Language:
English
Year of publication:
2022
Titel der Quelle:
National Resilience, Politics and Society
Angaben zur Quelle:
4,1-2 (2022) 11-49
Keywords:
Quakers Attitudes
;
Quakers Attitudes
;
Antisemitism History 20th century
;
Antisemitism History 20th century
Abstract:
In the 1930s, the Quakers in the United States and Britain were energetic and vocal proponents of appeasing the Hitler regime, consistently misreading its intentions and goals. They always accepted appeasement’s fundamental premises, contending that wars were caused by misunderstandings among nations that could be avoided by improving communication. They also insisted that many of Germany’s grievances were understandable, even justified, in light of the “Carthaginian” peace the Allies had imposed at Versailles, as well as alleged Allied wartime “atrocities,” notably Britain’s naval blockade of German ports. The Quakers failed to grasp the extent or uniqueness of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Quaker distaste for Jews’ fierce hostility to Nazism was infused with Christian theological antisemitism. Quaker leaders often equated Jews’ “chosen people” concept with the Nazi theory of an Aryan master race. They maintained that Jews’ vindictiveness rendered them incapable of understanding Quaker efforts to promote reconciliation with the Nazis.In 1934, veteran Manchester Guardian correspondent Robert Dell, one of the most astute analysts of the Nazi movement, mocked “the tenderness of so many Quakers for the Nazi regime.” According to Dell, they assumed “there is some good in everybody” and concluded “we must find out what is good in the Nazis rather than what is bad.”Throughout the 1930s, Quakers remained wedded to moral suasion in their interactions with the Nazis, seeking to forge friendly ties with the Third Reich by sponsoring meetings between German and British war veterans and encouraging youth from the West to participate in Germany’s Nazi-controlled youth hostel movement. The Quakers strongly opposed the boycott of Nazi Germany’s goods and services, which Jews in both the United States and Britain heavily promoted – arguably the most potent weapon available to Jews and their allies to raise public awareness of the Nazi threat and inflict damage on the German economy. Quaker leaders denounced the boycott to Jewish audiences as not only wrong-headed but immoral. They also opposed the Jewish-sponsored mass anti-Nazi rallies and demonstrations on the grounds that, like the boycott, they undermined efforts to promote reconciliation.Taking an “even-handed approach,” the Quakers minimized the assaults on and relentless degradation of Jews in German concentration camps, drawing false parallels to the treatment of Nazi insurrectionists incarcerated in Austria and Memel. Like other Western appeasers, they found Hitler’s 1935 annexation of the Saar acceptable, even though it quickly led to the obliteration of the region’s centuries-old Jewish community.Even after the Kristallnacht in November 1938, the Quakers continued their efforts at moral suasion in meetings with leading Nazi officials in Germany. After the German conquest of Poland, the Quakers agreed to conduct relief work there under the supervision of the Nazi welfare organization NSV, which provided assistance only to “Aryans.” Not long afterward, the NSV was engaged in stripping clothing and possessions from Jews murdered by German forces at Babi Yar for shipment to Germany.
DOI:
10.26351/NRPS/4-1-2/1
URL:
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