Zionism & The Third Reich=Kollaboraci - Not Just KASTNER Case 1/2
Frank Arthur
>On Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:45:26 -0400, in alt.revisionism Gallows Cheater
><swin...@gallows.pole> wrote:
>http://www.rense.com/general34/ZAND.HTM
>Zionism And The Third Reich
>By Mark Weber
>Institute for Historical Review
>2-8-3
>Early in 1935, a passenger ship bound for Haifa in Palestine left the German
>port of Bremerhaven. Its stern bore the Hebrew letters for its name, "Tel
>Aviv," while a swastika banner fluttered from the mast. And although the
>ship was Zionist-owned, its captain was a National Socialist Party member.
>Many years later a traveler aboard the ship recalled this symbolic
>combination as a "metaphysical absurdity."1 Absurd or not, this is but one
>vignette from a little-known chapter of history: The wide-ranging
>collaboration between Zionism and Hitler's Third Reich.
>Common Aims
>Over the years, people in many different countries have wrestled with
>the "Jewish question": that is, what is the proper role of Jews in
>non-Jewish society? During the 1930s, Jewish Zionists and German National
>Socialists shared similar views on how to deal with this perplexing issue.
>They agreed that Jews and Germans were distinctly different nationalities,
>and that Jews did not belong in Germany. Jews living in the Reich were
>therefore to be regarded not as "Germans of the Jewish faith," but rather
>as members of a separate national community. Zionism (Jewish nationalism)
>also implied an obligation by Zionist Jews to resettle in Palestine,
>the "Jewish homeland." They could hardly regard themselves as sincere
>Zionists and simultaneously claim equal rights in Germany or any
>other "foreign" country.
>
>Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), the founder of modern Zionism, maintained that
>anti-Semitism is not an aberration, but a natural and completely
>understandable response by non-Jews to alien Jewish behavior and attitudes.
>The only solution, he argued, is for Jews to recognize reality and live in
>a separate state of their own. "The Jewish question exists wherever Jews
>live in noticeable numbers," he wrote in his most influential work, The
>Jewish State. "Where it does not exist, it is brought in by arriving
>Jews ... I believe I understand anti-Semitism, which is a very complex
>phenomenon. I consider this development as a Jew, without hate or fear."
>The Jewish question, he maintained, is not social or religious. "It is a
>national question. To solve it we must, above all, make it an international
>political issue ..." Regardless of their citizenship, Herzl insisted, Jews
>constitute not merely a religious community, but a nationality, a people, a
>Volk.2 Zionism, wrote Herzl, offered the world a welcome "final solution of
>the Jewish question."3
>
>Six months after Hitler came to power, the Zionist Federation of Germany (by
>far the largest Zionist group in the country) submitted a detailed
>memorandum to the new government that reviewed German-Jewish relations and
>formally offered Zionist support in "solving" the vexing "Jewish question."
>The first step, it suggested, had to be a frank recognition of fundamental
>national differences: 4
>
>Zionism has no illusions about the difficulty of the Jewish condition, which
>consists above all in an abnormal occupational pattern and in the fault of
>an intellectual and moral posture not rooted in one's own tradition.
>Zionism recognized decades ago that as a result of the assimilationist
>trend, symptoms of deterioration were bound to appear ...
>
>Zionism believes that the rebirth of the national life of a people, which is
>now occurring in Germany through the emphasis on its Christian and national
>character, must also come about in the Jewish national group. For the
>Jewish people, too, national origin, religion, common destiny and a sense
>of its uniqueness must be of decisive importance in the shaping of its
>existence. This means that the egotistical individualism of the liberal era
>must be overcome and replaced with a sense of community and collective
>responsibility ...
>
>We believe it is precisely the new [National Socialist] Germany that can,
>through bold resoluteness in the handling of the Jewish question, take a
>decisive step toward overcoming a problem which, in truth, will have to be
>dealt with by most European peoples ...
>
>Our acknowledgment of Jewish nationality provides for a clear and sincere
>relationship to the German people and its national and racial realities.
>Precisely because we do not wish to falsify these fundamentals, because we,
>too, are against mixed marriage and are for maintaining the purity of the
>Jewish group and reject any trespasses in the cultural domain, we -- having
>been brought up in the German language and German culture -- can show an
>interest in the works and values of German culture with admiration and
>internal sympathy ...
