Jewish question

The Jewish Chronicle (17 January 1896) promoting Theodor Herzl's zionist Judenstaat (a Jewish State) as "a 'solution of the Jewish question.'"

The Jewish question commonly refers to the status and treatment of Jews in European countries before 1945. However, the phrase "The Jewish question" often refers more narrowly only to the debate which began with the Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution and the subsequent demands for equal rights and treatments for all groups in a society. From the same time, another trend was increasing nationalism and demands for greater national unity that opposed continued Jewish separateness. Argued solutions included Jewish assimilation in a multicultural society, or expulsions.

The debates

Debates about Jews existed in pre-Christian times, and especially since Christianity became the State religion of the Roman Empire. Unlike other non-Christian religions, Judaism was given a special exemption and allowed to continue to exist, instead of being forbidden as with all other non-State religions. This created a number of questions regarding the relations between Jews and non-Jews.

In a number of cases, the co-existence ended (at least for a time) with Jewish expulsions from a number of countries, the most recent being the large-scale expulsion/migration of Jews from most Muslim countries. Zionists and others argued that another solution was the creation of a Jewish state. Notably, the Zionist leader Theodor Herzl explicitly discussed the "Jewish question" and the "final solution of the Jewish question".

Summary history

Etching of the expulsion of the Jews from Frankfurt on 23 August 1614. The text says, “1,380 persons old and young were counted at the exit gate.”

In AD 70 the Roman Empire crushed the Jews in Palestine (includes Judea, Samaria, Galilee, Peraea etc.) following the Jewish Revolt of the previous decade. Almost all Jews were expelled. In AD 116 another Jewish revolt took place, not limited to Palestine but embracing Jewish communities in many lands, its purpose being to exterminate Gentile fellow citizens. On Cypus alone it was estimated that 240,000 Gentiles were slaughtered. Nearly as many Greeks and Romans were killed in the province of Cyrenaica (Libya). In AD 131 a further rebellion began in the Middle East. Rome easily crushed this. The name Judea was discarded completely and the region given the name of Syria Palaestina. The dispersion which began under the Emperor Trajan was now completed. The remaining Jews were driven out of Palestine. Some made their way to far-off India and China. Others drifted into the Arabian peninsula, Egypt and Africa. Still others made their way up into what we today know as Russia as well as other countries in Europe, including Greece, Italy and Spain.

Usury being forbidden to Christians meant that the Jews carried on with it. As a result they became the chief money-lenders in Europe applying, of course, interest to such loans. With virtually no laws of any substance controlling borrowing etc., bankruptcies, sequestrations, and other forms of foreclosure, these became rampant. In addition, Jews lived in closed communities, where they married only other Jews, becoming societies within societies. They were great traders, especially in cloth and silks, and often cornered these markets. They had at one point in time controlled the Roman Empire's tin trade, and became renowned for controlling the trade in precious metals and stones. Last but not least, Jews were condemned by Christians for the murder of Christ, their Rabbinical elders and leaders declaring that if they be wrong in calling for this execution be it on their heads and the heads of their descendants. Jews became loathed and even hated across Europe for all these complex reasons, and more.

Gradually Jews were expelled from innumerable countries, including:

1. Electorate of Mainz in 1012.
2. England in 1290 by Royal Decree. Jews were not allowed to return to England until 1656. Oliver Cromwell's agents had borrowed heavily from Jewish bankers in Amsterdam to equip his 'New Model Army'. One of the conditions these loans were granted was the lifting of the 1290 banishment.
3. Hungary in 1360 by Royal Decree of King Louis I.
4. Bern, Switzerland in 1392.
5. Austria 1420 by Duke Albert V who orders the imprisonment and forcible conversion to Christianity of all Jews in Austria. Some convert and others leave the country. In 1421 Austrian authorities again arrest and expell Jews, and Jews were banned from the capital, Vienna.
6. Duchy of Bavaria: in 1442 Jews were banished from Upper Bavaria, including Munich.
7. Spain in 1492 by Royal Decree.
8. Portugal in 1496 by Royal Decree.
9. Styria in 1496 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, issues a decree expelling all Jews from Styria and Wiener Neustadt.
10. Duchy of Württemberg in 1498 by Royal Decree.
11. Duchy of Bavaria in 1551 by Royal Decree. Jewish settlement in Bavaria ceased until toward the end of the 17th century, when a small community was founded in Sulzbach by refugees from Vienna.
12. Papal States in 1569: Pope Pius V expels Jews from the Papal States, except for Ancona and Rome.
13. Brandenburg in 1573 by Elector Joachim II.
14. Frankfurt am Main August 1614.
15. Austria 1669-1670: Jews expelled from Vienna by Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and forbidden to settle in Austrian Hereditary Lands. The former Jewish ghetto on the Unterer Werd in Vienna was renamed Leopoldstadt in honour of the emperor and the expropriated houses and land given to Roman Catholic citizens.
16. Kingdom of Prussia: Frederick the Great’s "Revised General Privilege for the Prussian Jews" of 1750 provided, above all, for the economic exploitation of wealthy Jews, and the expulsion of all others. Following the return of West Prussia to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1772, thousands of Jews faced mass expulsions, ordered by Frederick the Great personally. In the fourteen years before the king’s death in 1786, the Prussian administration expelled between 9,000 and 10,000 Jews from the province.
17. Austrian Empire 1744-1790: edicts of Frederick II, Joseph II and Maria Theresa expelled masses of impoverished Jews to Galicia.
18. Russian Empire in 1791 the Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, instituted the Pale of Settlement, restricting Jews to the western parts of the empire by means of deportation.

