Nazi persecution of Jews aimed to export antisemitism rather than remove Jews

Evidence

The early persecution of German Jews by the Nazis must be considered as an attempt to spread antisemitism among “those peoples who are friendlily disposed to Jews, above all the Western democracies” rather than as an effort to get rid of the Jews. A circular letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to all German authorities abroad shortly after the November pogroms of 1938, stated: “The emigration movement of only about 100,000 Jews has already sufficed to awaken the interest of many countries in the Jewish danger… Germany is very interested in maintaining the dispersal of Jewry …the influx of Jews in all parts of the world invokes the opposition of the native population and thereby forms the best propaganda for the German Jewish policy… The poorer and therefore more burdensome the immigrating Jew is to the country absorbing him, the stronger the country will react.” — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2487

Categorization

• XREF: This is the mechanism of manufactured ‘Jewish danger’ as a propaganda export — connects to later readings on how the construction of the ‘Other’ and the figure of the stateless refugee works in Arendt’s own argument.