Unlikely buddies

Seth: Jews, get out of our country or deal with the Holocaust. Why are those the only two choices?

Lio: It will not be long before the land of Palestine gets back its sons who have been lost for more than a thousand years. Our good wishes go with them together with an official goodwill.

Seth: By 1935, uniforms for the Zion Youth Corps were permitted. The only non-Nazi uniform allowed in Germany. I got the chills, bro, look at that.

Lio: There's always someone reminding Jews, you cannot be like everyone else.

Seth: Let's just try to be united. Let's try it. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was. All things are mortal but the Jew. All other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

Lio: Okay, listen, listen, enough of that. This is a podcast, and we're not going to try to find. We're going to find the solution to antisemitism. Okay, we're going to stop that right here, right now, from this stinking basement. When we get to the bottom of this, we're going to read from this mystery book, which you're not going to find out about until the end of the series. And we're going to really entertain every perspective. We're not going to say, oh, you can't say this, you can't say that. No, we're going to say everything. Because if we're not going to be able to talk about it, we're not going to be able to solve it. You know, we're going to really grab you in the kishke, and we're going to squeeze until we get something, right? Either a bowel movement or a freaking solution. We want to know what happened 3,500 years ago in Babylon that started this whole meshugas and we want to finish it here in 2020, that's it.

Seth: Kurt Tuchler, an active Zionist who was acquainted with several members of the Nazi party, some of whom were quite senior. Among them was his good friend, Austria-born SS officer Baron Leopold von Mildenstein. To solidify Nazi support for Zionism, Tuchler asked Mildenstein to write favorable newspaper articles about the Zionist enterprise in Palestine. Mildenstein agreed but stipulated his consent on visiting Palestine and exploring firsthand the Zionist efforts to build a national home for Jews. In April 1933, writes Black, both men and their wives boarded an ocean liner for Palestine. The Nazi Party and the ZVFD, the Zionist Federation of Germany, each had granted permission for the joint trip. Von Mildenstein, on behalf of the Nazis, approved of what he saw in the kibbutzim in Tel Aviv, and he learned a few Hebrew words. Many photographs were taken, numerous mementos were dragged back to Germany. An elaborate illustrated series was published about 18 months later in Der Angriff under the title, quote, A Nazi Travels to Palestine, end quote. Goebbels' newspaper was so proud of the series that a commemorative coin was struck in honor of the voyage. On one side of the coin, a swastika. On the other side of the coin, a Star of David.

Lio: That coin is what got me interested in what's going on. It made me want to jump into the rabbit hole and figure out what the heck was going on. How come Jews and Nazis were buddies? What was going on?

Seth: Yeah, when I first saw the book and I saw one side of the coin is a Star of David and the other side is a swastika, I said, yeah, same exact question. What?

Lio: Right? It made me, as usual, as we say it often here, it made me question the entire narrative that I was brought up on. What was really going on? The point of having some other story happening that shaped those events was very intriguing to me. I think to you too, right? It was a question of, are we missing something? Is there something we could learn? Was it really just a wall of evil that you couldn't do anything against? You could just run away if you can. If not, it will just consume you. Or was there some preparation? Were there warning signs? Is there something we could learn from what happened then that will help us avoid it again now? And not just by commemorating it or hearing stories. I think the Holocaust is one of the most documented genocides on both sides, right? The Nazis did a phenomenal job documenting it and the survivors did an outstanding job. Spielberg, for example, right? He has the largest archive of interviews, pictures, and all that. But did we learn something from it? What did we learn? What was the lesson like? What did you learn from the Holocaust, Seth?

Seth: Growing up, there was this whole kind of like "never again" thing. I don't know what happened to that because it looks like the engine's getting fired up again. So Lio, I'm the same. I'm in the same boat. I grew up thinking that, you know, just a simple Jew who's just doing his own thing, he's not meddling in international affairs and trying to destroy anyone, and all of a sudden these anti-semites come, and for some reason, which we don't know, they just want to kill the Jews again. And there's a different pattern emerging in this book. This Zionist was friendly with this Nazi, and they went together with their wives to...