Emancipations

In the United Kingdom a Private Members Bill was presented to the House of Commons by Robert Grant on 15 April 1830 for the emancipation of Jews from their civil and legal restrictions, which was destined to engage the British legislature in one form or another for the next thirty years. The liberal historian, Thomas Macaulay, was elected to Parliament that year and distinguished himself by attacking the societal exclusion of Jews. At first the bill failed to get through the House of Commons. In 1833, however, it passed its third reading in the Commons on July 22nd by a majority of 189 to 52, and was read for the first time in the House of Lords. On the second reading in the Lords on August 1st it was rejected by 104 to 54, with the the famous Duke of Wellington speaking and voting against the Bill. The same thing happened in 1834, the Bill being lost in the House of Lords by a majority of 92 votes. The whole force of the Tory Party and the personal opposition of King William IV was against the bill. In 1835 the 'Jew Bill' was again introduced late in the session, and succeeded in passing its first reading in the Lords on August 19th but was then dropped. During 1840-41 the political activity of English Jews was concentrated on the attempt to obtain admission to municipal offices. It was not until 31 July 1845 that a Bill for this was carried. On 18 August 1846, the Religious Opinions Relief Act removed some of minor disabilities that affected British Jews and dissenters from the Established Church of England; the only State office that still remained closed to Jews was Parliament. The government then brought in another Bill in 1853, which was also rejected by the Lords. Jews campaigned to be Members of Parliament but even if elected could not take their seat in the House because they refused to take the compulsory Parliamentary Christian Oath. They also carried out a campaign against this oath, with some supporters, and the Jews Relief Act was passed in 1858 giving them the option of an alternative oath. Complete equality was not granted to Jews until 1890.

In the 19th century, the Russian Empire (includes Congress Poland) was home to about five million Jews. Subjected to religious persecution, they were obliged to live in the Pale of Settlement in conditions of great poverty. After about 1880 significant numbers, in their hundreds of thousands, emigrated, mostly for the United States, but many – about 150,000 – arrived in the United Kingdom, in England. This reached its peak in the late 1890s, with "tens of thousands of Jews ... mostly poor, semi-skilled and unskilled" settling in the East End of London. By the turn of the century, a media and public backlash had begun with marches, rallies and petitions. The Conservative Government introduced the 1905 Aliens Act with the clear intention of restricting/halting Jewish immigration. By 1931 Jews were 0.6% of the population (300,000). These numbers had dropped slightly to 263,346 in 2011. Their influence in the United Kingdom today is grossly disproportionate to their numbers.

It was Liberals who generally advocated Jewish emancipation and it became an important plank in the political programmes of the Liberal and subsequent Social Democratic movements. However, many Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews feared that emancipation would not be in the best interest of Judaism or the Jewish people. Some of the 39 German States, such as Prussia (1812), Württemberg (1828), Hesse (1833), and Hanover (1842), carried forward some forms of emancipation for their Jews as citizens. Only in France and the Netherlands were Jews earlier fully emancipated. The Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV wanted to deprive Jews of their rights as state citizens in 1847. Conservatives, such as Prussian Minister of the Interior Hermann von Thile, argued against Jewish Emancipation, by stating that granting Jews any rights in government was irreconcilable with Christendom. Prussian law included a paragraph stating that: "The Christian religion shall be the basis in all government institutions that are associated with religion." This was not lost on conservatives. However, Baden emancipated its Jews in 1862, Württemberg in 1864, the North German Confederation in 1867, and Prussia fully on 3 July 1869.

