The Transfer Agreement (31 page)

The convoluted intrigue played Cohen and Arlosoroff against each other, depending upon the changing perception of which man could deliver the fastest results. But by mid-May, Landauer was losing his tenuous control over the situation. Because Landauer felt Sam Cohen's deal would turn German emigrants into modern-day indentured servants, he tried to manipulate Cohen out of the negotiations and bring Arlosoroff back in.
³⁸
However, without Cohen, Landauer was uncertain exactly how to reestablish communication with the Reich. One idea advanced to Arlosoroff suggested that he contact his old schoolmate Magda Friedlander, whose stepfather was Jewish. Magda and Arlosoroff had been friends during their youth. Magda could now be immensely valuable. She was after all the wife of Paul Joseph Goebbels. But Arlosoroff refused. He had heard that his onetime friend was now among the most rabid Nazi fraus in Germany. Once she had even thrown white mice from a balcony to disrupt a pacifist film.
³⁹

Landauer and Arlosoroff found themselves in a political doldrum. Unable even to approach the government, they confined their activities to studious deliberations on the fine points of any future plan. Would it conform to international law? Could other countries, even the League of Nations, guarantee or oversee the operation? These theoretical details were put into memos and discussed between them. But their ideas never reached the German government.
⁴⁰

Even as Landauer and Arlosoroff hypothesized, the boycott was undeniably reaching into Germany in ever more destructive ways. On May 12,
for
example, the prestigious Leipzig annual fur auction was held. Ninety percent of the world's fur industry was in Jewish hands, and French, Dutch, British, and American furriers boycotted the event totally. Reich sources admitted that the entire auction was a failure as $3 million worth of furs were withdrawn for lack of buyers.
⁴¹

A decision had to be made, and only Hitler could make it. An accommodation—a deal—with the Jews would be necessary. Their weapons of
economic retaliation and political agitation were devastating Germany.
If
those weapons could be neutralized long enough for Germany to recover economically, to rearm its military, then all glories would be within reach of the Aryan people.

A deal made perfect sense, for all the known reasons. Unemployment, foreign currency, raw materials, economic recovery, political rehabilitation, military rearmament. Those were the logical reasons. Yet Hitler had always defiantly resisted logical reasons, and he undoubtedly could have continued resisting them until the Reich broke apart. Adolf Hitler was not a servant of logic. He was, after all, the man who in
1945
fought until the last minute in his concrete cloister and even then chose to destroy his own life and scorch Germany with it rather than capitulate. So what then compelled der Führer to acquiesce to the logical dictates of the crisis? It could well have been his own madness.

In his conversation on May
11
with Sir Horace Rumbold, the British had the outlandish nerve to lecture him, Adolf Hitler, on the correct treatment of the Jews—even though, in Hitler's mind, the British themselves, like the rest of the world, indeed recognized the Jews were parasites. Had the British not erected financial barriers to keep the foul, impoverished Eastern Jews out of Palestine? On May
11
,
Hitler pointed out to Ambassador Rumbold that had Germany erected such financial barriers, the Eastern Jews would never have migrated into the Reich. But Rumbold did not see the validity of Hitler's claim. In Hitler's mind, they were all hypocrites.
⁴²
Very well, he would see how well England liked the very Jews they were pretending to be concerned about.

Adolf Hitler
would arrange for those very "disease-carrying" and "demoralizing" Eastern Jews to flow out of Germany and into British Palestine. He would give them the financial wherewithal to overcome British financial barriers, or for that matter the financial barriers of the United States or any other country. Der Fuhrer revealed this attitude just a few days later to Bernard Ridder, publisher of a New York-based German-American newspaper,
Staats-Zeitung.
In the interview, Hitler confessed he would "gladly pay their [the Jews'] freight to the U.S. and make them a present of a bank account in addition if America would only harbor them."
⁴³
For years, Hitler would continue to harp on this theme: The British didn't want the Jews, otherwise why would they establish a
£1,000
Palestinian entry requirement that Jews obviously could not meet? And yet Britain and the other nations maintaining financial requisites for immigrants were constantly assailing him. They could conveniently do so behind their
£1,000
protective shields.
⁴⁴

Hitler would play a racial trick on the British. He would give them the Jews they sought so self-righteously to protect.

And so, as compelling as the logic, was the madness. Quite probably it was that very fleeting moment of madness that made it easier for Hitler to do the logical thing for the illogical reason.

On
May
13, 1933,
the German Zionists were still perfecting theories, still wondering how to approach the government. Arlosoroff was studying a short, six-point memorandum from Landauer, suggesting the Zionists "offer the German government a large influx of foreign currency to create a basis for negotiations about assisting in emigration." The emigration would be linked to massive land acquisition based on transferred German Jewish assets. But suddenly Siegfried Moses, ZVfD president, still listed as Sam Cohen's solicitor, was contacted by the Foreign Currency Control office. The message was brief: Sam Cohen's deal is accepted.
⁴⁵

What Sam Cohen deal? Dissatisfied with his cashless version of transfer, Landauer had cut Cohen out of the negotiations. How was it that the Economics Ministry was now signaling the acceptance of a deal with Sam Cohen?

