Review of Francis R. Nicosia, The Third Reich and the
Palestine Question.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985.
From New German Critique, Number 42,
Fall 1987, 176-180. A fascinating
look at history’s two most famous national socialist movements and their
coincidence of interests. The editor told Murray it was the best
essay he'd seen on the subject, but he saw it only after more than a dozen
other editors rejected it. It lives on here.
I
provided the title to this previously untitled review.
Anthony Flood
February 20, 2007
The Zionist-Nazi
Connection
Hugh Murray
Many readers will be
shocked by the contents of this well-researched book, for it holds many
surprises. Georg Kareski, Revisionist Zionist, interviewed in Dr. Goebbels’
newspaper, endorsed the Nazi’s racist
Nuremberg
law of 1935 (p. 56). Kurt Blumenfeld, chairman of the main German Zionist
group, the ZVfD (Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland), noted
in April 1933, shortly after Hitler came to power, “. . . there exists
today a unique opportunity to win over the Jews of Germany for the Zionist idea.” A few months later, the ZVfD sent a memorandum
to Hitler:
Zionism believes that
the rebirth of the national life of a people, which is now occurring in
Germany through its emphasis on its Christian and national character, must
also come about among the Jewish people. For the Jewish people, too,
national origin, religion, common destiny and a sense of its uniqueness
must be of decisive importance to its existence. This demands the
elimination of the egotistical individualism of the liberal era, and its
replacement with a sense of community and collective responsibility. (p.
42)
Not only did Zionists
share a völkisch ideology with the Nazis, they received aid from
the Gestapo. Dr. Hans Friendenthal, a former chairman of the ZVfD
acknowledged in a 1957 interview: “The Gestapo did everything in those
days to promote emigration, particularly to
Palestine.
We often received their help when we required anything from other
authorities regarding preparations for emigration. This position remained
constant and uniform the entire time, until the year 1938” (p. 57). The
most glaring example of Nazi-Zionist cooperation was the Haavara Transfer
Agreement, whereby emigrating Jews could receive some of their blocked
German assets in the form of German imports to the
Middle East.
This agreement continued with minor alteration from 1933 until December
1939. There were other examples of cooperation. Within
Germany, the authorities favored Zionist Jewish organizations as opposed to
the assimilationist Jewish groups: Zionists could publish, propagandize,
wear uniforms, and display the blue and white flag which one day would be
that of Israel (but Jews in
Germany could not display the German flag). Zionists conducted retraining
schools throughout
Germany so Jews could learn the skills necessary for resettlement in
Palestine.
While most Jews had difficulty getting passports to enter
Germany, Zionists working with the retraining centers were given priority.
German Zionists were encouraged to attend World Zionist Congresses and did
so throughout the 1930s. Apparently, the Gestapo even gave weapons to the
Hagana in 1937 for use against the Arabs in
Palestine.
What did the Nazis get
in return?
In 1933, Hitler wanted
to get the Jews out of
Germany. By 1939, he wanted them out of a
Europe that Germany would dominate. Most of
Germany’s 600,000 Jews were assimilationist in 1932. Some thought Hitler
would not last; others, that “it would not be too bad.” Still others,
even if they wanted to emigrate, preferred nearby European countries where
they may have had relatives. The
United States had a narrow quota discouraging immigration. Because of
Germany’s poor economy, even during the
Weimar era,
legislation restricted the amount of money that a departing émigré could
take. In the depression-ridden 1930s, few nations wanted boatloads of
immigrants; fewer wanted Jews shorn of assets. Yet, Hitler wanted the
Jews out of Germany, and one outlet was
Palestine,
where Britain had promised to provide a Jewish Homeland in the 1917 Balfour
Declaration. The Haavara Agreement allowed emigrating German Jews to
retain some of their assets, thereby encouraging them to go to
Palestine.
