Livingstone, Hitler and Zionism

 

Former London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, embroiled himself in a high profile political row today when in defending Naz Shah, a Labour MP suspended yesterday by her party over Facebook  posts critical of the State of Israel  which she indicated she liked ( and since under pressure,  denounced, in a personal statement to Parliament, explaining she made the supporting  comments at the height of the Israeli invasion and bombardment of Gaza) .

Livingstone asserted there was an early 1930s pact between Hitler and Zionists, which has got him into political very hot water with Labour Friends of Israel. John Mann MP told him bluntly when he ambushed him  - when Livingstone was on his mobile live on LBC radio – as Livingstone was making his way to a television studio at 4 Millbank in London, where all the Parliamentary and political broadcasters are based.

Livingstone was assailed by Mann who haranged him to learn his Jewish history properly, dubbed him a Nazi apologist, and called for his expulsion from the Labour Party.

Livingstone later told the BBC’s Andrew Neil  that if the BBC and Mann did their historical homework, they would find out what he said about Hitler ands Zionists was actually true.

I did not know anything about this unlikely quirky period of history, so I did do some research, and discovered Ken Livingstone was indeed right, according to the sources below

The Haavara Agreement (Hebrew: הסכם העברה

 Translit.: heskem haavara Translated: "transfer agreement") was an agreement between Nazi Germany and Zionist German Jews signed on 25 August 1933. The agreement was finalized after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank(under the directive of the Jewish Agency) and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany. The agreement was designed to help facilitate the emigration of German Jews to Palestine. While it helped Jews emigrate, it forced them to temporarily give up possessions to Germany before departing. Those possessions could later be re-obtained by transferring them to Palestine as German export goods.^[1][2]

• ile
• File history
• File usage

Transfer agreement used by a large consulting firm PALTREU, an acronym for Palaestina Treuhandstelle, established specifically for Jews wishing to emigrate under the Haavara Agreement, to advise how to deal with the bureaucracy.

 

Hanotea company

Hanotea (Hebrew: הנוטע), a Zionist citrus planting company, applied in May 1933 for the ability to transfer capital from Germany to Palestine. Hanotea served to assist German Jews' immigration to Palestine as part of the Zionist endeavor. In a deal worked out with the German government, Hanotea would receive money from prospective immigrants and use this money to buy German goods. These goods, along with the immigrants, would then be shipped to Palestine. In Palestine, import merchants would then buy the goods from the immigrants, liquidating their investment. This arrangement appeared to be operating successfully, and so paved the way for the later Haavara Agreement. Connected to Hanotea was a Polish Zionist Jew, Sam Cohen. He represented Zionist interests in direct negotiation with the Nazis beginning in March 1933.^[3]

“	CERTIFICATE The Trust and Transfer Office "Haavara" Ltd. places at the disposal of the Banks in Palestine amounts in Reichmarks which have been put at its disposal by the Jewish immigrants from Germany. The Banks avail themselves of these amounts in Reichmarks in order to make payments on behalf of Palestinian merchants for goods imported by them from Germany. The merchants pay in the value of the goods to the Banks and the "Haavara" Ltd. pays the countervalue to the Jewish immigrants from Germany. To the same extent that local merchants will make use of this arrangement, the import of German goods will serve to withdraw Jewish capital from Germany. The Trust and Transfer Office, HAAVARA, LTD.	”
— Example of the certificate issued by Haavara to Jews emigrating to Palestine [4]

The Haavara (Transfer) Agreement was agreed to by the German government in 1933 to allow the Zionist movement, in the form of the Haavara company to transfer property from Germany to Palestine, for the sole purpose of encouraging Jewish emigration from Germany. The Haavara company operated under a similar plan as the earlier Hanotea company. The Haavara Company required immigrants to pay at least 1000 pounds sterling into the banking company. This money would then be used to buy German exports for import to Palestine.

The Haavara Agreement was thought among certain circles to be a possible way to rid the country of its supposed "Jewish problem." The head of the Middle Eastern division of the foreign ministry, Werner Otto von Hentig, supported the policy of concentrating Jews in Palestine. Von Hentig believed that if the Jewish population was concentrated in a single foreign entity, then foreign diplomatic policy and containment of the Jews would become easier.^[5] Hitler's support of the Haavara Agreement varied throughout the thirties. Initially, Hitler criticized the agreement, but shortly reversed his opinion, and continued to support it, in the face of opposition, through 1939.^[6]

After the invasion of Poland and the onset of World War II in 1939, the practical continuation of the Haavara agreement became impossible. In 1940, representatives of the underground Zionist group Lehi met with von Hentig to propose direct military cooperation with the Nazis for the continuation of the transfer of European Jews to Palestine.^[7] This proposal, however, did not produce results.

1.  Arab-Israeli Wars: 60 Years of Conflict, Ha Avara, ABC-CLIO, accessed May 7, 2013.
2.  Yf’aat Weiss, The Transfer Agreement and the Boycott Movement: A Jewish Dilemma on the Eve of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem Shoah Resource Center, accessed May 7, 2013.
3.  Francis R. Nicosia: The third Reich & the Palestine question, p. 39 ff.
4.  Heritage: Civilization and the Jews (PBS)
5.  Francis R. Nicosia: The third Reich & the Palestine question, pp. 132–133.
6.  Francis R. Nicosia: The third Reich & the Palestine question, pp. 140, 142.
7.  Ada Amichal Yevin, In Purple, The Life of Yair - Abraham Stern, Hadar Publishing House Tel Aviv, 1986, pp. 225–230

 

Another controversial article “Nazi Propaganda was Based on What Zionists Said”, also provided details of the controversial history.

