{"id":36,"date":"2026-01-13T06:16:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T06:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cfrdevwp.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=36"},"modified":"2026-01-13T11:46:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T11:46:17","slug":"limits-on-jewish-refugees-from-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/limits-on-jewish-refugees-from-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Limits on Jewish Refugees From Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nazi Germany\u2019s persecution of so-called non-Aryans in the 1930s pushed Jews, first in Germany and then in the countries that Germany seized, to seek refuge elsewhere. Many refugees hoped to find safety in the United States. Yet even as Nazi control over Europe expanded, the United States strictly limited immigration. The refusal to address the growing humanitarian crisis reflected antisemitism, nativism, bureaucratic red tape, and unfounded fears that refugees would become a burden on the government or work as German spies. The United States stuck to its restrictive immigration policy even though President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other leading U.S. officials condemned Germany\u2019s treatment of Jews, and U.S. newspapers frequently covered the plight of refugees. The U.S. refusal to admit more refugees meant that tens of thousands of people who might have been saved instead perished in the Holocaust. SHAFR historians ranked the U.S. insistence on limiting the number of Jewish refugees in the years before World War II as the eighth-worst U.S. foreign policy decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nazi Germany\u2019s persecution of so-called non-Aryans in the 1930s pushed Jews, first in Germany and then in the countries that Germany seized, to seek refuge elsewhere. Many refugees hoped to find safety in the United States. Yet even as Nazi control over Europe expanded, the United States strictly limited immigration. The refusal to address the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":940,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worst-decisions"],"acf":{"add_section":[{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"Nazi Germany Persecutes Jews","add_section_content":"Adolf Hitler began persecuting German Jews as soon as he became German chancellor in January 1933. He promoted the boycott of Jewish businesses, encouraged the public burning of books written by Jewish authors, stripped Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe of German citizenship, and set up the first concentration camp. In 1935, he enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which revoked the citizenship of German Jews and barred them from marrying non-Jewish Germans. In March 1938, Germany absorbed Austria in the Anschluss, extending its persecution to Austrian Jews. Six months later the Munich Conference allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland, the predominantly German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia.\r\n\r\nIn November 1938, Hitler unleashed Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). That attack on Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland destroyed two hundred synagogues, ruined thousands of Jewish-owned businesses, and sent thirty-thousand Jewish men to concentration camps. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said he \u201ccould scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth century civilization\u201d and recalled the U.S. ambassador to Germany.","add_image":1854,"image_position":"right","background":true,"quote_content":"","quote_footer":"","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"Anti-Immigrant America ","add_section_content":"The Depression-era United States was hostile to immigrants. The surge in immigration in the three decades before World War I produced a backlash that led to the passage of the National Origins Act of 1924, which sought to limit the number of immigrants and to preserve the existing ethnic make-up of the United States. To that end, the law capped all immigration at 165,000 people per year\u201420 percent of the average annual immigration flows before World War I. The law also barred immigration from Asia and severely restricted immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe while setting more generous quotas on immigration from northern Europe.\r\n\r\nThe onset of the Great Depression intensified the public\u2019s fear of immigrants, who were seen as competitors for scarce jobs and potential burdens on the government because they might not be able to support themselves. At the same time, demagogues like Father Charles E. Coughlin, a Catholic priest in the Detroit suburbs, used a new technology, radio, to whip up racist, xenophobic, and antisemitic sentiment across the country.","add_image":"","image_position":"null","background":false,"quote_content":"","quote_footer":"","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"Roosevelt\u2019s Role","add_section_content":"Roosevelt\u2019s complicated views of Jews helped shape his administration\u2019s response to the growing refugee crisis. He appointed more Jews to public office than all his predecessors combined, including the first Jewish secretary of the treasury and the third Jewish Supreme Court justice. Yet, FDR also shared many of the prejudices of the day about \u201cnon-assimilable immigrants\u201d and Jews coming to dominate certain professions. The plight of Jewish refugees never became a personal priority.