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Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany
by Faris Glubb © 1979
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter I. — The Early Zionist Attitude to Anti-Semitism
Chapter II. — The Common Ground Between Zionism and Nazism
Chapter III. — The Ha'avara Agreements
Chapter IV. — The 1938 Emigration Accords
Chapter V. — The Ghetto Revolts
Chapter VI. — Zionist Policy on the Holocaust
Chapter VII. — Kastner and the Hungarian Jews
Chapter VIII. — The Concealment of Evidence
Chapter IX. — The Irgun and Nazism
Chapter X. — Assessment of ZIonist Policy towards Nazism
References
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Introduction
Despite the appearance of large numbers of books on Nazi Germany's barbaric treatment of the European Jews, there is widespread public ignorance on one important aspect of this question: the relationship between the Zionist movement and Nazi Germany. The information on this subject is available, but has not yet been gathered together in a single comprehensive study. (refer to 51 Documents of Zionist Collaboration With The Nazis) This study is intended, at least partially, to remedy this deficiency.
Owing to the delicate nature of this subject, and the Zionist tendency to brand any non-Zionist or anti-Zionist viewpoint as "anti-semitic", all the material on Zionist-Nazi relations in this study is taken from exclusively Jewish sources. The writers quoted cover a wide spectrum of views, from extreme Zionist to anti-Zionist, with various shades in between. The reader will thus be able to form an accurate and objective opinion on the basis of evidence presented by leading Jewish historians.
I
The Early Zionist Attitude to Anti-Semitism
The central tenets of Zionism are that the Jews constitute a "nation" separate from all other nations, and that they must be "ingathered" from teh various parts of the world to Palestine, to form their own nations-state there. The European phenomenon known as "anti-Smeitism" maintains that the Jews are an unassimilable, alien element in European society, which should be removed from Europe.
The founder fo the political Zionist movement, THeorldor Herzl, was aware of the philosophical common ground between Zionism and anti-Semitism when he wrote: "The governments of all countries scourged by anti-Semitism will be keenly interest in assissting us to obtaining the sovereignity we want."(1) Herzl "frequently asserted in all innocence that anti-Semites weound be the Jews' best friends and anti-Semitic governments their best allies. But thits faith in anti-Semites expressed very elloquently and even touchingly how close his own state fo mind was to that of his hostile environment and how inmitely he did belong to the 'alien' world...
"Anti-Semitism was an overwhelming force and the Jews would have either to make use of it or be swallowed up by it. In his own words, anti-Semitisim was the 'propelling force' espoinsible for all Jewish suffering since the destruction of the Temple and it would continue to make the Jews suffers until they learned how to use it for their own advantage. In expert hands this 'propelling force' would prove the most salutory factor in Jewish life, it would be used in the same way that boiling water is used to produce steam power."(2)
Hezl was a man who practised what he preached. The methods he used in his diplomatic efforts to further the Zioinst cause accorded with the principals he proclaimed. This is strongly illustrated by the approaches he maed to Czarist Russia, which at the beginning of this centry was the power that applied the most fanatical and cruel anti-Jewish polices of massacre, expulsion and discrimination.
Althogh Herzl never achieved his dream of an audience iwth the Czar, he did hold talks with the Czarist Interior Misister Wenzel von PLehve, who was responsible fo r implementing anit-Jewish measures and organised massacres liek the Kishinev pogrom, in whihch 45 Jews were killeld. Plehve "was brutal enought o admit that he ghad no objections to getting ride of as many Jews as possible; in fact, he would become a 'sympathetic' supporter of Zionism. Herzl then proposed that Plehve should write him a letter that he would present before teh Zioinist Congress, to the effect that the Zionist movement could count on the Russian Geovernments' 'moral and material assistance'. Plehve's letter became Herzl's most treastured asset. He carried it it around everywhere; he showe dit tot he Pope. The murderer of his peo;le had shaken hands with him, talked to him politely. Was that not wonderful? fFopr {lehve, for the Kaiser, for the whole crowd of t blackhguards and reactionaries who ruled Europe, Herzl had a forourite promise: Zionism woluld dissolve all revolutionary and socialist elemnts among the Jews." (3)
In 1903, the founder of the Zionist movement was received in St. Petersburg by another anti-Semitic leader, the Czar's Finance Mister Count Witte, who also favoured the Zioinst plan to remove the Jews from Europe. Witte told Herzl: "If it were possible to drown six or seven million Jews in the Black Sea, I would be perfectly happy to do so, but it is not possible, so we msut let them live. But we councourage ythe Jews to emigrae: we kick them out." (4)
The most important foundations laid by Herzl for Zionism's future successes were anti-Semetic circles in Britain. A substantial number of Russian Jewish refugees from Czarist pogroms chose Britain rather than Palestine as their refuge, thus disappointing Zionist hopes. But the Zionists found that a number of extreme right-wing politicians in Britain were only too willing to stir up a vicious campaign aimed at denying these unfortunate refugees the right of asylum.
Herzl gave these right-wingers his blessing and encouragement. In his evidence to the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, which investigated the question in 1902 and 1903, Herzl called for the stream of migration to be diverted away from Britain. He thus agreed with the racist Arnold White, one of the leading theorists of the campaign to ban Jews from Britain. (5)
Another leader of this campaign with whom Herzl made friendly contact was Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain. In a speech in Limehouse, London, in December 1904, Chamberlain attacked the policy of allowing Jewish immigration to Britain, at the same time endorsing the Zionist idea of a Jewish state and warmly praising Herzl. (6)
The most important British anti-Semite of that age, in terms of his eventual services to Zionism, was the fanatical Jew-baiter Lord Arthur Balfour. In a parliamentary debate on the immigration issue, Balfour made a speech in which he put forward a case for anti-Semtism that is all too familiar. He declared: "It would not be to the advantage of the civilisation of the country that there should be an immense body of persons who, by their own action, remained a people apart, and not merely held a religion differing form the vast majority of their fellow-countrymen, but only intermarried among themselves." (7)
Herzl was able to declare with satisfaction that "anti-Semitism has grown and continues to grow, and so do I" (8) But the fruits of his diplomacy did not ripen during his lifetime: A decade after his death, the First World War was to prove a turning-point in the fortunes of Zionism, as the Western allies planned the division of the Ottoman Empire, which was fighting on the side of Germany. Palestine was then under Ottoman control.