Siegfried Moses, to avoid prejudicing whatever was happening, simply telegraphed the information to Cohen in Poland, in care of the firm Ben Mazur Brothers,
46
Poludniowa Street in Lodz:
"MINISTRY INFORMED TODAY BASIC CONSENT REACHED."
⁴⁶

On May
19,
the Reich economics minister directed a formal declaration to Sam Cohen of Hanotaiah Ltd., outlining the deal. Jewish emigrants would contact Hanotaiah and purchase real estate and agricultural equipment as Hanotaiah saw fit. Bearing the sales contract, the emigrant would then contact both the Emigrant Advisory Office and the Foreign Currency Control Office. The emigrant would then be allowed to exchange his blocked marks for Hanotaiah's land and equipment. No cash was involved unless the Emigrant Advisory Office specifically recommended it, and even then only "the absolute minimum necessary to establish a new existence" in Palestine. A case-by-case review would ensure the least possible release of foreign currency. In return, Hanotaiah would use the emigrant's sperrmarks for the "purchase of all kinds of [German] raw materials, pipes, iron constructions, agricultural machines, fertilizers, pumps, fertilizing machines, and chemicals." For the time being, up to 1
million reichmarks of purchases would be allowed. The Economics Ministry declaration cited "the previously held negotiations between Mr. Cohen and Ministry assistants" and Cohen's assurance "that the same goods until now were bought in Czechoslovakia, and now, because of the [new] regulation improving the position of the German Palestine emigrant, they are to be purchased in Germany."
⁴⁷

The German Zionists had constructed a maze of political intrigues. They had shifted their loyalties from Arlosoroffto Cohen to Arlosoroff. Unaware of the intrigues, Arlosoroff persisted in formulating a visionary
fait accompli.
But Cohen hadn't gone away. He had continued his ruse, negotiating on behalf of the Zionist movement—even though he represented nothing more than an orchard company.

Meanwhile, the German government felt certain it had triggered the breakup of the boycott because the Zionist movement would now be in the German export business. German Jewish wealth and emigrants would be transferred in a flow wholly dependent upon the purchase of German merchandise and commodities. The Jews of the world would now have to choose between fighting Hitler and building Palestine, preserving the old or securing the new.

Sam Cohen's deal was, in fact, only the preliminary agreement. When discovered by the international Zionist hierarchy, it would be considered inadequate, delivering too little money and too narrow a variety of merchandise to Jewish Palestine.
If
the Jewish State was to be built, it needed more than Hanotaiah's transactions, more than the sale of a few dunams of orchards.
It
needed the building blocks of a new society—everything from taxis to bridges. And it needed more than the mere transferred value of a million reichmarks; it needed a sizable portion—in cash—of the billions that constituted German Jewish wealth. The result of a broadened transfer would be more than the expansion of Hanotaiah's few settlements, it would be the expansion of
all
settlements, and the towns and villages, into an economically, geographically, and politically cohesive state—Israel. A massive, historically irreversible agreement was sought-a final solution to the persecution of Jews.

The plan was not a rescue or a relief project.
If
it was, the Zionists would have labored for an agreement for Jews fleeing Germany without regard to
where
they sought refuge. Instead, Jews would be allowed to bring assets out of Germany to rebuild their lives, but only if they liquidated their European existence and rebuilt those lives in Palestine.

The correct word, then, for Mr. Sam Cohen's deal, and the arrangements to follow, was not
rescue.
It was not
relief.
It
was in fact
transfer
—the
point between the philosophical spheres where Zionist and Nazi circles touched.

E
VEN
BEFORE
Sam Cohen's deal was verbally accepted by the Reich Economics Ministry on May
13, 1933,
it became impossible to confine knowledge of the secret negotiations to a select few. German Zionist circles in Germany and Jerusalem were aware of developments, as were key Zionist leaders in London, including Weizmann, Rutenberg, and Professor Brodetsky. And in late April, the Jewish Agency Executive Committee finally learned of the project. Who knew how much, and at what point during the first hush-hush weeks of negotiations, created a chaotic scenario.

For instance, Sam Cohen was still in Poland when Siegfried Moses received word on May
13
of the Reich Economics Ministry's acceptance.
¹
So the German Zionists were unaware of the height or breadth of the deal, although they probably suspected
it
might include Hanotaiah.

After Sam Cohen first secured the currency exemption in late March
1933,
he quickly convinced the Reich to link an emigrant's currency grant to the purchase or attempt to purchase orchard acreage from Hanotaiah. Cohen did this without the ZVfD's permission.
²
The Emigrant Advisory Office had agreed to the linkage because they were guarding against citizens removing currency from Germany for merely a temporary stay abroad. A good-faith attempt to purchase acreage from Hanotaiah was a reasonable indicator of an emigrant's sincere intent to relocate permanently.
³

Reich recognition made Hanotaiah the "preferred" Palestine land broker and transfer authority for German Jews. But Hanotaiah was unacceptable to the ZVfD because its transaction terms left little choice of relocation or cash for German Jews. ZVfD director Georg Landauer was originally able to thwart the Reich's Hanotaiah requirement by encouraging individual emigrants to protest the condition or substitute another Palestinian land broker in place of Hanotaiah. Landauer had thought this effectively cut Hanotaiah out.
⁴

But Landauer soon learned that Hanotaiah was back in the arrangement. Cohen briefed Landauer on the new arrangement sometime between May
14
and May 17. From Cohen's description, Landauer suspected that Hanotaiah was no longer just the "preferred" land broker but the chartered company entrusted with the future of German Jewish emigrants. Cohen was bluntly told his monopoly was out of the question. He tried to reassure the German Zionists that Hanotaiah actually held no monopoly, but the ZVfD leadership was not convinced. They insisted Cohen issue a formal disavowal of any monopoly to the Reich. Cohen answered that he had already made that point perfectly clear during negotiations.
⁵

The Economics Ministry's official May
19
confirmation of Sam Cohen's deal was delivered to Siegfried Moses, who was still listed as Cohen's solicitor. Landauer studied the document but found no indication of a Hanotaiah monopoly. He concluded that Cohen's deal was in fact a limited arrangement between the German government and a private Palestinian company that would not obstruct the official Zionist bodies from negotiating the larger transfer Arlosoroff was still formulating.
⁶