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{{short description|Plan of Nazi Germany to relocate Jews of Europe to Madagascar}}
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{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2013}}
[[File:Locator map of Madagascar in Africa.svg|right|thumb|Madagascar lies off the east coast of Africa]]
The '''Madagascar Plan''' was a proposal by the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi German]] government to forcibly relocate the [[Jew]]ish population of Europe to the island of [[French Madagascar|Madagascar]]. [[Franz Rademacher]], head of the Jewish Department of the [[Federal Foreign Office|German Foreign Office]], proposed the idea in June 1940, shortly before the [[Battle of France|Fall of France]]. The proposal called for the handing over of control of Madagascar, then a French colony, to Germany as part of the eventual peace terms.

The idea of re-settling [[Polish Jews]] in Madagascar, then part of the [[French colonial empire|French Empire]], was investigated by the Polish government in 1937,{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=82}}{{sfn|Nicosia|2008|p=280}} but the task force sent to evaluate the island's potential determined that only 5,000 to 7,000 families could be accommodated, or even as few as 500 families by some estimates.{{efn|name=population|According to {{UN_Population|source}} the total population was {{UN_Population|Madagascar}} in {{UN_Population|Year}}, compared to only 4,084,000 in 1950.}} Because efforts by the Nazis to encourage the emigration of the Jewish population of Germany before World War II were only partially successful, the idea of deporting Jews to Madagascar was revived by the Nazi government in 1940.

Rademacher recommended on 3 June 1940 that Madagascar should be made available as a destination for the Jews of Europe. With [[Adolf Hitler]]'s approval, [[Adolf Eichmann]] released a memorandum on 15 August 1940 calling for the resettlement of a million Jews per year for four years, with the island being governed as a police state under the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]]. They assumed that many Jews would succumb to its harsh conditions should the plan be implemented.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=162}} The plan was not viable due to the British [[Blockade of Germany (1939–45)|naval blockade]]. It was postponed after the Nazis lost the [[Battle of Britain]] in September 1940, and it was permanently shelved in 1942 with the commencement of the [[Final Solution]], the policy of systematic genocide of Jews, towards which it had functioned as an important psychological step.{{sfn|Browning|1995|pp=18–19,127–128}}

==Origins==
[[File:Madagascar Plan (Franco-Polish).png|thumb|Proposed sites under the 1937 French/Polish version of the plan]]
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, there were a number of resettlement plans for European Jews that were precursors to the Madagascar Plan. [[Paul de Lagarde]], an [[Oriental studies|Orientalist]] scholar, first suggested evacuating the European Jews to Madagascar in his 1878 work ''Deutsche Schriften'' ("German Writings").{{sfn|Gerdmar|2009|p=180}}{{sfn|Ehrlich|2009|p=452}} Members of the [[Zionist]] movement in 1904–1905 seriously debated the [[British Uganda Programme]], by which [[Russian Jews]], who were in immediate danger from ongoing [[Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire|pogroms]], would be settled in the [[East Africa Protectorate]] (modern-day [[Kenya]]), which was part of the [[British Empire]] at the time. The plan was later rejected as unworkable by the [[Zionist Congress]].{{sfn|Telushkin|2001|pp=280–281}} Adherents of [[Homeland for the Jewish people|territorialism]] split off from the main Zionist movement and continued to search for a location where Jews might settle and create a state, or at least an autonomous area.{{sfn|Cesarani|1995|p=101}} The idea of Jewish resettlement in Madagascar was promoted by British antisemites [[Henry Hamilton Beamish]], [[Arnold Leese]], and others.{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=81}} With the cooperation of the French, the Polish government commissioned a task force in 1937 to examine the possibility of settling [[Polish Jews]] in the island.{{sfn|Nicosia|2008|p=280}} The head of the commission, {{illm|Mieczysław Lepecki|pl}}, felt the island could accommodate 5,000 to 7,000 families, but Jewish members of the group estimated that, because of the climate and poor infrastructure, only 500 or even fewer families could safely be accommodated.{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=82}}{{sfn|Andrews|2015}}{{efn|name=population}}

==In Nazi Germany==
[[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|Racism]] and [[antisemitism]] were basic tenets of the [[Nazi Party]] and the Nazi government.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=31}} Discrimination and violent attacks against Jews began immediately after the [[Machtergreifung|seizure of power]] in 1933.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=203}} Violence and economic pressure were used by the Nazis to encourage Jews to voluntarily leave the country.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=67–69}} By 1939, around 250,000 of Germany's 437,000 Jews had emigrated to the United States, Argentina, the United Kingdom, and other countries, as well as the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]].{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=127}}{{sfn|Evans|2005|pp=555–558}}

