Kastner's True Mission in Hungary

The U.S. Interview with Nahum Goldmann

For decades, the narrative of the Zionist movement was that its chief envoy in Hungary during World II, Rudolf Kastner, was assigned to rescue the Jews during the last year of the war. This was stressed during the libel trial of Malchiel Grunwald in 1954 and the Supreme Court appeal in 1957. The narrative, promoted by the State of Israel and now by leading elements in the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was that Kastner spent days and nights negotiating with the SS to save at least some of the Jews. Kastner's defense of leading SS men at Nuremberg in 1947 and 1948 was meant to repay them for their cooperation in rescue.

But a U.S. investigation of Kastner in 1945 and 1946 presents a completely different picture. The probe showed Kastner as an emissary of the Zionist leadership in Palestine and the United States, assigned to acquire the money from the Jews being killed by the Germans. This was based on a U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps meeting with Nahum Goldmann in New York City in June 1946. Goldmann was the highest-level Zionist functionary in Washington, in close coordination with both Haim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion.

In the interview, Goldmann essentially debunks the narrative of Kastner as a rescuer of Jews. Rather, Kastner was in charge of obtaining money and valuables from the Jews. Goldmann said Kastner was known to have collected eight million Swiss francs. In return, he said, the SS allowed for the departure of 1,600 people from Budapest to the Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany until nearly the end of the war. After the war, the Jewish Agency sought to obtain the ransom given to the SS, particularly Col. Kurt Becher, protected by Kastner after the war. Goldmann said Becher had handed over the eight million francs to Kastner's envoy Moshe Schweiger, who deposited it with the U.S. Army in Austria.

Goldmann makes it clear that the eight million francs came from Jews throughout Hungary, not merely from those sent to Bergen-Belsen. He portrayed the mission of obtaining the Jewish loot as paramount, the subject of extended talks with the State Department. His claim for seeking the treasure was that the Jews were now dead. Nowhere in the interview with Goldmann did he claim that Kastner saved or tried to save Jews beyond the 1,600. As important, the Jewish Agency official makes it clear that Kastner's work was for the Zionist movement.

The conclusion of the CIC investigators is also illuminating. They asserted that Becher handed over the treasure to Schweiger "in the hope that he would secure amnesty." In other words, any promise by the Jewish Agency to defend Becher was made during the war. Kastner's efforts to defend Becher at Nuremberg was ordered by the Jewish Agency. This explains Kastner's first affidavit to the U.S. Army in 1945 in which he portrays Becher as part of the SS killing machine, and that the survival of the Zionist envoy was part of the Nazi's alibi of having saved Jews. Months later, Kaster presented a sharply different affidavit that claimed Becher and other SS men to have been saviors of the Jews.

This and other U.S. documents on Kastner were concealed during the Grunwald trial and Supreme Court appeal. They were released by the U.S. government about 20 years ago and overlooked by virtually every major scholar on the Holocaust. The most important disclosure would have been something that has been dismissed even by authors that detailed Kastner's collaboration with the SS: That Kastner was assigned by the Zionist leadership to work with the Germans to obtain the money of the doomed Hungarian Jews. Obtaining the money depended on cooperation with Hitler's SS in deporting the Jews to the gas chambers.

The following is the edited document that discusses the interview with Nahum Goldmann. More documents can be found in the file we have posted.

RG 319, Entry IRR, File XE022250, Box 188E

8,000,000 SWISS FRANCS RANSOM FUND

This investigation was initiated by the Chief, Area Intelligence Division, First Army, based upon Second Indorsement of a communication received from the Director of Intelligence, Headquarters Army Service Forces, Washington D.C. which requested an investigation to determine the disposition of a ransom fund approximating eight million Swiss francs. This ransom fund allegedly was paid to Nazis to secure the immigration of sixteen hundred Jews from Hungary during the year 1944. It was subsequently alleged to have been turned over to a representative of the 215th Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment in Bad Ischl, Austria, during May 1945.

On 13 June 1946, these agents interviewed Mr. Theodore H. Fossieck relative the above allegation...Mr. Fossieck further stated that investigation revealed that a Mr. Kurt Helfer and Miss Irene Wiesner, two persons in possession of the treasure at the time of their arrest, acknowledged that the treasure was ransom money paid by an organization alleged to be "The Joint Committee" in Berne Switzerland, which was organized for the purpose of buying the freedom of Jews by means of money, gold, diamonds and jewelry...

Mr. Fossieck further stated that on 25 June 1845, an additional treasure was recovered from Julius Ecker, George Kramer, Alexander Mandel, Nicolaus Weiss and Lillian Braun, who advised that the items in questions belonged to SS Standartenfeuhrer Kurt Becher, who had obtained it as part of the ransom fund. The give above-listed persons stated to Major Fossieck that the treasure had been given to them by Kurt Becher of Budapest, who had obtained it as part of the ransom fund. It was obvious that this second quantity of valuables was part of the original treasure found in Wiessenbach in May 1945. Mr. Fossieck further stated that this second treasure was likewise enumerated in a Summary of Information dated 25 June 1945, and personally taken by him to Lt. Colonel Homer K. Heller, who again receipted for the valuables. Mr. Fossieck turned over to these agents signed carbon copies of the first and second Summaries of Information, which are attached herto as Exhibits "A" and "B".