The Zionists followed a policy of betting on both sides in the first two years of the war. The headquarters of the World Zionist Organisation was then still in Berlin, and its leaders there persued efforts to form an alliance with Germany. At the same time Chaim Weizmann, then President of the British Zionist Federation, made parallel efforts for an alliance with Britain. Weizmann conducted an astute and energetic campaign, concentrating on canvassing the support of reactionary politicians like Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil and the Prime Minister Lloyd George. Apart from the argument that Zionism was a convenient way of ridding Europe of its Jews, Weizmann also used the imperialist argument that "a Jewish Palestine would be a safeguard to England, in particular in respect to the Suez Canal." (9)
The Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 was the outcome of these diplomatic efforts. This first charter for a Zionist "national home" was thus motivated by a combination of imperial ambitions and anti-Semitic prejudices on the part of the right-wing politicians who issued it. It is interesting that the strongest opposition to it within the British government came from its only Jewish member, Sir Edwin Montagu, who clearly recognised the anti-Semitic motivations behind the policy of Balfour and Lloyd George. Montagu wrote: "I assert that there is not a Jewish nation... When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country." (10)
Montagu's predictions were all too accurate. The years following the Balfour Declaration witnessed the rise of virulent anti-Semitism in Europe, culminating in Hitler's holocaust. This in turn was followed by the dispossession of the Palestinian people. As will become apparent, the two events were closely interrelated.
References for Chapter One:
1. Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (New York, 1946) p. 92
2. Hannah Arendt, The Jewish State, 50 Years After — Where Have Herzl's Politics Led? (article in Commentary, Vol. I, No. 7, May 1946).
3. Moshe Menuhin, The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time (Institute for Palestine Studies reprint, Beirut, 1969)_ pp 46-47
4. Quoted by Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe (London, 1974) p. 151
5. Report of Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, 1902–1903 (Cmnd. 1741 & 1742)
6. Jewish Chronicle, 23 December 1904
7. Hasard, 10 July 1905, Vol. 149, Col. 154–155.
8. Theodor Herzl, Diaries, (Marvin Lowenthal's translation, New York, 1956) p. 7.
9. Chiam Weizmann, Trial and Error (New York, 1949) p. 243.
10. Memorandum on the Anti-Semitism of the Present Government, 23 August 1917.
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Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany
by Faris Glubb © 1979
II
The Common Ground Between Zionism and Nazism
Hitler's advent to power in Germany on 30 January 1933 meant that anti-Semitism became the German Government's official policy. This event was accompanied by an intensification of the Jew-bating policies characteristic of Nazism.
"In January 1933, the Nazi leaders, long considered by thinking persons as a band of ignorant and perverted demagogues, suddenly became the respectable heads of a great government. However, only their status had altered, their character and methods remained unchanged, and the Jews of Germany had to suffer the consequences of the demagogic campaign of hatred which had long been waged against them." (11)
Armed with the full apparatus of government, the Nazis were able to launch an effective reign of terror. A Jewish witness described it thus:
"I had to listen to the shouts of 'Jude Verrecke' of the organised bands of demonstrators marching past my house. Daily there were attacks on people and kidnappings, the most terrible kinds of mistreatment of any number of people of my acquaintance who were know to have Democratic or Socialistic views, or simply because they were Jews... When I left Berlin a few days ago I had the feeling that I was living in a condition of a constant and continuous pogrom worse than those that once took place in Russia because there the pogrom started and ended at a definite time. You will probably have heard by this time of the terrible pogrom in Koenigsberg... The relatives of the Jews who had been attacked and wounded did not dare even to bring the poor victims to the hospitals in Koenigsberg but had to transport them to Berlin and many succumbed to their wounds in the course of the transportation to Berlin." (12)
Organised thuggery was accompanied by administrative measures to segregate the Jews from the rest of German society:
"On April 8, the new Civil Service Law was approved by the Cabinet and promulgated by Dr. Frick, the Reich Minister of the INterior It barred all non-aryans (except those who fought at the front or who lost a father or son in the World War) from any position in Federal, State or Municipal Civil Service... (April 12) Matriculated Jews could not be members of the student body. On the same day the Government barred Jewish political editors from its press conferences... On March 20, the official Court Bureau announced the purging throughout Germany of the offices of the prosecuting attorneys and the removal of Jewish judges from the Criminal to the Civil courts. But by March 31, there had been a a change of heart and all Jewish lawyers and judges were removed.
"In Prussia on March 31, the Diet petitioned the Minister of Education for dismissal of all Jewish teachers and for limiting Jewish Students — not only in universities but in lower schools to one percent... (In Munich) the Superintendent of Schools went farther to announce that in the next term, no Jewish children would be allowed in Christian schools, nor would Jewish school doctors be allowed to treat Christian children". (13)
The devastating effect of such discrimination was illustrated in this dispatch from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
"Jewish breadlines in Germany are doubling overnight, the number of the helpless leaping from thirty to eighty thousand in less than a week... Most of these are ruined middle class folk, shopkeepers, white-collar workers and professional people who have been forced to give up their means of livelihood by the anti-Semitic measures." (14)
The viciousness of Nazism was thus established beyond all doubt from the moment it came to power. What was the purpose of such measures? According to one eminent Jewish legal expert, "the inevitable consequence of the campaign of dismissal and exclusion by law, and of violence and outrage under the protections of outlawry of Jews and liberals, was a large exodus of Jews, non-Aryans and liberals from Germany." (15)
How did Zionism react to the cruel Nazi measures? In effect, the Zionist movement also believed that Jews should not be part of Gentile society. this fact explains why the rise of Nazism resulted in greatly increased strength for Zionism among German Jews. It also explains why a convinced Nazi like Adolf Eichmann was able to be on cordial terms with Zionists, and even to describe himself as pro-Zionist, while remaining dedicated to the Nazi ideology.