\r\n\r\nFDR instead left refugee policy to the State Department to handle. Despite being married to a woman from an Austrian-Jewish family, Secretary of State Cordell Hull also did not see the refugee issue as a priority. To the contrary, his subordinates vigorously enforced immigration laws. As a result, potential refugees found themselves in a catch-22. They wanted to escape Nazi persecution but could not enter the United States because the Nazis denied them the documents U.S. officials demanded. As a result, the annual quota of 27,370 visas for German refugees was not filled in any year between 1933 and 1938.","add_image":1865,"image_position":"right","background":false,"quote_content":"","quote_footer":"","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"The Evian Conference","add_section_content":"In 1938, FDR broke with his relative passivity and called for an international conference on refugees. In July 1938, delegates from thirty-two countries met in the resort town of Evian-les-Bains, France. The U.S. representative was not a senior government official but a friend of FDR\u2019s. Like all the delegates, he lamented the plight of Jewish refugees. And like most delegates, he suggested that the solution was for other countries, but not the United States, to welcome them. Hitler taunted the conference\u2019s work: \u201cThe whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard-hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them.\u201d","add_image":1877,"image_position":"right","background":true,"quote_content":"The world seemed to be divided into two parts\u2013those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter.","quote_footer":"Chaim Weizmann","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"quote","add_section_title":"","add_section_content":"","add_image":"","image_position":"bottom","background":false,"quote_content":"The world seemed to be divided into two parts\u2013those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter.","quote_footer":"Dr. Chaim Weizmann, addressing the Peel Commission on November 25, 1936","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"The Wagner-Rogers Bill","add_section_content":"<div class=\"field__item\">\r\n<div class=\"paragraph paragraph--type--rich-text paragraph--view-mode--default\">\r\n<div class=\"text-content field field--name-field-body field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field__item\">\r\n\r\nIn 1939, Democratic Senator Robert Wagner of New York and Republican Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced legislation to allow ten thousand German children under the age of fourteen to enter the United States in 1939 and again in 1940. These admissions would be above the annual quota for German immigrants. Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR\u2019s wife, publicly supported the bill.\r\n\r\nThe legislation had little public support, however. One public opinion poll showed that only a quarter of Americans favored it. Opponents argued that it would increase unemployment and that the United States should help poor Americans instead. At the time, FDR was seeking to persuade Congress to loosen the terms of the Neutrality Act, which limited what aid the United States could send to France and Great Britain.\u202fNot wanting to antagonize anti-immigration lawmakers, he directed his staff to take no action on the Wagner-Rogers bill. It died in committee.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","add_image":1888,"image_position":"right","background":true,"quote_content":"","quote_footer":"","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"The Voyage of the Damned","add_section_content":"The inflexibility of U.S. policy was on public display in late spring 1939. That May, the German ocean liner MS\u00a0<em>St. Louis<\/em>\u00a0departed Hamburg, Germany, for Cuba. The ship carried 937 passengers, mostly Jews hoping to wait in Cuba until they obtained a visa to enter the United States. When the ship reached Havana, Cuban authorities said that all but twenty-eight passengers lacked the documents needed to enter the country and barred them from disembarking. After a week of fruitless appeals, the\u00a0<em>St. Louis<\/em>\u00a0departed Havana.\r\n\r\nThe\u00a0<em>St. Louis\u2019<\/em>s captain hoped that the United States would offer his passengers safe haven. Those hopes were quickly dashed: the quota for admissions for German immigrants had been filled for 1939. Accepting the refugees required Congress to pass a new law or Roosevelt to use his executive authority to allow them into the United States. Neither acted. Canada likewise refused to accept any passengers. The\u00a0<em>St. Louis<\/em>\u00a0returned to Europe, ending what became known as \u201cthe Voyage of the Damned.\u201d Roughly 250 of the ship\u2019s passengers died in the Holocaust.","add_image":1894,"image_position":"right","background":false,"quote_content":"","quote_footer":"","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"War Begins in Europe","add_section_content":"The outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939 had the perverse effect of intensifying U.S. efforts to limit the number of Jewish refugees it accepted. Leading Americans argued that Europe fell so quickly to the Nazi onslaught because Germany had placed spies and saboteurs abroad. Even FDR repeated unfounded claims that Jewish refugees might be forced to spy for the Nazis.