The Nazi leadership seized on the idea of deporting the remaining German Jews overseas. Barren, unproductive lands were viewed as appropriate destinations as this would prevent the deportees from flourishing in their new location.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=452–453}} In his May 1940 memorandum to Hitler, ''Concerning the Treatment of the Alien Population in the East'', ''[[Reichsführer-SS]]'' [[Heinrich Himmler]] declared that he hoped to see "the term 'Jew'&nbsp;[...] completely eliminated through the massive immigration of all Jews to Africa or some other colony".{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=508}}

===Planning begins===
Initial discussions began to take place in 1938 among Nazi ideologues such as [[Julius Streicher]], [[Hermann Göring]], [[Alfred Rosenberg]], and [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]].{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|pp=320–322}} Ten per cent of Jews under German jurisdiction by that date were Polish nationals. [[Józef Lipski]], the Polish ambassador to Germany, expressed his country's reluctance to take them back, and the Polish government decreed that Polish passport holders would not be permitted to return except under specific conditions.{{sfn|Hilberg|1973|p=258}} When Ribbentrop raised the matter with French foreign minister [[Georges Bonnet]] in December of that year, Bonnet expressed French reluctance to receive more German Jews and inquired if measures could be taken to prevent their arrival. France itself was contemplating how to deport some 10,000 Jews and considered whether Madagascar might be an appropriate destination.{{sfn|Hilberg|1973|p=259}} Planning for German deportations to Madagascar formally began in 1940.{{sfn|Hilberg|1973|p=260}} [[Franz Rademacher]], recently appointed head of the Jewish Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, forwarded on 3 June to his superior, the diplomat [[Martin Luther (diplomat)|Martin Luther]], a memorandum on the fate of the Jews.{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=82}} Rademacher said: "The desirable solution is: all Jews out of Europe".{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=508}} He briefly considered Palestine as a destination, but deemed it unsuitable, as he considered it undesirable that a strong Jewish state should be created in the Middle East. In addition, Palestine was under British control at the time.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=162}} Rademacher recommended that the French colony of Madagascar should be made available as a destination for the Jews of Europe as one of the terms of the surrender of France, which the [[Battle of France|Germans had invaded]] on 10 May 1940.{{sfn|Browning|2004|pp=82–85}} The resettled Jews, noted Rademacher, could be used as hostages to ensure "future good behaviour of their racial comrades in America".{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=508}} The plan was developed by Referat D III of the ''Abteilung Deutschland''.{{sfn|Hilberg|1973|pp=260–261}}

Luther broached the subject with Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, who was simultaneously developing a similar scheme. By 18 June, Hitler and Ribbentrop spoke of the Plan with Italian leader [[Benito Mussolini]] as a possibility that could be pursued after the defeat of France.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=508}}{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|pp=320–322}} Once he learned of the plan, SS-''[[Obergruppenführer]]'' [[Reinhard Heydrich]], chief of the [[RSHA|Reich Main Security Office]] (RSHA), insisted that Ribbentrop relinquish any future responsibility for the Plan to that office. As Heydrich had been appointed by Göring in January 1939 to oversee Jewish evacuation from German-occupied territory, the [[Jewish question]] was hence under his purview.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|pp=320–322}} [[Adolf Eichmann]], head of the RSHA Sub-Department IV-B4, which dealt with Jewish affairs and evacuation, soon became involved. On 15 August, he released a memorandum titled ''Reichssicherheitshauptamt: Madagaskar Projekt'' (Reich Main Security Office: Madagascar Project), calling for the resettlement of a million Jews per year for four years and abandoning the idea of retaining any Jews in Europe. The RSHA, he emphasised, would control all aspects of the program.{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=87}} While Rademacher called for the colony to be under German control but self-governing under Jewish administration, Eichmann made it plain that he intended for the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] to control and oversee every aspect of life on the island, which they would govern as a police state.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=577}}  [[Armistice of 22 June 1940|France surrendered]] on 22 June.

