Mick Hartley

The Nazis and Palestine

Written by

Mick Hartley

in

According to a couple of German historians, the Nazis had plans to extend the Holocaust to Palestine (via Solomonia):

In 1942, the Nazis created a special “Einsatzgruppe”, a mobile SS death squad, which was to carry out the mass slaughter of Jews in Palestine similar to the way they operated in eastern Europe, the historians argue in a new study.

The director of the Nazi research center in Ludwigsburg, Klaus-Michael Mallman, and Berlin historian Martin Cueppers say an Einsatzgruppe was all set to go to Palestine and begin killing the roughly half a million Jews that had fled Europe to escape Nazi death camps like Auschwitz and Birkenau.

In the study, published last month, they say “Einsatzgruppe Egypt” was standing by in Athens and was ready to disembark for Palestine in the summer of 1942, attached to the “Afrika Korps” led by the famed desert commander General Erwin Rommel. […]

As they did in eastern Europe, the plan was for the 24 members involved in the death squad to enlist Palestinian collaborators so that the “mass murder would continue under German leadership without interruption.”

That shouldn’t have proved too difficult.

Comments

  1. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    Hang on, the thrust may be right but the detail can’t be. Auschwitz etc were set up after the end of any chance of Jews fleeing Europe; the poor sods were all effectively prisoners.

    Reply
  2. Mick H Avatar
    Mick H

    Yes, I think that’s probably some lazy journalism. “…to escape the Nazi threat” would be better….though I admit I wasn’t aware that the number who made it to Palestine by the early Forties was that large.

    Reply
  3. DaninVan Avatar
    DaninVan

    That’s an amazing resource-website! Thanks for passing that on.

    Reply
  4. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    I don’t know how many of the Jews in Palestine in ’42 were anything to do with the Nazis; many were presumably zionists (and their descendants) who’d pitched up earlier. I do remember being surprised to learn that the quotas imposed on Jewish immigration to Palestine in the 30s were never filled – it just wasn’t a place that most Jews were interested in going to, even the far-sighted ones who realised the wisdom of fleeing Germany and her neighbours.

    Reply
  5. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    I’ve found some figures (Rubinstein “The Myth of Rescue”,paperback edition, 2000, p30): “Only 55000 German Jews migrated to Palestine in this period [1933-39].” His table 3 shows a further 1500 immigrants to Palestine from Germany in ’40 and ’41, and 200 from Austria. P.S. On looking at Rubinstein, I think I should replace my remark above about quotas: he says “the lower limits imposed by Britain after August 1937 were always substantially higher than the number of Reich Jews who actually emigrated there.”

    Reply
  6. Anthony Avatar
    Anthony

    According to my Martin Gilbert history of Israel, in 1943 a change in British Policy allowed several thousand Jews to enter Palestine from Nazi-dominated Europe, irrespective of existing quotas. They mainly came via the Balkans to Istanbul. They had to get to Turkey under their own steam, but were granted visas if they made it. Still, not many made it during the war.

    Reply
  7. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    Anthony, by “Nazi-dominated Europe” does he mean the bits Germany controlled entirely, or does he mean bits allied to Germany, like Hungary? “They had to get to Turkey under their own steam”: if they were from Germany, or indeed Hungary, how else were they to get there?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More posts

Powered by