>
>For its practical aims, Zionism hopes to be able to win the collaboration of
>even a government fundamentally hostile to Jews, because in dealing with
>the Jewish question not sentimentalities are involved but a real problem
>whose solution interests all peoples and at the present moment especially
>the German people ... Boycott propaganda -- such as is currently being
>carried on against Germany in many ways -- is in essence un-Zionist,
>because Zionism wants not to do battle but to convince and to build ...
>
>We are not blind to the fact that a Jewish question exists and will continue
>to exist. From the abnormal situation of the Jews severe disadvantages
>result for them, but also scarcely tolerable conditions for other peoples.
>The Federation's paper, the Jüdische Rundschau ("Jewish Review"),
>proclaimed the same message: "Zionism recognizes the existence of a Jewish
>problem and desires a far-reaching and constructive solution. For this
>purpose Zionism wishes to obtain the assistance of all peoples, whether
>pro- or anti-Jewish, because, in its view, we are dealing here with a
>concrete rather than a sentimental problem, the solution of which all
>peoples are interested."5 A young Berlin rabbi, Joachim Prinz, who later
>settled in the United States and became head of the American Jewish
>Congress, wrote in his 1934 book, Wir Juden ("We Jews"), that the National
>Socialist revolution in Germany meant "Jewry for the Jews." He
>explained: "No subterfuge can save us now. In place of assimilation we
>desire a new concept: recognition of the Jewish nation and Jewish race." 6
>
>Active Collaboration
>
>On this basis of their similar ideologies about ethnicity and nationhood,
>National Socialists and Zionists worked together for what each group
>believed was in its own national interest. As a result, the Hitler
>government vigorously supported Zionism and Jewish emigration to Palestine
>from 1933 until 1940-1941, when the Second World War prevented extensive
>collaboration.
>
>Even as the Third Reich became more entrenched, many German Jews, probably a
>majority, continued to regard themselves, often with considerable pride, as
>Germans first. Few were enthusiastic about pulling up roots to begin a new
>life in far-away Palestine. Nevertheless, more and more German Jews turned
>to Zionism during this period. Until late 1938, the Zionist movement
>flourished in Germany under Hitler. The circulation of the Zionist
>Federation's bi-weekly Jüdische Rundschau grew enormously. Numerous Zionist
>books were published. "Zionist work was in full swing" in Germany during
>those years, the Encyclopaedia Judaica notes. A Zionist convention held in
>Berlin in 1936 reflected "in its composition the vigorous party life of
>German Zionists."7
>
>The SS was particularly enthusiastic in its support for Zionism. An internal
>June 1934 SS position paper urged active and wide-ranging support for
>Zionism by the government and the Party as the best way to encourage
>emigration of Germany's Jews to Palestine. This would require increased
>Jewish self-awareness. Jewish schools, Jewish sports leagues, Jewish
>cultural organizations -- in short, everything that would encourage this
>new consciousness and self-awareness - should be promoted, the paper
>recommended.8
>
>SS officer Leopold von Mildenstein and Zionist Federation official Kurt
>Tuchler toured Palestine together for six months to assess Zionist
>development there. Based on his firsthand observations, von Mildenstein
>wrote a series of twelve illustrated articles for the important Berlin
>daily Der Angriff that appeared in late 1934 under the heading "A Nazi
>Travels to Palestine." The series expressed great admiration for the
>pioneering spirit and achievements of the Jewish settlers. Zionist
>self-development, von Mildenstein wrote, had produced a new kind of Jew. He
>praised Zionism as a great benefit for both the Jewish people and the
>entire world. A Jewish homeland in Palestine, he wrote in his concluding
>article, "pointed the way to curing a centuries-long wound on the body of
>the world: the Jewish question." Der Angriff issued a special medal, with a
>Swastika on one side and a Star of David on the other, to commemorate the
>joint SS-Zionist visit. A few months after the articles appeared, von
>Mildenstein was promoted to head the Jewish affairs department of the SS
>security service in order to support Zionist migration and development more
>effectively. 9
>
>The official SS newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps, proclaimed its support for
>Zionism in a May 1935 front-page editorial: "The time may not be too far
>off when Palestine will again be able to receive its sons who have been
>lost to it for more than a thousand years. Our good wishes, together with
>official goodwill, go with them."10 Four months later, a similar article
>appeared in the SS paper: 11
>
>The recognition of Jewry as a racial community based on blood and not on
>religion leads the German government to guarantee without reservation the
>racial separateness of this community. The government finds itself in
>complete agreement with the great spiritual movement within Jewry, the
>so-called Zionism, with its recognition of the solidarity of Jewry around
>the world and its rejection of all assimilationist notions. On this basis,
>Germany undertakes measures that will surely play a significant role in the
>future in the handling of the Jewish problem around the world.