\r\n\r\nAs a result, the State Department imposed more requirements on refugees. Among other changes, refugees now could not have a close family member still living in Nazi-controlled territory. In mid-1941, the State Department closed its consulates in southern France and Portugal, cutting of the final places in Europe where Jews might escape. It was not until January 1944, after a report criticized the State Department\u2019s obstructionism, that Roosevelt shifted authority for refugee policy to an independent War Refugee Board. It was tasked with rescuing people under Nazi oppression and ultimately aided hundreds of thousands of people in the final months of the war.","add_image":1899,"image_position":"right","background":true,"quote_content":"","quote_footer":"","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""},{"quote_section":"imagecontent","add_section_title":"The Legacy of the Limits on Jewish Refugees ","add_section_content":"The refusal of the United States to relax the restrictions that severely limited the number of Jewish refugees entering the United States before World War II meant that tens of thousands of people who might have been saved instead perished in the Holocaust. The United States stuck to its restrictive immigration policy with full knowledge of Germany\u2019s persecution of Jews. Roosevelt and other leading U.S. officials condemned it, and U.S. newspapers frequently covered the plight of refugees. The indifference to the plight of European Jewry would, however, have one positive consequence. After World War II, and in direct recognition of its mistakes before and during the war, the United States championed domestic and international laws that sought to address the challenges facing refugees and displaced persons.","add_image":"","image_position":"null","background":false,"quote_content":"","quote_footer":"","video_title":"","video_link":null,"youtube_link":""}],"add_testimonials":[{"author_name":"Kimber Quinney","add_testimonial_content":"Limiting Jewish refugees during WWII is counter to everything the United States claims to be. When the nation fails to stand for the principles and values which it touts so vociferously (and often imposes on other nations in justification of U.S. intervention, e.g., Afghanistan), the hypocrisy has long-term harmful effects on national interest.","add_university_department":"Professor of History, California State University San Marcos","add_image":1434},{"author_name":"Scott Mobley","add_testimonial_content":"This move did nothing to advance U.S. interests, eroded the nation's claims to moral standing, and sent a message of indifference to the Nazis\u2014a message that later came back to haunt us.","add_university_department":"Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison","add_image":1905}],"learn_more_title":"Learn More","add_learn_more_content":"Primary documents, books, articles, and more on the limits on Jewish refugees from Germany. ","add_sources":[{"add_sources_title":"Books","single_source":[{"source_link_title":{"title":"Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins\u2019s Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany","url":"https:\/\/www.kensingtonbooks.com\/9780806543178\/dear-miss-perkins\/","target":""},"source_content":"Graham tells the story of how Frances Perkins, the first women to be a member of a presidential cabinet, used her position as Labor Secretary to save the lives of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany.","source_image":1915},{"source_link_title":{"title":"Walter Laqueur, Generation Exodus: The Fate of Young Jewish Refugees From Nazi Germany","url":"https:\/\/www.brandeis.edu\/tauber\/publications\/books\/laqueur-exodus.html","target":""},"source_content":"Laqueur draws on interviews, memoirs, and his own experiences as a refugee to chronicle how Jewish refugees fled Germany in the 1930s.","source_image":929},{"source_link_title":{"title":"Sarah A. Ogilvie and Scott Miller, Refuge Denied: The St. Louis Passengers and the Holocaust","url":"https:\/\/shop.ushmm.org\/products\/refuge-denied-the-st-louis-passengers-and-the-holocaust","target":""},"source_content":"Ogilvie and Miller recount the story of how in 1939 more than 900 Jewish refugees aboard the Hamburg-America Line\u2019s MS St. Louis were turned away by Cuba and then the United States.","source_image":1924}]},{"add_sources_title":"Articles","single_source":[{"source_link_title":{"title":"Erin Blakemore, \u201cA Ship of Jewish Refugees Was Refused U.S. Landing in 1939. This Was Their Fate\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.history.com\/articles\/wwii-jewish-refugee-ship-st-louis-1939","target":""},"source_content":"Blakemore recounts how in 1939 the U.S. government refused to grant asylum to the more than nine hundred Jewish refugees onboard the MS St. Louis.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"Daniel Gross, \u201cThe U.S. Government Turned Away Thousands of Jewish Refugees, Fearing That They Were Nazi Spies\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/history\/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324\/","target":""},"source_content":"Gross discusses how the U.S. government turned away thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in the years before World War II.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"Jeanne Dorin McDowell, \u201cWhy Was America So Reluctant to Take Action on the Holocaust?