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Australia and the Jewish Refugees - Government Policy 1933-1939

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Australia and the Jewish Refugees - Government Policy 1933-1939 AUSTRALIA AND THE JEWISH REFUGEES - GOVERNMENT POLICY 1933-1939 by Michael Blakeney I hereby certify that the work contained in this thesis has not been submitted for. a higher degree to any other university or institution. \ Signature, •••••e••••••••••••••••••et•e•••• Date •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••e••••c:1•• Thesis submitted to fulfil requirements of Master of Arts (Hons) Degree. 'JnivPrsity of New South Wales School of History October 1982 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was stimulated by Dr. Jurgen Tampke's excellent Masters Course on the Holocaust. Dr. Tampke was kind enough to act as my supervisor for this thesis. Among the numerous persons who have assisted me special thanks must go to the inter-library loans librarian of the Law School, Cheryl White, the staff of the A.C.T. Office of the Australian Archives Office, and the Rabbi L. Falk Library of the Great Synagogue (Sydney). For an excellently typed thesis I must thank Sandra Cowling. Michael Blakeney 21.10.82 iv SUMMARY OF CONTENTS 1. Plight of the European Jews 1933-1938. 2. The Roots of Australian Policy on Jewish Immigration 1933-1938. 3. Development and Administration of Australian Immigration Policy to 1938. 4. Australia at Evian. 5. Kristallnacht 1938. 6. Immigration Policy 1939. 7. Resettlement Schemes. 8. Evaluation Appendixes Bibliography i TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Plight of the European Jews 1933-1938. (a) The Reich (b) Poland (c) Hungary (d) Romania (e) Other European Countries 2. The Roots of Australian Policy on Jewish Immigration 1933-1938. (a) Introduction (b) Domestic Politics (c) Foreign Policy and Diplomacy (d) The 'White Australia' Policy (e) 'Populate or Perish' (f) Anti-Alien Sentiment (g) Australian Anti-Semitism (h) The Australian Jewish Community 3. Development and Administration of Immigration Policy to 1938. (a) Introduction (b) Immigration Policy to 1933 (c) Immigration Policy 1933-1937 (d) The Crisis of 1938 4. Australia at Evian. (a) The Road to Evian (b) By the Waters of Evian (c) Assessment 5. Kristallnacht. (a) The Pogrom (b) Domestic Pressures (c) International Pressures (d) The Government's Response (e) Press Reactions ii 6. Immigration Policy 1939 (a) Administration (b) The Role of the Australian Jewish Welfare Society 1938-1939 (c) Immigration Policy to the Outbreak of War (d) Public Opinion and the Jewish Refugees 7. Jewish Resettlement (a) Introduction (b) Madagascar (c) Palestine and the British Colonies (d) American Proposals (e) The Kimberley Scheme (f) Other Australian Proposals 8. Evaluation (a) The Statistical Record (b) The Quality of the Government's Attitude Toward the Refugees (c) Australian Jews and the Refugees 1938-1939 (d) Final Comment Appendixes 1. Report of the Evian Conference on Refugees 2. Speech of T.W. White 3. Report of the Sub-Committee for the Reception of Organizations Concerned with the Relief of Political Refugees Coming from Germany Including Austria. 4. Memorandum on Australian Immigration Laws and Practices. Bibliography A. Manuscript Sources (a) Records of Government Departments (b) Private Papers (c) Theses and Papers iii B. Printed Sources (a) Published Government and International Documents (b) Parliamentary Debates (c) Newspapers and Periodicals (d) Reports of Refugee Organizations (e) Contemporary Books (f) Contemporary Articles (g) Recent Books (h) Recent Articles. iv 1. PLIGHT OF THE EUROPEAN JEWS 1933-1938 (a) The Reich The "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem" was the euphemism adopted by the German bureacracy in the summer of 1941 to describe the various arrangements which had been agreed upon for the extermination of Jews falling into German hands. The "solution" was obviously final in the sense that it was irreversible but it was also final in that a policy of extermination appears to have evolved after policies of emigration, expulsion and resettlement proved to be unworkable. 1 A lively academic debate has addressed the question of whether Jewish genocide was always the German intention.2 In Mein Kampf, written in 1924, Hitler had declared that "if at the beginning of the [First World] War twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas ••• the sacrifice of multitudes at the front would not have been in vain". 