in early October.
²⁴
But delays could no longer be tolerated by the boycott community. The Deputies' boycott-vote postponement, July
16,
was the final signal.