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No Soup Kitchens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

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Lorsque les effets d’une politique intérieure menacent de démoraliser et d’exiler des centaines de milliers d’êtres humains, les considerations de correction diplomatique doivent faire place à des preoccupations de simple humanité. Je manquerais à mon devoir si je n’attirais I’attention du Conseil sur la situation actuelle et si je ne plaidais pour que I’opinion du monde, par l‘intermédiaire de la Société des Nations, des Etats membres et non membres, fasse le nécessaire afin de remédier à la situation actuelle et écarter la tragédie menaçante.

(James G. McDonald, High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany, Letter of Resignation 27 December 1935.)

McDonald’s letter exposing the deep roots of the Nazi persecution of the Jews and all opponents of racialism and other heresies naturally irritated the German authorities at the time, but it was also considered by the British Foreign Office as ‘a very ill-advised document’ and its author ‘a tiresome individual’. Not that our government lacked sympathy for the victims of Hitler’s policy, but it was hoped that a smoother diplomacy might in the long run prove more helpful to the Jews themselves and in the short run it seemed far too dangerous to tackle this still little known adversary on a matter of purely internal policy. And, like Pilate, they had no time to investigate the truth behind this policy. They simply could not grasp the fact that Hitler from the beginning to end was concerned to apply with ruthless logic the Weltanschauung he had worked out in bad German but with utter clarity in Mein Kampf.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers