“The Haavara Transfer involved a transaction between the Reich’s authorities and a group of Zionist businesses based at the Hanotea orange plantation in Natania just outside of Tel Aviv. Whereas the British mandate restricted immigration (to Palestine) by applicants without financial means, anyone equipped with at least 1,000 Palestinian pounds was granted free entry under a so called “capitalist visa”. The Haavara Transfer was designed to take advantage of this loophole. The scheme operated by allowing German Jews to make payments into a fund in Berlin in exchange for certificates crediting them with sufficient Palestinian pounds to allow them to obtain the coveted visa. Hanotea for its part used the funds deposited in Berlin to buy German goods for export to Palestine. The emigrants were reimbursed in Palestinian pounds when German goods were sold to Jewish or Arab customers. In effect, the arrangement ensured that every Reichsmark of capital exported by a German-Jewish emigrant was matched by a compensating export order….Haavara became one the most efficient means for Jews to export capital from Germany, In total 50,000 people, one tenth of the German Jewish population in 1933 were able to use the scheme to make good their escape. “
The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy: Adam Tooze, Penguin Books 2006
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