Madagascar map

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Physical map of Madagascar

The so-called Madagascar Plan (also Madagascar Plan ) was a brief consideration pursued by Germany's National Socialist regime at the beginning of World War II , to deport four million European Jews to the island of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa , then a French colony .

The anti-Semitic plan was after the defeat of France in June 1940 in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and the Foreign Office of the German Reich worked. However, it was never implemented, especially because of the naval war against Great Britain and the lack of sovereignty over the corresponding sea routes. Work on the Madagascar Plan ended that same year. Instead, the majority of European Jews were ultimately murdered in the Holocaust .

Prehistory in an international context

The idea of deporting Jews to Madagascar was first put forward by the anti-Semitic German orientalist and politician of the Prussian Conservative Party , Paul Anton de Lagarde (1827-1891). In 1885 he proposed that all Eastern European Jews be brought to the island of Madagascar. After the First World War , the Madagascar Plan was taken up by British and Dutch anti-Semites such as Henry Hamilton Beamish (founder of the anti-Semitic organization The Britons , 1919), Arnold Leese and Egon van Winghene . Arnold Leese, in 1928 the "Imperial Fascist League" ( Imperial Fascist League ) founded, wrote in 1938 in Devilry in the Holy Land :

“A National Home for the Jews must be found; the best place is Madagascar. For this, France and the displaced natives should receive full compensation from Jewish funds. Once in Madagascar, or, if that island cannot be made partly available to them, in a National Home elsewhere, no Jew should be allowed outside it on pain of death. There is no other way. Hedge how you like, there is no other way. "

“A home must be found for the Jews; the best place is Madagascar. For this France and the local natives should receive full compensation through Jewish money. Once in Madagascar, or, if this island cannot be partially made available to them, elsewhere, Jews should be banned from leaving this area on pain of death. There is no other way."

- Arnold Leese 1938

The leading exponent of Zionism , Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), wrote in his 1902 novel Altneuland about Madagascar as a possible emigration country . In contrast to the Uganda program , Madagascar was never seriously discussed by Zionists, because such ideas were only marginal considerations for Zionists . Their primary goal was to find a home for Jews as a separate nation in Eretz Israel .

In 1926/27 Poland and Japan examined the possibility of relocating the ethnic minorities living on their national territory to Madagascar. The island was larger than the former German Empire or Poland, but with around 4 million indigenous inhabitants, Madagascar was comparatively sparsely populated in the mid-1930s.

Polish Commission 1937

Proposed settlement sites in the Polish Commission's plan

On May 5, 1937, the Polish government, which had received approval from France, sent a three-person examination committee to Madagascar. This commission was headed by Mieczyslaw Lepecki . His two (Jewish) companions were Leon Alter , director of the Jewish Emigration Association (JEAS) in Warsaw, and Salomon Dyk , an agricultural engineer from Tel Aviv . They came to different conclusions: Lepecki was of the opinion that 40,000 to 60,000 Jews could be deported to the highlands. According to Leon Alter, there would only be space for 2,000 people on the whole island. The estimates of Salomon Dyk, who like Leon Alter already preferred Palestine, were even lower. Regardless of this, 25,000 French colonists had already settled on the island by the mid-1930s. Although the Polish government overestimated the Lepecki result and the Malagasy people demonstrated against a wave of immigration, they continued negotiations with France. In addition to Poland and France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and the Joint Distribution Committee (an aid organization of American Jews for Jewish co-religionists that is mainly active in Europe) were interested in the commission .

First considerations during the Nazi regime in Germany (before 1940)

The original plan of the National Socialists was to deport the Jews to a demarcated state. In 1937, the Security Service (SD) published proposals for the deportation of German Jews. Palestine, Ecuador , Colombia and Venezuela were considered as destinations . On March 2, 1938, Adolf Eichmann received the order for a "foreign policy solution to the Jewish question". After the Évian conference , Madagascar also came to the fore. Numerous Nazi politicians, including Hermann Göring , Julius Streicher (editor of Der Stürmer ), Alfred Rosenberg , Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Reichbank President Hjalmar Schacht , took up this idea. In December 1939, von Ribbentrop presented Pope Pius XII. proposed a peace offer in which the emigration of Jews to Madagascar was mentioned. But it was not until 1940, shortly before the German military victory over France and the occupation of its northern half, that the plan took on more concrete forms.

