Haavara Agreement
Encyclopedia
The Haavara Agreement was signed on 25 August 1933 after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany (die Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland), the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the orders of the Jewish Agency, an official executive agency in then Palestine) and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

. The agreement was designed to help facilitate the emigration of German Jews to Palestine. While it helped Jews emigrate, it forced them to give up most of their possessions to Germany before departing. Those assets could later be obtained by transferring them to Palestine as German export goods.

Hanotea

Hanotea (Hebrew: הנוטע), a Zionist citrus planting company, applied in May 1933 for the ability to transfer capital from Germany to Palestine. Hanotea served to assist German Jews' immigration to Palestine as part of the Zionist movement. In a deal concocted with the German government, Hanotea would take money from the prospective immigrants, and then use this money to buy German goods. These goods, along with the immigrants, would then be shipped to Palestine. In Palestine, import merchants would then buy the goods from the immigrants, liquidating their investment. This arrangement appeared to be operating successfully, and so paved the way for the later Haavara Agreement. Connected to Hanotea was a Polish Zionist Jew, Sam Cohen. He represented Zionist interests in direct negotiation with the Nazis beginning in March 1933.

Haavara Agreement

The Haavara (Transfer) Agreement was agreed to by the German government in 1933 to allow the Zionist movement, in the form of the Haavara company to transfer property from Germany to Palestine, for the sole purpose of encouraging Jewish emigration from Germany. The Haavara company operated under a similar plan as the earlier Hanotea company. The Haavara Company required immigrants to pay at least 1000 pounds sterling into the banking company. This money would then be used to buy German exports for import to Palestine.

The Haavara Agreement was thought among certain circles to be a possible way to rid the country of its supposed "Jewish problem." The head of the Middle Eastern division of the foreign ministry, Werner Otto von Hentig
Werner Otto von Hentig
Werner Otto von Hentig was a German diplomat from Berlin. He was the elder brother of criminal psychologist Hans von Hentig and the father of Hartmut von Hentig....

, supported the policy of concentrating Jews in Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish state. Von Hentig believed that if the Jewish population was concentrated in a single foreign entity, then foreign diplomatic policy and containment of the Jews would become easier. Hitler's support of the Haavara Agreement varied throughout the thirties. Initially, Hitler criticized the agreement, but shortly reversed his opinion, and continued to support it, in the face of opposition, through 1939.

After the invasion of Poland and the onset of World War II in 1939, the practical continuation of the Haavara agreement became impossible. In 1940, representatives of the underground Zionist group Lehi
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...

 met with von Hentig to propose direct military cooperation with the Nazis for the continuation of the transfer of European Jews to Palestine. This proposal, however, did not produce results.

See also

  • Évian Conference
    Evian Conference
    The Évian Conference was convened at the initiative of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1938 to discuss the issue of increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. For eight days, from July 6 to July 13, representatives from 31 countries met at Évian-les-Bains, France...

  • Holocaust
  • Lehi (group)
    Lehi (group)
    Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...

  • Fifth Aliyah
    Fifth Aliyah
    The Fifth Aliyah refers to the fifth wave of the Jewish immigration to Israel from Europe and Asia between the years 1929 and 1939. The Fifth immigration wave began after the 1929 Palestine riots, and after the comeback from the economic crisis in Israel in 1927, during the period of the Fourth...

  • Aliyah Bet

External links


Further reading

  • Avraham Barkai
    Avraham Barkai
    Avraham Barkai is a German-born Israeli historian and researcher of anti-Semitism.-Publications:*Barkai, Avraham. From Boycott to Annihilation: The Economic Struggle of German Jews, 1933-1943. The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry series, 11. Hanover NH: Published for Brandeis...

    : German Interests in the Haavara-Transfer Agreement 1933–1939, Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute 35; 1990, S. 245–266
  • Edwin Black
    Edwin Black
    Edwin Black is an American Jewish syndicated columnist, and journalist specializing in the historical interplay between economics and politics in the Middle East, petroleum policy, the abuses practiced by corporations, and the financial underpinnings of Nazi Germany, among other topics...

    : "The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine", Brookline Books, 1999.
  • Werner Feilchenfeld, Dolf Michaelis, Ludwig Pinner: Haavara-Transfer nach Palästina und Einwanderung deutscher Juden 1933–1939, Tübingen, 1972
  • Tom Segev
    Tom Segev
    Tom Segev is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's so-called New Historians, a group challenging many of the country's traditional narratives.-Early life:Segev was born in Jerusalem in 1945...

    : The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust (2000, ISBN 0-8050-6660-8), especially p. 31ff
  • David Yisraeli: The Third Reich and the Transfer Agreement, in: Journal of Contemporary History 6 (1972), S. 129–148
  • R. Melka: Nazi Germany and the Palestine Question, Middle Eastern Studies. Vol. 5 No. 3 (Oct., 1969). pp 221–233.
  • Hava Eshkoli-Wagman: Yishuv Zionism: Its Attitude to Nazism and the Third Reich Reconsidered, Modern Judaism. Vol. 19 No. 1 (Feb., 1999). pp 21–40.
  • Klaus Poleken: The Secret Contacts: Zionism and Nazi Germany 1933–1941. Journal of Palestine Studies. Vol. 5 No. 3/4 (Spring–Summer 1976). pp 54–82.
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