Lio: ...Palestine on a cruise, on a...

Seth: ...cruise, stayed there for a few months, wrote a bunch of articles about it in Goebbels' newspaper.

Lio: I want to just again off the top that nobody is confused, and it's not that Germans and Jews were really buddies. The Germans had a goal, had a purpose. They were in a really bad place after World War I, and they needed to come out of it, and they were convinced that Jews were in their way somehow. We know that. We read about it. We talked about it. We talked about that sentiment. They were convinced that moving the Jews out of their land was what they had to do. In fact, when they rose to power, they promised four things, right? They would rebuild Germany's economy. They would dismantle its democracy, destroy German Jewry, and establish Aryans as the master race. That was the order of their business at the time. And frankly, nobody was concerned because Hitler seemed to be the best choice back then. He was the only alternative to a communist country in the region. He would build the German economy, pay Germany's debt to the world after World War I. So the money was good. And if he only dealt with the Jews inside the borders, it's his business, right? That was kind of the laissez-faire attitude of the time. It's clear that the Germans didn't like the Jews. But the fact that there was somehow a way out, that to me was mind-blowing. And Jacob Boas, he published the article in 1980 called "A Nazi Travels to Palestine." And what does he say in the essay?

Seth: The possibility of a significant Jewish return to Palestine existed despite Palestine's underdeveloped economic base, provided that, von Mildenstein cautioned, Jews create their own homeland by working their own land. From such a return, concluded von Mildenstein in his final article, not just the Jews, but the entire world would benefit. It points the way to curing the centuries-long wound of the body of the world, the Jewish question. So in Palestine, von Mildenstein encountered a Jew that he liked, a Jew who cultivated his own soil, the new Jew. There he saw a Jew who was struggling against great odds to reestablish his roots in the land of his forefathers. This Palestinian Jew, von Mildenstein painted a highly flattering portrait. The image of the new Jew projected by von Mildenstein must have left the regular Angriff reader shaking his head in disbelief. The Angriff was the Goebbels newspaper.

Lio: That was Goebbels' newspaper. That was one of his propaganda tools. So it's clear. So Mildenstein was not a friend of the Jews, so to speak. No.

Seth: Not at all. Not at all. He completely took the side of the German party. But he offered a different view on that picture of like, you know, kill all Jews. It was more like, we got to get them out of this country. Israel is a great place for them. Palestine at the time. Maybe we can send them off.

Seth: I'm sympathetic with the Zionist Jews. So what happened? How come all the Jews in Europe didn't end up in Palestine? Well, if you came to New York to, well, I mean, we're in COVID time, so it's a little weird. But if you came to American Jews who own businesses and told them, guys, it's going to get bad here. You know, we all got to leave now. My family has been here three generations already. It's difficult for my dad's generation to think that, you know, this is not our home, that there's somewhere else that's our home. For some reason, we have to leave. They've lived through, well, they didn't live through World War II. They were born right after it. But they lived through a lot of things. They lived through a lot of economic crises here. Don't think anybody can really comprehend.

Lio: That feeling of home that you develop somewhere is not unique just to America. We see it every time throughout history. Jews felt the same in Germany. They felt the same in Spain. But there's certain people...

Seth: ...who are comfortable, like you, for example, you left. You left Israel and came to America, right? There's certain people, I know someone who moved to Paris, for example. There's certain people who are comfortable just picking up and they can move. But I think there's like two kinds of people. Like my family has been in New Jersey for three generations. I mean, they started in New York, so they didn't go far. But within 50 miles for three generations. There's other people who pick up and move around. But I think in general, most people kind of stay put. To tell an entire couple million people, it's time to get going. It's a hard pill to swallow.

Lio: How can we really do feel kind of comfortable elsewhere? Feel comfortable in any other place but our own place. It's funny. When I got out of the army, the first thing you do when you get out of the army, what do you do? You get on the plane. You leave Israel. You go to India. You go to South America. You go to Europe, you go to South Africa, Australia, anywhere but there. It's like, where are you going to go now? Anywhere but here. That impulse, I can't even explain it. Like you really feel like you just want to get out of here. And I guess this is a shared Jewish sentiment that after being in a place for a while, together with other Jews, the only thing you can think of is just get me out of here. I don't know. It's a strange feeling.

