A Meeting of the Minds

By Steve Rodan

There could not have been two leaders more different than David Ben-Gurion and Konrad Adenauer. Where Adenauer was suave Ben-Gurion, 11 years younger, was coarse. Where Ben-Gurion strained for a peek at the world stage from the bleachers, Adenauer sat in the box seats. While Adenauer headed a country wooed by Europe and the United States, Ben-Gurion constantly begged for attention.

But these two men were bound by mutual interests. Adenauer, the first post-war leader of a divided Germany, needed international legitimacy after Hitler. And Ben-Gurion was eager to give the German chancellor the endorsement of the State of Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora for a price.

For more than a decade, the two men spoke through intermediaries. Finally on March 14, 1960, Ben-Gurion got his wish and met Germany's old man in the latter's suite in New York City's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The meeting, which required Ben-Gurion to sneak down two flights through a service stairwell, was secret but defined the relationship between Bonn and Jerusalem that would last until today. [1]

The narrative is that Adenauer initiated the meeting. The chancellor had been urged to meet with the Israeli leadership for several years, and the biggest supporter of Bonn was Ben-Gurion. The prime minister had directed the successful negotiations on reparations in 1952 that resulted in the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Jewish state. Ben-Gurion had also quashed efforts to capture and prosecute Nazi fugitives, particularly Adolf Eichmann, regarded as the leading operator of the Final Solution. The Israeli prime minister also imposed the return of German culture, tourism and trade on a state filled with Holocaust survivors.

In February 1960, Adenauer met Meir Argov, a key legislator, to discuss a summit as well as establishing diplomatic relations. Argov was deemed close to Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, where many of the state's secrets were guarded. Adenauer, claiming Germany's neutrality in the Arab-Israel conflict, ruled out formal relations. Ben-Gurion understood this and signaled that he would not use a meeting with the chancellor to press for diplomatic ties. [2]

Adenauer later met a senior Israeli diplomat to discuss the forthcoming summit. Now, the chancellor did an about-face. On Feb. 8, Adenauer promised Pinchas Shinar that Bonn would establish diplomatic ties with Israel after the meeting with Ben-Gurion in New York. Shinar had been based in Bonn for nearly a decade as head of the Israeli purchasing mission in Germany. He was regarded as the prime minister's closest adviser on West Germany.

'Complete absolution'

What interested Ben-Gurion was German money. In his diary, the prime minister sought at least $250 million for military aid and development of industry, later understood to mean financing Israel's first nuclear reactor. [3] In return, Ben-Gurion would grant Adenauer "complete absolution of Germany under his rule from any connection with the Nazi past." [4]

Ben-Gurion's offer went beyond declaring that West Germany marked a new liberal and democratic state free from the stain of Hitler. It ignored Adenauer's government, packed with ex-Nazis, including those implicated in the extermination of the six million Jews. Adenauer's leading aide was Hans Globke, who helped draft the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, which provided the legal framework for the persecution and eventual killing of Jews. Globke was directly implicated in the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews from Greece to Auschwitz in 1943.

Adenauer's association with Hitler's men colored much of his meeting with Ben-Gurion. After the Israeli leader talked about the six million, the chancellor stressed that Germany also suffered from World War II.

"The fate of the Jews in [is] somewhat similar to us," Adenauer, who insisted on speaking in German, said. "We also suffered the loss of a whole layer in German society."

This was perhaps the crux of the meeting: Adenauer's claim that the Third Reich was the victim of the war it had launched. It was the narrative of the German elite and their historians. None of the Allies had accepted this. Winston Churchill might have even pounded Adenauer with his cane. Stalin would have done worse. Even Roosevelt, an admirer of Nazis, would have demurred. The reason was simple: All of them had fought Hitler and lost millions of people.

Ben-Gurion, who was prepared for Adenauer, was different. He did not fight the Nazis; instead, the Zionist leadership cooperated with Berlin from 1933 throughout the war. The Israeli leader was not there to blame Germany. He was there for a handout.