Eichmann "was by no means alone in taking this 'pro-Zionisim' seriously; the German Jews themselves thought it would be sufficient to undo 'assimilation' through a new process of 'dissimilation' and flocked in to the ranks of the Zionist movement. (There are no reliable statistics on this development, but it is estimated that the circulation of the Zionist weekly Die Judische Rundschau increased in the first months of the Hitler regime from approximately 5-7,000 to nearly 40,000, and it is known that the Zionist fund-raising organisations received in 1935-36, from a greatly diminished and impoverished population, three times as much as in 1931-32). This did not necessarily mean that the Jews wished to emigrate to Palestine; it was more a matter of pride: "Wear it with pride, the Yellow Star', the most popular slogan of these years, coined by Robert Weltsch, editor-in-chief of the Judische Rundschau, expressed the general emotional atmosphere. The polemical point of the slogan, formulated as a response to Boycott Day, April 1, 1933 — more than six years before the Nazis actually forced the Jews to wear a badge, a six-pointed yellow star on a white ground — was directed against the 'assimilationists' and all those people who refused to be reconciled to the new 'revolutionary development', those who 'were always behind the times'." (16)
Zionism certainly benefitted from the fact that the rise of Hitler led to the crushing of its main rivals for ideological leadership of German Jewry. "It was in those years a fact of everyday life that only Zionists had any chance of negotiating with the German authorities, for the simple reason that their chief Jewish adversary, the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith, to which 95 percent of organised Jews in Germany then belonged, specified in tis bylaws that its chief task was the 'fight against anti-Semiitism'; it had suddenly become by definition an organisation 'hostile to the State'... During its first few years, Hitler's rise to power appeared to the Zionists chiefly as 'the decisive defeat of assimilationism'. Hence, the Zionists could, for a time at least, engage in a certain amount of non-criminal co-operation with the Nazi authorities; the Zionists too believed that "dissimilation" combined with the emigration to Palestine of Jewish youngsters** and, they hoped, Jewish capitalists, could be a 'mutually fair solution'. At the time, many German officials held this opinion". (17)
**(refer to Youth Aliyah from Nazi Germany)
This "non-criminal" co-operation between Nazism and Zionism in the early years was in fact to prove the thin end of the edge, destined later to open the door to much wider and more serious co-operation that became less and less "non-criminal" in character as Nazi policy developed. Even before Hitler became Chancellor the common interests between Zionism and Zionism had extended beyond the principle of dissimilation of German programme: the migration of Jews to Palestine. Thus as early as 20 June 1932, "three hundred Nazis marched through the streets of Breslau and terrorised Jewish passersby, shouting 'Let the Jews go to Palestine'." (18)
This policy of encouraging the Jews to emigrate to Palestine received the blessing of Hitler himself. Although earlier, when he wrote Mein Kampf, he had not believed that the Zionists really intended to found a state, once he came to power he revised his opinion of them and took them more seriously.
"It was precisely the Zionists who showed themselves ready to 'free Germany of its Jews'. And since this aim took priority over all the others, Hitler was to accept, with the pragmatism for which he was known, to compromise on his own doctrinal teachings.
"The objectives, it was to be concluded at the Wilhelmstrasse, that this category (of Jews who oppose assimilation and are favourable to a regrouping of their co-religonists in a national home) had set themselves, in whose front rank were the Zionists, are those that deviate least from the goals which German policy is really pursuing with regard to the Jews.
"The only Jews with whom, in the final analysis, various organs of the Third Reich, and particularly the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Economy were to establish real working relations, were in effect the Zionists and the Palestinian Jews." (19)
REFERENCES chapter two
11. Oscar Janowsky, People at Bay (London, 1938) pp. 126–127.
12. J. W. Wise, Swastika, the Nazi Terror (New York, 1933) pp. 59–60.
13. Ibid.. pp. 104-107.
14. Report dated 25 April 1933, from Innsbruck.
15. Norman Bentwich, The Refugees from Germany (London, 1936) p. 30.
16. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (New York, 1963) pp. 53–54.
17. Ibid., pp. 54–55.
18. Wise, op. cit, p. 45.
19. Eliahu Ben Elissar, La Diplomatie du IIIe Reich et les Juifs (Julliard, place of publication not stated, 1969) pp. 86-87.
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Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany
by Faris Glubb © 1979
III
The Ha'avara Agreements
The relationship between Zionism and Nazism was soon formalised in an agreement, the first of a series.
"Jews emigrating to Palestine were given a special opportunity to remove their capital by the so-called Ha'avara agreement. This agreement was concluded by the German Reich and the Jewish Agency for Palestine. In form it was a modified clearing arrangement. Under its terms a Jewish 'capitalist' who wanted to emigrate to Palestine was permitted to make a contract with a German exporter for the transfer of goods from Germany to Palestine. The German exporter was paid with funds drawn from the blocked account of the emigrating Jew. The emigrant received his Palestinian currency from the Jewish Agency upon arrival in Palestine.