Seth: It reminds me of batteries, magnets, I mean, when you put two together and they repel each other. It's like there's a force there. Either if you flip it the other way, it sticks together and it holds tight.

Lio: The author of this book, I liked it because in this chapter, we hear like four lines from the author of the book. Maybe you can read that.

Seth: The majority of my own family perished in the Holocaust. I grew up with the specter of this genocide, but I never received any answers. Simply, no one seemed to have any. How did the Germans come to this? Was it fate or could the Holocaust have been avoided? These are two of many questions we'll tackle.

Lio: Could you avoid another Holocaust? Are we on our way to avoid another Holocaust, or are we on our way to another Holocaust? By the way, just because this is sort of like a historic podcast, I think everybody remembers that when the Nazis ran for the government, they didn't get the majority, right? They got 230 voices out of 608 seats, the Nazi party. And Hitler wouldn't make any coalitions with the Socialists, with the Communists. He didn't want. He really just wanted the power. And eventually, in January of 1933, the president, Paul von Hindenburg, eventually exercised emergency powers and appointed Hitler as interim chancellor. And a month later, the Germans set to work in the Reichstag building, which is like the capital here in America. The Reichstag basically catches fire. And conveniently, the next morning, the German public was convinced that the fire was, in fact, the beginning of a Jewish-backed communist uprising. Hitler demanded and received powers right after that. That's 1933.

Seth: Okay, so well before that, the Nazi theoreticians, I mean, for example, Alfred Rosenberg, a Nazi theoretician, said, let's get them out of here. Zionism must be actively supported to enable us to annually transport a specific number of Jews to Palestine, in any case, across our borders. So there was an effort.

Lio: Exactly.

Seth: Before Hitler came to power, then for at least 10 years, there was a movement to move Jews out of Germany.

Lio: Yeah, in 1920, there's a story about Hitler in one of those beer halls. He's making a passionate speech and someone says something about human rights, human rights. And Hitler's like, let the Jew look for his human rights where he belongs, in his own state of Palestine. So the thought of moving them out was built into the mindset, into the doctrine. It wasn't, again, kill all Jews right away. It's important to say we're not saying any of it is right or wrong. We're just trying to find the pattern, find the telltale signs of a looming disaster and avoid it.

Seth: Okay, but Lio, why? I mean, look, okay, so let's just take and let's just say everyone is equal in America today. Should you say...

Lio: I can't say that, but okay, I'm saying...

Seth: Should we say that some other ethnic group or some other everyone from South America, everyone from Guatemala should go back to Guatemala, or they're going to deal with whatever fate befalls them? Trump kind of said that, didn't he? Why is the only choice Jews get out of our country or deal with the Holocaust? Why are those the only two choices?

Lio: Well, I think we're trying to explain it in this podcast by saying that something subconsciously was not, people had that subconscious rejection. And the theory was that if Jews use that Jew unity, right? If they use that to feed their egos, their natural desires to fulfill themselves, if they use the power of unity to do that, people don't like it. If we use the rising, the growing ego as a sort of something to rise above to a greater degree of unity, people like that. People appreciate that. So nobody's saying it, but we're saying it. And I think that that's the only explanation that fits all the events throughout history. I understand that if you look at events in isolation, you may find other circumstantial evidence to say, well, this happened here like this, and this happened here like that. But the one thing that explains it all is this particular pattern of behavior. You want another? Here's another thing. Yeah,

Seth: Read it. What is less known is that in the eyes of the Nazis, not all Jews were equal. Nazi Germany made clear distinctions between assimilationist Jews who saw Germany as their fatherland and Zionist Jews whose goal was to drive as many Jews as possible out of Germany and into Palestine as part of the efforts to establish a national home for the Jewish people.