The Nazis subsidized German exports to the Middle East with the blocked German-Jewish funds. Beginning in 1933 there was a
world-wide attempt to boycott German goods because of its racist and
oppressive policies. Jewish groups, unions, and Left-wing organizations
supported the boycott. But simultaneously, German goods were entering
Palestine and being sold through a Zionist concern. When the issue of boycott
arose at World Zionist Congresses of the 1930s, the German delegates
opposed it, and the Zionist Congresses rejected it. Among the observers at
the 1937 Zionist Congress was Adolf Eichmann. Thus, in working to rid
Germany of its Jews and get them to
Palestine,
the Nazis and the Zionists frequently had common interests and worked
together. Interestingly, the German Consul in Jerusalem, Heinrich Wolff, was an ardent Zionist whose wife was Jewish. He
believed Zionism was a way to reconcile Nazis and Jews. By the mid 1930s,
he was dismissed from his post.
The Nazi-Zionist
connection was debated in
Germany as a consequence of the Arab uprisings in
Palestine
beginning in 1936. The Nazis had rejected earlier Arab requests for
support because of Nazi racial contempt for the Semitic Arabs, and because
Hitler did not want to disrupt his moves for an alliance with
Britain. Hitler would not interfere with the British Empire, and, he hoped,
Britain would not interfere with
Germany’s drive in
Europe. By 1937, there were elements in
Germany who sought to pester
Britain by encouraging the Arabs; and they sought to scrap the Haavara
Agreement linking German exports to Zionists in the
Middle East.
Most important, these Germans were worried by the recommendations of the
Peel Commission of 1937—a proposal for separate Arab and Jewish states in
Palestine.
Most Nazis believed an independent Jewish state would be hostile to
Germany and a seat of the international Jewish conspiracy, similar to the
Vatican or Moscow. But despite these arguments, Hitler was unwilling to alter his basic
policy. As he declared in Mein Kampf, he was unwilling to link the
fate of Germany to racially inferior “oppressed nations,” like the Arabs. And he was
convinced a racially pure
Germany would be a stronger
Germany. In 1937, alarm that Jewish emigration was declining (in part because
of fighting in Palestine and also because of the German Prosperity bought
on by the Nazis), brought proposals to unite emigration in one department,
but the basic policy continued and was reaffirmed by Hitler in January
1938. Indeed, in February 1938 Hider empowered a leader of the ZVfD to
negotiate in
London with
the British regarding more Jews entering
Palestine.
At the end of 1937,
there were still 350,000 Jews left in
Germany and on April 1, 1938
some 40,000 Jewish enterprises. Hitler sought a Jew-free
Germany. Numbers of refugees were growing, and President
Roosevelt
called for a conference which met at Evian, France, in July 1938.
However, most nations, even the
U.S., were
unwilling to increase their quotas, and some sought to reduce the number
of Jews that could enter their territories. Meanwhile,
Germany annexed Austria, and suddenly had many more Jews to dispose of. A new implementation
of an old policy began when Adolf Eichmann of the SS entered
Vienna. In
effect, Jewish property was confiscated, and Jews were quickly issued
papers for departure to other countries. Sometimes the papers were false.
Meanwhile, the British had acceded to Arab demands and reduced the number
of Jewish immigrants permitted to enter Palestine. But the SS, in conjunction with Zionists, was deporting Jews to
Palestine
both legally and illegally. In November 1938, Kristallnacht
shattered the Jewish community remaining in
Germany. Eichmann and the SS helped Zionists to gain release from jail and
restore their organizations so they could get Jews to
Palestine.
Nicosia
tells a fascinating story. Tragedy and blood is hidden between the lines,
but it is there. He does not allow the present Palestine question to intrude in his story of the 1930s. The reader does not
know if he is a Zionist, or favors the P.L.O., and such objectivity is
major asset in a work like this.
Nicosia could have
included more, especially on the Reich’s policy during the war. What
happened to the pro-Axis Iraqi government? What happened to the 2,000
Palestine
Germans during the war? What did the Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem
do? If by 1948 the Hagana got 100,000 illegal Jews to Palestine, how many of them came during the war? With collaboration of the
Reich? The book is silent on this. Despite his tide,
Nicosia’s
book really ends with the war’s beginning in 1939.
The charts at the end
of the book are interesting, but one is in German, and a short chronology
of pertinent events is lacking. Though there is a chart on legal
immigration of Jews into
Palestine,
it would have been an interesting contrast to note countries of
destination other than
Palestine.