"The Jewish Agency and the exporters were just as satisfied with this arrangement as the emigrants themselves. German goods poured into Palestine and, after a while, the Ha'avara clearing agreement was supplemented by a barter agreement providing for the exchange of Palestine oranges for German timber, wrapping paper, motor cars, pumps, agricultural machinery, etc. It seemed as though the economic relations between Nazi Germany and the Jewish community in Palestine were excellent." (20)
Probably the most painstaking research done so far on the Ha'avara agreements is that of Eliahu Ben Elissar. A doctor of political science and a former senior civil servant in the Israeli Presidency, as well as a senior member of the Likud, he is eminently qualified to write on the subject. He discovered that the first approach was made to Germany in April 1933 by Sam Cohen, director of the Ha'notea company. He signed a deal worth 1 million marks, later increased to 3 million.
"Those of the World Zionist Organisation responsible for Germany, who were in no way opposed to the principle of such an agreement, felt no enthusiasm at seeing it thus concluded with a company which was in fact private and of limited scope. They doubted that the Ha'notea disposed of enough financial means to ensure in whose political importance outweighed its purely commercial interest.
"Werner Senator, of the Zionist Federation of Germany, and George Landauer, of the Jewish Agency, therefore began negotiations with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Economy...
"The Germans, who by all evidence were eager to reach a rapid conclusion, took the initiative of calling a conference with the participation of all the Jews concerned. The conference opened, on 7 August, in the Ministry of the Economy's offices. On the Jewish side there were: Cohen and Machnes who represented the Ha'notea, delegates from the Zionist Federation of Germany and two personalities who cam specially from Palestine for this purpose, Hoofien, director of the Anglo-Palestine Bank whose interests were intimately linked to those of the Zionist Organisation, and Ruppin, a sociologist and great specialist in questions of Jewish colonisation in Palestine.
"The stipulations of the agreement which the conference reached were as follows: Sam Cohen agreed to consider void all agreements prior to 7 August. A trust company would be created directed by Hoofien and under the auspices fo the Anglo-Palestine Bank. Its function would be to manage Jewish interests and negotiate with German exporters and industrialists. The total of transactions remained fixed at three million reischmarks, with he possibility of renewal...
"The agreement and the overall operations were known under the name of Ha'avara — a Hebrew word which means transfer — and which was also to be the social reason for the trust company (Ha'avara Trust and Transfer Office) whose headquarters was in Palestine. The company whcih was to be specially established to represent it in Berlin would be called Paltreu...
"On 21 August 1933 the 18th. Zionist Congress, the first to meet since HItler came to power, opened in Prague. The situation of the Jews in Germany was, naturally, the central theme under consideration and discussion. Hoofien and Ruppin had come straight to Prague from Berlin. A large number of delegates reproached Hoofien and Cohen, the two chief negotiators, with having made common cause with the devil and with having, through the Ha'avara agreement, undermined the Jews' struggle against the racist policy of the Reich. Impassioned exchanges took place. But a motion envisaging the Organisation's effective participation in the efforts to boycott Germany was not adopted." (21)
The efforts of anti-Nazi Jewish circles to organise a boycott of Nazi Germany arose as a counter-measure to the Nazi authorities' boycott of 1 April 1933. This was "a general boycott... of all Jewish places of business and of all Jewish doctors, lawyers, and other professional men. From that day, for the next six years and a half, there was a succession of acts of increasing inhumanity until the outbreak of the war ushered in a region of unparalleled barbarity. The boycott was merely a prelude to a system of persecution that robbed Jews of every source of livelihood." (22)
Jews in many parts of the world hoped that by retaliating with a boycott of German goods they could show solidarity with their oppressed co-religionaists and perhaps pressure the Nazi regime into relaxing the persecution. The Zionists' signature of the Ha'avara agreement effectively sabotaged this hope. "The result was that in the thirties, when American Jewry took great pains to organise a boycott of German merchandise, Palestine of all places, was swamped with all kinds of goods 'made in Germany'." (23)
Well before the 18th. Zionist Congress, the Zionist movement has made clear its intention of sabotaging the anti-Nazi boycott. The Zionist Federation of Germany went so far as to reassure a senior Nazi official that "the propaganda which calls for boycotting Germany, in the manner it is frequently conducted today, is by its very essence completely un-Zionist." (24)
The unfortunate precedent was thus created of sacrificing the interest of the Jewish masses in Europe for the sake of Zionist political ambitions. The usefulness of this was not lost on the Nazis.
"In signing... The Ha'avara agreement, the German authorities were simultaneously pursing two objectives: breaching the boycott organised against Germany by the Jews in various foreign countries and facilitating the departure of Jews from the Reich to Palestine.
"But, little by little, the second objective came to be considered the more important in Berlin. On one hand, the effects of the Jewish boycott had been considerably weakened while on the other hand, the expatriation of the Jews had become one of the major goals of the National Socialist regime's internal policy. Now the Zionists were the only ones, among Jews and non-Jews, to propose a constructive solution to the Jewish problem in Germany and above all to be able to put it into effect. The Ha'avara had provided them with the means for this. The German government could not remain indifferent to that. Thus one saw the Ministries of the Interior and the Economy simultaneously vying with each other to establish the Ha'avara and develop the activities of the Zionist Organisation in Germany.
"The organs of the Ha'avara thus gradually acquired a dominant, even privileged, position on German-Palestine trade... Urged on by the Zionist leaders in Germany, the 19th. Zionist Congress, which met in Lucerne from 20 August to 3 September 1935, decided to place the whole Ha'avara system under the direct control of the Zionist Executive Committee whose shares, held hitherto by the Anglo-Palestine Bank, were consequently transferred. In 1933, the transfer operations realised by the Ha'avara were for 1,254,956 marks. In 1937, they reached the value of 31,407,501 marks. (25)
Shortly after the 19th. Zionist Congress, on 15 September 1935, the Nazi regime passed the Nuremberg Laws, which Gerald Reitlinger has aptly termed the most murderous legislative instrument known to European history. "The character of these Nuremberg Laws was twofold. There was first the Reich Law of Citizenship which established two degrees, the Reichsbürger who must be of pure German blood, and the Staatsanhöriger who was a subject but not a citizen. The 'law for the protection of german blood and honour' was complementary, for tit added the principle that the two should not cohabit together in wedlock or out of it." (26)
We have noted that the Ha'avara agreements reached a record level in 1937, two years after the Nuremberg Laws were passed, so the Zionist clearly did not allow them to become an obstacle to a profitable co-operation. Ironically, the privileges which the Zionist movement had been gaining since Hitler came to power actually increased with the Nuremberg Laws, while the German Jews' position continued to deteriorate.