Most Nazi bureaus, including the Foreign Office, the Security Police, and the [[General Government|''Generalgouvernement'']]  pinned their hopes on the plan as the last chance to "solve the Jewish problem" through emigration.{{sfn|Hilberg|1973|p=261}} In particular, [[Hans Frank]], governor of the [[General Government]] (the occupied portion of Poland), viewed the forced resettlement to Madagascar as being preferable to the heretofore piecemeal efforts at deportation into Poland. As of 10 July, deportations into Poland were cancelled, and construction of the [[Warsaw ghetto]] was halted, since it appeared to be unnecessary.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|pp=320–322}}

===Planning continues===
Rademacher envisioned the founding of a European bank that would ultimately liquidate all European Jewish assets to pay for the plan. This bank would then play an intermediary role between Madagascar and the rest of the world, as Jews would not be allowed to interact financially with outsiders. Göring's office of the [[Four Year Plan]] would oversee the administration of the plan's economics.{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=88}}

Additionally, Rademacher foresaw roles for other government agencies. Ribbentrop's [[Foreign Office (Germany)|Foreign Affairs Ministry]] would negotiate terms with the French for the handover of Madagascar to Germany. It would also play a part in crafting other treaties to deal with Europe's Jews. Its Information Department, along with [[Joseph Goebbels]] and his [[Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda]], would control the flow of information at home and abroad. [[Viktor Brack]], a division chief in the [[Hitler's Chancellery (Kanzlei des Führers)|Chancellery]] of the [[Führer]], would oversee transportation. The SS would undertake the expulsion of the Jews from Europe and govern the island as a police state.{{sfn|Browning|2004|pp=87–88}} The Nazis expected that after the invasion of the United Kingdom in [[Operation Sea Lion]] that they would commandeer the British merchant fleet to transport the Jews to Madagascar.{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=88}} The Nazis expected many deportees to perish in the harsh conditions or die at the hands of the SS.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=509}} The plan has been characterised by the historian [[Ian Kershaw]] as [[genocide]] by an alternative method.{{sfn|Kershaw|2015|p=131}}

===Plan abandoned===
With the failure to defeat the [[Royal Air Force]] in the [[Battle of Britain]], the proposed invasion of the UK was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940. This meant the British merchant fleet would not be at Germany's disposal for use in evacuations, and planning for the Madagascar proposal stalled.{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=88}} In late August 1940, Rademacher entreated Ribbentrop to hold a meeting at his ministry to begin drawing up a panel of experts to consolidate the plan. Ribbentrop never responded. Likewise, Eichmann's memorandum languished with Heydrich, who never approved it.{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=88}} Establishment of ghettos in Warsaw and other cities in Poland resumed in August 1940.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=165}} The plan was officially shelved within the Foreign Office in February 1942.{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=415}} British forces took the island from [[Vichy France]] in the [[Battle of Madagascar]] in November 1942 and control was transferred to the [[Free French]].

Once planning for [[Operation Barbarossa]] commenced, Hitler asked Himmler to draft a new plan for the elimination of the Jews of Europe, and Himmler passed along the task to Heydrich. His draft proposed the deportation of the Jews to the Soviet Union via Poland.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=511}} The later ''[[Generalplan Ost]]'' (General Plan for the East), prepared by Professor [[Konrad Meyer]] and others, called for deporting the entire population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Siberia, either for use as slave labour or to be murdered after the Soviet defeat. The plan hinged on the rapid defeat of the Soviet forces. {{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=416}} Once it became apparent that the war against the Soviet Union would drag on much longer than expected, Heydrich revised his plans to concentrate on the Jewish population then under Nazi control. Since transporting masses of people into a combat zone would be impossible, Heydrich  decided that the Jews would be killed in [[extermination camp]]s set up in occupied areas of Poland.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|pp=309–310}} The total number of Jews murdered during the resulting [[Holocaust]] is estimated at 5.5 to 6&nbsp;million people.{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=318}}

==See also==
* [[Jewish Autonomous Oblast]]
* [[Nisko Plan]]
* [[Proposals for a Jewish state]]