>
>A leading German shipping line began direct passenger liner service from
>Hamburg to Haifa, Palestine, in October 1933 providing "strictly kosher
>food on its ships, under the supervision of the Hamburg rabbinate." 12 With
>official backing, Zionists worked tirelessly to "reeducate" Germany's Jews.
>As American historian Francis Nicosia put it in his 1985 survey, The Third
>Reich and the Palestine Question: "Zionists were encouraged to take their
>message to the Jewish community, to collect money, to show films on
>Palestine and generally to educate German Jews about Palestine. There was
>considerable pressure to teach Jews in Germany to cease identifying
>themselves as Germans and to awaken a new Jewish national identity in
>them." 13
>
>In an interview after the war, the former head of the Zionist Federation of
>Germany, Dr. Hans Friedenthal, summed up the situation: "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." 14
>
>At the September 1935 National Socialist Party Congress, the Reichstag
>adopted the so-called "Nuremberg laws" that prohibited marriages and sexual
>relations between Jews and Germans and, in effect, proclaimed the Jews an
>alien minority nationality. A few days later the Zionist Jüdische Rundschau
>editorially welcomed the new measures: 15
>
>Germany ... is meeting the demands of the World Zionist Congress when it
>declares the Jews now living in Germany to be a national minority. Once the
>Jews have been stamped a national minority it is again possible to
>establish normal relations between the German nation and Jewry. The new
>laws give the Jewish minority in Germany its own cultural life, its own
>national life. In future it will be able to shape its own schools, its own
>theatre, and its own sports associations. In short, it can create its own
>future in all aspects of national life ...
>
>Germany has given the Jewish minority the opportunity to live for itself,
>and is offering state protection for this separate life of the Jewish
>minority: Jewry's process of growth into a nation will thereby be
>encouraged and a contribution will be made to the establishment of more
>tolerable relations between the two nations. Georg Kareski, the head of
>both the "Revisionist" Zionist State Organization and the Jewish Cultural
>League, and former head of the Berlin Jewish Community, declared in an
>interview with the Berlin daily Der Angriff at the end of 1935: 16
>
>For many years I have regarded a complete separation of the cultural affairs
>of the two peoples [Jews and Germans] as a pre-condition for living
>together without conflict... I have long supported such a separation,
>provided it is founded on respect for the alien nationality. The Nuremberg
>Laws ... seem to me, apart from their legal provisions, to conform entirely
>with this desire for a separate life based on mutual respect... This
>interruption of the process of dissolution in many Jewish communities,
>which had been promoted through mixed marriages, is therefore, from a
>Jewish point of view, entirely welcome.
>
>Zionist leaders in other countries echoed these views. Stephen S. Wise,
>president of the American Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress,
>told a New York rally in June 1938: "I am not an American citizen of the
>Jewish faith, I am a Jew... Hitler was right in one thing. He calls the
>Jewish people a race and we are a race." 17 The Interior Ministry's Jewish
>affairs specialist, Dr. Bernhard Lösener, expressed support for Zionism in
>an article that appeared in a November 1935 issue of the official
>Reichsverwaltungsblatt: 18
>
>If the Jews already had their own state in which the majority of them were
>settled, then the Jewish question could be regarded as completely resolved
>today, also for the Jews themselves. The least amount of opposition to the
>ideas underlying the Nuremberg Laws have been shown by the Zionists,
>because they realize at once that these laws represent the only correct
>solution for the Jewish people as well. For each nation must have its own
>state as the outward expression of its particular nationhood.
>
>In cooperation with the German authorities, Zionist groups organized a
>network of some forty camps and agricultural centers throughout Germany
>where prospective settlers were trained for their new lives in Palestine.
