Nazis stay "pro-Zionist"

[uberjude]

no problem--I think in my years of posting here, fair to say that's the first time anybody mistook me and Mr. Mills for ideological mates.

[Sheldrake]

Just heard more on this on the BBC Today Porgramme. Ken referred to the coins.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39461501
"Hitler wasn't a Zionist, but did support Zionism"

There is some support for this view. Palestinian Zionists had a common cause with the Nazis, carrying out terrorist attacks on British forces during WW2. These included the ethnic cleansing of the Palestine Brigade of non Jews and the assasination of Lord Moyne in Cairo.

[Sergey Romanov]

Hitler did not support Zionism both for ideological and practical reasons. E.g. during the war he did not want Jews to emigrate to Palestine for two reasons: they had to be within the reach to be exterminated and allowing them to go to Palestine would put strain on Germany's relations with its friends in the Middle East.

[michael mills]

Hitler did not support Zionism both for ideological and practical reasons. E.g. during the war he did not want Jews to emigrate to Palestine for two reasons: they had to be within the reach to be exterminated and allowing them to go to Palestine would put strain on Germany's relations with its friends in the Middle East.

This interpretation is contrary to historical fact.

Jewish emigration from Germany was not prohibited until October 1941. Until that date the German Government did not undertake any measures to prevent Jews emigrating to Palestine or anywhere else, and the Zionist Palestine Office was still able to function in Germany, although Jews who were subject of Mandated Palestine could not be employed there since the outbreak of war since they were enemy nationals.

The prime factor preventing the emigration of Jews from German-controlled Europe was British opposition, not German prevention. In fact, Britain was opposed to any Jewish emigration from German-controlled Europe, since they would then become a burden on the Allied governments; the British Government was absolutely paranoid that Germany would revert to a policy of "extrusion", expelling huge numbers of impoverished Jews out of its territory.

The assertion that Hitler wanted to keep Jews under his control so that they could be exterminated is contrary to historical fact, since it rests on the prejudicial assumption that Hitler had a pre-existing intention to exterminate them. The reality is that his preferred solution was enforced emigration or deportation outside Europe, and mass killing was only resorted to when those preferred solutions proved impracticable. Furthermore, it is by no means certain that Hitler was the prime instigator of the move to physical extermination; it is equally possible that he authorised it in response to pressure from German authorities in occupied territories who had found themselves unable to dispose of their unwanted Jewish populations in any other way.

The assertion that Hitler did not want to put a strain on "Germany's friends" in the Middle East is also questionable. Hitler saw the Middle East as Italy's sphere of interest, and did not intend to get involved there; he only got involved when Italy proved incapable of overthrowing British control. He had no particular interest in befriending the Arab peoples or in helping them to gain independence, as his refusal to give any real commitments to Al-Husseini demonstrates.

Before the outbreak of war with Britain in 1939, Hitler had no objection to the continuation of British control over the Middle East, and one of the reasons he approved of Jewish emigration from Germany to Palestine was that in the latter country they would be under firm British control. In 1938, when faced with a recommendation from the German Foreign Office that the emigration of German Jews to Palestine be prevented on the grounds that the growth of the Jewish population in that country would eventually lead to the creation of a "Jewish Vatican", Hitler eventually decided in favour of allowing the emigration to continue, probably because in his mind the real present benefit of getting Jews out of Germany outweighed the hypothetical future danger of the emergence of a Jewish State that could become the centre of Jewish subversion in other countries.

[Sergey Romanov]

Hitler did not support Zionism both for ideological and practical reasons. E.g. during the war he did not want Jews to emigrate to Palestine for two reasons: they had to be within the reach to be exterminated and allowing them to go to Palestine would put strain on Germany's relations with its friends in the Middle East.

This interpretation is contrary to historical fact.

Jewish emigration from Germany was not prohibited until October 1941. Until that date the German Government did not undertake any measures to prevent Jews emigrating to Palestine or anywhere else,

It did later however, as you should well know, so your claim is deceptive. That Jews were able to emigrate before doesn't prove Hitler's Zionism or support of Zionism, that they were not able to emigrate after, and specifically to Palestine, for the exact reasons I have given, proves that he was *not* a Zionist or a supporter of Zionists.

