Ken Livingstone's School Report

VOLUME 16 NO.12 DECEMBER 2016 journal The Association of Jewish Refugees Ken Livingstone’s School Report Student Livingstone, K. which saw the party lose some two million of Jews from Germany to Palestine against School St Custard’s Academy votes and 34 seats. Hitler’s electoral failure an expansion of German foreign trade; Address Little Sneering, Corbynshire in November, creating the impression that that expansion eased the chronic shortage LAB 000 support for the Nazis was waning, led a of foreign currency which threatened the capacity of Nazi Germany to finance the Subject History imports required both for its rearmament Report programme and to ensure a reasonable standard of living for the German people. ivingstone, K. is a student with The Agreement also broke the pattern of considerable achievements in the boycotts of German imported goods by field of animal biology; his interest foreign countries, in which Palestine had Lin the genus Pleurodelinae (newts) has been in the van. It is, of course, hardly already earned him good marks. His surprising that bodies like the Jewish abilities in the field of human history, Agency would wish to make every effort however, appear to be more modest, to save the Jews of Germany by facilitating not least because of a tendency to let his their emigration. imagination run unchecked by factual The Haavara Agreement required evidence and to latch on to lines of German Jews emigrating to Palestine to argument that owe more to ideological deposit their assets in blocked accounts preconceptions than to any concern for (Sperrkonten) that remained in Germany. historical accuracy. This is evident in When Palestine bought German goods it his essay ‘Adolf Hitler and the Zionists’. had to pay only 50 per cent of the total Here he advances the eye-catching thesis A Haavara Agreement certificate, 1935, kindly supplied by Eric Elias price in its own foreign exchange, while that during the 1930s Hitler supported the other half was taken from the blocked ‘the Zionists’, i.e. the Jewish Agency for accounts of the German Jews who had Palestine, by promoting the emigration coterie of right-wingers to pressure the emigrated there. On arriving in Palestine, of Jews from Germany to Palestine, and aged President of Germany, Field Marshal the Haavara trust company paid these Palestine alone – at least until he ‘went von Hindenburg, to appoint Hitler immigrants half the value of their blocked mad’ at some stage during the war and Chancellor (30 January 1933), calculating accounts in Germany, thus ensuring that switched to a policy of genocide. Those that his party was now weak enough to they recovered at least that part of the familiar with the actual history of the be harnessed to a conventional right- assets that they would otherwise have left period would regard this argument as wing political agenda. Actual evidence of behind in Germany. difficult to sustain. policy statements or real electoral pledges That it was Germany’s economic The deficiencies in Livingstone, K.’s regarding the emigration of Jews to interests – not some murky policy of covert grasp of history become clear from the Palestine is hard to find; one comes across collaboration with ‘the Zionists’ – that lay very start of his essay: he states that among little more than the rabble-rousing chants behind the Haavara Agreement is hard to the policies advanced by the Nazi Party of ‘Alle Juden nach Palästina’ (‘All Jews contest: it was negotiated on the German when Hitler ‘won his election in 1932’ to Palestine’) favoured by marching Nazi side by the Ministry of Economics under was the designation of Palestine as the sole Brownshirts – but those hardly reflected Hjalmar Schacht, who was also President territory to which Jews ‘should be moved’. Party or government policy. of the Reichsbank, Germany’s central Livingstone, K. appears to be ignorant of The argument that Palestine was the only bank, where he was much concerned by the fact that there were two parliamentary territory to which the emigration of Jews Germany’s critical shortage of foreign elections in Germany in 1932 – that of was promoted by the German government, currency. Schacht was an economic realist: July 1932, when the Nazis emerged as the by means of official agreements, is weak. once policy-making on Jewish affairs passed largest party in the Reichstag with some 37 Those like Livingstone, K. rely principally from men like him to radical, ideologically per cent of the total vote and 230 seats in on the Haavara Agreement of September motivated anti-Semites like Heinrich parliament, and that of November 1932, 1933, a scheme that traded the emigration continued on page 2 journal DECEMBER 2016 Ken Livingstone’s School Report continued Himmler and the SS, after November 1938, (SD), the SS intelligence agency. This was HOLOCAUST the Haavara Agreement promptly lapsed. indeed a remarkable episode, but not one MEMORIAL DAY The