SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

194 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
As early as 28 August 1933, the Reich ministry of economics concluded
an agreement with the Jewish agency for Palestine which was to
constitute the basis for the emigration of some 52,000 German Jews to
Palestine over subsequent decade. 558 In a note of 19 March 1938, the
ministry rescinded the agreement on the grounds that Germany was not
interested in the emigration of rich Jews taking along their capital, but
rather “in a mass emigration of Jews.” 559
The Nuremberg Laws of 15 September 1935 would reaffirm in a
legislative manner articles 4 and 5 of the Party’s program as elaborated
in Munich on 24 February 1920. The aim of the law regarding Reich citizenship
and of that concerning Germanic blood and honor was to separate
and isolate the alien Jewish body from the German host with a
view towards its pending expulsion. Gerald Reitlinger comments: “The
Jews were meant to leave the Reich for good.” 560
At the end of 1936, a “Jewish section” was set up within the Sicherheitsdienst
(Security Service), the main objective of which, according to
Léon Poliakov, was “the examination of all problems in the preparatory
stages of a mass emigration of Jews.” 561
A Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung (central office for Jewish
emigration) was established in Vienna on 26 August 1938 and was entrusted
to Adolf Eichmann by Reinhardt Heydrich, the head of the Security
Police.
A few days after the so-called “Night of broken glass,” on 12 November
1938, Hermann Göring called a council of ministers to discuss
the difficult situation which had arisen. Heydrich stated that the exclusion
of Jews from German economic life had “not really resolved” the
basic problem, i.e. the removal of the Jews from Germany. Thanks to
the Vienna “Judenauswanderungszentrale” (Center for Jewish Emigration),
at least 50,000 Jews had already left Austria, whereas, over the
same period, only 19,000 emigrated from the Altreich (Germany in the
borders of late 1937). He therefore proposed to set up an emigration office
in the Reich proper modeled on Vienna and to embark on a vast
migration policy, to be carried out over the next eight to ten years.
Finance minister Johann L. Graf Schwerin von Krosigk seconded Hey-
558 R. Vogel, Ein Stempel hat gefehlt. Dokumente zur Emigration deutscher Juden, Droemer
Knaur, Munich/Zürich 1977, p. 46 and 107-109.
559 NG-1889.
560 G. Reitlinger, The Final Solution. The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939-
1945, Vallentine, Mitchell & Co., London 1953, p. 8.
561 L. Poliakov, op. cit. (note 97), p. 16.