That some other govts may or may not have been against the Jewish emigration is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

The assertion that Hitler wanted to keep Jews under his control so that they could be exterminated is contrary to historical fact, since it rests on the prejudicial assumption that Hitler had a pre-existing intention to exterminate them.

Since I am obviously talking about the period after Hitler's intention to exterminate the Jews was already apparent, what you wrote is meaningless.

The reality is that his preferred solution was enforced emigration or deportation outside Europe, and mass killing was only resorted to when those preferred solutions proved impracticable.

And after the mass killing was resorted to, it was eventually decided that this Final Solution would be pan-European and that Jews should stay in Europe to be within reach for extermination.

Exactly what I wrote.

Furthermore, it is by no means certain that Hitler was the prime instigator of the move to physical extermination; it is equally possible that he authorised it in response to pressure from German authorities in occupied territories who had found themselves unable to dispose of their unwanted Jewish populations in any other way.

This is irrelevant to the question of what eventually became a fact: Jews were prohibited to emigrate to Palestine from Romania, just to give an example, because a) they had to be within the German reach for the pan-European Final Solution, b) because it was thought that this would strain relations with Germany's friends in Middle East.

The assertion that Hitler did not want to put a strain on "Germany's friends" in the Middle East is also questionable.

It was however one of the two official reasons given to prevent the emigration of Romanian Jews to Palestine.

So, IOW, a typical Mills riposte: factually false, missing the point.

[michael mills]

for Germany shows that for him it was not an absolute priority to keep Jews in Europe so that they could be exterminated.

And after the mass killing was resorted to, it was eventually decided that this Final Solution would be pan-European and that Jews should stay in Europe to be within reach for extermination.

There is no documentation for any such decision, in particular for any absolute prohibition on Jews leaving the part of Europe under German control. All that can be documented is an openly proclaimed intention to make Europe Jew-free, meaning that no Jew should remain anywhere on European soil west of the Urals. There was never any final decision on how that goal could be accomplished, and even when mass killing was resorted to, it was more a matter of it being permissible rather than mandatory.

Even after mass extermination began, there were ongoing attempts by agencies of the German Government to negotiate the departure of Jews from Europe through a deal with the Allies, under which Jews would be released from German control in return for payment. One documented attempt was the so-called "Europa Plan", which was negotiated in 1942 between Eichmann's subordinate Wisliceny and Jewish representatives in Slovakia; the German proposal was that Jews could be released in return for a payment per head in US currency (I cannot remember the exact amount), and as many Jews would be released as the Allies were willing to pay for. This plan did not proceed since the Allies refused to enter into any negotiations with the German Government.

Much better known is the "Jews for trucks" deal of 1944, negotiated between Eichmann and Jewish representatives in Hungary, under which one million Jews would be released in return for the provision of trucks by the Western Allies, to be used only on the Eastern Front. Again the proposal failed because of the Allied refusal to enter into negotiations. A subsidiary element in that proposal was the deal worked out between Eichmann and the Zionist leader in Hungary, Kasztner, under which some thousands of members of Labour Zionist youth organisations, selected by Zionist officials, were allowed to cross the border to Romania, from where they could proceed to Palestine, in return for the Zionist Organisation in Hungary not organising any resistance to the deportation of the majority of Hungarian Jews.

All the above proposals were initiated by Himmler, and were most probably for the purpose of drawing the Western Allies into negotiations on a separate peace, using the Jews as a bargaining chip. The fact that Himmler was willing to release Jews in return for some sort of advantage
What is not known is the extent to which Hitler was aware of Himmler's proposals, and whether Himmler was acting with authorisation from Hitler, or whether he was acting behind Hitler's back and without his knowledge.

[Sergey Romanov]

for Germany shows that for him it was not an absolute priority to keep Jews in Europe so that they could be exterminated.

And after the mass killing was resorted to, it was eventually decided that this Final Solution would be pan-European and that Jews should stay in Europe to be within reach for extermination.