Lio: There you go. The Nazis came to power. They implemented two opposite policies towards Jews. If you're an assimilationist Jew, if you moved away from that ideal of unity, people don't like that. If you move towards Israel, towards that symbol of unity, people like that. The Nazis created policies that supported Zionist Jews with the same zeal that they persecuted the assimilationist Jews. They published an article in an army newspaper and had two articles on the same day. One said no place for Jews in the army. In that article, they start by saying, "It will not be long before the land of Palestine gets back its sons who have been lost for more than a thousand years. Our good wishes go with them together with official goodwill."

Seth: Hold on,

Lio: hold on, hold on,

Seth: There was an official weekly newspaper of the propaganda agency of the SS. That was the Schwarzkopf. That's what you're talking about. So in that official weekly SS paper, which they had to read, everybody had to read, what did it say in that paper? It says,

Lio: "It will not be long before the land of Palestine gets back its sons who have been lost for more than a thousand years. And our good wishes go with them together with official goodwill."

Seth: This is right following von Mildenstein's article. Leo, nobody knows his history.

Lio: It gets worse. Hold on, it gets worse. It gets worse. I'm sad to say. Well, we know how the story ends, but there were a few out points. And I wonder what would have happened.

Seth: But hold on. Let's just pause all history for one second. What if right-wingers or left-wingers in America just said, all right, Jews, just everybody get out of here. And of course, there's a problem now with Israel. People think it doesn't belong to Jews either.

Lio: Let's leave that aside for a minute.

Seth: But just to say, get out of our country. How can you say that to a group of people?

Lio: The Nazis said... People are saying it all the time. What's up with you? Okay, but they're saying it all the time.

Seth: They're saying it all the time and we consider it immoral or incorrect. That's not how you treat another person.

Lio: By the way, who's the one who's saying it's immoral?

Seth: Who? Jews. We.

Lio: We say it's immoral. We say it's immoral to kick someone out.

Seth: Yeah, because you hope that everybody just accepts all the minorities, including us, and just lets us be like everyone else.

Lio: It's not noble of the Nazis to say, listen, either we'll kill you or you can go.

Seth: Good luck and inherit your land and it'll be great for you.

Lio: This is a good point because we didn't start reading this book to say the Nazis were great people. We want to read further to show the attitude was not as black and white as we think. Not all Jews were treated the same. If you want to leave and be Zionist, fine. The ones who want to assimilate, they wouldn't let them. Everyone else in America, Irish, Scottish, Italian, French, fine, you're American. If you're a Jew, you will never be one of us.

Seth: Look, we're on Zoom right now talking to each other. I have a big red exclamation point next.

Lio: Start from above it. Just let people read what it is.

Seth: All right. Jews are forbidden to fly the Reich or national flag or display Reich colors. Jews did have the privilege that no other minority group in Germany was given. They were permitted to display Jewish colors. The exercise of this right is protected by the state. Those Jewish colors later became the Star of David flag that is today the flag of Israel. The Nazis did far more than permit Jews to, quote, wave the Jewish flag. The largest and most important Zionist weekly newspaper in Germany at the time, called the Jewish Review, was essentially exempt from the so-called uniformity demanded by the Nazi Party. The Jewish Review was free to preach Zionism as a wholly separate political philosophy. Indeed, the only separate political philosophy sanctioned by the Third Reich. In 1933, Hebrew became an encouraged course in Jewish schools. By 1935, uniforms for Zion youth corps were allowed. The only non-Nazi uniform allowed in Germany. I got the chills, bro.

Lio: And again, I think it's important to...

Seth: Nuts.

Lio: I keep reminding the listener. It's not to show how much Nazis loved Zionists. It's to show how much Nazis feared the assimilated Jews.

Seth: We have to say, leave everything you know, just stop. We're talking about above that line. We're not just talking about moving chess pieces around. You have to zoom out. We're already talking about 2,000 years of the same story.

Lio: In that Black Corps article, they say many Jews are still fighting against their distancing and regard Germany as their ancestral homeland. To those Jews, the article states, Germany became a playground for traitors, they always point to the number of Jewish front fighters.

