On Vacation!
My apologies for not having posted awhile but I'm on holiday in Italy with my kids! That hasnàt stopped the Zionist nutter who is obsessed by my family from posting 37 times! But then the Zionist movement attracts its fair share of cranks who like talking to themselves. Since he is afraid of putting his own name to some of his vile posts, like celebrating the death of Victoria Buch, none of his comments will appear, unless I consider they are good enough examples of the bitter and twisted racist mentality of Zionismàs diaspora fanatics!!
I havenàt been totally idle though! I took a biography of Raoul Wallenberg with me. Wallenberg was the Swedish diplomat who through his unorthodox methods was able to save up to 100,000 of Budapestàs Jews from the Nazis, unlike the Zionist leader Rudolf Kasztner who saved 1684 of the àProminentsà (his description) by helping Eichmann to keep the Jews of Hungary quiet and uninformed.
The second book is by Enzo Traverso and is equally interesting. It is àUnderstanding the Nazi Genocide - Marxism after Auschwitz.à And when I get back to blighty I have 2 articles to write - one on Atzmonàs move to far-right anti'Semitic conspiracy stuff and the other a book review of Francis Nicosiaàs Zionism and anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, which despite the puff is extremely disappointing.
Tony Greenstein
Of course you think Nicosia's book is disappointing.It says quite clearly and accurately that Zionism can not be linked to Nazism.
ReplyDeleteIàm not aware, but being on vacation I donàt have the book to hand, that Nicosia says that Zionism canàt be linked to Nazism. The argument my dear Mikey is a touch more subtle, viz. that the Zionists had no choice but to be linked to Nazism.
ReplyDeleteNow I disagree since Nicosia accepts that Zionism was a Jewish volkish movement, or at least that is the evidence he produces.
But yes it is disappointing when someone draws conclusions in opposition to the very research they conducted! Much like David Bankier on popular opinion in Germany during the Holocaust.
My own view is that someone researching a subject should wait till the evidence before drawing all their conclusions! Nicosia, who is anxious not to be painted as a Zionist, which he was with his first, and I would suggest better book on the subject, has reached his conclusions and then tried to tailor the evidence to fit that. Sometimes ludicrously so!!
Mind the evidence Nicosia digs up from the vaults is damning enough. Zionism was the Nazis favoured Jewish movement and they even, on one occasion, compensated Betar for an attack by SA thugs!! I have a feeling that they wouldnàt have done so for any non or anti'Zionist organisation.
However dear Mikey you will have to wait till I pen the review before responding.
Nicosia's earlier book, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question, which you are no doubt referring to, is not on the same subject but a related subject.
ReplyDeleteBut even in this earlier book, Nicosia, on page 24. quotes Alfred Rosenberg who influenced Hitler on the Jewish question: "The Zionist organization in Germany is nothing more than an organization that pursues a legalized undermining of the German state."
Also in this very same earlier book, on page 27, Nicosia quotes Hitler as saying, "the whole notion of the Zionist state and its establishment is nothing more than a comedy."
As a result of this and other matters that Nicosia discusses, his conclusion on page 28 is in line with the evidence that he brings: The Hitler regime "maintained an ideological hostility to the creation of an independent Jewish state in Palestine that was based on the conspiracy theory embodied in the 'Protocols.'"
Patience my dear Mikey. Wait for my review!
ReplyDeleteI'll reply quickly without referring to the book. The quotes from Rosenberg and Hitler referred to were made I would guess in 1922 or thereabouts. They did not have power and were expressing an ideological position regarding the abilities of Jews to achieve what for them was the supreme achievement, the building of a state.
However when the Nazis gained power, as is always the case, they found that their only true allies were to be found in the Zionist movement. In fact Nicosia's new book follows on from his old book and deals precisely with this question of the utility of Zionism.
But in fact Mikey does a David Irving. Ripping quotes out of context and therefore ignoring the surrounding ambience as it were.
If Mikey had not behaved as a propaganda merchant but had instead given a faithful rendition then on the same page 24 her would have cited Nicosia thus:
'These theories represented one side of what was to be the double-edged nature of the Nazi approach to Zionism and the Palestine question after 1933.'
And if Mikey had been a serious historian, as opposed to a propagandist he would have cited the following on p.25:
'Nevertheless, it appears that ROsenberg did recinize from the beginning the utility of encouragint the Zionist movement in Germany as a means of facilitating the removal of Germany's Jewish population. In Die Spur written in late 1919 and published in 1920 Rosenberg concluded 'Zionism must be vigorously supported in order to encourage a significant no. of German Jews to leave for Palestine or other destinations.'