agreement was no more than the result that had the sinister overtones attributed Tuesday 24 January 2017 of the Nazi government’s perception of to it by Livingstone, K. In November 2 pm a temporary conjunction of its interests 1937 Eichmann and his superior, Herbert at Belsize Square Synagogue, and those of the Jewish Agency in one Hagen, travelled to Cairo, where they London NW3 4HX specific, limited sphere: its lack of any solid held talks with Feivel Polkes of the ideological foundation, such as a belief on Haganah. The meetings proved fruitless: Please save the date and join us the part of the Nazi leadership in the project Hagen and Eichmann were mainly for our service to commemorate of forcing German Jews to emigrate solely concerned to discover information about Holocaust Memorial Day. to Palestine, led to its being discarded as assassination plots against leading Nazis, We are honoured that His Excellency soon as circumstances changed. while Polkes wished to promote the the German Ambassador, Dr Peter Livingstone, K. appears to contend large-scale emigration of German Jews to Ammon, will be our guest speaker that the Nazis collaborated with ‘the Palestine. But in his report to Reinhard and will address guests on the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day Zionists’ by concluding agreements about Heydrich, head of the SD, Eichmann 2017: ‘How can life go on?’ Jewish emigration with the authorities in dismissed Polkes’s proposals out of hand: Palestine alone, a contention that is all too ‘Since the emigration of 50,000 Jews per easily refuted. The best known agreement year would greatly strengthen the Jewish on Jewish emigration from Germany to position in Palestine, this plan is not Annual Election Meeting of another country is probably the rescue worth discussing. The policy of the Reich The Association of Jewish effort known as the Kindertransport, is much more to hinder the development Refugees (AJR) which brought nearly 10,000 children from of a Jewish state in Palestine.’ he Annual Election Meeting of The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) Germany to Britain, by agreement between It was the real prospect of the creation Twill take place at 4 pm on Wednesday the British and German governments. of a Jewish state that had caused Nazi 7 December 2016 at Winston House, Livingstone, K. resides in north-west policy to shift abruptly against Jewish 2 Dollis Park, London N3 1HF. London, the principal area of settlement of emigration there. In July 1937 a Royal Agenda: Annual Report, Financial Report, the Jews who fled to Britain from Germany Commission set up by the British Discussion, Election of Trustees. and Austria after 1933. He has been known government had recommended that If you wish to attend please contact to frequent a branch of a well-known chain Palestine be partitioned into an Arab Karin Pereira on 020 8385 3070 or at of coffee shops adjacent to West Hampstead state and a Jewish state. Far from wishing [email protected] Overground station and a well-known to contribute to a substantial population upmarket supermarket near Finchley increase in a future independent Jewish Road Underground station, both in the state, the Nazis now saw that state as a political testament that he wrote in his heartland of refugee settlement. It would dangerous enemy. Eichmann wrote: ‘The Berlin bunker the day before his suicide have been easy for him to encounter former proclamation of a Jewish state or a Jewish- on 30 April 1945. In Mein Kampf he had Kindertransportees – living evidence of the administered Palestine would create for expressed his view that a Jewish state in falsity of his arguments – but one suspects Germany a new enemy, one which would Palestine would not be a place for Jews that Livingstone, K. tends to favour the have a deep influence on developments in to live but rather ‘a central organisation company of newts over that of Jews. the Near East.’ Senior Nazis like Alfred of their international world cheating … Livingstone, K. raises the visit made Rosenberg, the leading Nazi ideologue, a refuge for convicted rascals and a high to the Middle East by Adolf Eichmann also warned against the establishment of school for future rogues’. of Referat II 112, the section responsible a Jewish state. Foreign Minister Joachim Who can seriously believe that a Jew- for Jewish affairs in the Sicherheitsdienst von Ribbentrop warned of the danger hater of such proportions would do more posed by such a state, which would serve than flirt temporarily with any plan to AJR Chief Executive as an operational base for ‘world Jewry’, as encourage Jewish emigration to Palestine? Michael Newman the Vatican did for political Catholicism. Livingstone, K. would be well advised to Finance Director David Kaye The British proposal to partition drop his ventures into historical fantasy Heads of Department Palestine was dropped in 1939.

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