"The Zionist Organisation was authorized to open professional and agricultural training centres for candidates for emigration who wanted to prepare themselves for a new life in the Middle East. Hebrew courses were organised in several towns and, under the direction of a man of great value, Robert Weltsch, a Zionist newspaper, the Judische Rundschau, brought the hope of a better life to thousands of Jewish homes. The Ministry of the Interior authorised a delegation of German Zionists to participate in the 19th. Zionist Congress.
"In spite of the decision taken on 19 December 1934 to forbid members of Jewish youth movements to wear their traditional uniforms, on 13 April 1935 the political police of Bavaria, a veritable preserve of Himmler and Heydrich at the time, allowed as an exception the wearing of the uniform by the members of one of these movements because 'it is established that the "State Zionists" are precisely those whose organisation is trying by all means, even in illegal ways, to send its members to Palestine'...
"Alfred Rosenberg himself, in an interview granted on 3 May 1935 to Raymond Cariter of L'echo de Paris, recognised the merits of ZIonism because it was opposed to the assimilation of Jews.
"One of the two Nuremberg Laws, that on 'the protection of German blood and honour', which had forbidden the Jews to raise the national flag with the swastika nevertheless authorised them to display the 'Jewish colours' which were none other than the blue and white of the Zionist flag stamped with the star of David." (27)
Zionist co-operation with Nazi Germany should also be seen in the light of Nazism's contamination of other countries in Europe, notably Poland and Rumania, with the virus of racism during the 1930's. The suffering of German Jews was rapidly extended to others, as is clear from this contemporary account:
"The relentless drive of organised anti-Semitism, and the failure of the governments to concern themselves with the Jewish problem in a positive and constructive manner, have already produced far-reaching effects upon the Jews despair to which the Jews, notably those of Poland and Rumania, have been reduced; in the segregation and isolation of the hapless people in a number of countries; in the pauperisation of large masses of Jews; and in the relative, if not absolute, decline of Jewish population.
"The Jews of east-central Europe are terror-stricken. They have been the victims of so virulent a campaign of hatred and abuse especially since the Nazis rose to power in Germany, that they are in a state of chronic anxiety, ever apprehensive of what the morrow might bring...
"The Jews are being segregated socially. The narrowing of economic opportunities tends to isolate the Jew. But even more noteworthy, morally and psychologically are the effects of segregation in the social sphere To the question whether they still had non-Jewish friends, Danzig Jews replied sadly, 'our lifelong Gentile friends dare not associate with us.' They told, with evident pain, of being ignored on the streets by school chums, colleagues and friends; and an occasional, furtive apology of a generous Christian was remembered with touching gratitude." (28)
Instead of attempting to fight this situation, however, Zionist leaders saw the suffering of these Jews as something from which they could make useful political capital. "The 20th. Zionist Congress in fact met in Zurich from 3 to 17 August 1937 to discuss the Palestine partition plan, and Chaim Weizmann, the Organisation's President, was to go to Poland and Rumania to ensure the support of these countries for the creation of a Jewish state. The policy of Warsaw and Bucharest was in reality very clear. A community of about 3,500,000 Jews lived in Poland and nearly 800,000 Jews lived in Rumania. Just like Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest were interested in seeing the Jews leave their national territory. So these two capitals were very favourable to the arguments put forward by the Zionists." (29)
The Ha'avara system continued in force until the outbreak of the Second World War. During the period when it applied, the deals carried out under its auspices amounted to a total of 140 million marks. Towards the close of this period, some quarters in Germany attempted to have it revised or abrogated., without success. After reaching its peak in 1937, the volume of transactions began to fall, largely owing to the impoverishment of those Jews still left in Germany. Thus, from 1 January 1938 to 1 September 1939, transfer operations fell to around 27 million marks, more than 4 million marks less than in the year 1937. (30) Meanwhile, the new measures adopted by Nazi Germany to force Jews to emigrate, coupled with the Anschluss with Austria, required new and more comprehensive agreements to supersede the Ha'avara.
References for Chapter Three:
20. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (London, 1961) p. 95.
21. Ben Elissar, op. cit., pp. 90–94.
22. Israel Cohen, Contemporary Jewry (Londong, 1950) p. 186.
23. Arendt, op. cit., p. 55.
24. Letter from Blumenfeld, for Zionist federation, to Nazi official Bulow-Schwante, 11 June 1934.
25. Ben Elissar, op. cit., pp. 185–186.
26. Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution (New York, 1961) p. 7.
27. Ben Elissar, op. cit., pp. 186–187.
28. Janowsky, op. cit., pp. 90–91.
29. Ben Eilssar, op. cit., p. 204.
30. Ibid., p. 219.
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Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany
by Faris Glubb © 1979
IV
The 1938 Emigration Accords
The year 1938 was to prove a triumphant one for Hitler. Its highlights included his annexation of Austria and the Munich Agreement, the diplomatic capitulation of the British and French Governments which enabled the Nazis to dismember Czechoslovakia. These successes emboldened the nazis to intensify their campaign to force the Jews out of Europe, and the acquisition of new territories brought more jews, in large numbers, within the scope of this campaign. The end of the year witnessed the notorious pogrom known as the Kristallnacht.
