The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

struggle to save “human souls” as a fight between good and evil in which “no quarter”
could be offered. A “cancerous infection of the Jewish plague” maintained a “dangerous
hold” upon the life and survival of modern day Germany. 99 The Consul-General in
Hamburg believed that the new Reich would have a “salutary effect” on the “Communist
plague” (with Marxism and Communism often linked to a Jewish worldwide conspiracy)
that threatened international capitalism. 100
The State Department had recognized since 1933 that Jews within Germany were
living under a perilous cloud. Berlin Consul General George Messersmith advised the
President, via Under-Secretary of State William Phillips, that the official sanctions and
actions taken against the Jewish population were “being carried out daily in a more
implacable and a more effective manner.” 101 A confidential German Ministry of the
Interior memorandum dealing with the Jewish Question was sent from the U.S. Embassy
in Berlin to the Department of State. The document asserted that the problem of the
German Jews could only be resolved if they were “detach[ed] from the Reich; an action
that could only be accomplished through a “systematically attacked final solution…We
must build up the country without the Jews…” 102 The Roosevelt Administration at that
time was less focused upon compassionate concerns than upon maintenance of
99 Charles M. Hathaway, Jr. to Cordell Hull, May 13, 1933, Department of State 862.00/3013 quoted in
Shlomo Shafir, “American Diplomats in Berlin (1933-1939) and their Attitude to the Nazi Persecution of
the Jews,” Yad Vashem Studies 9 (1973): 75.
100 John E. Kehl to Hull, March 31, 1933, Department of State 862.4016/634. Ibid. 75.
101 Messersmith to Phillips, September 29, 1933, Department of State 862.4016/1280 Ibid., 76-77.
102 Messersmith to Hull, September 21, 1933, Department of State 862.00/3097, 5. Ibid., 77.
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