Beginning of planning (1940)

At the beginning of 1940, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler wanted to deport all European Jews to the Generalgouvernement - the largest part of Poland occupied by Germany. This met with resistance from Hans Frank , who persuaded Göring to issue a decree of March 24, 1940, by which the resettlements were suspended until further notice. From then on, the Madagascar Plan was discussed in public. On May 29, 1940, Himmler presented his plan to Hitler and suggested "the emigration of all Jews to Africa or some other colony". In another context, Himmler stated that this would still be the mildest and best way, since one rejects “the Bolshevik method of physical extermination of a people from inner conviction as un-Germanic and impossible”. Hitler agreed to the drafting of the Madagascar Plan, as an early victory over France was expected after the start of the western campaign .

On June 18, 1940, Hitler and Ribbentrop briefed Benito Mussolini and the Italian Foreign Minister Ciano on the Madagascar Plan at a conference on the future of France . On June 20, Hitler announced his intentions to Grand Admiral Erich Raeder . The latter suggested that he deport the Jews to the north of Portuguese Angola . On August 17, 1940, Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary about a conversation with Hitler: “We want to ship the Jews to Madagascar later. There they can build their own state. "

Reinhard Heydrich , Himmler's deputy, declared in a letter to Ribbentrop on June 24th that he was responsible for a territorial " final solution to the Jewish question ". From then on, planning was pushed forward both in the Foreign Office and in the SS . In the General Government, Jews were temporarily no longer sent to ghettos because of the solution that was now being considered. The Jews remaining in the Lodz Ghetto , who were supposed to be relocated to the General Government in August, were temporarily unmolested. In the meantime, Rademacher in the Foreign Office and Eichmann in the “ Jewish and Eviction Affairs ” section of the Reich Security Main Office pushed ahead with the planning. Heydrich commissioned Eichmann, who had dealt with the resettlement of Jews in the Generalgouvernement since the end of 1939. Eichmann thereupon informed the Reich Association of Jews in Germany and representatives of the Jewish communities in Prague and Vienna that it was planned to transfer around four million Jews to another country, but did not mention their name. Otto Hirsch from the board of directors of the Reichsvereinigung then drafted a detailed memorandum on the education that would be necessary for life on the tropical island.

Implementation plans

Rademacher plan

Adolf Hitler and Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop commissioned Franz Rademacher , head of the department for “Jewish issues” in the Foreign Office, to work out a plan for the implementation of the deportations to Madagascar. On June 3, 1940, Rademacher formulated three possibilities for "solving the Jewish question":

  1. Banishment of all Jews from Europe, Madagascar is mentioned as a possible destination.
  2. Only Jews from Western and Central Europe are shipped to Madagascar. All Eastern European Jews are deported to Lublin and taken hostage for the good behavior of the USA.
  3. All Jews are deported to Palestine. Rademacher rejected this possibility, fearing that the Jews could rule the whole world from a “second Rome”.

Rademacher published his plan on July 2, 1940 under the title The Jewish Question in the Peace Treaty . Madagascar was supposed to become a "Jewish dwelling under German sovereignty", which meant a kind of "large ghetto". The plan affected four million Jews (excluding Polish and Russian Jews). In the plan, Rademacher suggested the following:

  • The Foreign Office and several other European countries draw up a peace treaty with England and France.
  • The Vichy regime hands over the colony of Madagascar to Germany.
  • Germany receives the right to set up military air and naval bases in Madagascar.
  • The 25,000 European settlers (mostly French) have to leave Madagascar.
  • The emigration of the Jews is a forced relocation.
  • The project is financed from the Jewish assets of the respective home countries.
  • The guide's office coordinates the transports.
  • The SS collects all Jews and deports them to Madagascar.
  • The Foreign Office and the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda are responsible for the propaganda .
  • A police governor appointed by Himmler administers the island. The Jews are only allowed to participate in local administration.