I detect only one
serious error in the book, when the author asserts that “Germany could not have a decisive impact on the level of Jewish immigration to
Palestine. . .” (p. 127). But of course,
Germany did have such an impact in the 1930s with its persecution which
thereby promoted immigration in
Palestine, and in the 1940s with its extermination of potential immigrants.
The book notes that the
anti-Semitic governments of
Poland and Rumania also encouraged Zionism in the 1930s. Apparently,
Poland trained the militant Revisionist Zionist Irgun and supplied it with
weapons. Nicosia discusses the Madagascan, Ecuadorian, and other
proposals current in the late 1930s for the resettlement to
Europe’s Jews. The “final solution” is not detailed here, but one can see it
as a logical conclusion to Hitler’s racism, Nazi expansion, and war, which
blocked his desire to expel Jews from
Europe.
Reading Nicosia’s work,
one questions how the Zionists could have collaborated with the Nazis,
praised the Nuremberg laws, seen Hitler as an opportunity, and rejected
the boycott of Nazi-Germany. But the other equally important question also
arises: how could they not have?
The Nazi-Zionist
collaboration legally brought 50,000 Jews out of
Germany to Palestine in the 1930s with assets worth more than 100,000,000 RM. Many of the
emigrants had been retrained in
Germany for a new life in the
Middle East, and many would have been killed by the Nazis in the 1940s, had there
been no Nazi-Zionist connection in the 1930s.
The Zionists saved more
than 50,000 Jews by getting them out of
Europe. Had
they fled Germany in 1933 to
Austria,
Czechoslovakia, France, etc., they would not have gone far enough to be saved. The Left
attacked the Zionists for refusing to boycott
Germany and generally for collaborating with the Nazis. But how many Jews did
the Left save? How many did the
U.S.A.?
One can view the
problem in another light. The Nazis sought to “purify”
Germany by eliminating many elements. Jews had Zionism as an alternative—and
by the mid 1930s most young German Jews were Zionists. But there was no
gay Zion. There
was no Jehovah’s Witness Zion. There was no gypsy
Zion. When
the Nazis sought to destroy them, these minorities may have been at a
disadvantage because they had no equivalent to the Zionist movement. There
was a Communist
Zion, but
the Communist movement was assimilationist. The Soviet Party did not
encourage German party members to flee to the
USSR.
“After Hitler, us,” the German Party boasted. Yet, despite the partial
truth of that boast, how many German Communists survived the Reich to
repeat the toast in
East Germany?
Booker T. Washington
urged his followers to “cast down your bucket where you are.” He was
willing to accept inferior status to build a base in the homeland. But
the Nazis rejected Jews in
Germany both as equals and as inferiors. Hitler wanted them out of
Germany and a German-dominated
Europe. Only the Zionists shared his desire to rid
Europe of its Jews. There was cooperation between the two movements, and
consequent bitterness between Zionist and the Left-wing Jews, the
assimilationist Jews, the pro-boycott Jews. But who saved more Jews?
According to the Left,
Zionists were racists, and had collaborated with Hitler. In
Nicosia’s
book, this is documented. It is unpleasant. Yet it may have been the
most effective way of saving Jewish lives. Many Zionists may not like
certain features of the book. Yet, after reading it, one can only reflect
that it is fortunate that some German Jews did choose the Zionist
alternative. Indeed, perhaps more would have survived had they been
aligned with Zionism.
Hitler declared that to
remove the Jews from Germany, he would cooperate even with the Devil (p.
22). To save some Jews in this removal, the Zionists were just as willing
to cooperate with the Devil. The Left condemns the Zionists, even though
at another stage the Left was also willing to cooperate. The Zionists can
point to a limited success in saving lives of at least 50,000 potential
victims. The Left was often just as heroic (perhaps more so) as the
Zionists. Yet, how many Jews did the Left save? Perhaps use of a
multiplicity of alternatives, often contradictory, is the best way to
ensure survival.
Palestine
is still a burning issue. There is something to support all sides in
Nicosia’s
book. But more, there is something for all to reflect upon.