If the Polish Foreign Minister at the very start of the new year had, as he said, been plunged into a pessimistic mood by Hitler’s demands, his spirits sank much lower with the coming of spring. Though in his anniversary speech to the Reichstag on January 30, 1939, Hitler spoke in warm terms of “the friendship between Germany and Poland” and declared that it was “one of the reassuring factors in the political life in Europe,” Ribbentrop had talked with more frankness when he paid a state visit to Warsaw four days before. He again raised with Beck the question of Hitler’s demands concerning Danzig and communications through the Corridor, insisting that they were “extremely moderate.” But neither on these questions nor on his insistence that Poland join the Anti-Comintern Pact against the Soviet Union did the German Foreign Minister get a satisfactory answer. Colonel Beck was becoming wary of his friends. As a matter of fact, he was beginning to squirm. On February 26, the German ambassador in Warsaw informed Berlin that Beck had taken the initiative in getting himself invited to visit London at the end of March and that he might go on to Paris afterward. Though it was late in the day, Poland, as Moltke put it in his dispatch, “desires to get in touch with the Western democracies . . . [for] fear that a conflict might arise with Germany over Danzig.” With Beck too, as with so many others who had tried to appease the ravenous appetite of Adolf Hitler, the scales were falling from the eyes.
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pp. 459-460
I appreciate the work you put into making these threads. I don’t often comment, but read nearly every one. Very interesting.
Thanks!
Great thread. It is also the 16th anniversary of the first World Trade Center attack. Quite a date it is.
Reading about some of the taxes and levies imposed on Jews is kind of scary. It's clear that the German government, Hitler, was using them to punish them financially so he could redistribute their wealth to those whom he considered superior. Kind of sounds familiar doesn't it?
Actually, Jews leaving the Third Reich was in hindsight a very good idea.
thanks man. absolutely amazing thread and something i look forward to eagerly every day it comes out.
contnue to be amazed at how little people know about history
Muslims want to make the Middle East judenrein today.
A still earlier order provided that each emigrating Jew must pay a special graduated levy of from one-half to 10 per cent upont the gross value of his possessions into a special fund for taking care of old Jews who are to remain in Germany.
The special levy is in addition to the regular taxes, the 20 per cent punitive find because of the death of Herr vom Rath, the federal 25 per cent flight tax, and a penalty equal to the value of all new goods taken out of the country by an emigrant.
I wonder if the current administration has requested a translation of these laws so they can implement them in the US against anyone who leaves like the Johnson administration did for the 1968 gun control law.
Any historian ever compile information on these ~250M Jews? Anyone know of a book that would explore these individuals? I ask this in all due respect.