There is no documentation for any such decision, in particular for any absolute prohibition on Jews leaving the part of Europe under German control.

Wrong. From the book "Hitler's Forgotten Ally. Ion Antonescu and his Regime, Romania, 1940-1944"

Instead, Antonescu turned to emigration to Palestine as a solution to
the ‘Jewish problem’.
[...]
Radu Lecca raised the matter with the Central Jewish Office. Figures were attached
to the scheme: 70,000 Jews deported to Transnistria were to be allowed to
emigrate against payment of 200,000 lei (about $350) per person.
[...]
The Foreign Ministry replied on 9 January 1943 to von Killinger, stating
that Lecca’s plan ‘represented a partial resolution unacceptable within the
framework of the fundamental lines followed by the German government
for a European solution to the Jewish problem’. Emigration, it was argued,
would place a great strain on Germany’s relations with its friends in the
Middle East and would also deliver 80,000 Jews to its enemies, who would
have no impediment in acting against the Axis.
[...]
The German legation in Bucharest had been instructed
to tell the Romanian government that the ships involved were ‘absolutely
necessary’ for the Axis war effort and that this traffic should be halted.
Moreover, the emigration of Jews was ‘not desirable, not only because of our
[German] general policies towards the Jews, which it seems are disadvantaged
by this practice, but also because of their influence on our policies
toward Turkey and the Arab countries’.
[...]
German opposition did block a proposal put by Filderman to Bursan on
2 January 1943 that 5,000 orphans be repatriated from Transnistria to
Romania while onward emigration plans were explored. Richter, the counsellor
for Jewish affairs at the Bucharest legation, received word of the idea
and told Lecca that the Romanian government should reject it. At the same
time, he reported Filderman’s proposal to Eichmann. [...]
Startled that this would spur moves in Romania to
facilitate emigration, Eberhard von Thadden, the deputy official in the
German Foreign Ministry responsible for Jewish Affairs, wrote to Killinger
on the following day with orders that he demand that Bucharest revoke any
decision allowing the emigration of Jews. Eichmann himself told the
German Foreign Ministry on 3 March that he had learned of discussions
carried out by Jewish officials in Romania to secure transit visas from the
Turks for a group of 1,000 Jewish children and 100 accompanying adults to
travel by train to Turkey en route to Palestine. He asked the Ministry to
‘prevent the planned emigration’.
[...]
On 4 April, Killinger warned the counsellor for Jewish matters at the German
legation in Sofia, SS Hauptsturmführer Danecker, that a further transport of
74 Jewish children was being arranged from Bucharest by the Romanian
state transport agency Romania. He advised that
"The agency Romania has been informed that [the transport] would not be
in the interest of the Reich, since it would be an emigration not only
from Romania, but also from Europe, at a particular time when efforts
were being made for the resolution of the Jewish problem in Europe."
He asked that if the transport began, the counsellor should give orders that
its onward journey from Bulgaria be halted. Two days later, Killinger told
Lecca to inform Nandor Gingold, secretary-general of the Central Jewish
Office (CJO), that Jewish refugees discovered in Bulgaria would be arrested.

--------------

All that can be documented is an openly proclaimed intention to make Europe Jew-free, meaning that no Jew should remain anywhere on European soil west of the Urals. There was never any final decision on how that goal could be accomplished, and even when mass killing was resorted to, it was more a matter of it being permissible rather than mandatory.

Wrong, all European Jews had to die, some immediately, some after working for the Nazis (and would be then "treated accordingly", to use the Wannsee conference's language). The fate of the Jews would not have been left to chance.

the German proposal was that Jews could be released in return for a payment per head in US currency

Such economic considerations in no way refute the existence of the general extermination plan. Only that different contradictory goals had to be balanced against each other at different times.

[michael mills]

all European Jews had to die

Quite correct. All European Jews living in 1943 had to die.

Not only European Jews had to die, all Jews living everywhere in the World in 1943 had to die.

All Jews living today have to die.

Even you have to die, Sergey.

The only question is when.

