Thread by @WolfgangHutter2

I was reading Meyers book on the "final solution" and he brought up an interesting moment in early Nazi German relations with outside world, specifically international Jewish community. In response to the international Jewish boycott of German goods, Hitler and others arranged a

boycott of Jewish businesses domestically (I think internationally as well). At that moment Rabbi Stephen Wise organizes rallies across US and a meeting at Madison Square Garden to step up, not only boycotts, but international trade sanctions on Germany. Hitler personally

responded with a statement arguing that "Jewish Marxism" in USSR claimed millions of lives but our German "national revolution" has claimed hardly any lives and most Nazis's have not harmed any Jews. Goering organized a meeting of four representatives of different communities

within German Judaism and implored them to talk with their co-ethnics and get the boycott called off. These German Jews met with eleven of the top leaders of Anglo-Jewry who were able to get a call with Rabbi Wise. Wise initially was going to listen to them as he was also assured

by US Secretary of State Cordell Hull that the German govt would curb their own anti-Semitic excesses. However, Wise stubbornly proceeded continuing the back and forth and growing tension between the national socialist regime and domestic/international Jewish community.

Its interesting how organized this all was and how formal it could be. Sometimes I find people in the context of history talk about "international Jewry" and the autistic historian in me rolls my eyes because I find it weird

to talk about such a diverse group as a block/hive mind. However, this episode seems to point to extreme organization.

I have been impressed with Mayer's book so far as he keeps demonstrating that from the vantage point of German-Jewish relations things were much more nuanced

than they sometimes are presented, as a Jew he considers the ideology of Nazism to be inherently wrong or even evil, but the actual day to day relationship all the way up until 1939/42, it was anybody's guess how things would end.