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Francis R. Nicosia. and Anti-Semitism in Nazi . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xiv + 324 pp. $85.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-88392-4.

Reviewed by Roderick Stackelberg

Published on H-German (May, 2009)

Commissioned by Susan R. Boettcher

In his latest book, Francis R. Nicosia returns by Nazis and Zionists on how best to resolve Ger‐ to and explores in greater detail one of the major many's "Jewish question" before the Second topics of his important earlier book, The Third Re‐ World War, he frmly rejects any suggestion of ich and the Palestine Question (1985): the com‐ moral or political equivalency between German plex and sometimes symbiotic relationship be‐ and Jewish . While Jewish nationalists tween German Zionists and the National Socialists wished to found a Jewish state in Palestine to es‐ before . Unlike most previous stud‐ cape from European antisemitism, German na‐ ies of relations between and in the tionalists encouraged Jewish emigration to Pales‐ modern era, which have focused on the incompat‐ tine to rid their country of Jews. Both Zionists and ibility of German and the dom‐ antisemites rejected the liberal Enlightenment inant of most Germans,[1] Nicosia's ideal of full Jewish assimilation in their host soci‐ study addresses a diferent confrontation: the re‐ eties as free and equal citizens, but they did so for lationship of völkisch German nationalism and very diferent reasons. However, their difering antisemitism to Zionism, described in the intro‐ motives and mutual hostility to each other did not duction as "a völkisch Jewish nationalist ideology prevent Nazis and Zionists from temporarily col‐ and movement that started from some of the laborating to achieve their respective ends. same philosophical premises as German national‐ Most of Nicosia's thoroughly researched book ism with regard to nationality, national life, and is devoted to examining how German Zionists the proper defnition and organization of peoples tried to gain Nazi cooperation in the Zionist and states in the modern world" (p. 2). Although project and how the Nazis tried to use the Zionist Nicosia traces völkisch infuences on Zionist movement to achieve their primary aim of creat‐ thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth ing a judenrein in the years before century and reveals certain assumptions shared the Holocaust. In the frst of his eight chapters, H-Net Reviews

"The Age of Emancipation," Nicosia traces the con‐ struggle against tsarist Russia, where Jews were vergence of interests that slowly evolved in the openly persecuted. ZVfD leaders even questioned nineteenth century between the requirements of the sincerity of the British Balfour Declaration of Jewish nationalism in Palestine and the imperial‐ November 1917 and successfully induced the Ger‐ ist ambitions of the European powers in the Mid‐ man government to make a similar gesture in fa‐ dle East. Ironically, in view of the prevalence of vor of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine in antisemitism in the , it was to Wil‐ January 1918. Throughout the Weimar era, as helmine Germany that early Zionists such as Nicosia details in chapter 2, the German govern‐ Theodor Herzl looked for support, believing "that ment continued to support Zionism as a means of antisemites and their governments, perhaps more promoting German economic goals in the than most, would prove to be friends of Zionism" Mideast. In keeping with its "ethnocentric defni‐ (p. 14) for reasons both of geopolitics and anti‐ tion of nationhood" (p. 54), the ZVfD stayed out of semitism.[2] Zionists expected antisemites to sup‐ German politics and prohibited its ofcials from port their project because of their shared view of seeking high political ofce in Germany. It also Jews as a distinct people who should avow and ruled out cooperation with the venerable Cen‐ embrace their separate nationality. Although Wil‐ tralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen helm II refused to give Zionists the diplomatic Glaubens (CV), founded to combat antisemitism in support they sought for fear of alienating his Ot‐ 1893, for fear of reinforcing the CV's assimilation‐ toman ally, he favored Jewish emigration to and ist tendencies. Kurt Blumenfeld, president of the settlement in Palestine, both to give Germany a ZVfD from 1924 to 1931, identifed the appeal of foothold in the Middle East and to redirect east Marxism, the "ultimate assimilationist mecha‐ European Jewish emigration away from Germany nism" (p. 60), as the greatest danger to Jews, and and the West. Even such notorious racial anti‐ propagated Jewish separateness as a prelude to semites and proto-Nazis as Paul de Lagarde, Con‐ emigration to Palestine as the only workable form stantin Frantz, Theodor Fritzsch, Houston Stuart of Jewish self-defense against the hostility they Chamberlain, Heinrich Class, or Hermann faced in Europe. Yet, Zionism had little appeal to Ahlwardt recognized the utility of Zionism as a German Jews. In 1933 membership in the Cen‐ means of freeing Germany of Jews. Their fear that tralverein outnumbered ZVfD membership by a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine might more than ten to one. Nonetheless the ZVfD faced strengthen the imagined "Jewish world conspira‐ continuing attacks from the antisemitic radical cy" was paradoxically mitigated by their simulta‐ Right during the Weimar years, not only as a Jew‐ neous prejudice that Jews lacked the personal and ish organization, but also for supporting the racial traits required to build and defend a func‐ British mandate in Palestine. tioning modern state. German Zionists found Determined to reassert a positive Jewish iden‐ themselves in a dilemma at the outbreak of the tity and convinced of the futility of assimilation, First World War. German Zionist leaders tended to underestimate The World Zionist executive declared its neu‐ the threat of the Nazis coming to power and to trality in the war, moving its headquarters from overestimate the opportunities that a Nazi gov‐ Berlin to neutral Copenhagen, and eventually es‐ ernment might open up for the Zionist movement. tablishing itself in London after the war. Its Ger‐ In chapter 3, "Nazi Confusion, Zionist Illusion," man branch, however, the Zionistische Vereini‐ Nicosia traces the pragmatic cooperation between gung für Deutschland (ZVfD), like other German- Zionists and the Nazi government leading to the Jewish organizations, declared its full support for Haavara Transfer Agreement of September 1933, the German war efort, framing the war as a which made it possible for German Jews to emi‐