The issue here is whether as of 1943 the German Government had made an unalterable decision to ensure that all Jews under its control would die in the very near future, within a couple of years.

The actual actions of the German Government show fluctuations in its views on what to do with the Jews, suggesting that whatever decision had been made was not unalterable. In 1942, Himmler was offering to release Jews under his control in return for payment, exactly what the Romanian Government was proposing to do with Jews under its control in 1943, so the reasons given by the German Foreign Office for trying to stop the Romanian proposal were somewhat hypocritical.

In 1944 Himmler again offered to release Jews in return for payment in goods. Those proposals by Himmler were an effort by him to start negotiations with the Allies for an end to the war in the West; if the Western Allies agreed to make peace, the Jews would be released. But as long as the war continued, the Jews could not be released and the mass killing would continue as the only way to eliminate the danger and/or burden represented by them (in the eyes of the German Government).

The fact that Himmler made those proposals indicates that for him at least, the physical extermination of the Jews under German control was not an absolute imperative. It was something made necessary by the wartime situation, ie as long as the war continued, the Jews could not be allowed to emigrate since they would help the Allies. However, if the war in the West could be brought to an end, the Jews could be released since they would no longer be a danger.

[Sergey Romanov]

all European Jews had to die

Quite correct. All European Jews living in 1943 had to die.

Not only European Jews had to die, all Jews living everywhere in the World in 1943 had to die.

All Jews living today have to die.

Even you have to die, Sergey.

The only question is when.

If you think this style of "debating" is above the kindergarten level, you're sorely mistaken.

The issue here is whether as of 1943 the German Government had made an unalterable decision to ensure that all Jews under its control would die in the very near future, within a couple of years.

Actually that's not an issue but a strawman you built.

The initial plan, as expressed in the Wannsee protocol, was wholesale murder of the Jews unable to work (since they notably do not feature in the short-term future the Nazis envisaged for the Jews as elucidated in the document), and using the rest of the Jews for work, under a strict separation of sexes, until only a small minority remains, which then had to be "treated accordingly" so as to prevent it from building a core of the Jewish revival (that meant killing them, naturally). This solution meant the extermination of the Jews as an ethnic group. It might have taken, as first envisaged, longer than a "couple of years", but it was a plan for the general extermination of the European Jewry. Those are the facts.

That there existed certain interests that had to be balanced against this general plan (and might have caused an exception or two) does not prove the absence of the general plan, rather, those exceptions prove the rule, since releasing the Jews for money meant the resistance to releasing them otherwise, which is contrary to the "they wanted to get rid of them through any means possible, including emigration" thesis.

[michael mills]

The initial plan, as expressed in the Wannsee protocol, was wholesale murder of the Jews unable to work (since they notably do not feature in the short-term future the Nazis envisaged for the Jews as elucidated in the document),

That is the "argumentum a silentio", which is not conclusive. The protocol clearly states that the Jews as a whole are to be deported to the East, meaning into occupied Soviet territory. The fact that the treatment of Jews unfit for labour is not specifically stated does not automatically mean that the German Government had made the decision to kill them en masse.

Bear in mind that the deportation plan outlined at the Wannsee Conference by Heydrich was not a new plan, but one that had been worked on by Eichmann since early 1941, had been presented to Goering in March and then sent back by him for further refinement, and presumably approved in its final form by Hitler. In many ways, that plan was already obsolete at the time of the conference due to German defeat at Moscow in early December, which made deportation more difficult. However, documents have been found showing that before the Wannsee Conference the RSHA had asked the various occupation authorities in occupied Soviet territory to advise the number of German Jews who could be accommodated in their areas of responsibility, showing that the deportation plan outlined at the conference was real, not a chimera.

Even before the Wannsee Conference, some time in late 1941, Himmler and Heydrich had given their approval for the Sonderbehandlung (summary execution without judicial process) of 100,000 Jews of Reichsgau Wartheland, in response to a request from Reichsstatthalter Greiser. That indicates that at the time of the granting of approval for that limited extermination action, there was no blanket approval for the killing of all Jews, since in that case Greiser would not have needed to make his application for the limited action.

