Kastner, Becher: The U.S. Investigation

Steve Rodan

For decades, the State of Israel has tried to rehabilitate Rudolf Kastner, the Jewish Agency emissary who worked with the SS in the destruction and pillage of Hungarian Jewry in 1944. Israel has sponsored or financed several television, radio and theater programs that portrayed Kastner as a misunderstood hero who saved Jews from the jaws of the Nazis only to be accused of collaboration after World War II.

The campaign was aided by leading Israeli historians who argued that Kastner saved as many as hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews. These historians dismissed the evidence of Kastner's collaboration with the SS as a political conspiracy by a tainted trial judge and an attorney sworn to discredit the government of David Ben-Gurion. They attributed Kastner's defense of leading SS officers at Nuremberg to their purported help in rescuing Jews during the last months of the war. Most importantly, these historians reject any connection between Kastner and the Zionist leadership in working with or protecting the Nazis.

Kastner's granddaughter, Meirav Michaeli, has been leading the campaign. As a senior minister in the Israeli government she and her colleagues branded any criticism of Kastner's collaboration as incitement and Holocaust denial, a criminal offense. In February 2021, Michaeli told the Knesset that her grandfather saved "Jewish refugees that came from countries other than Hungary. He did this for years with the undergrounds and youth movements and engaged in great rescue efforts."

But there are official documents that shatter the myth of Kastner the savior of Jews. These American documents, concealed during the Israeli trials that involved Kastner during the 1950s, assert that the Zionist emissary worked for the Jewish Agency for Palestine during and after the war to acquire millions of Swiss francs worth of assets from Hungarian Jews killed by the SS. The documents portray Kastner and SS Col. Kurt Becher as partners in collecting and sharing the loot from the Jews.

As a partner with the SS, Kastner had little if anything to do with the Jews, except to collect their money in exchange for promises of protection. He and Becher were often traveling to meet SS officials, whether to Austria or Germany. They also traveled to Switzerland under the guise of ransom negotiations with American Joint Distribution Committee. Switzerland was where Kastner and Becher shared a bank account that collected the Jewish money.

In an investigation that began in mid-1945, the U.S. Army's Counter-Intelligence Corps gathered evidence that Kastner relayed at least eight million Swiss francs to Becher, who then handed the money to a leading Zionist envoy, Moshe Schweiger. Schweiger then submitted the treasure, contained in a wooden valise, to the American army for safe-keeping. Soon, the Jewish Agency pressured the army and State Department to return the money, saying the Jews were all dead.

At first, CIC was told by two associates of Becher that the eight million francs was a ransom paid by JDC for the release of 1,600 Hungarian Jews sent to Bergen-Belsen in June 1944, later known as the "Kastner Train." But the army's investigation rejected this and determined that neither JDC nor the Jewish Agency paid any ransoms from a $5 million fund established in Switzerland in early 1945 to save the remaining Jews in Hungary.

On June 14, 1946, two CIC agents interviewed Nahum Goldmann, a member of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and deemed the leading Zionist lobbyist in the United States. Goldmann confirmed that the eight million francs was not part of the JDC ransom fund. Instead, "the valuables in this ransom fund were obtained by a Dr. Rudolph Kastner, who secured the entire treasure from Jews living in Hungary.," the CIC report, titled "8,000,000 Swiss Francs Ransom Fund," said. [1]

As soon as the war was over, the Jewish Agency appointed Gideon Ruffer, its top emissary in Europe, to recover the Jewish loot. Ruffer lobbied the U.S. Army in Austria to release the treasure, claiming that the Jews who gave Kastner money were all dead. In Washington, Goldmann repeatedly met State Department officials for the transfer of the funds and assets, indicating that this marked a key goal of the Zionist leadership.

But there is evidence that the Jewish Agency received far more than eight million francs. On May 25, 1945, Schweiger told CIC that he had received from Becher "documents certifying Becher's ownership of the Manfred Weiss Armanent [sic] factory, located in Budapest." The factory, which was removed from Hungary to Austria in late 1944, produced the most modern weapons in Europe and was worth hundreds of millions of francs. Schweiger said the ownership documents were relayed to CIC's 215th Detachment in Bad Ischl, Austria. [2]

Eventually, the Jewish Agency succeeded in acquiring the assets handed over by Schweiger to the U.S. Army. Under an agreement, the agency was to have liquidated these assets with JDC in Switzerland, but its representative, Saly Mayer, refused to participate. In the end, the treasure was handled by the agency's Haim Posner, who had dealt with Kastner and other Zionist collaborators of the Nazis throughout the war. [3]