Competence disputes

Immediately thereafter, Reinhard Heydrich intervened, who had received the overall competence for the Jewish question, now felt ignored and claimed the leadership of the Madagascar project for himself.

In the Reich Main Security Office, Adolf Eichmann also dealt with the plans. He obtained reports and had the need for transport ships determined. According to his calculations, 1,000,000 people could have been shipped to Madagascar per year, so that the duration of the action was estimated at four to five years. - Since the RSHA documents were not found, further details of the planning are not known.

Governor General Frank had the expansion of all ghettos in his domain stopped at Rademacher's plan . He thus conjured up a conflict with Arthur Greiser , the head of civil administration in the Poznan military district. He did not believe that the Madagascar plan could be implemented before winter began. No agreement was reached. Those responsible had several reports that (unlike the Polish reports) considered the influx of 5 to 6.5 million Jewish settlers to Madagascar possible. According to a judgment of the historian Magnus Brechtken , these reports are inconclusive; they would come to a result that was politically signaled as desirable. "Anyone who thought through this plan ... had to come to the conclusion that a deportation to Madagascar in this form amounted to a death sentence ..."

Failure of the Madagascar Plan

The prerequisites for the implementation of the Madagascar Plan were not met. Peace with Great Britain was not within reach, and the implementation of the plan was impossible with the predominance of the British navy, and the French Vichy regime also protested against ceding its colony of Madagascar to Germany.

When the British Navy landed in Operation Ironclad in Madagascar on May 5, 1942 and conquered and occupied the island against the resistance of the French army, the implementation of the plan had become obsolete.

As early as September 1940, work on the Madagascar Plan had not been continued anyway. However, Hitler and the National Socialist politicians responsible for Jewish policy hoped that it would later become topical after all: When Alfred Rosenberg wanted to publish an article on the Madagascar Plan, Hitler had his secretary Martin Bormann inform him on November 3, 1940 that it should currently be published Article does not appear, "maybe in a few months". On December 3, Eichmann increased the number of those to be deported to Madagascar to 6 million. At a meeting in December 1940 it was decided to prepare the Jews for the possibility of a “group and mass settlement” and a circular was sent to all communities in which there was talk of a “Jewish settlement” outside Palestine. In the meantime, subordinate Gauleiter were already busy making their areas “ free of Jews ”.

On February 10, 1942, Rademacher conveyed to Harald Bielfeld , the head of the Pol X department in the Foreign Office, Hitler's final decision “that the Jews should not be deported to Madagascar but to the East. Madagascar no longer needs to be earmarked for the final solution. "

Classification in the context of the Holocaust

The classification of the Madagascar Plan in the Holocaust is interpreted differently. A number of historians and social scientists, most of whom are classified as functionalists , assume that the decision to commit genocide was not made until the Second World War. Other ways of getting rid of the Jews had been seriously considered. According to this interpretation, the “Madagascar Plan” was for a short time a serious consideration to solve the “Jewish question” through forced resettlement in the form of a cross-continental emigration program. “When high-ranking Nazi officials suspended the deportations scheduled for August and stopped the establishment of ghettos in the General Government, it was not a cleverly thought-out deception. […] Rather, they made decisions on the basis of the Madagascar Plan, which in the summer of 1940 actually represented the National Socialist Jewish policy. ”The Madagascar Plan is seen as a psychological milestone towards the Holocaust.