At some time before March 1942, a similar approval must have been given for the "liquidation" of the 60% of the Jews of the Lublin District who could not be used for labour, since Goebbels describes in his diary the action directed by Globocnik. However, Goebbel's description does not imply that the 40% usable for labour would also be killed at some point, but gives the impression that they are to sent to the East, a similar process to that described in the Wannsee Protocol.

The Wannsee Protocol does show that it was Heydrich's view that no Jews could be released, since that would lead to a Jewish revival, and therefore the remaining deported Jews would have to be killed at some unspecified time in the future. But was that also Himmler's view?

Himmler's attempts to make contact with Western Allied agents in Switzerland through proposals to release Jews in return for payment, with a view to initiating negotiations on an end to hostilities, indicates that he did not consider himself bound by an unalterable imperative to kill all Jews under his control, but was prepared to let them live and even to release them from German control if his aim of a separate peace with the Western Allies could be attained.

It may be that an order to kill all Jews under German control without exception was indeed in place and Himmler was acting against it for his own purposes. On the other hand, it might be that the policy of killing Jews was not absolute or obligatory, but rather was contingent, its implementation dependent on circumstances. The observed course of events shows that there were fluctuations in the killing actions over time, with the pendulum sometimes swinging toward physical extermination, at other times swinging away from it in favour of increased use of Jews for labour. That is certainly the view of some historians that I have read, and it would indicate that the homicidal element in the treatment of the Jews was contingent rather than absolute.

[Sergey Romanov]

The initial plan, as expressed in the Wannsee protocol, was wholesale murder of the Jews unable to work (since they notably do not feature in the short-term future the Nazis envisaged for the Jews as elucidated in the document),

That is the "argumentum a silentio", which is not conclusive.

It is conclusive since if the Jews unable to work were to stay alive, there had to be a solution for them too, something that should have been mentioned in the protocol which dealt with the *comprehensive* final solution in Europe. Since no such solution is mentioned where it should have been, and the Jews unable to work simply do not figure in the future envisaged for the Jews deported to the East, they were not to stay alive.

This is all the more obvious since even such a secondary matter as the old people's ghetto is mentioned. So much more would one expect the fate of the Jews unable to work - which, in practice, turned out to be most of them - to be outlined, even if briefly.

Moreover, the logic of the protocol is clear: Jewish revival is to be prevented at all costs, so the rest of the Jews *able* to work were to be killed. It is then absolutely absurd to suggest that anything but eventual killing awaited the Jews *unable* to work. And it is also absurd to suggest that this killing was to happen later than that of the Jews able to work, since the Jews unable to work could not provide for themselves, and the Jews able to work would not be able to provide for the other Jews since most of them were supposed to die out "naturally" due to privations, during work. Who would then feed the Jews unable to work? Surely not the Germans.

Any other interpretation doesn't make a modicum of sense, however you look at it.

Plus the Wannsee protocol doesn't exist in a vacuum: Goebbels is explicit about having to liquidate 60% of Jews arriving in Globocnik's camps. The other 40% can be "put to work", therefore the reference was to the Jews unable to work. This of course corresponds to what I wrote above.

Also, drop the "absolute" strawman. No policy is ever absolute and has to be balanced against other considerations. This doesn't disprove the existence of a general extermination plan.

[NickA]

Von Schadewald - much of what's in that posting you've clipped from http://archive.org/stream/Chamish-Shabt ... 3_djvu.txt - is important and deserves wider distribution.

But in other places he's being quite sloppy with the Holocaust numbers:

.... Nowhere is the nazis mass-escape from justice clearer than in Israel. In 60 years, with thousands of nazis who murdered her citizens to choose from, exactly two were tried and one was released on a technicality. The other one, Adolph Eichmann, was hunted down because he knew too much about the Jewish Agency's complicity in the murderof 800,000 Hungarian Jews.

... In 1952, a Hungarian- born Israeli journalist, Malchiel Greenwald, accused a high-ranking Labor Party official, Rudolph Kastner, of working hand in hand with Eichmann to murder 800,000 Hungarian Jews, while saving several hundred of his own family and associates.