The Jewish Agency also managed to surreptitiously bring assets of Manfred Weiss to Israel. In 1956, the agency agreed to settle a claim by the Weiss family and paid $5,000 without confirming the claims that the weapons production machines had been stolen and taken to Israel. [4]

When the dust settled, the Jewish Agency pressed to keep the entire affair secret. Directed by the State Department, CIC abandoned its investigation of the eight million francs. Instead, by mid-1946, CIC denied that it had even received any treasure from the Jewish Agency. Those officers who interviewed Schweiger and Becher conveniently disappeared. [5]

In contrast, Hungary refused to forget. It sought to arrest Kastner for the looting of its leading assets. But after the war Kastner was safe in Switzerland, also protected by the United States. The Jewish Agency promised the Americans to question Kastner regarding the allegations by Budapest. Instead, the agency's Ruffer interrogated Kastner and his Nazi cohorts regarding the disappearance of money during the war. [6]

Israeli historians have avoided these U.S. documents. They insisted that Kastner spent the last year of the war desperately searching for ways to ransom the Jews of Hungary. Becher, these historians said, foiled Nazi plans to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews in the weeks before the arrival of the Red Army in Budapest in January 1945.

The evidence gathered by the U.S. Army points to the opposite conclusion. According to CIC, Kastner obtained ransoms from the Jews in Budapest and then pocketed the money. By November 1944, Kastner left Hungary for good, abandoning the thousands of Jews under his protection. Kastner's associates, including his partner, Hansi Brand, asserted that Kastner and Becher shared a bank account in Switzerland.

"The other people involved (Offenbach, Mrs. Brandt, Byesz and Szantho) said that Kastner was quite a big operator and that he certainly was not paying those enormous sums to the Germans but had a bank account in Switzerland with the German Major [Becher] as a partner," a CIC investigation said. [7]

After the war, Becher quickly became a leading merchant in West Germany. Kastner was rewarded by Ben-Gurion with lucrative jobs in government as well as a place on the Mapai list of candidates for the Knesset. In 1957, Kastner, weeks before his appeal to the Supreme Court asked to determine whether he should be prosecuted as a collaborator, was gunned down by a young Israeli man identified as a member of the Shin Bet, or secret police. Becher, a confidant of the German leadership, grew extremely rich and in 1995 died in his bed at age 86.

The CIC investigation found that Kastner's partners also profited from the slaughter in Hungary. Stefan Vadasan, who knew Kastner and his associates, met Andreas Biss and Laszlo Szantho in early 1945 in Bucharest. Like Becher and Kastner, Biss and Szantho, members of Kastner's Budapest Rescue Committee, sought to relocate to Switzerland and gain access to their fortunes.

"After the entry of the Russians in Budapest, Subject [Vadasan] left for Bucharest and met Byesz [Biss] and Szantho there," the CIC report said. "From them he heard that they wanted to leave for Switzerland where they had a large amount of money deposited in various banks," [8]

Israel has shut its archives on Kastner, Becher and the Zionist cooperation with Germany before and during World War II. But the Freedom of Information Act in the United States could win the release of many more documents that tell of the collusion between Kastner, the Zionist leadership and Berlin, particularly details of the Jewish loot. Such an effort would not merely comprise historical truth, rather justice for the Jewish people.

Notes

1. "8,000,000 SWISS FRANCS RANSOM FUND" undated CIC report. RG 319, Entry IR, File XE022250, Box 188E. NARA

2. CIC Detachment 215. Sub Section B, Bad Ischl, May 28, 1945

3. Letter from M.W. Beckelman to Mr. C Passman, AJDC, Tel Aviv, Dec. 4, 1950

4. "Agreement Between the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Jerusalem and Donauflugzeugbau"

5. U.S. Army, CIC. File: Ruffer, Gideon. March 19, 1946

6. U.S. Forces Austria. Subject: Dr. Kastner and Mosche Offenbach, June 20, 1946. Also, Symphony Report LSX-257 (Memorandum Symphony, 11 July 1946)

7. CIC interview of Stefan Vadasan, driver for Rudolf Schwarz from Feb. 18, 1944 until the middle of May 1944. RG 226, Entry 108A, Box 280. NARA

8. ibid