The Strange, Little-Known Story of Third Reich-Zionist Cooperation

In spite of a basic hostility between Third Reich Germany and international Jewry, German National Socialists and Jewish Zionists shared similar views about ethnicity and nationhood, and worked together in the years 1933 through 1940-41 for what each group believed was in its own best national interest. The Hitler government vigorously promoted Zionism and Jewish emigration to Palestine. Indeed, no nation did more during the 1930s to substantively further Zionist goals than Third Reich Germany. In collaborating with the Zionists for a mutually desirable and humane solution to a complex problem, Hitler’s Germany was willing to make foreign exchange sacrifices, impair relations with Britain, and anger Arabs. The essence of Zionism, or Jewish nationalism, is that Jews everywhere — regardless of their citizenship, religious outlook or place of residence — are members of the Jewish “people,” to whom all Jews owe a primary loyalty and allegiance.