The Zionist Response to Hitler

The Zionist movement was prepared for the ascent of Hitler in 1933. The Zionist leadership in Germany began a dialogue with Hitler's henchmen soon after the Nazi gains in German parliamentary elections in 1930. German Zionist Federation president Kurt Blumenfeld was discussing the fate of Jewry and the special role of the Zionists with Hitler's top aide, Gregor Strasser, who rebuilt the Nazi Party after its loss in the 1928 elections. Blumenfeld then lobbied the Zionist leadership abroad to help or at least refrain from stopping the Nazis from gaining power in Germany.

But Hitler's takeover of Germany after the Reichstag fire in February 1933 did not result in any Zionist plan to rescue the Jews from Hitler. Instead, the Zionist leadership sought to divert donations from the Diaspora away from relief. In this letter to Selig Brodetsky, a British Zionist leader and top aide to Haim Weizmann, Jewish Agency in Palestine recording secretary Moshe Medzini details the lack of interest by the Jewish Agency Executive in rescuing the Jews from Hitler. Instead, the Zionists in Palestine wanted to use any donations to save German Jews for other tasks.

The Medzini letter is dated July 16, 1933, some six months after Hitler was named chancellor of Germany and five months after the introduction of martial law. Medzini reports that the Zionist leadership, particularly Menachem Ussishkin, Henrietta Szold and Arthur Hantke, wanted that only a tiny portion of donations directly help German Jews. The proposal called for one-third of the money to purchase land, 25 percent for education, 25 percent for "urban and rural colonization and 17% for initial help to immigrants and other urgent matters." As Medzini makes it clear, the option of buying land in Palestine at a time of increasing British restrictions was limited.

Meanwhile, months passed and the Zionist leadership couldn't come up with one realistic proposal to help the Jews. Medzini quotes Szold as saying, "It is now two months since I am endeavouring to obtain from our various committees concrete proposals and schemes, and so far I have not met with success."

The cynicism by the Zionist leadership could be traced to their resignation that the British would not agree to mass rescue of Jews from Hitler. The British government was preparing to provide a loan of 2 million pounds to develop Palestine, but as Simon Marks, a leading Zionist and disciple of Weizmann, reported in a letter on July 14, 1933, "no part of this sum is specially devoted to encouraging Jewish immigration and closer settlement, although very considerable sums are to be devoted out of the loan to Arab interests." About 6,000 German Jews were allowed into Palestine from April to October 1933, but they came out of existing immigration quotas. Most of them came under the category of capitalists, which meant they brought with them a significant amount of money.

Perhaps nowhere was the cynicism greater than in a Jewish Agency telegram to the League of Nations on Sept. 28, 1933. Although Jews were being killed throughout Germany, the telegram ignores their plight. There is not one word of Hitler's policy and the Nazi threat. There is also no word of British opposition to Jewish immigration. Instead, the telegram, send on the eve of the 14 Assembly of the League of Nations, says, "We are happy to be able to state that the Mandatory Power has expressed its own desire that Palestine shall be made available for German Jews as far as is possible, and we are grateful for such opportunities as have thus been afforded."