Unrest

Some Jews established themselves as an exclusively commercial class especially when they entered a country economically undeveloped. By the 19th century Jews were flexing their political and economic muscles. Increased Anti-semitism was the result. Contrary to post-1945 propaganda, the overwhelming majority of Europe's Jews were poor. They lived in Jewish communities, and in places like Poland, Russia and Galicia often in ghettos, and only spoke Yiddish or Hebrew as a first language. They only attended Jewish schools. They were a society apart. The richer more industrious Jews made their mark through finance and trade. With emancipations the richer Jews who could afford university educations moved their children into the professions. Their nepotism became a force to be reckoned with as they 'cornered the market' in a number of areas by only employing Jews and excluding natives. The poorer European Jews avoided manual work which required energy, and stuck to trades such as tailoring, which meant that they were not "submerged in a mass-organised Gentile world".

Many Jews took part in the 1848 Revolutions. They sided with the liberals, and were prominent in the Liberal cause. An example is Adolf Fischhof who became a foremost orator of the insurrection in Vienna attempting to bring about a new order. By 1853, in Austria, new bans against Jews acquiring real estate and moving to certain areas of the empire were constituted. Soon "Jewish oaths" were restored, and in some districts, like Galicia, Jews were forbidden to hire Christian domestic servants. Similarly in Hungary where Jews then played a more minor role than they did elsewhere, they were nonetheless blamed by the counter revolutionaries and forced to pay a special tax for their support of the revolution.

In 1871 the Jews of the German Empire numbered 512,000 (or 1.25% of the population); in 1910 (Census) they numbered 615,000 (or 0.95%. Between these years their birthrates in Germany declined. For example, of the 2,571 Jews in Leipzig in 1875, only 526 were native to the city; 237 were immigrants form Russia, 421 from Galicia, and 92 from Bohemia. By 1910, 78,700 (12.8%) of the Jews living in Germany were first-generation East Europeans. Again they tended to group together. In 1816 42% of the Jews in Prussia lived in Posen province, and only 2.7% in Berlin. This was reversed by 1910 with only 6.4% left in Posen and 21.6% in Berlin. In 1816 Berlin was third in size among Jewish communities in Prussia, after Breslau and Posen. The rush to Berlin coincided with the growth of the capital, but the Jewish contribution was relatively much larger.

The figures for Austria were even more striking. Except for a small number of "tolerated" wealthy Jews - who in 1847 numbered 197 families - access to Vienna was barred altogether. After the 1848 Revolutions Jews poured into Vienna seemingly unhindered, first from Bohemia & Moravia and then from Galicia. In 1857 there were only 6,217 Jews in Vienna; by 1910 (Census) there were 174,294. The newspaper Schild und Schwert complained that:

By constantly making concessions to the Jews we reinforce the party of subversion, which is proved by the fact that all Jews who, since the March days, have been very skillful at exploiting the general confusion in hunting for positions; have become arrogant, impudent hate-mongers and agitators.

The Wiener Kirchenzeitung found fault with:

Those Israelites who owe their significance in modern society solely to the combination of Jewish disbelief with poisonous hatred against Christian doctrine and Catholic practice.

In Budapest, which in the nineteenth century grew faster than any other European capital, Jews in 1910 numbered one-quarter of the population. The Hungarian capital became known colloquially as "Judapest". Since the eighteenth century the Rothschild family had risen to a pre-eminent place in four countries; of the two leading banking houses of Berlin, Bleichroder and the Disconto-Gesellschaft of Hansemann, the first was Jewish. In Vienna all the major banks were Jewish except that of the Greek 'Sina'. The Jews' move into the so-called liberal professions became greatly resented amongst gentiles; and their was no 'profession' more completely dominated by Jews than journalism. Most of the leading newspapers in Berlin, Frankfurt and Vienna were Jewish-owned. Naturally the numbers of aliens and their influence caused significant social unrest. From the emancipations onwards many so-called Liberal and richer Jews moved out of the former strict communities with only Jewish norms, and became 'appropriators' and consumers of western European culture, music. etc., their wealth permitting them entry into such circles. The Conservative Party in Prussia became decidedly anti-Semitic and were fighting "Jewish influence". By 1883 the Preussisch Jahrbucher (Prussian Year Book) observed: 'basically the Conservative Party has become anti-Semitic and demagogic'. In 1892 the party's programme stated:

We [will] combat the widely obtruding and decomposing Jewish influence on our popular life; We demand a Christian authority for the Christian people and Christian teachers for Christian pupils.