\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/history\/why-was-america-so-reluctant-to-take-action-on-the-holocaust-180980779\/","target":""},"source_content":"McDowell explores the reasons behind the U.S. government\u2019s unwillingness to welcome Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, \u201cFranklin Delano Roosevelt\"","url":"https:\/\/encyclopedia.ushmm.org\/content\/en\/article\/franklin-delano-roosevelt","target":""},"source_content":"An overview of the actions that FDR took, and did not take, in response to the persecution of Jews in Germany.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, \u201cHow Many Refugees Came to the United States From 1933-1945?\u201d","url":"https:\/\/exhibitions.ushmm.org\/americans-and-the-holocaust\/how-many-refugees-came-to-the-united-states-from-1933-1945","target":""},"source_content":"A collection of graphs showing the number of Germans seeking admission to the United States versus the number admitted.","source_image":""}]},{"add_sources_title":"Documentaries and Short Videos","single_source":[{"source_link_title":{"title":"The U.S. and the Holocaust, \u201cHow U.S. Antisemitism Shut the Door on Countless Refugee Children\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yfIb2AYOZV0","target":""},"source_content":"A seven-minute excerpt from the PBS documentary on the U.S. and the Holocaust tells how antisemitism and xenophobia derailed an effort in 1939 to allow ten thousand Jewish children fleeing Nazi Germany to enter the United States.","source_image":""}]},{"add_sources_title":"Lectures and Podcasts","single_source":[{"source_link_title":{"title":"Academic Life, \u201cDear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins\u2019s Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany\u201d","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/dear-miss-perkins-a-story-of-frances-perkinss\/id1539341620?i=1000683289864","target":""},"source_content":"Historian Rebecca Brenner Graham discusses the efforts by U.S. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to use U.S. immigration policy to assist refugees fleeing Nazi Germany.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"FDR Library, \u201cMyths and Realities of American Responses to the Holocaust, 1938\u20131945\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aScKgmExwkE","target":""},"source_content":"Historians Richard Breitman, Rebecca Erbelding, and Meredith Hindley debunk myths about U.S. actions during the Holocaust.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"Military History, \u201cThe Jews Should Keep Quiet: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the Holocaust\u201d","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/ie\/podcast\/rafael-medoff-the-jews-should-keep-quiet-franklin-d\/id424061529?i=1000489612380","target":""},"source_content":"Historian Rafael Medoff highlights parallels between Roosevelt\u2019s exclusion of Jewish refugees and Japanese American internment, emphasizing how geopolitical priorities and Roosevelt\u2019s personal sentiments shaped his policies.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"The Advocates, \u201cRefugees and Rescue: FDR and James G. McDonald With\u2013Richard Breitman\u201d","url":"https:\/\/theadvocates.podbean.com\/e\/refugees-and-rescue-fdr-and-james-g-mcdonald-richard-breitman\/","target":""},"source_content":"Historian Richard Breitman discusses how James G. McDonald, Roosevelt\u2019s advisor on refugees, influenced the president\u2019s thinking on Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany.","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"United States Holocaust Museum, \u201cWorld Refugee Day: The Fate of the St. Louis\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=74MPNPrwI2Q","target":""},"source_content":"Historian Diane Afoumado discusses how an effort in 1939 to help Jewish refugees escape Germany onboard the MS St. Louis turned into the \"voyage of doom\" when Cuba and the United States refused to accept them.","source_image":""}]},{"add_sources_title":"Timeline and Websites","single_source":[{"source_link_title":{"title":"Museum of Tolerance, \u201cTimeline of the Holocaust: 1933\u20131945\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.museumoftolerance.com\/education\/teacher-resources\/holocaust-resources\/timeline-of-the-holocaust.html","target":""},"source_content":"","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"PBS, \u201cInteractive: Voyage of the MS St. Louis\u201d","url":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/kenburns\/us-and-the-holocaust\/interactive-voyage-of-the-ms-st-louis","target":""},"source_content":"","source_image":""},{"source_link_title":{"title":"United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, \u201cThe United States and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-41\u201d","url":"https:\/\/encyclopedia.ushmm.org\/content\/en\/article\/the-united-states-and-the-refugee-crisis-1938-41","target":""},"source_content":"","source_image":""}]}],"add_bottom_title":"","add_bottom_image":"","add_background_image":"","add_bottom_button":"","add_year":"1939"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/build.mini.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/07\/Jewish_refugees_aboard_the_SS_St._Louis_in_Cuba.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3503,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/3503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfr.org\/ten-best-ten-worst-us-foreign-policy-decisions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}