But Ben-Gurion was accompanied by a German-speaking Israeli who was taking notes. So, the prime minister -- who refused to speak Hebrew, rather English -- [5] could not afford to remain silent. He said the German and Jewish experiences in the war could not be compared. Then, Ben-Gurion, who held a list of talking points, quickly moved to a different subject, the problems of the State of Israel. Ben-Gurion, now requested annual German aid of $50 million for the next decade. He also asked for submarines and missiles.

Somebody is listening

At that point, Adenauer sounded uneasy. He believed that his suite was bugged.

Adenauer: What do you think? How many microphones are in this room -- three or four?

Ben-Gurion: I don't know how many. But I am sure there are [some].

Then, came the most pleasurable part of the meeting -- at least for Ben-Gurion. He and the chancellor discussed the United States and the Cold War. They exchanged opinions on Western leaders and American politicians. Adenauer was free with criticism. Ben-Gurion was careful in talking about the Americans.

Finally, the time arrived for mutual praise. Ben-Gurion began by saying how difficult it was to maintain his pro-German policy, stressing that he is fulfilling his duty "as a Jew and as a human being. My conscience is clear."

Adenauer: I want to thank you for not identifying the German people today with Hitler and with what they did. [6]

After the meeting, Ben-Gurion read a statement to the media that stressed that West Germany was a liberal state untainted by Hitler. He did not mention the attacks on the Jewish community over the previous months.

“I said in the Knesset, the parliament of Israel, last summer, that the Germany of today is not the Germany of yesterday," Ben-Gurion said. "After having met the chancellor, I am sure that judgment was correct. I wish the chancellor every success in his effort to guide Germany in its path of democracy and international cooperation." [7]

The Eichmann trial

In the end, Adenauer did not keep his promise to Shinar to establish diplomatic relations with Israel after the Ben-Gurion meeting. The chancellor also stopped German aid to Israel after its capture of Eichmann two months later. Instead, Bonn intensified military cooperation with Israel's Arab enemies, particularly Egypt and Syria, and German scientists worked on weapons of mass destruction with Cairo. Historians and Western archives have asserted that by this time Israel was sharing its nuclear expertise with Bonn. [8]

So, why did Adenauer seek a meeting with Ben-Gurion? Ben-Gurion, himself, provided the answer a year later in his diary. The German leader was informed in late 1959 that Israel would capture and place Eichmann on trial. Adenauer's fear was that the trial would expose the ex-Nazis in his administration, particularly Globke, his chief of staff. Ben-Gurion would not care but the American Jewish leadership could make a stink.

By the time, Ben-Gurion walked into Adenauer's suite at the Waldorf, Israel had assured Bonn that the Eichmann trial would not embarrass the German republic.

"[West] Germany is concerned about the Eichmann trial," Ben-Gurion wrote. "They are concerned that names might come up." [9]

Notes

1. "Mutual Understanding in Talks between Ben-Gurion, Adenauer." Davar. March 15, 1960. Page 1

2. "Document: David Ben-Gurion and Chancellor Adenauer at the Waldorf Astoria on 14 March 1960." Zaki Shalom. Israel Studies. Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1997

3. Ben-Gurion Diary. Ben-Gurion. Feb. 23, 1960. Ben-Gurion Archives

4.   "Document: David Ben-Gurion and Chancellor Adenauer at the Waldorf Astoria on 14 March 1960."

5. The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust. Tom Segev. Page 302. Keter, 1992

6. "Document: David Ben-Gurion and Chancellor Adenauer at the Waldorf Astoria on 14 March 1960."

7. Ben-gurion and Dr. Adenauer Meet; Pledge Mutual Cooperation. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. March 15, 1960

8. Letter from R.J.T. McLaren, Eastern Department of the Foreign Office, to A.M. Warburton, British Embassy, Bonn. June 22, 1964. British National Archives. Letter from R. J. T. McLaren, Eastern Department of the Foreign Office, to A. M. Warburton, British Embassy Bonn. | Wilson Center Digital Archive]

9. Ben-Gurion Diary, April 3, 1961

Below: Side by side: Ben-Gurion and Adenauer.