They were followed with full support from the Agrarian League. The London Times newspaper commented on the "growing popularity of the anti-semitic cry". The German newspaper Kreuzzeitung said:

There is no denying that anti-Semitism's mighty powers of recruitment leads many back to the loyal camp who would otherwise had had to be considered irredemably lost to Liberalism or [Marxist] Social Democracy".

Any German Government, by 1910, was now impossible without the Conservatives.

Modern times

In the 19th century Karl Marx set forth his Communist Manifesto and his writings formed the basis of what we now call Marxism. Marx was Jewish and a great many of his disciples and followers were also Jewish, most notably in Russia where they formed the core of the revolutionary movement. In 1911 the Prime Minister of Imperial Russia, Pyotr Stolypin, was murdered by a Jew. The Social Democratic Party of Germany was founded in 1863 by a Jew as the world's first mainstream Marxist political party. It was the party which proclaimed the end of the monarchy and a Republic on 9 November 1918.

With the catastrophe of The Great War and its aftermath, in Russia the February Revolution and October Revolutions saw the Bolshevik Party seize power in 1918. The hierarchy of this party was controlled by Jews (see those pages). The anti-communist White movement forces during the Russian Civil War were quick to point this out. Jews now received full emancipation throughout Russia. Britain's Winston Churchill wrote in the Illustrated Sunday Herald newspaper:

[Bolshevism] among the Jews is nothing new. From the days of "Spartacus-Weishaupt" to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Kurt Eisner (Bavaria), Rosa Luxemburg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing.

In Great Britain the Conservative Party passed the 1905 Aliens Act which was specifically aimed at keeping Jews out of Britain.

Elsewhere on the continent significant political unrest continued.

Numbers

The following post-1920 figures are given by country (not exhaustive) followed by percentage of the population and the year:

• United States of America 4,228,000 (3.5%) 1927 (Estimated increase to 4,650,000 by Dec 1937)
• Poland (includes Galicia) 3,113,000 (9.7%), 1931. (Estimated increase to 3,275,000 by Dec 1937)
• Soviet Union (Russia in Europe) 2,570,330 (2.2%), 1926. (Estimated increase to 3,000,000 by Dec 1937)
• Romania 758,226 (4.2%), 1930. (Estimated increase to 800,000 by Dec 1937)
• Germany 503,720 (0.8%), 1933 (Estimated decrease to 365,000 by Dec 1937)
• Hungary 444,567 (5.1%), 1930 (Estimated decrease to 440,000 by Dec 1937)
• Czechoslovakia 356,830 (2.4%) (Estimated increase to 360,000 by Dec 1937)
• Great Britain 300,000 (0.6%) 1931 (Estimated increase to 340,000 by Dec 1937)
• France 260,000 (0.6%) 1935 (Estimated increase to 340,000 by Dec 1937)
• Austria 191,481 (2.8%) 1934 (Estimated decrease to 180,000 by Dec 1937)
• Lithuania (without Memel-land) 155,126 (7.6%) 1923 (Estimated increase to 160,000 by Dec 1937)
• Netherlands 111,126 (7.6%) 1930 (Estimated increase to 115,000 by Dec 1937)
• Latvia 93,406 (4.8%) 1935 (No change in 1937)
• Greece 72,791 (1.2%) 1928 (Estimated increase to 75,000 by Dec 1937)
• Yugoslavia 68,405 (0.5%) 1931 (Estimated increase to 75,000 by Dec 1937)
• Belgium 60,000 (0.7%) 1931 (Estimated increase to 75,000 by Dec 1937)
• Italy 47,825 (0.1%) 1931 (Estimated increase to 50,000 by Dec 1937)
• Bulgaria 46,431 (0.8%) 1926 (Estimated increase to 50,000 by Dec 1937)

The Jewish Problem

Poland

Published in 2018.

