The Ruling Elite

by Deanna Spingola

  Edwin Black said, “With the ability to be heard, the Jews of America, especially in New York, could mobilize economic and political pressure against Germany that would make war against the Jews a campaign of national suicide.”412 Court historians would have us believe that Hitler immediately began oppressing Germany’s Jews, eventually relegating them to numerous camps to exterminate them all. Individuals or groups may have demonstrated anti-Jewish attitudes and even engaged in periodic violence, just as people had done throughout history in other countries, frequently against indigent or alien minority groups.

  The American media began falsifying the news from Germany as soon as Hitler took office. Rabbi Wise admitted that the American Jewish Congress (AJC) started the boycott-Germany movement because of “cable reports” from Germany that “a nationwide pogrom” of Jews was being “planned.”413 Wise said that the reported pogrom “did not come off,” but the boycott did.414, 415 A few influential Jews living in America and Britain claimed that Germany was instigating violence against the Jewish population despite the assurances of Germany’s Jewish Central Association that German citizens and the government had no intentions of harming the Jews. Zionist Jews living elsewhere decided to provoke the governments of the countries in which they lived to launch a war against Hitler and Germany.

  The anti-German media campaign erupted again in the United States in 1932 with a full-page ad in the New York Times, which read, “Let us boycott anti-Semitic Germany.” This was ineffective, so Henry Morgenthau initiated a New York-Moscow partnership with a resumption of American-Soviet relations, beginning with the visit of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, Maxim Litvinov (born Litvinov Finkelstein), a former Bolshevik revolutionary, to Washington. His arrival brought a succession of communist infiltrators into the State Department and the White House. Roosevelt sanctioned the installation of the powerful Soviet broadcasting station in the United States War Office.416

  By 1933, there were three Jewish factions in the United States, what some call the Big Three defense groups. One was the American Jewish Committee (AJCm), cofounded by Jacob H. Schiff, Cyrus Adler, and Louis Marshall on November 11, 1906, to prevent the violation of the civil and religious rights of Jews in any part of the world.417 Rabbi Wise, Felix Frankfurter, and Brandeis cofounded the American Jewish Congress (AJC) in 1918. B’nai B’rith, founded on October 13, 1843, accepted the hordes of poor European Jews as lodge members when they immigrated to America in the 1880s in order to “manage” them.418 The AJCm and B’nai B’rith typically worked behind the scenes, while the AJC, led by Wise from 1928 to 1949), was more vocal in making its demands known. On January 30, 1933, the three groups united against “the greatest single anti-Jewish threat ever posed.” Edwin Black claims that Hitler, through some “unofficial policy,” encouraged, in the “first days” after his appointment, violence and persecution against the Jews living in Germany.419

  During his first six months in power, Adolf Hitler briefly mentioned the Jews, but despite media propaganda, he certainly did not plan to exterminate them and was not out to conquer the world. However, David Wolffsohn, the second president of the WZO, in his closing remarks at the Eighth International Zionist Congress, pleaded for “greater unity among the Jews… eventually they must conquer the world.”420 FDR, envisioning world dominion, cabled Churchill, “You and I can rule the world!” In 1939, Churchill wrote to FDR, “Were I to become Prime Minister of Britain we could control the world.” On October 21, 1944, FDR said, “We must play a leading role in the community of Nations.”421

  Hitler’s immediate concerns were the economic issues facing his depression-devastated nation. He had written extensively about the Jews in Mein Kampf, which was justifiable given the inequitable Versailles Treaty. Now that he was Germany’s leader, he would have the power to carry out measures against them. His writings, not his actions, were the reason for the “holy war.”422 When international Jewry declared war on Germany, Jews in Germany publicly protested the fabricated stories of persecution. There were isolated anti-Jewish incidents, but in a population of seventy million people, there were bound to be negative feelings about the Jews, the communists, or other groups that the Germans distrusted. At no time did the government order or provoke persecution against the Jews. The Jews, many of whom considered Germany their homeland, opposed the foreign Jews and their “declaration of war.”423

