Photo of Nazi medal commemorating Zionist collaboration with Hitler
[Lenni Brenner writes…]
“A NAZI TRAVELS T0 PALESTINE AND TELLS ABOUT IT IN THE ASSAULT”
Photo of Nazi medal commemorating Zionist collaboration with Hitler By Lenni Brenner
It is only natural that contemporaries should be skeptical when they
first hear accusations that Zionists collaborated with Hitler. Israel
is constantly at war. The public projects Zionist pugnacity back onto
the holocaust era and assumes that the World Zionist Organization
opposed Nazism after Hitler came to power in 1933. In fact the
opposite is true and it easily documented.
In 1983, London’s Croom Helm Ltd. published my first book, Zionism in
the Age of the Dictators.
www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/index.htm
A London Times review declared that “Brenner is able to cite numerous
cases where Zionists collaborated with anti-Semitic regimes,
including Hitler’s.” The book attracted similar favorable scholarly
comments, worldwide. Naturally specialist interest moved on in the
subsequent decades, but today, thanks to the internet, unique visual
confirmation of that collaboration has come to my attention and is
presented now to the public.
I related how Kurt Tuchler, a member of the German Zionist Federation
Executive,
“persuaded Baron Leopold Itz Edler von Mildenstein of the SS to write
a pro-Zionist piece for the Nazi press. The Baron agreed on the
condition that he visited Palestine first, and two months after
Hitler came to power the two men and their wives went to Palestine;
von Mildenstein stayed there for six months before he returned….
Von Mildenstein… wrote favorably about what he saw in the Zionist
colonies in Palestine; he also persuaded Goebbels to run the report
as a massive twelve-part series in his own Der Angriff (The Assault),
the leading Nazi propaganda organ (9/26-10/9/34)…. To commemorate
the Baron’s expedition, Goebbels had a medal struck: on one side the
swastika, on the other the Zionist star.”
I never located the medal. But in 2003 John Sigler, like myself an
anti-Zionist Jew, found an image and description in a closed mail-bid
coin sale. He bought a bronze version, which I examined at the
6/10/07 United For Peace and Justice anti-occupation rally in
Washington.
A silvered token appeared in 2005. Silvering is often done to medals.
It is about 1.5″ in diameter and is thicker than a coin. There is no
doubt re authenticity. John bought his bronze from the same respected
coin dealer.
Recently John sent me a photo of the silvered bronze, for which I am
very grateful.
The Star of David side reads:
EIN NAZI FÄHRT NACH PALÄSTINA — A Nazi Travels to Palestine.
The Swastika side reads UND ERZÄHLT DAVON IM Angriff — And tells
about it in Angriff.
I happily forward it to the internet world, with documentation re von
Mildenstein’s visit and Zionist collaboration, and the first of the
Baron’s articles for Goebbel’s journal.
Those readers who don’t download attachments may still see the medal.
Charlie Pottins has the photo on his website with an article on the
1979-80 furor when Britain’s History Today magazine used the medal in
publicity for an piece by Holocaust survivor Jacob Boas in the
January 1980 issue.
http://randompottins.blogspot.com/2007/05/coin-with-two-sides.html
Readers will doubtlessly have questions about Zionist collaboration.
Many can be answered by going to Zionism in the Age of the Dictators at
www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/index.htm
Or readers can contact me:
BrennerL21@aol.com
Do that and I’ll also tell you how you can get a signed copy of 51
Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis. I edited it in 2002.
It has von Mildenstein’s article and complete texts of many sources
quoted in Zionism in the Age of the Dictators.
ZIONIST COLLABORATION WITH HITLER, 1933-1939
Werner Senator, a leading German Zionist, once remarked that Zionism,
for all its world Jewish nationalism, always politically assimilates
to the countries within which it operates. No better proof exists
than the adaptation of the German Zionist Federation, the
Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland, to the theories and
policies of the new Nazi regime in 1933. Believing that similarities
between the two movements – contempt for liberalism, ‘volkish’ racism
and their mutual conviction that Germany could never be the homeland
of its Jews – could induce the Nazis to support them, the ZVfD
repeatedly solicited the patronage of Adolf Hitler.