... Yoel Brand, Eichmann had offered to save all 800,000 Jews in Hungary in return for 700 trucks. Brand contacted the man who would become Israel's second prime minister, Moshe Sharett in Aleppo, where Shared had him arrested by the British.

The Jewish Agency, through Rudolf Kastner was deeply complicit in the almost immediate deaths of almost all of the 437,000 Hungarian Jews tricked into getting onto the gas-chamber trains.

However, that's not what happened to the 800,000 or maybe more Hungarian Jews - at least 100,000 were saved in Budapest by the efforts of the real heroes. A lot more Jews were clearly murdered - and Rudolf Kastner is said to by one of the heroes to have obstructed this effort.

Strangely, the Holocaust Industry doesn't want to talk of the real heroes, the escapees Vrba and Westler and the document forger and distributur Moshe Kraus. They only want to talk about Carl Lutz, the Swiss diploman and Mantello, the Salvadoren diplomat.

I see here that some Israelis know the truth, Moshe Kraus and other Jews played a huge part in rescuing Hungarian Jews but the Holocaust establishment is determined to cover up what the real heroes did:

2014 ... In February 1945, with the liberation of Budapest, it became clear that more than 100,000 Jews in the city had survived. Several days before the liberation, the owner of the Glass House, Arthur Weiss, was caught and murdered by the Nazis. His wife and son survived, and moved to the U.S. after the war.

Carl Lutz was one of the first to be awarded the title "righteous gentile" by Yad Vashem. In 1965, Israel issued a medal in his honor, and a street in Haifa was named after him.

Moshe Kraus moved to Israel and ran an institution for young boys. He married a Holocaust survivor from Budapest. The two had no children.

The Swiss government honored Kraus for saving 30,000 Hungarian Jews. But when Dr. Nadivi began her doctoral research on the Palestine Office in Budapest, she could find no information about Kraus in the Yad Vashem archives.

... At the end of the war, when the Jewish Agency told Lutz that he would be inducted into the Jewish National Fund's "Golden Book" of honor and that a ceremony would be held to honor him, he thanked them, but informed them that it was Kraus who should receive the honor, because without him, the operation would have never succeeded. As the ceremony neared, Lutz wrote the JNF again asking them to recognize Kraus' contribution. But then, at the lavish ceremony, no one mentioned Kraus. Only Lutz praised him again and again. http://www.aish.com/ho/p/The-Holocausts ... -Hero.html

Why cover it up?

Because, as the other heroes can and often did testify, Kastner (comprehenisvely exposed by Tamir in Jerusalem in 1954/1955 and Ben Hecht with "Perfidy") and the Jewish Agency in Budapest were busy obstructing the rescue of Jews.

"The wait (for a reply) was long, and we didn't know the reason," Kraus wrote in an article, "until we found out something very strange: Someone had informed the German legation that the 7,800 documents applied to individuals, not families. That someone was one of us – Dr. Kastner." http://www.aish.com/ho/p/The-Holocausts ... -Hero.html

[NickA]

This interpretation is contrary to historical fact.

I'm horrified by the denial still going on concerning relations between the Zionists and the Nazis. It shouldn't be a secret - in fact, its not a secret. German support of the Zionists rescued a failing colonial project, 5 years of neglect by the British had led to the Yishuv losing population in 1930. (This from memory - may have references) It seems to have been argued that Germany did more than the British for eventual success of the project. Germany exported (at no cost to the Yishuv) large quantities of machinery via the "Transfer Agrement". Including, and maybe particularly, machinery to make armaments, so profitable in the war to come. (Sorry, can't prove that one, only hints!)