  The Germans were focused on the recovery of their country after World War I and were not looking to start another war. On February 11, 1933, Treasury Secretary Morgenthau declared, “The US has entered the phase of a second war!” Meanwhile, numerous communist-run boycotts against German goods took place in the United States. These actions were obviously well coordinated. Whoever was running the warmongering program had extraordinary political power in addition to having media control in the Soviet Union, the United States, France, and England. Germans wanted only to be left alone and in peace.424

  On February 22, 1933, in anticipation of the March 5 elections in Germany, Alfred Cohen, the president of B’nai B’rith, convened a special meeting in New York with fifteen of the most prominent Jewish leaders, five from each of the three Jewish factions, to discuss Germany. The group hoped that Hitler would not win power and that the concepts he outlined in Mein Kampf would not come to fruition. The AJC advocated “public protests” in America and elsewhere to demonstrate to the German government that people were scrutinizing its every action, particularly in relation to the Jews. There had been numerous media reports of violence against the Jews in Germany.425

  On March 12, 1933, the AJC leadership met for three hours to consider a national program of protests, parades, and demonstrations culminating in a “giant anti-Nazi rally March 27, at Madison Square Garden.” The Jewish War Veterans (JWV) first initiated resistance to Germany, a country members fought in World War I.426 Interestingly, the Jews celebrated Sunday, March 12, 1933, as Purim, a Jewish holiday memorializing the vengeful activities recorded in the Old Testament in the book of Esther, which says that Jews slaughtered seventy-five thousand Persians.427 The veterans unanimously voted for a national boycott on March 18. Several regional and national Jewish organizations scheduled an emergency meeting for March 19.428

  Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum, an AJC vice president, issued a “warning to Germany,” which the major newspapers published. “Threatening a bitter boycott,” Tenenbaum said, “Germany is not a speck on Mars. It is a civilized country, located in the heart of Europe, relying on friendly cooperation and commercial intercourse with the nations of the world… (a) war against the Jews means boycott, ruin, disaster, the end of German resources, and the end of hope for the rehabilitation of Germany.” Despite the AJCm’s opposition to a boycott against Germany, the AJC moved forward with its protest. On March 13, the leaders of the AJCm, during a meeting of the Big Three, were surprised to learn of the AJC’s plans to go ahead with the protest. Brandeis, who endorsed eugenicist policies and the forced incarceration and sterilization of the “feebleminded,”429 was the best friend of Rabbi Wise. Brandeis supported the boycott and thought that Jewish leaders should bring FDR into the discussion about the “situation” of the Jews in Germany. Though Wise was a bit reticent about the protest, the newspapers had already announced it.430

  The AJCm delegates wired Alfred Cohen, the president of B’nai B’rith, in Cincinnati and alerted him to the fact that the AJC was going ahead with the boycott meeting. On March 15, Morris Waldman, the AJCm secretary, contacted William Cohen and told him that the AJCm and B’nai B’rith were cutting their ties with the AJC and with any anti-Nazi protest. The smaller Jewish organizations, more connected to the “Jewish masses” and dedicated to a protest, now had to consider how to proceed. The JWV held a meeting on the night of March 18 in New York. To end the stalemate, Benjamin Sperling persuaded the attendees to move forward with a “vigorous national boycott of all German goods, services, and shipping lines.”431


  On March 19, the AJC convened a planning meeting at the Hotel Astor in New York, attended by 1,500 representatives of Jewish organizations. However, only a thousand people were able to gain entrance to what turned out to be a four-hour meeting. Only two attendees opposed a boycott. Joseph Proskauer read a letter from Judge Irving Lehman that said, “I feel that the meeting may add to the terrible dangers of the Jews in Germany.” Proskauer added, “I implore you in the name of humanity don’t let anger pass a resolution which will kill Jews in Germany.” James N. Rosenberg reiterated Proskauer’s remarks. J. George Fredman, commander in chief of the JWV, advocated the boycott. Rabbi Wise, honorary president of the AJC, while praising Proskauer and Rosenberg, suggested that they revise the original resolution and that the AJC go ahead with the boycott.432