The ZVfD goal became an “orderly retreat,” Nazi backing for
emigration of at least the younger generation of Jews to Palestine.
They immediately sought contact with Nazi elements whom they thought
would be interested in such an arrangement on the basis of a volkish
appreciation of Zionism. Kurt Tuchler, a ZVfD Executive member,
persuaded Baron Leopold Itz Edler von Mildenstein of the SS to write
a pro-Zionist piece for the Nazi press. He agreed on the condition
that he visited Palestine first. Two months after Hitler came to
power the two men and their wives went to Palestine; von Mildenstein
stayed there for six months before he returned to write his articles.
In 1937, in exile in America, rabbi Joachim Prinz candidly described
the Zionist mood in the 1st months of 1933:
“Everyone in Germany knew that only the Zionists could responsibly
represent the Jews in dealings with the Nazi government. We all felt
sure that one day the government would arrange a round table
conference with the Jews, at which – after the riots and atrocities
of the revolution had passed – the new status of German Jewry could
be considered. The government announced very solemnly that there was
no country in the world which tried to solve the Jewish problem as
seriously as did Germany. Solution of the Jewish question? It was our
Zionist dream! We never denied the existence of the Jewish question!
Dissimilation? It was our own appeal!…. In a statement notable for
its pride and dignity, we called for a conference.” [1]
The ZVfD’s 6/21/33 secret memorandum asked if they could
“be permitted to present our views, which, in our opinion, make
possible a solution in keeping with the principles of the new German
State of National Awakening and which at the same time might signify
for Jews a new ordering of the conditions of their existence ….
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….
[A]n answer to the Jewish question truly satisfying to the national
state can be brought about only with the collaboration of the Jewish
movement that aims at a social, cultural, and moral renewal of
Jewry…. Zionism believes that a rebirth of national life, such as
is occurring in German life through adhesion to Christian and
national values, must also take place in the Jewish national group.
For the Jew, too, origin, religion, community of fate and group
consciousness must be of decisive significance in the shaping of his
life….
On the foundation of the new state, which has established the
principle of race, we wish so to fit our community into the total
structure so that for us too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful
activity for the Fatherland is possible….
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….
We believe in the possibility of an honest relationship of loyalty
between a group-conscious Jewry and the German state…. For its
practical aims, Zionism hopes to be able to win the collaboration
even of a government fundamentally hostile to Jews, because in
dealing with the Jewish question no 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…. Our observations,
presented herewith, rest on the conviction that, in solving the
Jewish problem according to its own lights, the German Government
will have full understanding for a candid and clear Jewish posture
that harmonizes with the interests of the state.” [2]
Talk of ‘blut’ reached Wagnerian proportions in the 8/4/33 issue of
the Jüdische Rundschau, the ZVfD organ. “Rasse als Kulturfaktor”
argued that Jews should not merely accept silently the dictates of
their new masters; they had to realize that race separation was
wholly to the good:
“We who live here as a ‘foreign race’ have to respect racial
consciousness and the racial interest of the German people
absolutely. This however does not preclude a peaceful living together
of people of different racial membership. The smaller the possibility
of an undesirable mixture, so much less is there need for ‘racial
protection’…. Only rationalist newspapers who have lost feeling for
the deeper reasons and profundities of the soul, and for the origins
of communal consciousness, could put aside ancestry as simply in the
realm of ‘natural history.’” [3]
Prior to 1933, German Zionism was an isolated bourgeois political
cult. While leftists were fighting the brownshirts in the streets,
Zionists collected money for trees in Palestine. Suddenly in 1933
this small group conceived of itself as properly anointed by history
to negotiate secretly with the Nazis, to oppose the vast mass of
world Jewry who wanted to resist Hitler, all in the hope of obtaining
the support of the enemy of their people for the building of their
state in Palestine. They were wholly deluded. No modus vivendi was
ever even remotely possible between Hitler and the Jews. Given their
failure to resist during Weimar, and given their race theories, it
was inevitable that they would end up as Nazism’s Jewish jackals.