Jewish emigration from Germany was not prohibited until October 1941. Until that date the German Government did not undertake any measures to prevent Jews emigrating to Palestine or anywhere else, and the Zionist Palestine Office was still able to function in Germany

That's correct - there are rumours of further ships leaving Germany and arriving unmolested in Palestine. eg this unimpeachable source:

June 3, 2016 ... In late 1944 one of the Jewish friends we had saved from arrest in occupied Amsterdam who had managed to escape earlier across the Pyrenees to Spain boarded a ship in Malaga with many other Jews. That unprotected ship sailed unmolested to Haifa because Hitler had promised Franco and the Allies that his navy and air force in the Mediterranean would not try to sink that ship. It was not the only transport to Haifa of that kind. At least one ship came from Greece. https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016 ... l-zionist/

The Madagascar Plan seems to have been Polish in origin from the 1930s, it was years before the Germans advocated expulsion. In October 1941 the policy switched suddenly from officially permitted emigration to an official policy of expulsion from Germany. (The actual declaration of the Final Solution was 12th Dec 1941 - few people seem to know that).

[wm]

The Madagascar Plan wasn't Polish, it was proposed by Yvon Delbos, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Léon Blum's government - supported by two Jewish organizations; the Freeland League and EMCOL - Association for Jewish Emigration and Colonization.
Both of them tried to gain colonies for the Jews - because according to them Palestine looked unpromising.

[NickA]

The Madagascar Plan wasn't Polish, it was proposed by Yvon Delbos, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Léon Blum's government

Leon Blum was famously Jewish and presumably blessed this plan. And Blum would not have been alone - Theodore Herzl (and every Zionist of the period and since) believed and effectively said that "Jews cannot be French". Herzl even came to London and testified in hearings that "Jews cannot be English" and would stir up hatred against settled Jews in 1902. He and the openly antisemitic Sir William Evans-Gordon of the British Brothers' League were so influential that we had our first anti-immigrant legislation in 1904.

Meanwhile, the Wikipedia map of the island of Madagascar is labelled as the "Franco-Polish Madagascar Plan1937" and the map shows "Proposed sites of settlement". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagasca ... olish).png

The BBC actually blames a wider cabal of "European anti-Semites" but puts the Polish government in the lead position in the 1930s and makes the Nazis late converts. From the BBC time-line of WW2:

18/06/1940 - Nazi leaders consider deporting Jews to Madagascar

German Foreign Office officials propose deporting Jews of western Europe to the French-owned island of Madagascar, an old idea amongst anti-Semites that was investigated by the Polish government in the 1930s.

Beyond the Headline:

For decades European anti-Semites had dreamed of sending Jews who lived in European communities away to an African colony, as a means of getting rid of them. The island of Madagascar was the favoured destination for these Jews.In the mid-1930s the anti-Semitic Polish government had seriously investigated this suggestion, seeing its implementation as a way of ridding Poland of its large Jewish population. After the Nazi defeat of France, when it seemed as if the Germans were about to be victorious over Britain too, German Foreign Office officials remembered the plan, and saw the chance of stealing a march on the SS - bogged down with massive population transfers in Poland - by offering their own sweeping solution to Europe's 'Jewish question'. They proposed deporting the Jews of western Europe to Madagascar, while those in the east were left as 'hostages'.Reinhard Heydrich of the SS, however, refused to let the Foreign Office outdo him, and charged Adolf Eichmann with preparing a rival plan. Eichmann's version of the Madagascar Plan embraced 4 million European Jews - those living anywhere in Europe from the English Channel to Warsaw - and suggested that the island should be ruled by the SS. The Madagascar Plan was not explicitly genocidal, but its implementation would have resulted in mass deaths, because the island could not possibly maintain such a large European population. In anticipation of the plan being realised, ghetto building in Poland stopped and Nazi officials waited for the ships to sail. But the idea was abandoned when Britain succeeded in holding off German attack, and retained control of sea lanes. From this point onwards, however, the Nazis thought in terms of dealing with all the Jews of Europe. And any semblance of legality or humanitarian treatment was gone.

Maybe what I meaned to say is that the Polish government promoted it before the war, the Germans only during the war, which is what the BBC is implying.

Its worth recalling that Poland had been expelling large numbers of Germans into Germany since 1919, contributing to the famine that killed 800,000 Germans. I've never come across anyone claiming that Poland was expelling Jews - but we know that many Jews in Germany had only been there since 1919 - a very odd place to emigrate to, if you had any choice, since there'd just been a famine there. The deportation of November 1938 leading to Kristalnacht was (at least in theory) of Polish people who had arrived since 1919 and were not citizens.