==Explanatory notes==
{{notelist}}

==Citations==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite web | last = Andrews | first = Evan| title = Remembering Nazi Germany's Madagascar Plan | publisher = [[History Channel]]  | date = 3 June 2015 | url=https://www.history.com/news/nazi-germanys-madagascar-plan-75-years-ago  | access-date = 18 October 2018 }}
* {{cite book | last = Browning | first = Christopher R. | author-link = Christopher Browning | title = The Origins of the Final Solution : The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942 | series = Comprehensive History of the Holocaust | year = 2004 | publisher = University of Nebraska Press | location = Lincoln | isbn = 0-8032-1327-1 | url = https://archive.org/details/originsoffinalso00brow }}
* {{cite book | last = Browning | first = Christopher R. | author-link = Christopher Browning | title = The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution | year = 1995 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge | isbn = 978-0-521-55878-5 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/pathtogenocide00chri }}
* {{cite book | last = Cesarani | first = David | author-link = David Cesarani | title = The "Jewish Chronicle" and Anglo-Jewry: 1841–1991 | year = 1995 | orig-year = 1995 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge; New York | isbn = 978-0-521-43434-8 }}
* {{cite book | last = Ehrlich | first = Mark Avrum | title = Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture | volume = 1 | year = 2009 | publisher = ABC-CLIO | location = Santa Barbara, CA | isbn = 978-1-85109-873-6 }}
* {{cite book | last = Evans | first = Richard J. | author-link = Richard J. Evans | year = 2005 | title = [[The Third Reich in Power]] | publisher = Penguin | location = New York | isbn =978-0-14-303790-3 }}
* {{cite book | last = Evans | first = Richard J. | year = 2008 | title = The Third Reich at War | url = https://archive.org/details/thirdreichatwar00evan_0 | url-access = registration | publisher = Penguin | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-14-311671-4 }}
* {{cite book | last = Gerdmar | first = Anders | title = Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism: German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann | publisher = Koninklijke Brill | location = Leiden | series = Studies in Jewish History and Culture | year = 2009 | isbn = 978-90-04-16851-0 }}
* {{cite book | last = Hilberg | first = Raul | author-link = Raul Hilberg | year = 1973 | title= [[The Destruction of the European Jews]] | publisher = New Viewpoints| location = New York }}
* {{cite book | last = Kershaw | first = Ian | author-link = Ian Kershaw | title = Hitler: 1936–1945: Nemesis | year = 2000 | publisher = Norton | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-393-04994-7 | url = https://archive.org/details/hitler193645neme00kers }}
* {{cite book | last = Kershaw | first = Ian | title = Hitler: A Biography | year = 2008 | orig-year = 2000 | publisher = Norton | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-393-06757-6 }}
* {{cite book | last = Kershaw | first = Ian  | title = The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation | year = 2015 | orig-year = 1985 | publisher = Bloomsbury Publishing | location = London; New York | isbn = 978-1-4742-4095-6 }}
* {{cite book | last = Longerich | first = Peter | author-link = Peter Longerich | title = Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews | year = 2010 | isbn = 978-0-19-280436-5 | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford; New York }}
* {{cite book | last = Longerich | first = Peter | year = 2012 | title = Heinrich Himmler: A Life | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford; New York | isbn = 978-0-19-959232-6 }}
* {{cite book | last = Nicosia | first = Francis R.  | title = Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=JTtGXWzfD10C&pg=PA280 | year = 2008 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | location = Cambridge; New York | isbn = 978-0-521-88392-4 }}
* {{cite book | last = Shirer | first = William L. | author-link = William L. Shirer | title = [[The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]] | publisher = Simon & Schuster | location = New York | year = 1960 | isbn = 978-0-671-62420-0 }}
* {{cite book | last = Snyder | first = Timothy | author-link = Timothy D. Snyder | title = Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin | year= 2010 | publisher = Basic Books | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-465-00239-9 }}
* {{cite book | last = Telushkin | first = Joseph | author-link = Joseph Telushkin | title = Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History | year = 2001 | orig-year = 1991 | publisher = Harper Collins | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-688-08506-3 | url = https://archive.org/details/jewishliteracy00telu }}

===Further reading===
* {{cite book | last = Ainsztein | first = Reuben | title = Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe | year = 1974 | publisher = Elek Books | location = London | isbn = 978-0-236-15490-6}}
* {{cite book | last = Brechtken | first = Magnus | title = Madagaskar für die Juden: Antisemitische Idee und politische Praxis 1885–1945 | year = 1998 | publisher = Wissenschaftsverlag | location =  Oldenbourg | language = de | isbn = 3-486-56384-X}}
* {{cite web | last = Rademacher | first = Franz | author-link = Franz Rademacher | title = The Madagascar Plan: The Jewish Question in the Peace Treaty | date = 3 July 1940 | work = Jewish Virtual Library | publisher = American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise | url = https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Madagascar.html}}

==External links==
* {{YouTube|46pwZyTC3yg|Video overview of the Madagascar Plan}} by the German historian [[Magnus Brechtken]]
* [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Madagascar.html Text of the Madagascar Plan]
{{The Holocaust}}

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[[Category:Jewish emigration from Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:History of Madagascar]]
[[Category:Settlement schemes]]
[[Category:Germany–Madagascar relations]]
[[Category:Adolf Eichmann]]
[[Category:Proposed Jewish states]]