2 H-Net Reviews grate to Palestine without leaving all their assets ment addressed to the Nazi regime in June 1933, behind, while boosting the German economy by the ZVfD "questioned the 's no‐ promoting exports to Palestine. Approximately tion of the individual and a nation of individuals ffty-three thousand German Jews were able to that rejected the idea of a people bound together use the Haavara system to migrate to Palestine be‐ by blood, history, and a spiritual uniqueness" (p. fore the termination of this program in December 92). Right-wing Revisionist Zionists, represented 1939 as a result of the disruption of all commer‐ in Germany by the newly formed Staatszionistis‐ cial and diplomatic relations with Britain after the che Organisation, issued a position paper in 1935 start of the war. Yet. between 1933 and 1937 Ger‐ recognizing "the right of the German people to man Jews comprised only 20 percent of Jewish form its own national life that will exclude all un‐ immigrants to Palestine and constituted propor‐ desirable mixing of peoples" and calling for the tionally even less of the total Jewish population of dissolution of "any Jewish organizations in Ger‐ Palestine. Although even such extreme anti‐ many that oppose such [separatist] measures" (p. semites as Alfred Rosenberg were quite prepared 95). German Revisionist Zionists also proved use‐ to exploit the Zionist movement to force Jews out ful to the Nazis in opposing an international boy‐ of Germany, their tactical support for Zionism as a cott of German goods, even defying Vladimir means to create an ethnically pure Volksgemein‐ Jabotinsky, the founder of the Revisionist move‐ schaft in no way diminished their distrust of Jews ment, on this particular issue. as alleged agents of sedition and subversion, nor In separate chapters on "Zionism in Nazi Jew‐ did it diminish their certitude that Jews were out ish Policy," "German Zionism: Confrontation with to dominate the world. Nicosia is particularly suc‐ Reality," "Revisionist Zionism in Germany," and cessful in feshing out the complexities and con‐ "Zionist Occupational Retraining and Nazi Jewish tradictions in "the dual nature of Nazi policies to‐ Policy," Nicosia describes in detail the ftful collab‐ ward Zionism" in the 1930s (p. 73). On the one oration even beyond the Kristallnacht pogrom be‐ hand, the Nazi regime exploited Zionism to pro‐ tween German Zionists, preparing for Jewish re‐ mote Jewish emigration to Palestine (though not newal in Palestine, and Nazis, eager to expel Jews to create a Jewish state); on the other hand, the in preparation for the coming war for German liv‐ regime refused to grant Zionist demands for Jew‐ ing space in the east. Revisionist Zionists, who ish civil rights as an ofcially recognized national supported the Nazi ban on intermarriage, also minority in Germany during the transition. Aware proved useful to the Nazis in countering foreign that German economic restrictions on Jews im‐ criticism of the . Ofcials of the peded Jewish emigration, sought to Interior Ministry, the Economics Ministry, the For‐ shift the blame to Britain for restricting Jewish eign Ofce, as well as of the SD and Gestapo, were immigration to Palestine and imposing entry fees instructed to give preferential treatment to Zion‐ on Jewish immigrants. It would be much better, ist organizations over other Jewish organizations he told his audience in the Berlin Sportspalast in (which did not, however, exempt individual Zion‐ October 1933, "if instead [the British] would say ists from the same ill treatment meted out to oth‐ everyone can enter" (p. 78). For their part, Ger‐ er Jews). Only the Zionist movement was permit‐ man Zionists operated under the illusion that by ted to function in Austria after its annexation in endorsing Germany's national rebirth under Na‐ March 1938, even though, as Nicosia repeatedly tional Socialism, its principles of ethnic or racial emphasizes, for the Nazis "Zionists were nothing descent, and its consciousness of national unique‐ more than convenient tools for facilitating the re‐ ness, they could secure German cooperation in es‐ moval of Jews from Germany" (p. 206). Represen‐ tablishing a Jewish . In a formal state‐ tatives of the Jewish Agency for Palestine were