2. In an effort to determine the origin of the ransom treasure, this agent examined the "Final Summary Report of the Executive Director of the War Refugee Board, dated Washington, D.C., 15 September 1945". The War Refugee Board was set up by President Roosevelt on 23 January 1944, to rescue as many as possible of the helpless victims of Nazi principles. This Board has as its members, Secretaries of State, Treasury and War...This report contains information showing that a fund of $5,000,000 was set up in Switzerland to secure the release by ransom of Jews from the Nazis. In early March 1945, the Treasury of the United States issued a license for the transfer of $1,000,000 to Switzerland, to be used for the purchase of freedom of Jews. The fund was kept intact for the remainder of the war, except for a small payment authorized for relief supplies and the maintenance of refugees. At no time was any ransom paid from this particular fund. The unexpended balance of this fund was returned after hostilities ceased, to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Included in this report was the name, Kurt Becher, who is mentioned in all of the exhibits attached hereto, as being the man who carried on the transactions for the Nazis. Also mentioned in this Summary Report of the War Refugee Board, is the name Roswell D. McClelland, who name appears in Exhibit "A".

3. On 14 June 1946, these agents interviewed Dr. Nachim Goldman, member of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, 343 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. at his home, 336 Central Park West, New York, N.Y. Dr. Goldman stated that he is the American representative of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and that he is well acquainted with Mr. GideonRuffer, mentioned in the basic communication as the individual initiating the original request for the recovery of the treasure. Dr. Goldman stated that he, in his capacity as representative of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, has had numerous conferences with the State Department in regard to the ransom treasure. Dr. Goldman advised that his dealings with the State Department were mainly with Mr. Noel Hemininger in Major General Hildring's office, State Department Building, Room 37, Washington, D.C. Dr. Goldman further stated that the ransom treasure was referred to in the basic communication, was not part of the fund held in Switzerland by the Joint Distribution Committee. The valuables in this ransom fund were obtained by a Dr. Rudolph Kastner, who secured the entire treasure from Jews living in Hungary.

In June 1944, Dr. Kastner, as representative of the Jewish Rescue Committee in Budapest, concluded negotiations with Kurt Becher, SS Standartenfuehrer, a head of the SS Economics Branch, concerning the emigration of 1600 Jews from Hungary, against the payment of a ransom fund of approximately 8,000,000 Swiss francs to be paid in gold, jewels, diamonds, foreign exchange and other valuables. The ransom money was duly handed over and the Jews were permitted to leave for Switzerland via Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. On the 20th of April 1945, Nazi Kurt Becher contacted Dr. Mosche Schweiger, a Yugoslavian Jew, who lived during the war in Hungary, and was at that 'time interned at Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Becher arranged for perference treatment for Schweiger and on the 4th of May 1945, he took him from the Camp to the Headquarters of General Winkelmann at Bad Ischl, Austria,. Because the American Army was about to capture Austria, Becher, on the 11th of May 1945, returned to Schweiger the ransom fund taken over from Dr. Kastner in Budapest.

Dr. Schweiger was left alone with this fund, estimated by him at approximately 8,000,000 Swiss francs, and awaited the arrival of the United States forces. Sometime in May 1945, he contacted the 215th CIC Detachment at Bad Ischl and submitted these funds to Captain Kittstein in the name of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the American Joint Distribution Committee. Captain Kittstein took a statement from Dr. Schweiger and made an inventory list of the funds. Schweiger remembered that an officer by the name of Russell Slater belonged to the same unit, whose home address is Lima, Ohio. This CIC unit at the same time arrested SS Standartenfeuhrer Kurt Becher near Bad Ischl, Austria.

Dr. Goldman continued his narrative of events to these agents and advised that in the summer of 1946, Schweiger left Austria for Switzerland and since that time had been unable to obtain any information about the abovementioned funds. In August 1945, Captain Kittstein interrogated Mr. Saly Mayer, St. Gallen Switzerland, who was the representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, supplying the Budapest Refugee Committee with the funds. Mr. Mayer confirmed the fact that ransom negotiations had been conducted and in consequence, 1600 Jews arrived in Switzerland. Captain Kittstein did not contact Dr. Schweiger or Dr. Kastner, who were living at that time in Switzerland. At the beginning of February 1946, Mr. Gideon Ruffer, a delegate of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, took up the matter of the ransom fund with CIC Operation USFET, in order to clarify the situation. Inasmuch as the file of Kurt Becher revealed no mention of the ransom fund, Mr. Ruffer approached the American War Crimes Branch at Wiesbaden. The files of that organization contained a statement of SS Haptsturmfuehrer Weber, Becher's deputy. His statement mentioned the negotiations conducted with Dr. Kastner and the fact that the Jewish Refugee Committee in Budapest had paid that ransom sum, which was later decided by the SS people to be returned to the Jewish Agency representative, Dr. Schweiger. It was for this reason that Schweiger was released by Becher from the Mauthausen Camp. The file did not contain any statement made by Dr. Schweiger or any inventory list of the funds claimed by him to have been deposited.

Agent's Note: It is to be noted that neither the Jewish Agency for Palestine, nor the Joint Distribution Committee, paid this ransom fund. However, the claim of the Jewish Agency for Palestine as placed before the State Department, Washington D.C. is based upon the fact that the fund was secured from Jews in Hungary, now deceased. The fact that SS Kurt Becher turned the money over to Dr. Schweiger for its transmission to the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Joint Distribution Committee in the hope that he would secure amnesty, tends to prove the claim of these agencies.

Dr. Goldman advised this agent that he would endeavor to secure the original inventory list of the ransom fund as made out when he turned said treasure over to Captain Kittstein and Russell Slater. Upon receipt of this original inventory, it should be compared with Exhibits "A" and "B", to determine whether they are both exactly the same, inasmuch as Exhibits "A" and "B" were not made by the persons originally securing the ransom fund...

5. This agent will continue investigation until receipt of the original inventory is secured from Dr. Goldman.