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”. Absurd or not, this is but one collaboration between zionism and Hitler’s Third Reich.
JEWISH HOMELAND
Over the years, people in many different countries have wrestled with “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 to 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 – 1094), the founder of modern zionism, maintained that antisemitism 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 Jew’s… | believe | understand antisemitism, which is a very. Complex phenomenon. | consider this development as a Jew, without hate or fear”.
The Jewish question, he maintained, is not social or religious. “It is a national guestion. 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”.
PURITY OF JEWS
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 guestion”. The first step it suggested had to be frank recognition of fundamental national differences:
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 because 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 egotistical individualism of the liberal era must be overcome and replace with a sense of community and collective responsibility
ASSIMILATION OPPOSED
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 a 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 \4 realities. Precisely because we do wish to falsify these ‘not 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 now especially the German people.
Boycott propaganda — such as is currently being carried on against Y 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 Judische Rundschau – (Jewish Review”, proclaimed the same message: “zionism recognizes ‘the existence of a Jewish problem and desires a far- reaching and constructive solution. For Alihs purpose zionism wishes to obtain the assistance of all peoples, whether pro or anti-dewish, because in its view we are dealing here with some concrete rather than a sentimental problem, the solution of which all people are interested”. 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 r a new concept: recognition of the Jewish nation and Jewish race”.
HITLER HELPED ZIONISM
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 interests.
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.
JOINT VISIT TO PALESTINE
The circulation of the zionist federation’s bi-weekly, Judische 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”.
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 organisation —in short, everything that would encourage this new consciousness and seif- awareness — should be promoted, the paper recommended.
SS officer Leopold von Mildenstein and zionist federation official Kurt Tucher toured Palestine together for six months to assess zionist development there. Based on his firsthand observations, Von Mildenstein wrote a series of 12 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 1o 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 services to support zionist migration and development more effectively.
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 good will, go with them”.
Four months later, a similar article appeared in the SS paper:
RACIAL COMMUNITY BASED ON BLOOD NOT RELIGION
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 nations. 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 Germany shipping line began direct passenger liner service from Hamburg to Haifa, Palestine, in October 1933 providing “strictly josher food on its ships, under the supervision of the Hamburg rabbinate”.
With official backing zionists worked’ tirelessly to re-educate Germany’s Jews. As American historian Francis Nicosia put it in his 1985 survey, The Third Reich and the. Palestine Question:
JEWS DECLARED NATIONAL MINORITY
“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”.
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.”
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 Judische Rundschau editorially welcomed the new measures.
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 ali 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.
George 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:
For many years | 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. | have long supported such a separation, provided it is founded on respect for 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.
PRAISE FOR HITLER
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: “l am not an American citizen of the Jewish faith, am a Jew… Hitler was right in one thing. He calls the Jewish people a race and we are a race.”
The interior ministry’s Jewish affairs specialist, Dr. Bernhard Losener, expressed support for zionism in an article that appeared in November 1935 issue of ‘the -official Reicshverwaltungs blatt.
If the Jews already had their own state in which most of them were settled, then the Jewish question could be regarded as completely resolved today also for the Jews themselves.
NUREMBERG LAWS
The Ieast 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 40 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 centres in Hitler’s Germany.
Himmler’s security service cooperated with the Haganah, the zionist underground military organization in Palestine. The SS agency paid Haganah official Feivel Polkas 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.
Haganah-SS collaboration even included secret deiiveries of German weapons to Jewish settlers for use in clashes with Palestinian Arabs.
In: the aftermath of the November 1938 “Kristallncht” outburst of violence and destruction, the S8 quickly helped the zionist organization to get back on its feet 4 and continue its work in Germany, although now under more restricted supervision.