Seth: I read this because it's the same.

Lio: Remember we talked about the revolution in Russia, how the same revolutionary suddenly turned against their Jewish comrades? I give my heart and soul. And why is that? You know why? Because as things are happening, they never happen in uniformity among Jews. We are never united. Doesn't matter, good or bad. People always see us as split. You can't trust these people. Who are they? Are they with me or against me?

Seth: I hear from colleagues, why am I always talking about Jews? Why do I have to make a separation? Aren't we all just one humanity?

Lio: I think you're trying to avert the inevitable. Because if you look at history, it never worked. Lumping Jews with everyone else, it doesn't work. If it worked, there would be no Israel. There would just be people of the world.

Seth: For sure,

Lio: history shows it doesn't work.

Seth: So, if we get back inside this book here, the Nazis came to power. People couldn't believe what was happening, the Jews inside Germany.

Lio: It was a shock, right?

Seth: So, on one hand, you know, it's kind of like today, let's boycott Germany. Powerful Jews were thinking shut down trade. And then there was another group of Jews who said, maybe we can leverage this, and move them to our own place.

Lio: Right. So one group thought they could topple the German government. Germany was in a deep hole after World War I. Another group said no, focus on the transfer agreement.

Seth: Yeah, let's read about that. The most unlikely and some would say immoral deal ever signed, and at the same time the only measure that saved Jewish lives. The transfer agreement saved approximately 50,000 Jews. The economic closure imposed on Germany with the outbreak of World War II terminated the agreement in late 1939.

Lio: It was ingenious, an example of real MacGyverism in the face of Nazism. It was a partnership between a bank in Palestine and a bank in Germany. If you're a Jew, deposit the money in the bank. The bank bought German goods, sold those goods in the Yishuv in Israel. And the profits, they gave 43% to the immigrants.

Seth: Clever Jew probably figured that out, huh?

Lio: Several of them, which was brilliant because everybody won. It was a good situation. But the problem was that the boycott was still going on, actually hurting Jews who had businesses in Germany.

Seth: It's crazy. I'm looking at it again. The infrastructure of Israel, a lot of that came from German Reichsmarks.

Lio: Right. From that plan, yes. From the Nazis.

Seth: What kind of story can we understand? If you had a novel where everything goes perfect, there's no story. This is the greatest drama. We need to see what's going on here. It's missing everything the last 2,000 years is trying to show us.

Lio: And once again, that rift between those Jews who supported the transfer agreement and those who supported the boycott was evident. Even the Germans were not blind to this disunity. As the Secretary of State of the Reich Chancellor expressed it, "Despite its seeming success for the Jews in America too, the boycott is a double-edged sword. Moreover, on account of economic interests, leading businessmen among them who have German assets at their disposal have violated it, so that a rift has already developed within American Jewry." Once again, that takes us to the same place. We're not united. Even at face value, we hurt ourselves. If we would all unite around this agreement and just transfer Jews out, not holding to those fake ideals, if we saw history for what it is, if we could see the patterns, we'd all unite and take the Jews out. Who knows how many Jews we could have saved, moved to Israel, and continued this work of unity? But personal interests get in the way.

Seth: Right. So you have world Jewry basically boycotting—American Jewry, Polish Jewry, European Jewry—boycotting Germany. And then the Jews inside of Germany, it's kind of hurting them because the Germans are then coming down harder on the Jews in Germany.

Lio: Yeah, it was not great. How are we going to unite these people? I don't know. That's for the next episode. I think we have to close, but it got me riled up.

Seth: How are we going to unite these people, Lio?

Lio: I don't know. We'll think about it. And we'll meet here next week and we'll try to—

Seth: Figure it out. No happy ending this episode?

Lio: Yes, we are doing it right now. So follow us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, at The Jew Function. We are the ones who are trying to unite the Jewish people, not for our sake, but to actually see a better world. That's what we believe could happen if we tried it. Just try it.

Seth: Let's try. It never worked to do everything else. Let's just try to be united. Let's try it. All right. Goodbye from Brooklyn.

Lio: Bye from Jersey.