(http://www.truetorahjews.org/naziismzionism)

 

“Torah-true Jews wish to live in peace and harmony with their neighbors in every country among the community of nations, including in historic Palestine. They deplore acts and policies of violence carried out by those who, misusing the name of Israel our forefather, have substituted the ideal of chauvinist nationalism for the eternal values of the Torah, the eternal divinely bestowed inheritance of the Jewish people.

“It has been the age-old intention of Zionism to intentionally stir up anti-Semitism anywhere possible, and even more commonly, to take advantage of any Jewish suffering anywhere in order to enhance its cause Indeed, hatred of Jews and Jewish suffering is the oxygen of the Zionist movement, and from the very beginning has been to deliberately incite hatred of the Jew and then, in feigned horror, use it to justify the existence of the Zionist state – this is, of course, Machiavellianism raised to the highest degree. Thus, the Zionists thrive on hatred and suffering of Jews, and seek to benefit thereby through keeping Jews in perpetual fear, causing them to ignore the true nature of Zionism, and instead to consider the Zionist state is their salvation.

“Although Zionists and others dispute it, the undeniable fact is that revolutionary secular and apostate elements in the Jewish community in Europe contributed greatly to hostility towards Jews after World War I. This aroused hatred of Jews in general among many non-Jews. While a prisoner in 1924 in the fortress of Lansberg on the River Lech, Hitler wrote his Mein Kampf. When he became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he was assisted by Goebbels, Roseberg and Streicher. From them came the declarations, “The Jews of Germany caused the defeat of Germany in the 1914-1918 war; the Jews of Germany were responsible for the terrible conditions in Germany that followed the war; the Jews of Germany are foreigners and they wish to remain foreigners; they have no loyalty to the country of their birth; they are not human; they are filthy dogs; they have no right to intrude into Germany’s affairs; there are too many Jews in Germany.

As far as Zionism is concerned, the founder of Zionism and apostate, Theodor Herzl, sought to intensify hatred of the Jew in order to enhance the cause of political Zionism. Here are some of his “pearls”:

"It would be an excellent idea to call in respectable, accredited anti-Semites as liquidators of property. To the people they would vouch for the fact that we do not wish to bring about the impoverishment of the countries that we leave. At first they must not be given large fees for this; otherwise we shall spoil our instruments and make them despicable as 'stooges of the Jews.' Later their fees will increase, and in the end we shall have only Gentile officials in the countries from which we have emigrated. The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies." (The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. Vol. 1, edited by Raphael Patai, translated by Harry Zohn, page 83-84)”.

Additional words from the vivid imagination of this dreamer, from p. 68 of Part I of his Diary: "So anti-Semitism, which is a deeply imbedded force in the subconscious mind of the masses, will not harm the Jews. I actually find it to be advantageous to building the Jewish character, education by the masses that will lead to assimilation. This education can only happen through suffering, and the Jews will adapt."

“Hateful views of Jews as being subhuman did not have to be invented by Nazi theorists such as Hitler, Goebbels, Rosenberg and Streicher. This ideology was simply adapted from statements of political Zionists such as those found in the writings of the Zionist Yehezkel Kaufman in 1933.

“In addition to Hitler, Rosenberg, Goebbels and Streicher, many other Nazi leaders used statements from Zionists to validate their charges against the Jews of Germany.

As stated earlier, Zionism thrives on anti-Semitism. Ben Gurion declared, “…not always and not everywhere do I oppose anti-Semitism”.

Livingstone was naive to allow himself to be embroiled in such a dispute in the week running up to several very important elections for Labour. But strangely his  history seems to have been  correct.

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 Sources:

 ■Guardian Volume two Issue 7

 ■Satmar Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum

 ■The Jews of Batna, Aleria: A Study of Identity and Colonialism by Elizabeth Friedman.

 ■The Jewish Communities of Morocco and the AIU by M. Laskier, State University, Albany, N.Y.

 ■The Impact of Western European Education on the Jewish Millet of Baghdad by Maurice Sawdayee.

 ■Outcaste Jewish Life in Southern Iran by Laurence D. Loeb. Gordon and Breach.

 ■The Last Arab Jews. The Communities of Jerba, Tunisia by Abraham Udovitch and Lucette Valensi. Harwood Academic Publishers.

Further reading

· Avraham Barkai: German Interests in the Haavara-Transfer Agreement 1933–1939, Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute 35; 1990, S. 245–266

· Yehuda Bauer: "Jews for sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945", Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1996. ISBN 978-0300068528

· Edwin Black: "The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine", Brookline Books, 1999.

· Werner Feilchenfeld, Dolf Michaelis, Ludwig Pinner: Haavara-Transfer nach Palästina und Einwanderung deutscher Juden 1933–1939, Tübingen, 1972

· Tom Segev: The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust (2000, ISBN 0-8050-6660-8), especially p. 31ff

· David Yisraeli: The Third Reich and the Transfer Agreement, in: Journal of Contemporary History 6 (1972), S. 129–148

· R. Melka: Nazi Germany and the Palestine Question, Middle Eastern Studies. Vol. 5 No. 3 (Oct., 1969). pp 221–233.

· Hava Eshkoli-Wagman: Yishuv Zionism: Its Attitude to Nazism and the Third Reich Reconsidered, Modern Judaism. Vol. 19 No. 1 (Feb., 1999). pp 21–40.

· Klaus Poleken: The Secret Contacts: Zionism and Nazi Germany 1933–1941. Journal of Palestine Studies. Vol. 5 No. 3/4 (Spring–Summer 1976). pp 54–82.