3 Hitler's political testament, written shortly before his suicide in April 1945, exhorted Germans to "adhere strictly to the racial laws and offer unmerciful resistance to the poisoner of all peoples: international Jewry 11 • 4 Certainly Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933 could not have been construed as a mandate for his Jewish policy. The Nazis were inferior partners in a right-wing coalition which was unable to command a majority in the Reichstag. In fact, for the first time . since 1930 the party had lost electoral support, receiving two million fewer votes than they had in the previous July elections and losing 34 Reichstag seats. However, within six months the Nazis had subjugated all political opponents and had embarked on their declared programme to make Germany free of Jews (judenrein). Despite the overwhelming significance of anti-Semitism in the Nazi political platform, the party had no coherent policy for dealing with the Jews once they had come to power. In the first months of office Hitler was concerned to maintain an appearance of legality and not to provoke the Reichswehr into removing him. 5 The subtlety of this policy escaped the storm troopers of the S .A who were enraged by the apparent mildness of the now frock-coated Fuhrer.6 In the absence of central direction it initiated its own anti-Jewish campaign, commencing in February 1933 with a series of boycotts against Jewish businesses together with kidnapping and general mistreatment of Jews. Hitler issued a general call to avoid all "uncoordinated incidents".7 This failed to satisfy the s.A. and in late March the decision was taken by Hitler and Goebbels to institute a nationwide boycott against Jewish businesses. The boycott was justified in Party propaganda as a defensive response to "international Jewish agitation" and a "Central Committee for Defence Against Jewish Atrocity and Boycott Propaganda" was established under the chairmanship of Streicher. The boycott was held on 1st April, accompanied by violence and demonstrations.8 The foreign reaction to the boycott, which was influential in the first delicate months of Hitler's Ministry, dictated a more prudent or respectable approach to the "Jewish Problem" until Germany was strong enough to ignore the threat of reprisals. A Party directive of 1932 had recommended the deprivation of the rights of German Jews through legal or administrative means. 9 Legislation would be acceptable to the conservative foreign governments who looked to Hitler as the bastion against Russia and who would overlook the anti-Semitic form provided the anti-Bolshevik substance was maintained.10 Legislation would also bring order to the uncoordinated actions of the S .A. and would satisfy Hitler's peti t bourgeois penchant for the legalities to be observed. 11 Standing in the way of a programme of legislative discrimination were the 2 provisions of the Weimer constitution which guaranteed legal equality to all citizens. The Reichstag fire and the resultant Enabling Act of 23 March 1933, the "Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich", freed Hitler from any constitutional restraints and formed the legal basis of his dictatorship. 12 The statute from which the subsequent body of discriminatory legislation proceeded was the law of 7 April 1933 for the "Reconstruction of the Civil service"13 which provided that civil servants of "non-Aryan descent" were to be summarily retired. A "non-Aryan" was defined in a regulation of 11 April 1933 as a person one of whose grandparents or parents was "Jewish". 14 Those officials who were members of the Ci vi 1 Service before 1 August 1914 or who had fought at the front during the Great War or who had lost a father or son in that war were initially exempted from the law. The definition of "Aryan" and the "Veterans" exemption were adopted as guides for the application of administrative measures to Jews throughout Germany. A series of ordinances and decrees implementing the provisions of the Law led to the dismissal of university and school teachers, scientists, doctors, welfare officers, and the employees of government instrumentalities. Jewish lawyers practising outside the civil service were excluded by the Law of 7 April 1933, "On Admission to the Bar". 15 By a Law of 22 April patients covered by national health insurance were informed that their expenses would not be paid if they consulted a non-Aryan doctor. 16 The April Laws were the first of some four hundred pieces of anti-Jewish legislation between 1933 and 1939 to effect the Gleichschal tung or "Coordination" of the Reich. A Law of 25 April "Against the Overcrowding of German Schools" restricted admissions of non-Aryans to high schools, technical institutes and universities to 1.5 of the total enrolment. 17 Coordination of German cultural life was effected through the establishment of guilds (Reichskammern) for the press, theatre, cinema, radio, music, literature, art 3 and architecture. Admission to these guilds was under the direct authority of Goebbels, Minister for Enlightenment and Propaganda, and would be refused to persons, such as non-Aryans, who "did not inspire the confidence or possess the competence to carry on his particular activity". Exclusion from a Reichskammer prevented a person from carrying on the relevant activity. 18 An immediate effect of these laws was to encourage emigration from Germany and by the end of 1933 it was estimated that about 60,000 refugees had left Germany, of whom about 80 percent were Jews.19 The principal recipients of these emigrants were the countries bordering Germany. Net German and Austrian immigration into Australia in 1933 was only 52 persons.
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