Page 192 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The American Diplomats 179

learned that in 1934 local National socialist newspapers in several towns
in Franconia and Hessen had stationed photographers in front of Jewish
stores to take pictures of people entering to make purchases. in towns in
other parts of the country, the local press published lists of Jewish stores
with calls to aryans not to patronize them. in still other towns, officials
displayed pillories on which the names of aryans who had made purchases
in Jewish stores or had visited Jewish doctors were inscribed. interestingly,
ordinary Catholics often ignored the Nazis and defiantly made “purchases
from Jewish stores in a veritable spirit of bravado.” But in numerous rural
regions, the impact of the anti-semitic campaign was so effective that com-
munal leaders urged Jews to move to larger cities or at least to acquire cars
or trucks so that they would be able to leave quickly in the event of physical
attacks on them. some local newspapers warned Jews that pogroms were
likely. 89
ambassador dodd became fully aware of the depth and irrationality of
Hitler’s loathing of the Jews during a “personal and confidential” meet-
ing with the Führer on March 7, 1934. Prior to the meeting, two “very
prominent people” in the German government had urged the ambassador
to speak freely on such issues as “propaganda and also the necessity of bet-
ter international relations.” dodd therefore decided to ask Hitler about a
recently published brochure that had called on Germans in foreign coun-
tries “to think of themselves always as Germans and owing moral, if not
political, allegiance to the fatherland.” Hitler immediately shot back that
Jews “almost certainly” had disseminated such untrue charges. then he
continued to talk with “great emotion about the Jews, claiming that they
were responsible for substantially all of the ill feeling in the United states
toward Germany.”
still under the illusion that he could influence Hitler to adopt a more
moderate political stance, dodd suggested to the Führer that there were
two “procedure[s]” for dealing with the Jewish issue, both of which avoided
the extreme measures taken by the Nazis. He made the suggestion, dodd
stressed, without “ever giving pointed advice.” dodd also told Hitler that
James Mcdonald, an american diplomat and the league of Nations high
commissioner for refugees, was forming an organization in lausanne with
the “assistance” of the United states senate to help Jews emigrate from
countries where they were unwelcome. Mcdonald had “at his command
some millions of dollars” and intended to support the departure of Jews
“without too much suffering.” He hoped that in “eight or ten years” the
Jewish “problem” might thus “be solved in a humane way.”