It is relevant to remind ourselves here of the precise goal of which Hitler never lost sight throughout this period. This was summarised eloquently by tow Jewish legal experts, shortly before the intensified campaign was launched, in these words: "The avowed aim of the National Socialist Government s t to force the emigration on a vast scale of the 'non-Aryan' population of Germany. This objective is being attained through a systematic programme of discrimination and humiliation which is calculated to induce the flight form their homes of hundreds of thousands of individuals." (31)
However, the agreements reached hitherto with Zionism were not adequate for Nazi purposes, and the pace of emigration was considered too slow, as this account indicates:
"The central Jewish organisation known as the 'Zentralauschuss der Deutschen Juden fru Hilfe und Aufbau;... was established in 1933 in the Reich. that body had three principal divisions dealing with emigration, economic assistance, and relief and it was the special function of the office for economic assistance to assist in the change of vocation and the training of the young... At the time of writing (October 1935) there are ten training camps, with a total of 2,700 young men and women the larger number are instructed in agriculture. the German Government constantly makes difficulties and threatens the complete dissolution of the camps, on the pretext that Jews may not be assisted to prepare for manual occupations in Germany. It is hoped, therefore, to enlarge the youth emigration to Palestine, so that thousands may go each year." (32)
We have already noted above that the Nazis had allowed the Zionists to establish special training schools to prepare emigrants for life in the Middle East. What the common interests of both parties now required was a speeding-up of emigration, and measures to bring the training programme under tighter Zionist-Nazi control. The Zionists sent special envoys to take the necessary arrangements, while the Nazis held constant meetings to plan their strategy for the expulsion of Jews.
"In the course of the fist session of the steering committee of the 'Central Office', on 11 February 1939, Heydrich explained that Germany had no reason to give up sending illegal transports of emigrants to Palestine.
"Illegal transports, Heydrich continued, would in any case set out for Palestine from several European countries. So Germany could have recourse to the same procedures. Hinrichs and Eisnlohr, from the Wilhelmstrasse, far from raising any objections, insisted on the contrary that 'Germany should profit from any occasion offered to her to throw a Jew out.' Wohlthat did not lag behind. 'Palestine could absorb some 800,000 to one million extra Jews,' he reported having heard in London, 'and if the Jews of Germany did not go there, other countries could well provide this contingent.'
"Since the end of December 1938, two delegates from Palestine, Pinhas Ginsberg and Max Zimels, had been working without intermission on the territory of the Reich preparing illegal convoys to Palestine. The Gestapo would put no obstacles in the way of their activity." (33)
Two Zionist writers, who refer to Ginsberg by his nickname "Pino", relate how the Jewish Agency sent him to meet the Supervisor of the Jewish Question at the Gestapo Headquarters: "He was on a special mission; his work was what the Nazis wanted; his aim was to organise the emigration of German Jews to Palestine; only with the assistance of the Nazi leaders could this project be carried out on a large scale. The Gestapo 'Supervisor' was now interested. He called in three other Gestapo officials. The interview had become a conference; the Gestapo was discussing how to aid and increase jewish 'illegal' immigration into Palestine against the will of the British Mandatory."
Ginsberg accordingly requested Gestapo assistance for his scheme. The interview concluded, he left the Gestapo HQ to go to the Zionist Organisation's Berlin office. "By the time the emissary reached the Zionist offices, excited officials told him that the Gestapo answer was waiting for him. He could stay. He could start worke at once. He could even pick young Jewish pioneers who had been sent to concentration camps. He would not require to pass through the endless red tape of official channels. He could set up special training camps for the selected immigrants who would make the illegal run to Palestine through the British blockad... He had brought with him his long spoon; he was not worried that now he was about to sup with the devil. In fact he felt no little satisfaction as he read the Gestapo reply." (34)
Also during 1938, just after the Anschluss, the Zionists sent another envoy, Moshe Bar-Gilad, to Vienna on a similar mission. "Bar-Gilad, like his colleague in Berlin, soon discovered that the only road to large-scale emigration from Austria led through the Gestapo headquarters and the S.S. office for Jewish affairs for which the sumptuous mansion of Baron Rothschild had been requisitioned. There, in charge of the 'Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration', sat Captain Carl Adolf Eichmann. It was a name which was to become notorious... He received Bar-Gilad politely; he was also impressed by the forthright self-assurance and blunt speech of this unusual visitor.
"Bar-Gilad explained that he wanted permission to establish pioneer training camps to train young people for work in Palestine and to arrange for their emigration as quickly as conditions permitted... A dissident Zionist group, the Revisionists, rightwing activists, were engaged in illegal transports to Palestine. Bar-Gilad explained that Revisionists took primarily those Jews who could pay the heavy cost of illegal transportation, while his organisation was interested in young people who were prepared to become pioneers. Most ofthem had no means. His orgaisation woul bear the entire cost. He wanted no financial help form the Gestapo; all he asked was that his work should not be obstructed."
Two weeks later, Bar-Gilad received Eichmann's answer to the Zionist movement's requests. "Eichmann told him that he would help in the provision of farms and facilities to set up training centres for intending emigrants, but the actual transportation must be left to the Revisionists, the dissident Zionsits and to 'private enterprise'... Bar-Gilad could not agree tot he exclusion of transportation from his province. But as regards training facilities Eichmann kept his promise. He supplied farms and farm equipment. On one occasion he expelled a group of nuns from a convent to provide a training farm for young Jews. By the end of 1938 about a thousand young Jews were undergoing training in these Nazi-provided camps.
These two emissaries were official representatives of the "Union of Communal Settlemetns" which, within the Zionist movement, carried out work for the establishment and strengthening of kibbutzim. These settlements, as is now becoming widely known, are paramilitary in character. The agreements which these envooys reached throu their contact with the Gestapo and SS, whereby nazi Germany made a vital contribution towards reinforcing Zionism's manpower, training and consequent military effectivenss, were not an informal arrangement. They were solemn agreements officially, though secretly, entered into by the Nazi Government: an alliance of convenience ordered in a policy directive by Hitler himself.
