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Nazi Expulsion Policy: Berthold Storfer and the Immigration n
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ccrn. In May 1940, the Italians instructed their consuls in Germany to cease
issuing visas, and thus closed the only alternative route for this plan. Mueller,
head of the Gestapo and of the Jewish Emigration Office, sent a sharply
worded note to the consular section of the Italian embassy in Berlin.
Mueller's attitude toward "the Reich's Jews" differed sharply from the
one the regime had adopted toward Jews in countries occupied or annexed
by Germany, and even toward Jews in German-allied states. Germany refused
to allow foreign Jews transit through its territory. In the eyes of Nazis dealing
with Jewish immigration, each "foreign" Jew traveling through the Reich was
virtually depriving a German Jew of his chance for emigration. 14 Mossad
agents attempted to organize emigration from Poland through German territory,
but their efforts were blocked on these grounds. 15
As late as the summer of 1940, there was still talk of large-scale plans for
the emigration of Jews from Germany. Such plans were most likely limited
to the idea for a Jewish reservation on Madagascar. 16 For a certain period
this idea seemed viable, since French colonial control of the island had passed
to Germany. There is some indication that emigration to Palestine was still
an option being discussed. During June and July of 1940, the German general
staff was still contemplating an invasion of England, and with its anticipated
conquest would come control over the Middle East and the British colonies.
It is possible that such a consideration lay behind a meeting held by
Eichmann with Lischka and representatives of the Reichsvereinigung on 3
July 1940. Jewish communal representatives from Austria and Prague were
present at the meeting and were ordered to present within twenty-four hours
a draft plan for the mass removal of all Jews from the Reich. 17 Eichmann
stressed that what was envisioned was total emigration.
After Eichmann left the meeting, the Jews argued with Lisehka, saying
that no such plan could be formulated in one day. Lischka informed them
that it would be sufficient to produce a very general plan that could later be
elaborated. The Jewish representatives replied that such a plan could be
applied only to Palestine. Within the Jewish community, illegal immigration
continued to be discussed even after the departure of the three ships organized
by Storfer in late summer 1940. In a meeting of 17 October 1940, the Reichsvereinigung
tabled a proposal to acquire ships for illegal aliyah.
The change in German attitude to Jewish emigration came in early
1941. At that time, during the invasion and war on the Soviet Union (the
Barbarossa Campaign), the decision was made to exterminate the Jews of
Europe, ending any hope that German Jews might reach Palestine as illegal
immigrants.
Berthold Storfer and Emigration
from the Reich in 1940
Nazi efforts to implement a policy of expulsion after the start of the war
centered on Berthold Storfer, an Austrian Jew widely involved in the business
affairs of his country. Storfer, while working beneath the Zentralstelle in