Heydrich: In spite of the elimination of the Jew from the economic life, the main problem, namely to kick the Jew out of Germany, remains. May I make a few proposals to that effect?
Following a suggestion by the Commissioner of the Reich, we have set up a center for the Emigration of Jews in Vienna, and that way we have eliminated 50,000 Jews from Austria while from the Reich only 19,000 Jews were eliminated during the same period of time; we were so successful because of the cooperation on the part of the competent Ministry for Economic Affairs and of the foreign charitable organizations.
Goering: The main thing is, you cooperated with the local leaders of the “Green Frontier”.
Heydrich: That amounted to a very small number, your excellency. Illegal. . .
Goering: This story has gone through the whole world-press. During the first night the Jews were expulsed [sic] into Czechoslovakia. The next morning, the Czechs grabbed them and pushed them into Hungary. From Hungary, they were returned to Germany and from there into Czechoslovakia. They traveled around and around that way. They landed finally on an old Barge in the Danube. There they lived, and wherever they tried to go ashore, they were barred.
Heydrich: That was the report. There weren’t even 100 Jews.
Goering: For practically two weeks, a number of Jews left every midnight. That was in the Burgenland.
Heydrich: At least 45,000 Jews were made to leave the country by legal measures.
Goering: How was that possible?
Heydrich: Through the Jewish Kulturgemeinde, we extracted a certain amount of money from the rich Jews who wanted to emigrate. By paying this amount, and an additional sum in foreign currency, they made it possible for a number of poor Jews to leave. The problem was not to make the rich Jew leave but to get rid of the Jewish mob.
Goering: But children, did you ever think this through? It doesn’t help us to extract hundreds of thousands from the Jewish mob. Have you ever thought of it that this procedure may cost us so much foreign currency that in the end we won’t be able to hold out.
Heydrich: Only what the Jew has had in foreign currency.
(Goering: agreed)
This way. May I propose that we set up a similar procedure for the Reich, with the cooperation of the competent government agencies, and that we then find a solution for the Reich, based on our experiences, after having corrected the mistakes the General Field Marshall has so rightly pointed out to us.
(Goering: agreed)
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