"Hitler's decision was communicated by the Foreign Affairs Office of the Nazi Party to all Ministries concerned. They were told that the Fuhrer had decided again that 'Jewish emigration from Germany shall continue to be promoted by all available means. Any question which might have existed up to now as to whether in the Fuhrer's opinion such emigration is to be directed to Palestine has thereby been answered in the affirmative.'" (36)
The existence of this official Nazi policy was also confirmed by the Jewish historian Hannah Arendt, in her description of Eichmann's work in Vienna in 1938: "Eichmann's task had been defined as 'forced emigration;, and the words meant exactly what they said: all Jews, regardless of their desires and regardless of their citizenship, were to be force to emigrate — an act which in ordinary language is called expulsion. Whenever Eichmann thought back to the twelve years that were his life (sic), he singled out his year in Vienna as head of the Centre for Emigration of austrian Jews as its happiest and most successful period." (37)
Apart from all its other unpleasant aspects, the persecution of Jews was also a lucrative form of big business. It is common knowledge that many Nazis amassed large fortunes, generally out of the property or slave labour of their victims. What is less widely known is that the Zionist organisers of emigration, through their collaboration with the Nazis, also took their share of material benefits at the expense of individual Jews.
"Eichmann therefore sent Jewish functionaries abroad to solicit from the great Jewish organisations, and these funds were then sold by the Jewish community to the prospective emigrants at a considerable profit — one dollar, for instance, was sold for ten or twenty marks when its market value was 4.20 marks" (38)
Thus philanthropy, administered by the Zionist movement, became highly profitable. However, the aim of all the Zionist "rescue" operations and agreements with the Nazis was hardly humanitarian, as is evident from the account of the missions of Bar-GIlad and Ginsberg. "These two Jewish emissaries had not come to Nazi Germany to save German Jews: that was not their job. Their eyes were fixed entirely on Palestine and the British Mandatory. THey were looking for young men and women who wanted to go to Palestine because they wanted a national home of their own and were prepared to pioneer, struggle and, if necessary, fight for it. Their interest in those German Jews who turned to Palestine as a haven of refuge, as the next best after the United States or the United KIngdom, was secondary to their main purpose....
"Their end was to them far more important than the means which they were now compelled to employ; and though they could not see the future, nor imagine what it would bring, they had no qualms about the price they had to pay so long as they managed to get their Jews to Palestine." (39)
The signature of the "common interests" agreements between the Nazis and the Zionists, through the efforts of Ginsberg and Bar-GIlad, was followed by implementation. The reluctance of large numbers of German Jews to uproot themselves at the behest of Zionism had to be overcome by persuasion which the Nazis were quite willing to provide.
"The beginning was slow but the grim night of November 9th, 1938, during which the Nazis carried out their organised riot of arson and assault on German Jewry convinced the German Jewish leaders that emigration, by any means at their disposal, remained their only hope.
"As this realisation dawned on the Jewish masses, Jews from all over Germany began to stream to Maineckestrass", application for emigration flooded the offices of Hechaluts, the Zionist pioneering movement, which was Pino's HQ." (40)
* No. 10 Maineckestrasse was the address of the Zionst Organisation's Berlin headquarters.
Once the agreements began to be carried out in earnest, a remarkable spirit of co-operaion, even camaraderie, grew up between Zionists and Nazis. THis was to contrast strangely with the Nazi attitude to those Jews — the great majority in fact — who were unwilling or unable to comply with the Zionist and Nazi demand that they leave their homes in Europe.
"In March 1939, the first transport of 280 German Jews organised by Pino, whose destination was ostensibly Zionist training farms in Yugoslavia, left Berlin. The Nazi authorities provided a special train and Nazi officials accompanied the train as far as Vienna, where the group joined another and larger transport of Austrian Jews which was accompanied by Austrian Nazis.
"The Austrian part of the transport had been organised by Bar-Gilad, working in Vienna...
"The trains with the hundreds of singing pioneers, with the bored Nazi guards leaning out of the windows, must have been an incongruous sight as it rattled through the lazy countryside of southern Austria. The sailing went according to plan; several hundred young Jews landed secretly on the shores of Palestine." (41)
Playing astutely on their feelings of insecurity, the Zionist movement persuaded German Jews to donate considerable sums for the rapid expansion of the training camps and transportation facilities so that the trickle of emigrants could become a flood. The Zionist-Nazi agreements on emigration continued in this form for two years following the outbreak of the Second World War. However, their smooth operation was disturbed in 1941 after Germany attacked the Soviet Union. The Nazis argued that the agreements were no longer able to operate owing to their need to give priority to their military situation on the Eastern Front when allocating transport, and to the general disruption by the war of communications in central and Eastern Europe.
Finding it no longer feasible to rid Europe of Jews through emigration, Hitler opted for another way. "In January 1938, he had already given orders that Jewish emigration was to be directed primarily to Palestine, and when that gate was also closed he embraced the simple way out that was now offered to him, the 'Final Solution' of the extermination camp." (42)
This new situation confronted Zionism with a critical choice between two courses of action. The first was to declare war on Nazism, renounce the 1938 agreements totally and raise the banner of Jewish revolt against Nazism throughout Europe. This, of course, would have meant abandoning once and for all any possibility of securing even the most limited "legal" emigration of Zionist manpower from Europe through co-operation with the Nazis in the future, should the logistical situation later change to allow for that. The choice of resistance would also mean that the Zionists would have to throw themselves into the struggle against oppression and anti-Semitism in Europe, side by side with Gentiles and assimilations or progressive Jews. For Zionists, this would have implied not only a serious compromising of their most profoundly-held beliefs but also, perhaps even more serious, an admission of defeat for their whole philosophy.