Stereotyped as the "Wandering Jew" following their various expulsions, Poland invited Jews to settle there, with Boleslaw, Duke of Great Poland, granting them his protection by Royal charter in 1264. Poland witnessed the growth of Europe's most important Jewish refuge. A minority became bankers to the king and the nobles and even physicians; they practised usury in their pawn-shops. In towns they busied themselves with retail trade, such as tailoring. Some towns did not allow them to settle down within their walls, but some towns such as Warsaw and occupied Lvov permitted them. The Christian Guilds tried to ensure that Jews should not be allowed to practice trades because they never belonged to any guilds, did not pay the dues, and did not keep within the prices agreed by the guilds. In 1648 thousands of Jews were murdered during a peasant uprising, and their poverty became universal. The vast Jewish population led to the inevitable social unrest. During and after The Great War there were significant violent pogroms against Jews across Poland. Following the end of WWI the Poles invaded Austrian Galicia and captured Lemberg where Polish troops ran amok in Jewish neighbourhoods, incensed by Jewish protestations of neutrality in the contest for the city between Poles and Ruthenians (Ukrainians). A pogrom in Chrzanow in November 1918 saw widespread looting and pillaging of Jewish homes and businesses; in Warsaw synagogues were burned. Further east, there were also pogroms in Polish-occupied Vilna and Pinsk - where Polish troops shot thirty-five people for the offense of distributing charitable donations from the United States. Violence gave way to discrimination during the 1920s, despite the fine words of the League of Nations Minorities Treaties. Sunday became a compulsory day of rest for all. Jews who could not prove pre-1918 residence were denied Polish citizenship. One Polish politician stated that "the Jewish community is 'a foreign body', dispersed in our organism so that it produces a pathological deformation. In this state of affairs it is impossible to find a way out other than the removal of the alien body, harmful through both its numbers and its uniqueness." The fanatical leader of the Nationalist Party, Roman Dwomski, spoke in similar terms. Nitti, former Prime Minister of Italy, said in 1922 that Poland was unable to assimilate its Jews - and the government actively "encouraged" emigration. Between 1919 and 1935, Jewish emigration from Poland to Palestine totaled 107,958, with 27,843 (45% of the total number of immigrants) in 1935 alone. "This was due to political pressure in Poland". In 1935 and 1936 a further 23,291 arrived in Palestine and in 1939 and 1940 a quarter of Jewish immigrants into Palestine in each year held Polish citizenship; this continued over the next three years with 16.6%, 18.1% and 23.9%.

Jews in Poland in 1931.

In 1931 Poland was reckoned to have 500 ghettos. A speaker at the World Jewish Congress in the summer of 1932 declared that the suicide rate in the ghettos had increased 25 per cent in the last three years, and that about 90 per cent of the ghetto's inhabitants had tuberculosis. Jewish journalist Saloman Spitzer (1859-1941), who had a special interest in the squalid Warsaw ghetto, which had open sewage canals in the streets, stated "there are about 3,500,000 Jew in Poland. 3,000,000 of them are paupers and 490,000 are destitute. The rest can barely make a living". He said emigration was therefore economically impossible for them. "The gates of the USA are closed, and Palestine's are only half open. They could not build ships fast enough to take away all the Jews if they had the money and knew where to go!" he said, adding that Jews were looking forward to the new Poland, but that was all now forgotten. "Poland to the Poles" was the motto and Jews were excluded and oppressed. Since 1920 Jews had been excluded as judges, from the police and postal services and, as far as possible from the civil service; many Jews had been bank directors in former years, they were now out. Anti-semitic posters in the streets said "We must not allow the Jew to deprive the Polish worker of his bread", "Don't patronize the Jew!", "Buy only from Polish shops!" and "Poland awake! Why do you take your money to the Jew, the enemy of your race and religion?" German businesses in those provinces which now found themselves in Poland had been nationalized. The Germans had employed Poles and Jews without discrimination. Now the Jews have been dismissed. Jewish firms with long traditions and excellent standing were refused banking facilities, while new Polish firms were given credit facilities. It became difficult for a Jew to become a schoolteacher; to become a university professor was next to impossible. State assistance was made available to to Polish schools only, not to Jewish schools. The number of Jewish students at Polish universities fell by half between 1923 and 1937.

On October 20, 1936 Poland's Foreign Minister, Joseph Beck, told the British Ambassador in Warsaw, Sir Howard Kennard, that he was concerned about the "Jewish problem" and that the Polish peasants in particular "were becoming more restive in regard to the Jewish monopoly of business." Beck "hoped that Jewish emigration to Palestine might be resumed on a 'larger scale' at some future date, [but] he felt that this was not sufficient for Jewish requirements and that some other outlets must be found for them."

In 1937 renewed anti-semitic action broke out in Poland. Jews were banned from the National Totalitarian (Polish: Sanation) Party, banned from the medical profession, and their lawyers restricted. A serious pogrom occurred in Brest-Litovsk in May, and the Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego (O.Z.O.N. - Camp of National Union) Party proclaimed an "anti-Jewish month" in September - rigorously observed by the right-wing parties and groupings. With the co-operation of the French, the Polish government commissioned a task force in 1937 to examine the feasibility of deporting Polish Jews to Madagascar. The head of the commission was Mieczysław Lepecki. However the commission decided the numbers the island could accommodate were insufficient for their proposed resettlement plans.

