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

The IGCR accepted the Schacht plan on December 28, 1938 as a starting point
for further negotiations by Rublee in Berlin. The Committee announced on February 14
that an agreement had been reached based on Schacht’s scheme but it eliminated the
conflation of a Jewish loan and increased German export trade. Instead, twenty five
percent of Jewish wealth within Germany would be utilized to create a trust to fund
transportation and the purchase of necessary supplies and equipment from Germany. The
expense of ultimate resettlement would be provided by a private foundation as envisioned
by Welles. The German Government agreed to establish training centers for the first
wave of emigrants and to grant the right to work to those remaining behind. The
implementation of this plan was, from the Reich’s view, contingent on the agreement of
other nations to provide havens of resettlement. The IGCR officially signed off on
Germany’s demands on March 1, 1939. 21
In the end, resistance of the harder line Nazis and the reluctance of the
democratic nations to open their borders to involuntary refugees prevented
implementation of such a project and helped to set the stage for the November 1938
pogrom, Kristallnacht. The advent of war effectively ended any chance of large-scale
migration. Schacht did claim during the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg
that if his plan had been adopted by December 1938 (while it had Hitler’s support) then
“not a single German Jew would have lost his life.” 22
21 Spear, “The U.S. and the Persecution of German Jews,” 234-235; Ferdinand Kuhn, “Orderly
Migration of Germany’s Jews Envisaged in Plan,” New York Times, February 14, 1939, 1, 12.
22 International Military Tribunal, XXII, 395 (Final Speech, Schacht) cited in Reitlinger, The Final
Solution, 20.
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