Economic collaboration began in August 1933 with the Ha’avara
(Transfer) agreement between Berlin and the World Zionist
Organization. Jews could put money into a German bank. It was used to
buy export items which were sold by the WZO, usually but not
exclusively in Palestine. When the emigres arrived there, they
received payment for the goods that they purchased, after they had
been sold.
Ha’avara’s attraction remained the same throughout its operation. It
was the least painful way of shipping Jewish wealth out of Germany.
However the Nazis determined the rules, and by 1938 average users
lost between 30% and 50% of their money. Nevertheless, this was three
times, and eventually five times, better than losses endured by Jews
whose money went to other destinations. [4]
Some 60% of all capital invested in Palestine between August 1933 and
9/1/39, the beginning of WW ll, went through Ha’avara. In addition,
Britain set an annual Jewish immigrant quota, using the country’s
weak economic absorptive capacity to limit their number; but
“capitalists” bringing in over $5,000 were allowed in over quota. The
16,529 capitalists were an additional source of immigrants. Their
capital gave Palestine artificial prosperity in the midst of the
worldwide Depression.
The WZO solicited new customers for Germany in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria
and Iraq. Zionists exported oranges to Belgium and Holland using Nazi
ships. [5] By 1936 the WZO began to sell Hitler’s goods in Britain. [6]
In 1937, the Labor Zionist Haganah, the WZO’s underground military
arm under the British mandate, negotiated directly with the
Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the SS Security Service. Haganah agent Feivel
Polkes arrived in Berlin on 2/26/37. Adolf Eichmann, von
Mildenstein’s protege, was his negotiating partner. The Eichmann-
Polkes conversations, in a report by Eichmann’s superior, were in SS
files captured after WW ll.
“Polkes is a national-Zionist. He is against all Jews who are opposed
to the erection of a Jewish state in Palestine. As a Haganah man he
fights against Communism and all aims of Arab-British friendship….
He noted that the Haganah’s goal is to reach, as soon as possible, a
Jewish majority in Palestine. Therefore he worked, as this objective
required, with or against the British Intelligence Service…. He
declared himself willing to work for Germany in the form of providing
intelligence as long as this does not oppose his own political goals.
Among other things he would support German foreign policy in the Near
East. He would try to find oil sources for the German Reich without
affecting British spheres of interest if the German monetary
regulations were eased for Jewish emigrants to Palestine.” [7]
Berlin didn’t take up the Haganah offer, but patronage of Zionism
continued. The SS was the most pro-Zionist Nazi element. Other Nazis
even called them “soft” on Jews. Von Mildenstein, the head of the
SD’s Jewish Department, studied Hebrew. Maps on his office walls
showed rapidly increasing strength of German Zionism. [8]
In May 1935, SD chief Reinhardt Heydrich wrote an article, “The
Visible Enemy,” for Das Schwarze Korps, the SS official organ: “The
time cannot be far distant when Palestine will again be able to
accept its sons who have been lost to it for over a thousand years.
Our good wishes together with our official good will go with them.” [9]
In 1934, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler was presented with a
“Situation Report – Jewish Question” by his staff. The vast majority
of Jews still considered themselves Germans and were determined to
stay. As force couldn’t then be used, for fear of international
repercussions, the way to break down their resistance was to instill
distinctive Jewish identity amongst them by promoting Jewish schools,
athletic teams, art and music, and Hebrew. Combined with Zionist
occupational retraining centers, this would induce them to abandon
their homeland. Nazi policy was therefore to increase support for
Zionism, so that Jews would see that the way to ward off worse
trouble was to join the movement.