3 H-Net Reviews permitted repeated entry into Germany to work tacts bore little fruit, however, as the British, in‐ for Jewish emigration even after all Jewish immi‐ tent on restricting Jewish immigration, barred gration or reentry into Germany was halted in Eichmann from reentering Palestine. 1938. The regime also supported occupational re‐ 1938 did mark a turning point in Nazi anti- training and Hebrew-language instruction for Jewish policies, not only because the Anschluß of Jews subject to their commitment to emigrate, de‐ Austria (and, a year later, the annexation of Bo‐ spite reservations by ideological hard-liners that hemia and Moravia) added urgency to Nazi eforts agricultural and technological retraining of Jews to force Jews out of the greater Reich, but also be‐ in Germany would inevitably lead to undesirable cause the violence and destructiveness of the social contact between Jews and Aryans. German Kristallnacht pogrom had the paradoxical efect authorities preferred Palestine as a destination of shifting authority to those Nazi agencies that for Jewish emigration for fear of intensifying anti- regarded Radauantisemitismus as counterpro‐ German feelings in neighboring European coun‐ ductive, both for the damage it did to the German tries. The Nazi regime showed no sympathy for economy and for its adverse efects on Germany's before the start of the war. In‐ image abroad. In the bureaucratic infghting on deed, fearing that growing Arab opposition to how best to solve Germany's "Jewish question," Jewish immigration would hamper German emi‐ the SS favored a more "rational" and "systematic" gration eforts, the SD issued a report in early approach than street violence, but also more 1937, announcing that "any attempt to foster anti- punitive measures to force Jews to leave than Jewish sentiments among the Arabs in Palestine is those enacted by the Interior Ministry. As head of strictly prohibited" (p. 135). However, support for the Four Year Plan, Hermann Göring assigned au‐ Jewish emigration to Palestine did not translate thority to Reinhard Heydrich to centralize and into support for a Jewish state. Indeed, Ernst von forcibly expedite the process of Jewish emigration Weizsäcker, the leading civil servant in the For‐ on the model of the Zentralstelle für jüdische eign Ministry, cautioned against concentrating Auswanderung, which was headed by Adolf Eich‐ Jews in Palestine so as not to facilitate the forma‐ mann in Vienna and eventually in Berlin. All inde‐ tion of a Jewish state. Instead, he advocated dis‐ pendent Jewish organizations, including both the persing Jews into small minorities all over the ZVfD and the Revisionist Zionist organization, world. Both the Nazis and Revisionist Zionists op‐ were dissolved and brought under Gestapo con‐ posed the Peel Commission's partition plan for trol as the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Palestine in July 1937--the Nazis, because they op‐ Deutschland in 1939. Forced emigration of Ger‐ posed a Jewish state; the Revisionists ,because man Jews remained ofcial German policy right they opposed an Arab state. Nonetheless, as the up to the dissolution of the Jewish Agency's Pales‐ British government showed no interest in imple‐ tine Ofce in Berlin in May 1941, as described in menting the Peel Commission's plan, "obstacles to Nicosia's fnal chapter, "From Dissolution to Final increased Jewish immigration into Palestine were Solution." The SD worked with agents of the viewed with greater alarm in Berlin than the Mossad le'Aliyah Bet (Committee for Illegal Immi‐ spectre of a Jewish state" (p. 132). The purpose of gration) to step up the illegal movement of Jews Adolf Eichmann's clandestine visit to Palestine in from central Europe past British authorities into October 1937 was to explore cooperation with Palestine in 1938 and 1939 after the imposition of anti- British, anti-Arab, and anti-communist of‐ tighter immigration restrictions in the British cials of the Haganah (the Jewish militia founded mandate. The start of the war created further im‐ in 1920) in eforts to increase both legal and ille‐ pediments to Jewish emigration, but as late as gal Jewish immigration from Germany. These con‐ 1940 "the SS was still focused on emigration as the