>Although the Nuremberg Laws forbid Jews from displaying the German flag,
>Jews were specifically guaranteed the right to display the blue and white
>Jewish national banner. The flag that would one day be adopted by Israel
>was flown at the Zionist camps and centers in Hitler's Germany. 19
>
>Himmler's security service cooperated with the Haganah, the Zionist
>underground military organization in Palestine. The SS agency paid Haganah
>official Feivel Polkes for information about the situation in Palestine and
>for help in directing Jewish emigration to that country. Meanwhile, the
>Haganah was kept well informed about German plans by a spy it managed to
>plant in the Berlin headquarters of the SS.20 Haganah-SS collaboration even
>included secret deliveries of German weapons to Jewish settlers for use in
>clashes with Palestinian Arabs. 21 In the aftermath of the November
>1938 "Kristallnacht" outburst of violence and destruction, the SS quickly
>helped the Zionist organization to get back on its feet and continue its
>work in Germany, although now under more restricted supervision. 22
>
>Official Reservations
>
>German support for Zionism was not unlimited. Government and Party officials
>were very mindful of the continuing campaign by powerful Jewish communities
>in the United States, Britain and other countries to mobilize "their"
>governments and fellow citizens against Germany. As long as world Jewry
>remained implacably hostile toward National Socialist Germany, and as long
>as the great majority of Jews around the world showed little eagerness to
>resettle in the Zionist "promised land," a sovereign Jewish state in
>Palestine would not really "solve" the international Jewish question.
>Instead, German officials reasoned, it would immeasurably strengthen this
>dangerous anti-German campaign. German backing for Zionism was therefore
>limited to support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine under British
>control, not a sovereign Jewish state. 23
>
>A Jewish state in Palestine, the Foreign Minister informed diplomats in June
>1937, would not be in Germany's interest because it would not be able to
>absorb all Jews around the world, but would only serve as an additional
>power base for international Jewry, in much the same way as Moscow served
>as a base for international Communism.24 Reflecting something of a shift in
>official policy, the German press expressed much greater sympathy in 1937
>for Palestinian Arab resistance to Zionist ambitions, at a time when
>tension and conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine was sharply
>increasing. 25
>
>A Foreign Office circular bulletin of June 22, 1937, cautioned that in spite
>of support for Jewish settlement in Palestine, "it would nevertheless be a
>mistake to assume that Germany supports the formation of a state structure
>in Palestine under some form of Jewish control. In view of the anti-German
>agitation of international Jewry, Germany cannot agree that the formation
>of a Palestine Jewish state would help the peaceful development of the
>nations of the world."26 "The proclamation of a Jewish state or a
>Jewish-administrated Palestine," warned an internal memorandum by the
>Jewish affairs section of the SS, "would create for Germany a new enemy,
>one that would have a deep influence on developments in the Near East."
>Another SS agency predicted that a Jewish state "would work to bring
>special minority protection to Jews in every country, therefore giving
>legal protection to the exploitation activity of world Jewry."27 In January
>1939, Hitler's new Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, likewise
>warned in another circular bulletin that "Germany must regard the formation
>of a Jewish state as dangerous" because it "would bring an international
>increase in power to world Jewry." 28
>
>Hitler himself personally reviewed this entire issue in early 1938 and, in
>spite of his long-standing skepticism of Zionist ambitions and misgivings
>that his policies might contribute to the formation of a Jewish state,
>decided to support Jewish migration to Palestine even more vigorously. The
>prospect of ridding Germany of its Jews, he concluded, outweighed the
>possible dangers. 29
>
>Meanwhile, the British government imposed ever more drastic restrictions on
>Jewish immigration into Palestine in 1937, 1938 and 1939. In response, the
>SS security service concluded a secret alliance with the clandestine
>Zionist agency Mossad le-Aliya Bet to smuggle Jews illegally into
>Palestine. As a result of this intensive collaboration, several convoys of
>ships succeeded in reaching Palestine past British gunboats. Jewish
>migration, both legal and illegal, from Germany (including Austria) to
>Palestine increased dramatically in 1938 and 1939. Another 10,000 Jews were
>scheduled to depart in October 1939, but the outbreak of war in September
>brought the effort to an end. All the same, German authorities continued to
>promote indirect Jewish emigration to Palestine during 1940 and 1941. 30
>Even as late as March 1942, at least one officially authorized
>Zionist "kibbutz" training camp for potential emigrants continued to
>operate in Hitler's Germany. 31
>
>The Transfer Agreement
>
>The centerpiece of German-Zionist cooperation during the Hitler era was the
>Transfer Agreement, a pact that enabled tens of thousands of German Jews to
>migrate to Palestine with their wealth. The Agreement, also known as the
>Haavara (Hebrew for "transfer"), was concluded in August 1933 following
>talks between German officials and Chaim Arlosoroff, Political Secretary of
>the Jewish Agency, the Palestine center of the World Zionist Organization.
