After the November Pogrom in 1938 the Nazis closed the Temple, which had not been burnt but realised vandalism of its interior. Italiener emigrated to the United Kingdom. On 28 November 1940 the legal successor of the DIG, the Jewish Religious Association (Jüdischer Religionsverband in Hamburg), was forced to sell the building for the ridiculous sum of ℛℳ 120,000 to the Colonial Office (Kolonialamt; a legally dependent subunit of Hamburg), which, however, did not realise its plans for the rebuild for its purposes.