And even more embarrassing Nicosia wrote: 'Rosenberg also intended to use Zionism as legal justification for depriving German Jews of their civil rights.' As it was on the facing page (25) there really is no excuse for Mikey's 'omission'.
But Mikey could equally have quoted from the Preface (x) where Nicolsia writes that 'Zionism and the Zionist movement became significant instruments in the implementation of Nazi Jewish policy which sought the dissimilation and removal of the Jewish community from Germany, poreferably to destiations outside Europe.... The Nazi distaste for Arab national self-determination in Palestine or elsewhere in the Middle East reflects an aversion to anything that might impede the flow of Jews from Germany to Palestine...'
Rather than citing sterile quotes from 1922, when Hitler's anti-Semitism was not tempered by the experience of power, which taught him that there were significant differences within the Jewish community, it is better to look at what actually happened. In fact it was a Hitler decision, despite the opposition of the German Foreign Office under Ribbentrop, to continue with Ha'avarah after 1938 until the war broke out.
Game, set and match my dear Mikey!
It is well known that the Nazis wanted the Jews to leave Germany and that the Zionists also wanted the Jews to leave Germany and go to Palestine. That does not make Zionism and Nazism ideological bedfellows.
ReplyDeleteIf one were to use Greenstein's argument, one might say the following. The Nazis detested the Stalinists and the Trotskyists detested the Stalinists ergo, Trotskyists and Nazis have ideologocal similarities. Someone might also produce a pamphlet entitled Trotskyism: Nazism's twin in Marxist garb.
Greenstein believes it to be "Game,set and match" but it is certainly not him that has won any match.
Greenstein has fundamental problems with the following two facts:
1. The Nazis murdered Jewish Zionists and when it came to Jews arriving at the gates of Auschwitz, there was no selection procedure - Zionists to the left and anti-Zionists to the right. Zionists, non Zionists and anti-Zionists alike were all massacred en masse.
2. Greenstein mentions the Haavra. According to Edwin Black, (The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine [Brookline Books, 1999] p.379), 60,000 German Jews emigrated to Palestine directly or indirectly via the Haavra. Had they not done so, as Greenstein would have wished, the end result was likely to have been 60,000 more dead Jews in Auschwitz.
The Jews in Germany could hardly rely upon the communists to help them as the KPD (German Communist Party) were busy in the early thirties forming a United Front with the Nazis.
When Mikey comprehensively loses one argument, i.e. his fiddling of quotes from Nicosia he proceeds on another front. Let me remind Mikey of what Nicosia wrote on the facing page from the quote he ripped out of context:
ReplyDelete'Rosenberg also intended to use Zionism as legal justification for depriving German Jews of their civil rights.' (25)
Preface (x) 'Zionism and the Zionist movement became significant instruments in the implementation of Nazi Jewish policy which sought the dissimilation and removal of the Jewish community from Germany, poreferably to destiations outside Europe.... The Nazi distaste for Arab national self-determination in Palestine or elsewhere in the Middle East reflects an aversion to anything that might impede the flow of Jews from Germany to Palestine...'
Haavara was supported by the Nazis to undermine the anti-Nazi boycott. In other words an example of Zionism collaborating with the Jews' arch enemies. The reward was investment in Palestine. Most of those who were able to go to Palestine were themselves rich enough to go elsewhere. The fact that, and again this is from memory, some 16% of Palestine's Jewish immigrants came from Germany in the period up till 1939 itself speaks volumes. Rescue of Jews was certainly not the Zionist imperative.
The anti-Nazi boycott was the one thing that worried the Nazis up till 1933. That was why they called in the leaders of Germany's Jews to pressurise them to oppose it. The Zionists were only too willing to do so because fighting anti-Semitism has never been their forte (unlike fighting anti-Zionism). Which is why so many neo-Nazis gravitate to Israel today.
Of course if Zionism and Nazism just happened to have only one aim - being rid of Jews from Germany - then Mikey's tired analogy of if A hates B and B hates C then A and C are friends. Unfortunately this was all too true in the case of the Zionists and the Nazis as they did share common values and beliefs, as Nicosia himself demonstrated with the introduction to the Nuremburg Laws.
Mikey should really try and remember a few simple things such as I have never been a supporter of the Stalinist KPD or any other communist party. THe same Stalin who led the charge to recognise Israel in 1948. I come from a revolutionary Marxists tradition.