4 H-Net Reviews solution to the Jewish question within the borders erences to the present, except to point out the of the Greater German Reich" (p. 264). In Novem‐ irony that while anti-Zionism or criticism of the ber 1939, Heydrich wrote to the Foreign Ministry, state of Israel in Europe or the United States today "the opinion is unanimous that, now as before, is often equated with antisemitism (or viewed as the emigration of the Jews must continue even motivated by antisemitism), before 1933 anti‐ during the war, with all of the means at our dis‐ semites were more likely to support Zionist aims posal" (p. 264). So great was the Nazi emphasis on than to oppose them. Until the Nazi policy of eth‐ cleansing Germany of its Jews that the German nic cleansing left Jews with no alternative to emi‐ government prohibited emigration of Polish Jews gration, the most prominent critics of Zionism and refused to grant transit visas to Lithuanian tended to be Jews who rejected the Zionist claim Jews in 1940 lest such migrants reduce the num‐ that Jews had a distinct ethnic or national (as op‐ ber of entry permits available to Jews from the Al‐ posed to cultural or religious) identity that made treich. Added to all the other problems that will‐ them aliens in the countries in which they lived. ing German-Jewish émigrés faced was the reluc‐ Notes tance of Italy, Yugoslavia, and other neutral coun‐ [1]. The classic study remains Peter Pulzer, tries to issue transit visas for fear that British au‐ The Rise of Political Antisemitism in Germany and thorities would return illegal refugees to the Austria (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, countries from which they had set sail. 1988). On the basis of copious research in more than [2]. For a suggestive analysis of how Herzl's two dozen German, Israeli, British, and North desire to create a new, manlier Jewish identity American archives, Nicosia confrms the current was rooted in his own internalization of some of historical consensus that the Nazis had no plan the antisemitic stereotypes so prevalent in his for systematic genocide before 1941, although the time, see Jacques Kornberg, Theodor Herzl: From potential for genocide was always present in Nazi Assimilation to Zionism (Bloomington: Indiana ideology and the party's anti-Jewish policies. University Press, 1993). Nicosia concludes that before 1941 "the Nazi ob‐ session with removing the Jews from German life was centered primarily on Greater Germany alone ... with a particularly critical role assigned to Zionism and Palestine" (p. 292). His fndings certainly confrm the crucial importance of anti‐ semitism in the origins of the Holocaust, but they also point to war as the key to the radicalization of antisemitic measures to a policy of physical an‐ nihilation (as threatened by Hitler as early as his notorious Reichstag speech of January 1939). Nicosia is critical of "the ever-present tendency to judge the past from the present," noting that from a post-Holocaust perspective, "it is easy today to dismiss early Zionist hopes of some form of ac‐ commodation with antisemitism as shockingly naive and illusory" (p. 291). Zionism and Anti‐ semitism in is a scrupulous work of history, not politics, and Nicosia makes no ref‐

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Citation: Roderick Stackelberg. Review of Nicosia, Francis R. Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany. H-German, H-Net Reviews. May, 2009.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24304

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