The Madagascar Plan was a suggestion made by certain leading figures in Nazi Germany that Jews living in German-occupied Europe would be forcibly relocated to a German "protectorate" in Madagascar.

In May 1940, Heinrich Himmler stated about the Madagascar Plan:

"However cruel and tragic each individual case may be, this method is still the mildest and best, if one rejects the Bolshevik method of physical extermination of a people out of inner conviction as un-German and impossible."

Adolf Hitler responded to this plan in his notes by saying it was "very good and correct".

The Plan

Franz Rademachter was charged with devising the specifics of the plan. Set down in "The Jewish Question in the Peace Treaty" in July 1940, it contained the following points:

• France would give Madagascar to Germany
• The 25,000 Europeans (mostly French) would be returned to Europe
• Jewish emigration would be forced, rather than voluntary
• The Jews on Madagascar would operate their own local government, but it would be responsible to a German police governor
• The emigration and colonisation of Madagascar would be funded by the Jews themselves, with monies and possessions confiscated by the government

Of course, this plan would never be put into effect and scholars debate whether it was a serious proposal or meant as propaganda to make the eventual deportation of the Jews from occupied Europe more acceptable. As the events of World War II spiralled out of control, Nazi Germany developed its program for the extermination of European Jewry at the Wannsee Conference.

See also

• British Uganda Program - an earlier British plan to give part of Africa to the Jews