Haavara Agreement Could Have Saved All German Jews

All Jews under German control before the outbreak of Second Great War, to be more precise: 522,000 German Jews, 200,000 Austrian Jews and 150,000 Jews of Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia.

All the British government had to do was (1) establish British protectorate in Palestine for the Jews – ten years later Jews got much more, their own state; and (2) allow Jewish immigration to Palestine restricted only by the terms of Haavara Agreement signed on August 25, 1933.

True, it would have been VERY different – but 340,000 lives would have been saved. Unfortunately, just about no one in British government (and very few in general public) cared a rat’s ass – pardon my French – about the Jews. Consequently, 170,000 German Jews, 70,000 Austrian Jews and 100,000 Jews in Bohemia, Moravia and Sudetenland died in the Holocaust.

It is a well-known and a well-established fact that politics makes strange (sometimes very strange) bedfellows; however, the (unofficial) alliance between the Nazis and the Zionists was actually quite natural.

Natural because both had the same strategic objective: make Germany Judenrein. Total ethnic cleansing of Jews in Greater Germany (Germany, Austria and Sudetenland). Zionists wanted all these Jews to emigrate to Palestine – while the Nazis were consent to let them emigrate… anywhere.

Hence, it is no surprise at all that their (unofficial) cooperation resulted in a very creative arrangement: the Haavara (Transfer) Agreement. This agreement was signed on August 25, 1933 after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the directive of the Jewish Agency) and the Reich Economics Ministry of Germany.

It was a major factor in making possible the migration of approximately 60,000 German Jews to Palestine between 1933 and 1939 (in other words, in saving 60,000 Jewish lives).

It was, indeed, a transfer of assets owned by Jews in Germany to British Mandatory Palestine… together with the Jews themselves. Under this agreement, blocked German bank accounts of prospective Jewish immigrants would be unblocked and funds from them used to buy German goods; these goods, along with the immigrants, would then go to Palestine.

Goods will be sold – and about 42% of proceeds would go directly to immigrants upon their arrival in the Holy Land. 39% will be invested in Jewish development projects in Palestine and 19% will constitute a commission paid to intermediaries.

Emigrants with capital of ;1,000 could move to Palestine outside of severe British restrictions on Jewish immigration under an immigrant investor program similar to the modern United States EB-5 visa.

The agreement provided a substantial export market for German factories to British-ruled Palestine. Between November 1933, and 31 December 1937, 77,800,000 Reichsmarks worth of goods were exported to Jewish businesses in Palestine under the program.  By the time the program ended with the start of World War II, the total had risen to 105,000,000 marks.

The Haavara Agreement was thought by many in Nazi Germany as a fast, easy, economically beneficial (for Germany) and humane method of “final solution to the Jewish question”.

Hitler supported the agreement (otherwise it would not have been signed) … however, he was far more interested in using it to make Germany Judenrein than in economic aspects of the plan.

So, the only obstacle to using it to save all Jews in all German-controlled territories prior to the outbreak of World War II was the position of British “democratic” government – not the Nazi government of Germany.

The Haavara Agreement also proves beyond the reasonable doubt that prior to September of 1939, the only method of “final solution to the Jewish question” seriously considered by the Nazis was involuntary emigration… to anywhere. Extermination of Jews was not even mentioned… ever.