Zionists were still persecuted as Jews. But within that framework it
was possible to ease the pressure. On 1/28/35, the Bavarian Gestapo
circularized the regular police that henceforward:
“members of the Zionist organizations are, in view of their
activities directed towards emigration to Palestine, not to be
treated with the same strictness which is necessary towards the
members of the German-Jewish organizations [assimilationists].” [10]
Prinz sorrowfully admitted that
“It was very difficult for the Zionists to operate. It was morally
disturbing to seem to be considered as the favoured children of the
Nazi Government, particularly when it dissolved the anti-Zionist
youth groups, and seemed in other ways to prefer the Zionists. The
Nazis asked for a ‘more Zionist behaviour.’” [11]
The Rundschau was banned on at least three occasions between 1933 and
November 1938, when the regime finally closed down the ZVfD’s
headquarters after Kristallnacht. After 1935 Labor Zionist emissaries
were barred from the country. But even then Palestinian Zionist
leaders were allowed to enter for specific meetings. Arthur Ruppin
was granted permission to enter Germany on 3/20/38, to address a mass
indoor Berlin rally on the effects of the post-1936 Arab revolt in
Palestine. Zionists had far less trouble than their assimilationist
rivals, and Communists were sent to concentration camps while the
Rundschau was hawked in Berlin’s streets.
Today’s Zionists can’t claim that their predecessors were duped by
Hitler. They conned themselves. His theories on Zionism, including
the Jews’ alleged inability to create a state, had been there, in
plain German, since publication of his Mein Kampf in 1926. They
convinced themselves that, as racists against mixed marriage,
believing that Jews were aliens in Germany, Hitler would see them as
the only “honest partners” for a diplomatic detente. [12]
Nor can it be claimed that the WZO collaborated to save Jewish lives.
After the 1938 Kristalnacht pogrom, London, hoping to ease pressure
for increased Jewish immigration into Palestine, proposed that
thousands of children be taken into Britain. But David Ben-Gurion,
later Israel’s first Prime Minister in 1948, denounced the plan on
12/7/38:
“If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in
Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by
transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second
alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children,
but also the history of the People of Israel.” [13]
Five days later he warned the WZO Executive:
“If Jews will have to choose between the refugees, saving Jews from
concentration camps, and assisting a national museum in Palestine,
mercy will have the upper hand and the whole energy of the people
will be channelled into saving Jews from various countries. Zionism
will be struck off the agenda not only in world public opinion, in
Britain and the United States, but elsewhere in Jewish public
opinion. If we allow a separation between the refugee problem and the
Palestinian problem, we are risking the existence of Zionism.” [14]
- Joachim Prinz, “Zionism under the Nazi Government,” Young Zionist
(London, November 1937), p. 18 - Lucy Dawidowicz (ed.), A Holocaust Reader, pp. 150-5
- “Rasse als Kulturfaktor,” Jüdische Rundschau (August 4, 1933), p. 392
- Mark Wischnitzer, To Dwell in Safety, p. 212
- “Reflections,” Palestine Post, (November 14, 1938), p. 6
- Yehuda Bauer, My Brother’s Keeper, p. 129
- David Yisraeli, The Palestine Problem in German Politics 1889-1945,
Bar-Ilan university, Appendix (German): Geheime Kommandosache
Bericht, pp. 301-2 - Heinz Hohne, The Order of the Death’s Head, p. 333
- Ibid and Karl Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz, pp. 193-4
- Kurt Grossmann, “Zionists and Non-Zionists under Nazi Rule in the
1930s,” Herzl Yearbook, vol. VI, p. 340 - Prinz, Ibid
- Jacob Boas, The Jews of Germany: Self-Perception in the Nazi Era as
Reflected in the German Jewish Press 1933-1938, Ph.D. thesis,
University of California, Riverside, (1977), p. 111 - Yoav Gelber, “Zionist Policy and the Fate of European Jewry
(1939-42),” Yad Vashem Studies, vol. Xll, p. 199 - Ari Bober (ed.), The Other Israel, p. 171
[additional material deleted for length - DH]