... supported by two Jewish organizations; the Freeland League and EMCOL - Association for Jewish Emigration and Colonization. Both of them tried to gain colonies for the Jews - because according to them Palestine looked unpromising.

The Nazis considered Palestine very promising - rather unsurprising considering that German (Jewish) wealth had saved the colonial experiment from foundering, as it appeared to be doing in 1930.

Recall that the British stopped supporting the colonialisationi of Palestine and saying goodbye to all the money they'd poured in. Lots of clues at the 1930 Hope-Simpson Report here - https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal. ... 19004F057C

The report pretty much accuses the Zionists ("Memorandum submitted by the Jewish Agency") of practising ethnic cleansing and covering it up.

... In the Memorandum submitted by the Jewish Agency attempts were made to establish that the purchase of the villages in the Esdraelon valley and their settlement by the Jews had not had the effect of causing the previous tenants to join the landless class ... following is an extract from the Memorandum:

"... Very few traced belong to the landless class; 437 are continuing farming as harraths

In explanation of the above statement it must be pointed out that a "harrath" is a farm servant; he is not a tenant farmer. The real result of this enquiry is to establish that of 688 Arab families which cultivated in the villages in the Vale of Esdraelon which were purchased and occupied by the Jews, only 379 are now cultivating the land.

Three hundred and nine of these families have joined the landless classes. In the cases described as "died" it is not the family that is extinguished, but the head of the family who has died. Presumably, the descendants are still alive and earning their bread in some other walk of life than agriculture. It is also to be recorded that the number, 688, does not by any means include all the families who were displaced ... the number of "farmers" displaced from those villages was 1,270, nearly double the number accounted for in the Memorandum.

The British went even further than just accusing the Zionists of lying and cheating the Palestinians. In this same 1930 report they accused the Zionists of even cheating Jews:

... from a communication from Agudath Israel, the body of orthodox Jews:

... the attitude towards immigrants of the religious class has been very unsatisfactory up to the present. In Poland, ... young men of this class were refused immigration certificates, in spite of the fact that such religious people have a still greater longing for Palestine owing to the holiness of the land and to the respective religious bidding

Can't decide what's happened in this next passage - are these enthusiastic Zionists, or are they slaves and child brides?

... (a communication from Agudath Israel, the body of orthodox Jews) In many cases persons have been admitted who ... should not have received visas.... following cases all concern immigration certificates which have been used during the last three months, and were issued by the representatives of the Jewish Agency at Aden: (i) A man aged 30 with a wife aged 20 and a son aged 12. This would imply that the son was born when his mother was eight years old. (ii) ... the mother must have been six years old when the son was born. (iii) ... wife aged 10 and their daughter aged 5. (iv) ... wife aged 24 and their daughter aged 15. (v) ... wife aged 25 and their daughter aged 16. (vi) ...wife aged 26 and their son aged 15. (vii) ... wife aged 22 and a son aged 12.

All in all, the Germans had every interest in making Palestine a success and sending more of the right kind of settlers there. It was very much not in their interests to dump destitute Jews in Madagascar. Recall that until Barbarossa the Nazis were actively encouraging Jews to leave without further harm - and their hands were clean over the two (and probably four) refugee ships that were bombed and sank. The two ships that sank in harbours with 100s of Jews drowned (the Patria and the Empire Life Guard) were definitely attacked by the Zionists - and there are strong indications that the same happened to the Strumer and the Egoz (800+ Jews drowned).

The Germans might have dumped Jewish refugees to starve in Madagascar - but only because the Jewish Agency didn''t want any Jews aged over 35 in Palestine. All through the 1930s, Tel-Aviv was adamant that Palestine could only take 10,000 Jews in total. These were to be predominantly young trained agricultural workers - mostly from Poland, known as halutzim. Only in 1940 did David Ben-Gurion declare the Zionists were now very unhappy with the British policy they'd insisted on themselves for 7 years.