As a result of anti-semitism, many of the approximately 70,000 Polish Jews living in Germany had arrived after the First World War. In early October 1938 the Polish government announced that all Polish passports would become invalid at the end of the month unless they received a special stamp before then, obtainable only in Poland. This measure was meant to rid Poland effectively for all time of all Polish Jews living in foreign countries, most of whom were in Germany. Of course, the German government now feared that it would have to permanently accept these 70,000 Jews. The German government tried to negotiate this issue with the Poles, but they flatly refused. On October 28th, just two days before the deadline, German police rounded up between 15,000 and 17,000 Polish Jews, mostly adult males, from across the Reich and transported them to the German-Polish border. The deportees traveled in regular German passenger trains with more than adequate space. Contrary to some claims, they were not crammed into cattle cars. The deportees were well provided with food and medical care. Red Cross personnel and medical doctors accompanied them on the trains. The Polish border officials were surprised when the first trainloads arrived at the border, and their Polish passports still being valid, let the Jews back into Poland. At about the same time, the Polish government was deporting German Jews back to Germany. The next day, 29 October, the Polish and German governments suddenly agreed to stop the deportations of their respective Jewish populations to each other's countries. The deportations were completely halted that night. Finally the German and Polish Governments reached an agreement that Polish Jews expelled at the end of October could return to Germany in order to wind up their personal and business affairs and the Polish government pledged to receive back into Poland the expelled Polish Jews' wives and children under 18 years of age still in Germany. Numbers were estimated at between five and six thousand. These arrangements would expire on 31 July 1939. However, Polish Jews still in Germany became stateless after October 31st. The German Alien Control Police were instructed to get as many of these Polish Jews as possible to leave Germany.

At the 1938 Évian Conference Poland submitted a "bulky" Memorandum in which they pointed to their 3.5 million "largely proletarianized" Jews whom they wanted to get rid of.

In November 1938 the Polish Government was becoming "extremely active" regarding Polish Jews, especially those threatened with expulsion from Germany. (A Polish Decree of October made the return to Poland of 60,000 Jews of Polish nationality domiciled in Germany practically impossible.) The Germans suggested in both Washington D.C. and The Hague that persecutions of Jews should also be expected in Poland. American Claiborne Pell of the Refugee Committee said the Poles were trying to blackmail the UK & USA to take their Jews, and added that "the policy of the Polish Government during the past weeks has in general met with the strongest disapproval of both the British and American Governments".

Following World War Two, further pogroms took place in Poland. On 11th August 1945 Poles in Kraków engaged in a pogrom against Jews in the city, killing one and wounding five. On 4th July, 1946 a pogrom took place in Kielce and 42 Jews died. Many more fled.

Germany

Despite being only 0.7% of the entire population, in 1908-1911 Jews constituted 36% of prominent businessmen and 21.7% of millionaires. 31% of the 29 families owning more than 50 million marks were Jewish. Many Jews had avoided World War I conscription by being in "essential" civilian employment and, it was popularly argued, the German army had been 'stabbed in the back' by such citizens on the home front — especially Jews, many of their poorer class being revolutionary socialists who fomented strikes and political and labour unrest. Following the collapse of Germany in November 1918 the revolutions which took place in Germany were often led or heavily influenced by Jews. In 1920-22 the para-military group Organisation Consul (O.C.), which could draw from a pool of an estimated 5,000 men, was very active. One of the best known members was the Freikorps fighter and author Ernst von Salomon. Jews were excluded from participation, and every member had to affirm that he was of "German descent". The O.C.'s goals included "the fight against everything anti-national and international, Judaism, social democracy and radical left-wing parties".

From 1921 to 1923, Germany suffered one of the greatest economic crises in its history: rampant hyperinflation. It was argued that while millions had been bankrupted and utterly ruined the Jews had sailed through it either through wealth or nepotism or both. Whether these beliefs were true or not they were widely believed. The government of the Weimar Republic had a disproportionate number of Jews in a variety of important positions: an example was Bernhard Weiß, Vice-President of the Berlin Police, another Albert Grzesinski (birth name Lehmann), a German SPD Minister of the Interior for Prussia from 1926 to 1930. In 1922 the German Government Minister for Reconstruction, Walther Rathenau, who was Jewish, was assassinated.

As we have seen above, anti-semitism was alive and well in Europe and long pre-dated the National Socialists. It was therefore not at all difficult for them to arouse further hostility against Jews.

