Jewish Boycott of Nazi Germany Was Murderous

Potentially murderous for German economy (though not necessarily for Nazi regime) – and literally murderous for millions of Jews who ten years later perished in the Holocaust.

The road to Hell is not always paved with good intentions… but the boycotters did pave with their good and noble intentions the road to a genuine Hell for European and Soviet Union.

The genuine Hell of “Holocaust by Bullets”; of Auschwitz and Majdanek; of Chelmno and Belzec; of Sobibor and Treblinka and of hundreds and thousands of Jewish ghettos set up by Nazis and their allies in Europe.

Jewish economic boycott of Nazi Germany paved the way to this genuine Hell because it was potentially murderous not for Nazi regime (that was questionable) but for German economy already suffering greatly from Great Depression.

This irrefutable fact proved to the Nazis beyond the reasonable (for them) doubt that there was, indeed, a global Jewish conspiracy (boycott was global in scope) aimed at destroying Germany.

Boycott was often worded in such a way that it could have been easily perceived that Jews declared war on Germany (not on the Nazis, but on Germany). An existential racial war.

This perception was (intentionally or not – there is still some dispute) by the Daily Express, a right-wing British newspaper, ran a headline on 24 March 1933 stating that “Judea Declares War on Germany“. Meaning the “global Jewry”, of course.

The Nazis ultimately sincerely (and erroneously) believed that to win this existential war (that with their boycott the Jews declared on them – not the other way around) they had to kill all Jews – men, women, children and the elderly. Which created the firm ideological foundation for the Holocaust.

The Jews declared war on Germany (not the other way around) because their boycott began in March of 1933 – a month prior to the first anti-Jewish law was enacted in (now National-Socialist) Germany: Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service which made Jews “undesirable civil servants” and provided for their dismissal from government service.

True, there was some harassment of Jews by Judeophobic activists (placing and throwing stink bombs, picketing, shopper intimidation, humiliation and assaults on the Jews) almost from the very first days after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor – but these were not instigated by either NSDAP, SA, SS or National-Socialist government. It was pure rage of “ordinary Germans” – plain and simple.

Actually, these actions were frowned upon by none other than Adolf Hitler himself who 14 years prior, in his (in)famous Gemlich letter stated his firm opposition to pogroms or any other anti-Jewish actions by general public.

Head of Prussian police Hermann G;ring did state that “I shall employ the police, and without mercy, wherever German people are hurt, but I refuse to turn the police into a guard for Jewish stores” – but only because he and other top Nazis (for obvious reasons) did not want to be perceived as Jews-friendly.

In his opinion (not humble at all) these actions must be left to the government and should proceed in an orderly, well-planned manner. Which led to the “final solution of Jewish question” by means of “Holocaust by Bullets”, “Holocaust by Gas” and “extermination through labor”.

Thus, global Jewish anti-Nazi boycott was essentially a pre-emptive strike by Jewish (and other anti-Nazi) activists aimed at preventing National-Socialist government in Germany from enacting anti-Jewish legislation (ideally, it should have forced the Nazis out of power in Germany).

It failed on both counts – and only became a major step on the Road to Holocaust and a heavy slab in the “stack of slabs” that in summer of 1941 triggered the “Holocaust Avalanche” that killed four million Jews.

It is very important that, although the boycott was (predictably) spearheaded by some Jewish organizations but opposed by others. Namely by those who were smart and knowledgeable enough to understand that (1) the boycott will NOT achieve any of its objectives; and (2) it will hurt precisely those that it was supposed to help. They could not have even imagined how much it would hurt them…

Not surprisingly, the boycott was fervently opposed by the ones the most knowledgeable of the reality of the situation: the Jews of Germany (it appears that fanatical boycotters did not bother to take their opinion into account at all).

The Central Jewish Association of Germany issued a statement of support for the regime (which made no difference at all) and stated that “the responsible government authorities are unaware of the threatening situation“.