The second course of action open to the Zionists was to accept that the situation had changed, at least temporarily, in a direction unfavourable to them, and to attempt to salvage as much as they could by reaching new, but more limited, arrangements. This would, of course, mean acquiescing in the deaths of large numbers of their co-religionists. It would, however, have the advantage of keeping the door of communication with Nazi Germany open, to be used if the situation changed back to a more favourable one in future (sic). Furthermore, it would involve no fundamental watering-down or defeat of the Zionist ideology.
The Zionist movement was led inevitably to this agonising choice by its signature of thsoe early agreements with Nazi Germany. Some apologists have argued that in this the Zionists were not acting from really sinister motives, and were unaware of the cruel end to which it could lead. Apart from the moral danger of blindly maintaining that the end justifies any means, it is highly doubtful that the Zionist leader, with their remarkable skill in long-term planning, were unaware of either the true nature or the potential course of Nazi policy, which were obvious to most ordinary Europeans by at least the mid-1930s. In this context, the prosecutor in the Eichmann trial, Gideon Hausner, made some very valid comments. Referring to Hitler, he state: "WHen he gave free rein to hatred for the Jews, he had also taken the steep path that plunged down to the 'Day of Boycott' against the Jews on 1 April 1933, to the Kristallnacht of 9-10 November 1938; to the 'physical extermination' decision of 31 July 1941. This was the logic of events, each of which evolved from the one before, and lead inexorably to its successor. The way of anti-Semitism led to Auschwitz." (43)
The logic of the steep path did not apply only to the Nazis. By accepting the fatal principale (sic) of common interests and consequent co-operation with Nazism, however limited its scale in the 1930s, the Zionists set themselves on their own parallel steep path downwards. The two phenomena of anti-Semitism and the Zionists' alliance of convenience with it, in the hope of using it as the "propelling force" they needed, cannot be separated completely. They reacted mutually on each other, as inevitably happens with any two political forces whose relationship is one of close contact, whether in confrontation or co-operation.
In any case, whatever excuses could be advanced for Zionism's agreements with Nazism in the 1930s, these cannot be valid for any continued co-operation after the Nazis had launched the full-scale implementation of genocide in mid-1941. During the period 1941-44, a number of individual Zionists in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, such as Mordechai Anielewicz, broke with Zionism's traditional policy and participated in revolts against Nazism. But these revolts were all organised locally, by Jews in Warsaw, Vilno, Bialystok and other areas, often in co-ordination with each other within occupied territories but without the co-operation of the Zionist movement on the international level.
REFERENCES for Chapter Four:
31. Oscar Janowsky and Melvin Fagen, International Aspects of German Racial Policies (New York, 1937), pp. 49–50
32. Bentwich, op. cit,. pp. 142–143.
33. Ben Elissar, op. cit., pp. 423–424.
34. Jon & David Kimche, The Secret Road (London, 1954) pp. 15–16
35. Ibid., pp. 17–19
36. Ibid., p. 30.
37. Arendt, op. cit., p. 39.
38. Ibid. p. 41.
39. Kimche, op. cit., pp. 27, 20–31.
40. Ibid., p. 217.
41. Ibid,. pp. 33–35.
42. Ibid. p. 217.
43. 6,000,000 Accusers, opening address in Adolf Eichmann trial, Sessions 6–8.
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Chapter IX.
The Irgun and Nazism
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Irgun |irˈgoōn|
a right-wing Zionist organization founded in 1931. During the period when it was active (1937–48), it carried out violent attacks on Arabs and Britons in its campaign to establish a Jewish state; it was disbanded after the creation of Israel in 1948.
ORIGIN from modern Hebrew ‛irgūn (ṣĕ b ā'ī lĕ'ummī) [(national military) organization.]
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In May 1977, as a result of a general election, the rightwing extremist group Likud bloc emerged as the strongest Zionist political grouping, and led the new Israeli coalition cabinet. Its Prime Minister was Menachem Begin, who had formerly headed the Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorist organisation.
During the period of the Kastner trial, Begin's Herut party, the most important component party of the Lukud, pointed an accusing finger at the leaders of its rival, the ruling Mapai party, for their collaboration wiht Nazism. The lawyer Shmuel Tamir was a Herut man (later he joined the Democratic Movement for Change), and veteran Irgun supporter Ben Hecht played a vital role in drawing public attention to the Kastner story. Many people thus inferred that the Irgun/Herut leaders had a cleaner record than their Mapai counterparts as far as dealings with Nazism were concerned, despite the cases of people like Jacob Gns and Salek Desler.
Recently, a document for long kept secret and finally revealed by German writer Klaus Polkehn shed light on the real attitude of the Irgun towards Nazism in 1941. In this document, the Stern faction of the Irgun proposed the following:
"It is often stated in the speeches and utterances of the leading statesmen of National Socialist Germany that a New Order in Europe requires as a prerequisite the radical solution of the Jewish question through evacuation ('Judenreines Europa').
"The evuacation of the Jewish masses from Europe is a precondition for solving the Jewish question; but this can only be made possible and complete through the settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine, and through the establishment of a Jewish state in its historic boundaries.
"The solving in this manner of the Jewish problem and thus the bringing about with it of the liberation fo the Jewish people once and for all is the objective of the political activit and the years long struggle of the Jewsih freedom movement; the National Military Organisation (Irgun Zvai Leumi) in Palestine.
"The NMO, which is well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion that:
1) Common interests could exist between the establishment of a new order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the National Military Organisation.
2) Co-operation between the new Germany and a renewed Hebrew nation (völkisch-nationalen-Hebräuertum) would be possible and
3) The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis and bound by a treaty with the German Reich would be in the interest of maintaining and strengthening the future German position of power in the Near East.
TO BE CONTINUED.
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