The British Embassy in Berlin researched and compiled a report and sent it to the Foreign Office in London, on 26 August, 1936, stating:

in 1931 out of 3,450 lawyers in Berlin, 1,925 were Jews. In Breslau the numbers were 285 and 192, and in Frankfurt-on-Main 659 and 432 respectively. In Berlin the number of Jewish doctors was 52%, while in most towns the average was 30%. Fifteen Jewish bankers are stated to have held 718 director-ships in banks and commercial undertakings. Of theatre directors, 50.4% were Jews. Although Jews formed less than one per cent of the total population, there is a widespread feeling that they blocked the approaches to all the leading positions in the State, monopolising them for themselves.

At the end of January 1933 the National Socialists became the largest party in the German Reichstag (National Parliament) and were invited by the President, Paul von Hindenburg, to form a government. This party was decidedly anti-Jewish and anti-communist.

On the night of Monday, 27 February 1933, Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch Communist, set fire to the Reichstag and gutted it On March 9th the Prussian state police arrested Bulgarians Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Tanev, and Blagoy Popov, who were known Comintern operatives (though the police did not know it, Dimitrov was head of all Comintern operations in Western Europe) and alleged co-conspirators. Van der Lubbe was tried, convicted, and was guillotined in a Leipzig prison yard on January 10th following. On 6 March 1933 the Communist Party of Germany was banned. The Parliament moved to the German Opera House, sometimes known as the Kroll Opera House after its owner.

In April of that year Parliament began to pass new Legislation, commencing with:

1. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which effectively excluded Jews. A supplementary law was added:
2. Admission to the Legal Profession which excluded Jews from taking the Bar exams.
3. The Law for Physicians. Patients who saw a 'non-Aryan' doctor would not now be covered under the National Health Service.
4. The Law Against Overcrowding of German Schools which limited the numbers of Jewish students enrolled in German schools to 1.5% of the total enrollment.

On July 14th the Reichstag passed:

1. The Denaturalization Law which applied to those deemed "undesirable" and to anyone who had been given new citizenship under the Weimar Republic. The first to feel the weight of this law were circa 150,000 Jews who had immigrated from the East.

On 29th September 1933:

1. The Hereditary Farm Law excluded Jews from owning farmland or engaging in agriculture. (As Jews were almost never engaged in the latter this was not a serious issue.)
2. The Establishment of Chambers of Culture for all genres of culture. Non-Ayrans to be excluded.
3. Journalism Law: all journalists now required legal consent to work or submit work for publication. (In force 4 Oct.)

On November 14th the new

1. Reich (State) Citizenship Law was passed. Only those of German or related blood (Deutschblütig) were eligible to be citizens.

On 15 September 1935 at Nuremberg, the Reichstag met in special session and passed:

1. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour which included a ban on intercourse or marriage with Jews and a ban on German women under the age of 45 working in Jewish households.

Germany (includes Austria from 13 March 1938) stated publicly that "the goal of German Jewish policy is emigration". This was 'encouraged' by the many restrictions now being placed upon Jews in Greater Germany.

An 'International Committee for the Emigration of German Jews' (sometimes given as the 'Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees') became based in London unsurprisingly headed up by the American attorney, George Rublee. Also, the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the Évian Conference which was convened 6–15 July 1938 at Évian-les-Bains, France, to address the problem of European Jews who were migrating from Poland, Germany and Austria. He hoped to obtain commitments from some of the 32 nations attending to accept more of these 'refugees' (although he took pains to avoid stating that objective expressly). Doubtless Roosevelt desired to deflect attention and criticism from American policy that severely limited the quota of 27,000 Jews per annum admitted to the United States which Baron Weizsacker in the German Foreign Office noted on 7 November 1938 "was already filled for a long time ahead". The Évian conference was a failure because no country wanted to take large numbers of Jews. The South Americans suspected that the Europeans wanted to unload their undesireable elements on them for resettlement and declined to help. On July 7th the Reichsbank President, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, made representations to the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, opposing expropriations of the Jews. Foreign disapproval would inevitably follow such schemes and would affect adversely the hard-pressed German trade position, he said, suggesting the Jews be given 5 to 10 years to dispose of their holdings in German industry.

