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

diplomatic harmony between the two nations, repayment of German reparations and war
debts, expansion of commerce and disarmament issues. 103
FDR advised William E. Dodd, former professor of history at the University of
Chicago and the newly appointed American Ambassador to Berlin (who was sympathetic
to the plight of Jews in Germany), that the United States could only act in the interests of
American citizens in the Reich by attempting to “moderate the general persecution by
unofficial and personal influence…” 104 Presidential advisor, Colonel Ed House,
expressed to the new Ambassador words of sympathy and warning. The United States
should try to “ameliorate Jewish sufferings [which were] clearly wrong and terrible.”
However, the Jews should not be allowed to once again “dominate the economic and
intellectual life in Berlin…” 105 Dodd did, however, attempt to restrain German anti-
Jewish policies by warning Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath that Germany
would suffer from international economic boycotts and negative public opinion “so long
as eminent leaders like Hitler and Goebbels announce from platforms in Nuremberg ‘that
all Jews must be wiped off the earth.’” 106 Dodd expressed similar sentiments to Hitler
who claimed that fifty nine percent of the “officials of [Soviet] Russia were Jews,
responsible for the collapse of Czarist Russia, and who posed a threat to the survival of
103 Assistant Secretary of State Wilbur Carr memo May 31, 1933 of Department conference discussing
American strategic interests. Wilbur J. Carr Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Box 10. Ibid.,
80.
104 William E. Dodd, Jr. and Martha Dodd, eds., Dodd’s Diary (NY: Harcourt, Brace and Company,
1941), June 16, 1933, 5.
105 Charles Callan Tansill, Back Door to War (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1952) , 49 cited in John Weitz,
Hitler’s Banker: Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht (NY: Little, Brown and Company, 1997), 233.
106 Dodd, Dodd’s Diary, September 14, 1933, 37.
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