  At that same time in Poland, a country with 3.5 million “economically and politically cohesive” Jewish residents, Jews in Vilna were coordinating an anti-Nazi boycott against Germany.433 By 1923, Vilna’s population was 70 percent Jewish so they had a great deal of power.434 In Poland, Jews monopolized journalism, especially from 1921 to 1933. Jews represented “almost the entire German press.” Donald Day wrote, “The Jewish journalists representing the German press and those employed in the Jewish and Polish press in Poland did much to promote dissension and mistrust between Poland and Germany. They had no love for either Germany or Poland, and their chief aim was to promote the interests of the Jewish minority in both countries.”435 The press can influence governments to accommodate the international Jewish agenda. By the early 1900s, Jews referred to their “great power” of the press by which they could “secretly” control public opinion, which they claimed was “already entirely” in their hands “with few exceptions.”436

  Vilna Jews, with media control, attracted the support of non-Jews by incorporating the Polish Corridor issue. The Vilna Jews held an anti-Nazi boycott on March 20, 1933, implying that Hitler had indicated he might occupy the Corridor to gain access to Danzig, a move the Poles unequivocally rejected. There were widespread rumors of a “preemptive” military strike by Poland against Germany.437 Poland’s highly publicized boycott was among the strongest Jewish actions against Germany. Polish Jews conducted a massive media operation to alter public opinion and to offer assistance to German Jews who had sought refuge in Poland. By early April 1933, the German Zionist delegation in London abandoned the idea of participating in an anti-German boycott movement but decided to continue its Zionist activity in Germany.438

  This was not the first time that Poles had targeted Germans. In 1921, after a nationality referendum, the authorities expelled hundreds of thousands of Germans, prohibited the German language, imposed excessive taxes on Germans, and confiscated their civic buildings and newspaper offices. Attempting to inflict economic havoc, they organized a boycott of German businesses, banned cultural and occupational associations, revoked business licenses, dismissed German workers, withheld unemployment benefits, refused to appoint Germans to public-sector jobs, and denied apprenticeships to young Germans.439

  On March 20, 1933, at a meeting of the executive advisory committee of the JWV at the Hotel Knickerbocker, former Congressman William Cohen, a vice president of the AJC, endorsed a strict boycott of German goods. He said, “Any Jew buying one penny’s worth of merchandise made in Germany is a traitor to his people. I doubt that the American Government can officially take any notice of what the German Government is doing to its own citizens. Our only line of resistance is to touch the German pocketbooks.” He agreed with Rabbi Wise, who said, “We must make ourselves heard all over the world.”440

  On March 21, 1933, Wise, along with leading members of the AJC, went to Washington where they were unsuccessful in their attempts to see the president regarding their concerns since he was busy considering the nation’s economic woes. During this visit, Wise announced, “The time for caution and prudence is past. We must speak up like men. How can we ask our Christian friends to lift their voices in protest against the wrongs suffered by Jews if we keep silent?”441

  The New York Times of March 21, 1933, quoted Lion Feuchtwanger as saying that Hitler’s regime had killed a “vast number” of Jews.442 Adolph Ochs owned the Times. He was the son of Julius Ochs, who had emigrated from Fürth, Bavaria, Germany in 1848, along with thousands of other revolutionaries.443 Julius led a Masonic lodge prior to 1861.444 Officials forced Ochs’s mother, Bertha Levy, to leave Germany after her participation in the student revolution of 1848.445 Adolph married Effie Wise, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac Wise, who immigrated to America in 1846.446 Some claim that he restricted discussion of the Nazi persecution of the Jews in the letters to the editor section. After Hitler became chancellor, people challenged the newspaper’s silence on the serious situation of Germany’s Jews. Ochs refused to deal with the issue, saying that it would require the Times to give equal coverage to the other side.447

  The AJCm and the B’nai B’rith approached Secretary of State Cordell Hull on March 4, 1933. He then cabled George A. Gordon, the chargé d’affaires in Germany, as follows: “Public opinion in this country continues alarmed at the persistent press reports of mistreatment of Jews in Germany.” Hull asked Gordon if the US government could help in this situation and told Gordon about the mass meeting that the Jews had planned for March 27 in New York. He asked if Hitler could make public statements to improve the situation.448 Thus the alliance seeking to obstruct the boycott against Germany now included the US government in addition to B’nai B’rith, the AJCm, and the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Edwin Black suggests that the government was unconcerned.449

