The League Of Nations And The Refugees From Nazi Germany

Greg Burgess's important new study explores the short life of the High Commission for Refugees (Jewish and Other) Coming from Germany, from its creation by the League of Nations in October 1933 to the resignation of High Commissioner, James G. McDonald, in December 1935. The book relates the history of the first stage of refugees from Germany through the prism of McDonald and the High Commission. It analyses the factors that shaped the Commission's formation, the undertakings the Commission embarked upon and its eventual failure owing to external complications. The League of Nations and the Refugees from Nazi Germany argues that, in spite of the Commission's failure, the refugees from Nazi Germany and the High Commission's work mark a turn in conceptions of international humanitarian responsibilities when a state defies standards of proper behaviour towards its citizens. From this point on, it was no longer considered sufficient or acceptable for states to respect the sovereign rights of another if the rights of citizens were being violated. Greg Burgess discusses this idea, amongst others, in detail as part of what is a crucial volume for all scholars and students of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and modern Jewish history.

"English version has been translated from German and French original text.".

A collection of documents, divided thematically and provided with short introductory notes, showing the indifference and lack of action on the part of the U.S. government concerning the admission of refugees from Nazi Germany and Nazi-controlled territories of Central Europe between 1933-45, as well as anti-immigrant (including anti-Jewish) sentiments in the U.S. at the time. Examines the U.S.'s lack of proper cooperation with the League of Nations' High Commission for Refugees, the U.S. delegation at the Evian Conference, the Bermuda Conference, the U.S. State Department as a force that impeded the admission of refugees, and the activities of the War Refugee Board in 1944-45. Ch. 7 (p. 258-337), "Anti-Refugee Sentiment", contains results of a number of public opinion surveys held between 1936-45, showing that more than two-thirds of Americans did not want to admit refugees and that anti-Jewish sentiments were high. This chapter, along with ch. 8 (p. 338-390), "Send These to Me: Pro-Refugee Sentiment in America", present excerpts from the Congressional debates concerning the Wagner-Rogers Bill of February 1939 suggesting the admission of 10,000 refugee children under the age of 14 in 1939-40. The Bill was rejected.

This volume focuses on the final years of the League of Nations - from 1929 to 1946 - a time of political violence, growing nationalism, and war. Author George Gill recounts these turbulent years, providing readers with a fascinating chronicle of this period. Gill's incisively written essay examines the decline of the League. The rise of brutal dictators, the erosion of international unity, and the failure of world leaders are all part of his mosaic. Special insets throughout the text highlight pivotal incidents, key documents offer the words that made history, and numerous photographs recapture the spirit of a time past. His book also offers a chronology of major world events so that League history and the wider global context are intermeshed. Gill demonstrates how the League died an agonizing death, yet makes clear how the larger cause of world cooperation survived into a new, and more dangerous, era.

International scholars review decades of postwar reconstruction in international comparison from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, demonstrating how foreign domestic policy cannot be separated.

This book examines the origins and evolution of refugee protection over the past four centuries.

The exodus of refugees from Nazi Germany in the 1930s has received far more attention from historians, social scientists, and demographers than many other migrations and persecutions in Europe. However, as a result of the overwhelming attention that has been given to the Holocaust within the historiography of Europe and the Second World War, the issues surrounding the flight of people from Nazi Germany prior to 1939 have been seen as Vorgeschichte (pre-history), implicating the Western European democracies and the United States as bystanders only in the impending tragedy. Based on a comparative analysis of national case studies, this volume deals with the challenges that the pre-1939 movement of refugees from Germany and Austria posed to the immigration controls in the countries of interwar Europe. Although Europe takes center-stage, this volume also looks beyond, to the Middle East, Asia and America. This global perspective outlines the constraints under which European policy makers (and the refugees) had to make decisions. By also considering the social implications of policies that became increasingly protectionist and nationalistic, and bringing into focus the similarities and differences between European liberal states in admitting the refugees, it offers an important contribution to the wider field of research on political and administrative practices.