It was not true; while the Nazi government did not support spontaneous anti-Jewish violence by ordinary Germans (because of Hitler’s position of the matter), it did not see it as a serious issue – and thus did not interfere (remaining neutral).

The statement further stated that: “we do not believe our German fellow citizens will let themselves be carried away into committing excesses against the Jews.” In that, they were mostly correct – the overwhelming bulk of anti-Jewish actions were committed by German government – not by ordinary folks.

Prominent Jewish business leaders wrote letters in support of the Nazi regime calling on officials in the Jewish community in Palestine, as well as Jewish organizations abroad, to drop their efforts in organizing an economic boycott. Neither helped much. The Association of German National Jews, a marginal group that had supported Hitler in his early years, also argued against the Jewish boycott of German goods.

Actually, the Zionists mostly supported Hitler and Nazi persecution of Jews because they sincerely believed that it would force the Jews to emigrate to Palestine (which was the essence of Zionism) – and for the British to accept them. Ultimately, they were mostly right on both counts… at the cost of 4 million Jews.

In Britain the movement to boycott German goods was opposed by the conservative Board of Deputies of British Jews. In the United States a boycott committee was established by the American Jewish Congress (AJC), with B’nai B’rith and the American Jewish Committee abstaining.

At that point, they were in agreement that further public protests might harm the Jews of Germany – which was a correct assessment (again, they had no idea about the extent of that harm).

The boycott proper commenced in March 1933 (i.e., prior to the first anti-Jewish actions by the Nazi Government) in both Europe and the US and continued until the entry of the US into the war on December 7, 1941.

It caused a lot of harm to Germany – and no political harm to the Nazis. On the contrary – it increased the public support for Adolf Hitler and his regime (“finally, someone has the guts to stand up against those filthy Jews”).

German imports to the US were reduced by nearly a quarter compared with the prior year, and the impact was weighing heavily on the regime. Joseph Goebbels expressed that it was a cause for “much concern” at the first Nuremberg party rally that August.

German pharmaceutical companies were particularly hit hard when nearly two-thirds of the 652 practicing Jewish doctors in Mandatory Palestine stopped prescribing German medicines.

However, Zionists (strategic allies of the Nazis – politics makes strange bedfellows) pretty much spoiled everything. They brokered the now-famous Haavara Agreement with Germany to open trade in exchange for letting German Jews emigrate to Palestine.

When German emigrants arrived in Palestine, they would receive a portion of their capital in the form of goods and the rest in pounds sterling (obtained by the proceeds from their purchase of German goods and their subsequent sale in Palestine).

The benefits for both sides were numerous. First, the agreement would drastically increase German Jewish emigration, fulfilling a central plank of the Nazi Party platform. It would also further the goals of the Zionists, who could help populate Palestine with prosperous immigrants whose money could vastly improve the struggling economy.

Likewise, the capital purchases of German imports became a boon for the depression-ravaged German economy at a time when the Nazi regime had promised to return the Reich to economic prosperity.

In a propaganda response to global Jewish boycott of German goods, Hitler’s government organized a symbolic boycott of Jewish stores in Germany. Propaganda Minister Goebbels announced a one-day boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany of his own to take place on April 1, 1933, which would be lifted if anti-Nazi protests were suspended (they were not).

This was the German government’s first and only officially sanctioned anti-Jewish boycott. If the protests did not cease, Goebbels warned that “the boycott will be resumed… until German Jewry has been annihilated“. The protests did no cease – and the German Jewry was all but annihilated in the Holocaust.

The Jewish boycott of German goods was a dismal failure. It did not prevent Hitler from achieving any of its goals – and only increased the public support for Nazi regime (and for persecution of Jews). 

The Haavara Agreement, together with German rearmament and lessened dependence on trade with the West (Stalin’s USSR helped a lot), had by 1937 largely negated the effects of the Jewish boycott on Germany. The boycott was not successful in ending the harassment of Jews in Germany either, which instead continued to build towards the “final solution of the Jewish question”.