“There’s a whisper down the field” that the anti-German movement has already proved a failure, both among the Jews and with the Gentile nations. Our boycott—so we hear—has not affected any of Germany’s monthly trade balances since April; and as to the Gentiles—there is no trace of their former tendency to “isolate” the Third Reich. They go on negotiating with Germany, they sometimes even seem to be wooing her, whilst in one of the European countries, perhaps the most important of all—England, of course—there is a distinct “swing” in favor of “understanding Hitler’s grievances”, and that sudden rapprochement seems especially pronounced just in the most unexpected quarter: in the ranks of Labor.
On the other hand, everything in the world is a matter of interpretation. The writer is an inveterate, incurable optimist, and the only interpretation of the symptoms abovementioned he can offer is an optimistic interpretation.
Far be it from my intentions to pay any compliment to us Jews, so far as the organization of our boycott efforts is concerned. There is still no trace of any real world-liason in that respect; the various Committees created in several countries for this purpose are still doing their work in perfect watertight ignorance of each other’s activities, successes, failures or experiences. There have been fully three different attempts at establishing some kind of world-wide organization, three conferences described as international—all three to no avail. There still is no center empowered to lead the periphery nor local organs supposed to follow the lead.
AMONG THE DIFFICULTIES
The reason may be that world organizations cannot be improvised ad hoc, at least not under the conditions of our Jewish geography. Jewish world organizations grow but slowly, and it takes time to accustom people in Warsaw to obey orders coming from London and to keep abreast with somebody who is busy at Harbin or Chicago. That is why, by the way, the Zionist party to which I humbly belong tried to suggest, at the last Zionist Congress, that the best way to give the boycott movement the backing of a real world-wide connection would be for the Zionist World Organization to adopt that movement as one of its paramount functions; but I need not quote the distressing answer we got. It looks as if some other Jewish body with a Center and a periphery already established will now have to try and assume that task of liason service; but this is a subject to be dealt with independently and on some other occasion.
Then there is also another defect in our Jewish boycott movement: it concentrates on the negative business of avoiding the undesirable article, whilst the main problem is the positive one: to replace the undesirable goods by goods of another origin. Modern economy abhors Torricellian vacuum: what people need people will have to buy, and unless they are offered non-German equivalents they will end by purchasing Hitler’s ware.
THE POSITIVE SUGGESTION
One may safely say that the whole essence of any boycott movement is purely and positively a matter of salesmanship: the slogan “don’t” is futile unless you tell your flocks what to buy and where to buy it. If I were the boss I should even suggest that we drop the very term “boycott” and speak only of “buying”—buying the produce of civilized countries; with exact descriptions of all articles recommended for purchase, and with the addresses and telephone numbers of the shops where those articles are to be found.
A real office for boycott propaganda ought to look and to sound exactly like a commercial advertising agency. As to the negative side of the business, to the “don’t”—no need for us to bother: the Third Reich itself is taking care of that, every Berlin cable in every issue of any daily is quite enough to keep up the proper spirit.
Yet the difficulty of replacing German goods by something more decent is the question of finance and credit: so it is, at least, here on the European continent. In most cases, an importer or a wholesaler cannot so easily switch off from old commercial connections to new ones unless he gets somebody to back the operation financially. It is a thing of common knowledge—it is even proverbial—that the German system of credit is most cunningly flexible and liberal and generally helpful, whereas in England and especially in France you have got to be a millionaire before they will talk to you about an overdraft or an advance.
These are inveterate national idiosyncrasies, it would take a generation to change them: it would be much simpler and more efficient to start the real boycott movement by creating everywhere our own banks for this purpose, and the people who would do it would have no reason to regret the initiative—after all, any serious attempt not just to “boycott Germany” but actually to sell English or French or Czechoslovakian goods would be bound to meet with a firm support of several governments and many industrial circles. The only trouble is that, so far, we have not heard of any such initiative to solve the main and crucial problem of the boycott movement—the credit problem.