  Hull requested and received a report about the allegations of persecution of Jews in Germany from Gordon. Then Hull issued a statement on March 27, saying, “A reply has now been received indicating that whereas there was for a short time considerable physical mistreatment of Jews, this phase may be considered virtually terminated… Hitler in his capacity as the leader of the Nazi Party, issued an order calling upon his followers to maintain law and order, to avoid molesting foreigners, disrupting trade, and to avoid the crisis of possible embarrassing international incidents.” Samuel Untermeyer, Louis Marshall’s law partner and the president of the World Jewish Economic Federation, rejected all such reports, even those from Jewish organizations, and insisted that they were not authentic.450

  Hitler’s new government was attempting to address the increasing friction in Germany and elsewhere. Hull wired Rabbi Wise and urged caution, explaining that the “physical mistreatment of Jews” amounted to only isolated incidents and saying he felt “hopeful” that the “situation which has caused such widespread concern throughout this country will soon revert to normal.”451

  Wise said, “The time for prudence and caution is past. We must speak up like men… What is happening in Germany today may happen tomorrow in any other land on earth unless it is challenged and rebuked. It is not the German Jews who are being attacked. It is the Jews.” Wise urged Hull to approach the German government and protest. Hull issued a statement to the American ambassador to Berlin, William E. Dodd, complaining that “unfortunate incidents have indeed occurred and the whole world joins in regretting them.”452 Wise apparently expected a greater response from Hull. Dodd’s daughter, Martha, was a Soviet spy working against America from before World War II. In mid-1938, she had been living with filmmaker Sidney Kaufman, but left to marry Alfred Stern, who had acquired millions as a result of his divorce from the daughter of Sears Roebuck tycoon Julius Rosenwald. According to a KGB document dated October 1975, the Sterns resided in Cuba from 1963 to 1970 after living in Mexico and other places.453

  Hull’s wife was Rosetta “Rose” Whitney, a divorcée whom he married on November 24, 1917.454 She was the daughter of Isaac Witz, a prominent Bohemian-born Jewish banker and industrialist.455, 456 Catherine Ethridge, Hull’s niece, reported that Rose moved into the Washington hotel where Hull lived and carried out her plan to marry him. Rose was a close fr
iend of Woodrow Wilson’s widow, Edith Galt Wilson.457 Hull, a former federal judge and a member of the House of Representatives, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 for his role in establishing the United Nations; FDR referred to him as the Father of the United Nations.458 In the 1940s, there were more than a hundred anti-Semitic organizations in America. Hull avoided Jewish issues and failed to mention his wife’s Jewish ancestry.459 However, the American Hebrew, dated February 13, 1942, published an article praising Hull as FDR’s “diplomatic chief of staff” and as “one of the greatest statesmen of the world.”

  Despite the efforts of Hull and the AJCm to avoid the boycott against Germany, on March 23, 1933, the New York Times carried a story headlined “Protest on Hitler Growing in Nation,” reporting that merchants were canceling their orders for German goods.460 Rabbi Wise did not want to commit the AJC to a boycott or do anything to detract from the impending Madison Square Garden protest. Minus the support of the AJC, Morris Mendelsohn, head of the JWV’s boycott committee, was uncertain about the number of people who would march and endorse the boycott.461 Yet the media, including radio, enthusiastically supported the JWV’s parade during which the crowd showed its opposition to Hitler.462

  About fifteen thousand Jewish war veterans led the seemingly spontaneous grassroots boycott, a word that people tried to avoid using. The JWV established an office to raise funds and to connect American merchants with alternate suppliers in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Britain, France, and the United States. JWV members mailed thousands of boycott letters to American businessmen and organized picket lines at major stores offering German products. The American media supplied constant publicity, including coverage of press conferences detailing the cancellation of orders totaling thousands of dollars, especially those of large companies. Predictably, the media focus created a chain reaction, and within a short time, the JWV boycott caused the loss of more than $2 million in German orders.463