In 1925, Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf, the book he wrote while imprisoned after the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. Within its pages, he addressed many subjects, including the movement that sought to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. His views were dismissive and conspiratorial. He wrote of the Zionists he had encountered years earlier in Vienna, describing their movement as one that asserted the national character of Judaism.
He claimed that outward appearances suggested only a small group of Jews championed Zionism while most disapproved, but he insisted this was misleading. He dismissed the conflict between Zionists and liberal Jews as false, a sham designed for expediency and deception, and declared himself disgusted by it. Later in the book, he returned to the subject regarding Palestine itself. He argued that when Zionists claimed a Jewish state in Palestine would satisfy their national consciousness, they were merely adopting another means to dupe the simple-minded Gentile.
He wrote that they had no intention of building a Jewish state to live in, but rather aimed to establish a central organization for what he called international swindling and cheating, a sovereign refuge for swindlers and a school for training more of them. He denied entirely that Jews sought a state to live in peace, framing the entire project as part of a broader conspiracy. These writings reflected Hitler’s views in the mid-1920s, though he rarely mentioned Zionism again. In his speeches over the following decades, he spoke of Palestine primarily to criticize the British.
In April 1939, after the German takeover of the Czech lands, he mocked British criticism of German policies by pointing out that Germans had no business in Palestine any more than the English had business in the German living space. He sometimes expressed sympathy for the Arabs, but only to further attack the British. He had no genuine regard for Arab national aspirations, before the war he hoped for an alliance with Britain, and he considered Arabs an inferior race. During the Arab revolt in Palestine from 1936 to 1939, Germany ignored requests from Arab Palestinians for material assistance.
The real intersection between the Nazis and Zionism came through a peculiar agreement signed in 1933. When Hitler rose to power that year, anti-Semitism became official German government policy, and administrative measures were implemented to segregate Jews from German society. A prominent Jewish legal expert observed that the inevitable consequence of this campaign of dismissal, exclusion, and violence was a large exodus of Jews from Germany. The Zionist movement, which held that Jews should not be part of Gentile society, gained strength among German Jews as a result.
In August 1933, an agreement was signed between Zionist organizations and Nazi Germany known as the Haavara, or transfer, agreement. It allowed German Jews to immigrate to Palestine with a portion of their assets. At the time, Nazi Germany was under pressure from a global economic boycott, and British immigration policies in Palestine made it difficult for Jews to enter unless they could prove substantial financial means. The deal solved both problems.
Jews leaving Germany deposited their assets into a German trust, the money was then used to export German goods to Palestine, and once there, immigrants recovered part of their money minus taxes and fees. The arrangement allowed roughly twenty thousand Jews, about thirty-seven percent of all German Jews who went to Palestine, to escape with part of their wealth intact. In exchange, the Nazi regime boasted increased exports and encouraged Jewish immigration. By 1937, however, the situation had become complicated.
The Arab revolt in Palestine raised concerns in Berlin. One German diplomat warned that Germany had disregarded the danger that the Arabs could become its opponents. The consulate general in Jerusalem noted that Arab fantasies about German intervention could be explained by their desperate struggle against the Jews and the English. As talk of a Jewish state grew, Nazi leaders feared it might strengthen what they called international Jewry.
Germany’s foreign minister responded by stating that the formation of a Jewish state was not in the German interest and called instead for closer ties with Arab nationalists as a counterbalance. There was division within the Nazi government. Some supported the Haavara agreement for practical reasons, while others opposed it on the grounds that it helped build a Jewish homeland with German funds. The internal debate was not resolved until early 1938, when Hitler personally decided that Jewish immigration to Palestine should continue.
Even then, Nazi diplomats in the Middle East were instructed to openly support Arab nationalist movements. Palestine had become more than just a destination for immigrants, it was now part of Nazi Germany’s foreign policy strategy. The SS security service, the SD, also took an interest. With most other countries closing their doors to Jewish refugees, Palestine remained the most realistic escape route for German Jews.
Zionist organizations were tolerated as long as they facilitated immigration. The complete expulsion envisioned by the SD implied tolerance of Zionist groups in Germany, which, in contrast to assimilation-oriented Jewish organizations, were able to continue their work largely unopposed. One chilling proposal from 1937 summed up the logic: Jews who immigrated from Germany should be sent only to Palestine, as this would be fully in the German interest. In the twisted calculus of Nazi policy, immigration, propaganda, and foreign relations all intersected in the fate of Germany’s Jews and in the sands of British-controlled Palestine.
But as Nazi policy radicalized, from forced immigration to mass murder, any tactical use of Zionism faded. Hitler increasingly linked Zionism to what he considered the global Jewish conspiracy. Whether Jews were communists, bankers, or Zionists, he believed they were all enemies of the German people. Hitler did not support Zionism.
He saw it as part of a broader Jewish threat. He briefly exploited it for tactical reasons in the 1930s to encourage Jewish emigration, but his goal was never the establishment of a Jewish homeland. His ultimate aim was the eradication of European Jewry entirely.