Foreign Office Position on Negotiations with Intergovernmental Committee
Note of Weizsaecker to Ribbentrop and Woerman, 18 October 1938
Source : Yad Vashem Archive N11/882/E. Berlin, 18 October 1938
The British Ambassador today presented to me the enclosed memorandum dealing with the International Relief Committee for the Emigration of Refugees from Germany. The memorandum suggests - as was already done some two months ago ΓÇô that the director of the Committee who resides in London, the American citizen RUBLEE and his assistant Mr. PELL should come to Berlin to enter into a discussion with the German authorities as to the best way of shipping Jews out of Germany. I explained to the Ambassador ΓÇô as once before in the summer ΓÇô that in my personal opinion Mr. Rublee's journey to Germany is of no use. It was by no means clear which countries were prepared to accept German Jews. So far the Committee had proven to be sterile. Now it had the intention, in order to prove its worth, to enter into discussions with the German government. It would then be established in Germany that we ΓÇô for obvious reasons ΓÇô were not willing to provide Jews with foreign currency, and thus the ultimate object would be reached, namely to prove that it was again the German obstinacy which was responsible for the misery of the Jews. Simply for the sake of making Germany the scapegoat. I was not able to recommend Mr. Rublee's journey to be approved. After further statements by the Ambassador I said that I was prepared to submit the memorandum to the competent offices, but without guarantee of a positive answer. Following the Englishman the American Ambassador appeared submitting the same case. Compare the latter's enclosed memorandum of today. Wilson put the contents of his memorandum in a more general frame. He mentioned again that he was going to depart for the United States in the second half of November ΓÇô as notified already ΓÇô and that prior to that he wished to speak to the Reich Minister. His urgent desire to bring about better relations between Germany and America, in addition to the question of the Austrian debts and other things, including also the Jewish problem, which nolens volens constitutes an important factor in German-American relations. He said that as it is well-known, America had provided an annual quota of 27,000 for emigration of Jews and was prepared to receive Jews accordingly. It was hoped in Washington that one should arrive at a regular procedure in the shipping of Jews from Germany. This was in the interest of public opinion of both America and Germany. He, Wilson, had no detailed plan for this procedure, nor had Mr. Rublee. However, a rejection on our part would be regrettable, just as much as a settlement of the question would be favourable to German-American relations. I explained to the American Ambassador, perhaps in a somewhat less harsh matter than to Neville Henderson (the British), what would be the obstacles to a productive negotiation between Mr. Rublee and the German authorities. At the same time I promised to Wilson as well to pass his memorandum to the competent agencies.