NOT FAILURE ENTIRELY
It is, therefore, very far from my intention to pay compliments to us Jews qua boycotters: on the contrary, only my good manners prevent me from stating plainly what I think on the delicate subject. And yet—all this talk of the boycott’s “failure” is sheer nonsense. A movement of such a range cannot be expected to produce “effects” within six months’ time. Least of all, can those effects be at once reflected in official statistics of German exports. Those statistics, by the way, are now being swelled by what actually amounts to the emigration of capital from Germany: hundreds if not thousands of substantial people are just now removing from the Third Reich’s aegis their machinery, their raw material stocks or their liquid cash under the form of manufactured goods, in order to re-start elsewhere.
All this gets into the statistical table under the rubric of “exports” and looks like Germany’s gain, whilst it actually is Germany’s loss, and loss for ever. So could the Egyptians of old class under “exports” all the luggage carried away by the departing Israelites. The “effects” will be seen later.
URIAH HEEP AGAIN
Nor should one take too serious a view of the political aspect—of that “wooing Hitler” business. I will of course not deny that it is not a cheering sight to see how the Nazi phenomenon is getting popular, for instance, in England: how that oily Uriah Heep mentality of which Mr. MacDonald is such an efficient exponent goes on talking sanctimonious rot about peace and good-will while Germany is getting ready for the second edition of “Der Tag”; how all those antediluuvian Lordships and country squires, long overdue for funeral, “write about it to the Times” just to say that strong personalities have always been admired in Hertfordshire even if their bearers happened to be mere “Dagoes or Dutchmen”, and that here is a case in point, the Fuehrer, and we want no Continental commitments, and France is a sink of egoism and of militarism, and…
And yet—all this is windy non-sense. There is only one solid fact in the situation, and that fact is the Third Reich. To all the “wooers” we may safely and calmly say: “All right, try and win that damsel’s dainty heart”. Germany wants expansion: Germany wants bits of Poland, bits of Czechoslovakia, the whole of Austria, Danzig, Latvia, the Italian part of the Tyrol plus Trieste, and Alsace and Lorraine to boot: her spokesmen may deny it, hoping to cheat humanity, but unfortunately cheating is not a solo—cheating is essentially a duet, it needs both the wizard who tells the lie and the idiot who believes him; and idiots are not so frequent a feature of European diplomacy as one might feel entitled to think.
SHE MEANS TO STRIKE
Above all, Germany wants to get armed in order to strike; and there is nobody in Europe “oily” enough to stand that. All this babble about “reconsidering attitudes” and “giving and taking” is no use: there is nothing to “reconsider” and nothing to “take” except world-shattering blows unless the moron is properly confined and properly disarmed; and that is what Europe will have to do, whether willing or not. We Jews have an uphill task in fighting the Third Reich on your own account, but it is a sure winning fight: the Thing we are opposing is an impossibility within a civilized world, no country squire who “writes to the Times” nor any Socialist bent on applying “principles” to gorillas can change this fundamental fact, and the world will have to help us for its own sake, whether or not, and basta.
One remraks remains to be made. Some of our Gentile neighbors here in Europe seem to be most eagerly anxious about “our boycott movement; often I hear them ask with great interest: “And how is your boycott progressing?” or condole: “Alack—I understand that your boycott is not proving so effective as it should!….” Pray, Sir, why “our” boycott? After all, in this world of one and a half billion humans we Jews are no more than just one per cent of purchasing humanity: whether we buy German goods or not cannot make any difference.
Why “our” boycott? It is yours, it stands and falls with your attitude, not with ours. And it should not be forgotten that, after all, there are only 600,000 Jews in Germany, or a million at the utmost within Germany’s coveted reach: as to the balance, a matter of some 16 million Jews scattered all over the rest of the world, to them the German menace sounds for the present rather indirect and problematic. But there are some Gentile nations who, should Germany win, would be doomed to feel it down to the last man in the remotest hamlet…. We are second to none as to hating the Third Reich phenomenon; but as to fearing it, there are others who should crowd the foremost ranks, and the sooner the healthier. “Our” boycott? Not at all: all together.
—Do tell this to your Gentile friends.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
