840.48 Refugees/883: Telegram
The Ambassador in Germany (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 8—3:52 p.m.]
601. In the course of a call yesterday on Weizsaecker the British Chargé d’Affaires inquired about Rublee’s visit and was told that ample time must be given the German Government to decide the matter. Weizsaecker stated that they did not want Rublee to go away without something but that it had not yet been possible to solve the financial problem which was the main difficulty. He said that it was utterly impossible at the present time to allow Jewish emigrants to convert [Page 816] their assets into foreign exchange and that the solution of letting them take their money out in the form of goods presented problems both to Germany and to the receiving countries.
Weizsaecker went on to say to the British Chargé that it did not appear that the Committee for Political Refugees was making any progress in inducing foreign countries to accept these emigrants and remarked (apparently with intention) that the Evian Conference smacked too much of Geneva.
I am somewhat apprehensive lest the present Polish-German negotiations regarding Polish Jews in Germany which are apparently not progressing well and the incident of the assault on the German Secretary in Paris by a Polish Jew52 may affect or delay the German Government’s consideration of the matter of Rublee’s visit.
Cipher text to London for Rublee.
- Ernst vom Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy in France, was shot on November 7, 1938, by the minor son of a Polish Jewish family expelled from Germany. Vom Rath died November 9.↩