In October 1938 the French Government's Count de Montbas complained to the German Government that, as France was both a transit country and the destination of many of the Jewish emigrants, it "involved considerable expense" as the municipalities were being forced to assist the 'refugees'. On November 8th the aristocrat Ernst vom Rath, a German Foreign Office diplomat in their Paris Embassy, was murdered there in cold blood by a Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, which provided a further pretext for the so-called Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) anti-Jewish riots in Germany. On 12 November 1938 Field Marshall Göring chaired a conference in Berlin on the 'Jewish Problem' attended by representatives of many ministries. Göring stated that the assassination would be seized upon to apply long-delayed measures which would eliminate Jews from the economic life of Germany. (There were exceptions: i.e: Jews engaged in the export trade were to be left untouched.) The Aryanization of the economy was to be accelerated along with the State expropriation of Jewish real estate, art objects, jewelry, stocks etc. Jews were forbidden to visit health resorts, bathing beaches, forests, to use railway sleeping cars, or to attend German schools, etc. They were also barred from theatres, concerts, cinemas, etc. Crucially, Jewish emigration was to be promoted by all possible means. To encourage this a plan was put forward linking Jewish emigration making it possible for Jews to transfer their government bonds to foreign countries. There was some discussion about this with Sir Otto Niemeyer at the Bank of England. In December the Reichsbank President, Dr. Schacht, was in London in talks with the Governor, Montagu Norman.

On 16 January 1939 an extensive plan was drawn up between Dr. Schacht and George Rublee for the emigration of Jews from Germany. The plan was agreed with the German Foreign Minister, and Foreign Office Under-Secretary Eisenlohr was to be his representative in these matters.

A German Foreign Ministry Circular dated 25 January 1939 on "The Jewish Question" noted that it will "expand into a problem of international politics when great masses of Jews from Germany, Poland, Hungary and Romania are put on the move by the growing pressure of their host countries.... they themselves are striving for the emigration of the Jewish sectors of their populations." In February the Central Reich Office for Jewish Emigration was established to speed things up, with Foreign Ministry representatives assigned to the conduct of international negotiations on the Rublee plan. A special task of the new agency was to encourage the emigration of Jews of very limited financial means by providing the necessary financial assistance.

In 1938 and 1939 the German Government stipulated that they did not want a Jewish State in Palestine but would prefer Europe's Jews to be centralized either in a colony somewhere (see: Madagascar Plan) or more widely scattered.

Czechs

The British Ambassador at Prague (Newton), following a visit to the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 22 October 1938, reported to London that the Czechs wanted emigration for their Jews and asked the British Government to assist. Referring to recent Jewish immigration [from Germany and Poland], Newton stated "the last thing the Czechs want today is an addition to their Jewish population....feeling against them in the country was rising." The Czechs asked the British to "make representations in Berlin to stop the German authorities 'dumping' these unwanted Jews from occupied territories [Austria] into what remained of Czecho-Slovakia." Newton said to London that these requests were reasonable. Newton wrote again on November 1st of the "anti-Semitic trend, and that ant-Semitic demonstrations have even taken place in Prague".

Romania and Hungary

In 1938 the Romanian Government made an official appeal to the German Government to collaborate in an international move for the solution of the Jewish Question.

Later in 1938 the Hungarian Government on its own initiative announced they would aryanize Hungarian-Jewish business enterprises.

Other

In a news conference on the eve of Thanksgiving in 1938, the USA Minister of the Interior, Harold Ickes, proposed offering Alaska as a "haven for Jewish refugees from Germany and other countries in Europe where the Jews are subjected to oppressive restrictions."

Less politically-correct aspects of these debates include Jewish influence in a society, how it was acquired and used, and perceived resource competition between Jews and non-Jews. (See also Jewish group evolutionary strategy).

More generally regarding the phrase "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question", see Meanings and translations of German words and Holocaust revisionism: The "Final Solution of the Jewish Question".

See also: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

See also: Jewish influence

See also: List of British Jewish politicians

See also: Jewish politicians in Britain before 1900

See also: History of the Jews in Germany

See also: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_International_Jew

Sources

• Fishberg, Maurice, The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment, Charles Scribner & Sons., New York, 1911.
• Keyes, Nelson B., Story of the Bible World, New York, 1959 & 1962.
• Keller, Werner, The Bible as History, Barnes & Noble, New York, 1995 reprint, ISBN: 1-56619-801-1.
• Magát, Marián, Židokracia, 2020.

External links

• The Jewish Question in Europe: The Causes, The Effects, The Remedies from La Civilta Cattolica, vol. VII, no. XIV. 1890 (Oct, Nov, Dec; English Translation, 1998)
• My Journey to the Jewish Question
• The Jewish Question V1 - IMDb
• A Program For The Jews And An Answer To All Anti-Semites by Rabbi Harry Waton: The Jewish question is really a question of the whole human race.
• When Victims Rule: A Critique of Jewish Pre-eminence in America
• You Gentiles by Maurice Samuel
• Drobychev, Alexei, M.A., English Literature): Jewish-Communist Brainwashing Techniques, 2001