>32
>
>Through this unusual arrangement, each Jew bound for Palestine deposited
>money in a special account in Germany. The money was used to purchase
>German-made agricultural tools, building materials, pumps, fertilizer, and
>so forth, which were exported to Palestine and sold there by the
>Jewish-owned Haavara company in Tel-Aviv. Money from the sales was given to
>the Jewish emigrant upon his arrival in Palestine in an amount
>corresponding to his deposit in Germany. German goods poured into Palestine
>through the Haavara, which was supplemented a short time later with a
>barter agreement by which Palestine oranges were exchanged for German
>timber, automobiles, agricultural machinery, and other goods. The Agreement
>thus served the Zionist aim of bringing Jewish settlers and development
>capital to Palestine, while simultaneously serving the German goal of
>freeing the country of an unwanted alien group.
>
>Delegates at the 1933 Zionist Congress in Prague vigorously debated the
>merits of the Agreement. Some feared that the pact would undermine the
>international Jewish economic boycott against Germany. But Zionist
>officials reassured the Congress. Sam Cohen, a key figure behind the
>Haavara arrangement, stressed that the Agreement was not economically
>advantageous to Germany. Arthur Ruppin, a Zionist Organization emigration
>specialist who had helped negotiate the pact, pointed out that "the
>Transfer Agreement in no way interfered with the boycott movement, since no
>new currency will flow into Germany as a result of the agreement..." 33 The
>1935 Zionist Congress, meeting in Switzerland, overwhelmingly endorsed the
>pact. In 1936, the Jewish Agency (the Zionist "shadow government" in
>Palestine) took over direct control of the Ha'avara, which remained in
>effect until the Second World War forced its abandonment.
>
>Some German officials opposed the arrangement. Germany's Consul General in
>Jerusalem, Hans Döhle, for example, sharply criticized the Agreement on
>several occasions during 1937. He pointed out that it cost Germany the
>foreign exchange that the products exported to Palestine through the pact
>would bring if sold elsewhere. The Haavara monopoly sale of German goods to
>Palestine through a Jewish agency naturally angered German businessmen and
>Arabs there. Official German support for Zionism could lead to a loss of
>German markets throughout the Arab world. The British government also
>resented the arrangement.34 A June 1937 German Foreign Office internal
>bulletin referred to the "foreign exchange sacrifices" that resulted from
>the Haavara. 35
>
>A December 1937 internal memorandum by the German Interior Ministry reviewed
>the impact of the Transfer Agreement: "There is no doubt that the Haavara
>arrangement has contributed most significantly to the very rapid
>development of Palestine since 1933. The Agreement provided not only the
>largest source of money (from Germany!), but also the most intelligent
>group of immigrants, a nd finally it brought to the country the machines
>and industrial products essential for development." The main advantage of
>the pact, the memo reported, was the emigration of large numbers of Jews to
>Palestine, the most desirable target country as far as Germany was
>concerned. But the paper also noted the important drawbacks pointed out by
>Consul Döhle and others. The Interior Minister, it went on, had concluded
>that the disadvantages of the agreement now outweighed the advantages and
>that, therefore, it should be terminated. 36
>
>Only one man could resolve the controversy. Hitler personally reviewed the
>policy in July and September 1937, and again in January 1938, and each time
>decided to maintain the Haavara arrangement. The goal of removing Jews from
>Germany, he concluded, justified the drawbacks. 37
>
>The Reich Economics Ministry helped to organize another transfer company,
>the International Trade and Investment Agency, or Intria, through which
>Jews in foreign countries could help German Jews emigrate to Palestine.
>Almost $900,000 was eventually channeled through the Intria to German Jews
>in Palestine.38 Other European countries eager to encourage Jewish
>emigration concluded agreements with the Zionists modeled after the
>Ha'avara. In 1937 Poland authorized the Halifin (Hebrew for "exchange")
>transfer company. By late summer 1939, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and
>Italy had signed similar arrangements. The outbreak of war in September
>1939, however, prevented large-scale implementation of these agreements. 39