The historian Eberhard Jäckel , who is assigned to the intentionalists , takes the view that the genocide of the Jews, as it was actually and increasingly systematically carried out on an industrially operated basis from the beginning of the 1940s, had already been decided at the highest level in 1939. Even before the start of World War II, Hitler himself had announced in a public speech on the anniversary of his " seizure of power " on January 30, 1939 in front of the Reichstag in the Kroll Opera House that the "destruction of the Jewish race in Europe" would be in the event of a new war; of the war, which he himself had been preparing for a long time and for which, with propagandistic intentions, he first blamed the Jews. According to this interpretation, which is also shared by other intentionalist historians, the Madagascar Plan was ultimately never a serious option of the National Socialist leadership, but merely an outwardly presented consideration in order to conceal from the public the actual goal of the murder of up to 11 million people .

Götz Aly , too , retrospectively appears to be "completely absurd, which is why it is not infrequently interpreted as a metaphor for the allegedly already planned genocide". As a result of the control of the Italian and French colonies in Africa, Berlin initially saw its realization as likely. When the resettlement proved unrealistic a few weeks later due to the superiority of the British Mediterranean fleet, the Warsaw ghetto was finally sealed off in November 1940.

See also

literature

  • Magnus Brechtken: " Madagascar for the Jews". Anti-Semitic Idea and Political Practice 1885–1945. Munich 1997, ISBN 3-486-56240-1 .
  • Hans Jansen : The Madagascar Plan. The intended deportation of European Jews to Madagascar. Munich 1997, ISBN 3-7844-2605-0 .
  • Peter Longerich : Politics of Annihilation. An overall presentation of the National Socialist persecution of the Jews. Munich 1998, ISBN 3-492-03755-0 .
  • Christopher Browning : Unleashing the "Final Solution". National Socialist Jewish Policy 1939–1942. Propylaen, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-549-07187-6 , pp. 130-142. Again TB List, ibid. 2006.
  • Michael Krebs: The Early Madagascar Plan. In: Riccardo Altieri, Frank Jacob (Hrsg.): Spielball der Mächte. Contributions to Polish history. minifanal, Bonn 2014, pp. 276-299, ISBN 978-3-95421-050-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ E. v. W .: The ethical-cultural significance of the fight against Judaism. in Hans Krebs Ed .: Die Weltfront. a collection of essays by anti-Semitic leaders of all peoples. Nibelungen, Berlin & Leipzig 1935, pp. 11-20 ( online ).
  2. ^ Peter Longerich: Politics of Destruction . Munich 1998, ISBN 3-492-03755-0 , p. 273 f.
  3. ↑ Joseph Goebbels: Diaries . Piper Verlag, Volume 4, p. 1466, ISBN 3-492-21414-2 .
  4. ↑ Saul Friedländer , The Years of Destruction 1939–1945. The Third Reich and the Jews. Second volume , CH Beck, Munich 2006, p. 107.
  5. ↑ Saul Friedländer, The Years of Destruction 1939–1945. The Third Reich and the Jews. Second volume , CH Beck, Munich 2006, p. 129.
  6. ^ Saul Friedländer: The Years of Destruction 1939-1945. The Third Reich and the Jews. Volume 2, Beck, Munich 2006, pp. 107f.
  7. ↑ Magnus Brechtken: “ Madagascar for the Jews. “Munich 1997, p. 251.
  8. ↑ Philippe Burrin, Hitler and the Jews. The decision for the genocide , Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1993, p. 86f
  9. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? - The Nazi colonial planning for Africa , Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, p. 85.
  10. ↑ Christopher Browning : The Path to the "Final Solution". Decisions and perpetrators. Reinbek / Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-499-61344-1 , p. 29.
  11. ^ Christopher R. Browning, Jürgen Matthaus: The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy. September 1939-March 1942. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE 2004, p. 81.
  12. ↑ Eberhard Jäckel: Hitler's rule: execution of a world view. Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-421-06254-4 .
  13. ↑ Götz Aly: "Jewish resettlement". Reflections on the political history of the Holocaust. In: Ulrich Herbert (Ed.): National Socialist Extermination Policy 1939–1945. New research and controversy. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-596-13772-1 , pp. 67-97, here: pp. 81 f.