The German Government is directly seeking to encourage Jewish emigration from the Reich to Italy, according to an official report made public here, revealing that the Reichsministry of Economics has made an offer to permit the transfer of Jewish capital from Germany to Italy and that a central Jewish organization is now in contact with the interested ministries in the German and Italian Governments as to the terms.
While negotiations regarding the offer are still proceeding, applications for the transfer of capital amounting to 900,000 marks have been filed with the Reichsbank by forty German Jewish families during the past three months. The report discloses that during 1935 more German Jews were permanently settled in Italy than in any other European countries. According to the figures cited by this report, 169 Jews were permanently settled in Italy as compared to 77 in England and 65 in France. These figures, of course, do not refer to the thousands of refugees who are temporarily residing in various European lands.
The offer of the Reichsministry of Economics to transfer Jewish capital to Italy was first made to the central Jewish bodies last October. The report just issued reveals that this offer was a direct outcome of the Italo-Ethiopian conflict. The transfer, unlike all other similar schemes proposed, does not involve the export of German goods and thus does not affect the anti-Nazi boycott.
As a result of Italian currency regulations, Germany now has large reserves in Italy which cannot be withdrawn either in currency or in materials that Germany requires. The Reich financial authorities are therefore willing to use up part of these reserves by putting them to the credit of German Jews emigrating to Italy in exchange for German Jewish capital on deposit in German banks. The transactions, according to the terms offered, would be on exceptionally advantageous terms for the Reichsbank.
In the first place, German Jews accepting the offer, would have to pay the “flight-tax” on all capital they export. This amounts to twenty-five percent of the amount involved. In the second place, the rate of exchange fixed by the Government is on the gold-standard. This would mean that the emigrants would get far fewer Italian lira for their marks than otherwise because of the difference between the actual worth of the lire today and its gold standard value. A German Jew transferring capital from the Reich to Italy under these conditions would stand to lose almost one-half of the amount available for transfer.
Notwithstanding this and the additional fact that export of currency from Italy is barred, it is expected that relatively large numbers of Jews will accept the proposition and emigrate to Italy during the current year, primarily because of the increasing difficulty for Jews to continue in any line of activity in Germany, because of the belief that German currency will be devaluated in the near future and because of the fear that new anti-Jewish discriminations expected immediately after the conclusion of the Olympic Games may involve expropriatory measures.
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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.
