Pictured: A ‘Special Night Squads’ unit in the late 1939s. British soldiers recruited from the Zionist militias and carried out a ‘dirty war’ against civilians. Some Zionists were even armed with Fascist weapons.
Quoting Tony Greenstein’s Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponisation of Memory in the Service of State and Nation page 384:
Feivel Polkes, a Haganah intelligence agent, came to Berlin for talks with the SD and Gestapo between 26 February and 2 March 1937.⁵⁷ According to a situation report of October 1937, Polkes offered to become an informant for the Gestapo, sharing Haganah intelligence information, in return for which the Gestapo would pressure the RVt to require emigrating Jews to settle exclusively in Palestine.⁵⁸ Polkes worked with Dr. Franz Reichert, an agent of the SD, who was nominally a correspondent for DNB, the [Third Reich’s] overseas news service in Jerusalem.
Among other things, he would support German foreign policy interests in the Middle East and use his influence to secure sources of oil for the Reich if German foreign currency regulations for Jews emigrating to Palestine were to be relaxed.⁵⁹
Polkes claimed that he was on the General Staff of the Haganah.⁶⁰ SS files show that in return for information from Polkes on [possible] attempts to kill Hitler, ‘pressure will be exerted on the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland to oblige Jews who emigrate from Germany to go exclusively to Palestine, and not to other countries.’⁶¹
Dr. Franz Six, Eichmann’s boss, wrote confirming this.⁶² In a 1957 interview, the former Chairman of the ZVfD, Dr. Hans Friedenthal, revealed that ‘the Gestapo did all it could to promote Jewish emigration to Palestine, thereby rendering considerable assistance to the Zionist cause.’⁶³
Polkes arranged, in his contacts with Eichmann, for arms supplies, Mauser pistols, to be smuggled to [occupied] Palestine in barrels of cement.⁶⁴ In return Polkes supplied the [Fascists] with information on an illegal communist broadcasting station which drove between the German and Luxembourg border.⁶⁵ He also supplied the [Fascists] with information about two pro‐Soviet Arab leaders, Emirs Sheikib Arslan and Adil Arslan, who were at a conference in Berlin.
Polkes later met with Eichmann in Café Groppi in Cairo on 10 and 11 October 1937, after Eichmann had been deported by the British from Palestine.⁶⁶ Here he assured him that the Zionists ‘were favourably disposed to the extreme German policy.’⁶⁷
In 1983 Lenni Brenner met Yoav Gelber of YV, who told him that he was unable to access Polkes file in the Haganah archives in Tel Aviv. In October 1983 Brenner asked archivist Chaim Zamir to see the file. ‘There is no file,’ Zamir responded. When told about his conversation with Gelber, Zamir replied: ‘There is no file because it would be too embarrassing’.⁶⁸ The question is what is it that is so embarrassing that they have to hide it?
Even the Zionist historian Francis R. Nicosia admitted to this transgression (which he evidently considered ‘insignificant’). Quoting his book The Third Reich and the Palestine Question, pages 63–4:
An interesting episode involving the Hagana and [Fascism] during the 1930s emerges from the documents on the Polkes visit to Berlin in 1937. In his conversations with Eichmann, Polkes referred to Mauser pistols that the Hagana had earlier received from [the Third Reich], observing that they had rendered valuable service to the Hagana dining the recent unrest in Palestine.⁷⁰
In a study of Hagana intelligence activities, E. Dekel, a former Hagana officer, revealed that, between 1933 and 1935, some 300 barrels of cement were shipped from a fictitious exporter in Belgium to a fictitious importer in Jaffa, in reality the Hagana.⁷¹ According to Dekel, about half the barrels contained, in addition to cement, 100‐lb. containers filled with Mauser pistols and ammunition.
He did not indicate the exact source of the pistols, although it would seem that they originated in [the Third Reich], as indicated in the Polkes–Eichmann conversations in Berlin early in 1937. The source within [the Third Reich] remains a mystery. The Mauser‐Jagdwaffen GmbH has informed me that, although most of their records were destroyed during the war, the firm did provide the Ministry of the Interior with large quantities of model C96, which appeared in 1932.⁷²
It is known from Dekel's study that Hagana agents were actively seeking arms and ammunition all over Europe during the 1930s and from the SS records on Polkes that Hagana agents were active in [the Third Reich] at that time.⁷³ While it cannot be determined at this point exactly who provided the pistols to the Hagana, it is certain that someone in [the Third Reich] did and that the police authorities were aware of it.
(Emphasis added in all cases. Click here for more information. Cheers to Bes D. Marx for telling me about this.)
Click here for events that happened today (June 28).
1934: Cruiser Köln completed gunnery drills with pocket battleship Deutschland, and Ernst Röhm’s fellow Fascists relieved him of his position as the leader of the NSDAP’s SA organization. Generalleutnant Ewald von Kleist, the Reichswehrt Commander in the Silesia region, was alarmed to discover from a local SA commander that both SS and SA units were arming for an assault on each other.
1940: Fascist submarine U‐30 sank British ship Llanarth two hundred fifty miles west of Brest, France at 0200 hours, then Fascist Governor‐General of Libya Marshal Italo Balbo returned from a reconnaissance flight after Blenheim bombers raided Tobruk. Fascist antiaircraft crews, still jumpy from that raid, misidentified his aircraft for a British bomber and opened fire, killing Balbo. Given Balbo’s opposition to Fascist Italy’s alliance with the Third Reich, some suspect that this friendly fire incident was actually premeditated murder. Apart from that, the Luftwaffe bombed Guernsey and Jersey, slaughtering thirty‐three and injuring forty.
1941: As Albania officially declared war on the Soviets, the Axis captured Minsk, Byelorussia, encircling twenty‐seven Soviet Army divisions in the process. Joachim von Ribbentrop sent a message to the Japanese embassy in Berlin, asking the Empire of Japan to jointly invade the Soviet Union by tearing up the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact and attacking Vladivostok, Russia. On the other hand, Chen Jie submitted a letter to Berlin, noting the long standing friendly Sino‐German relationship, urging the Third Reich to abandon its wish to recognize the Axis puppet régime in China under Wang Jingwei.
1942: Before dawn, Regia Aeronautica torpedo boats staged a fake landing at Cape Fiolent south of Sevastopol as a diversion from the preparations for a major offensive north of the city! Unternehmen Blau (Case Blue), the Axis summer offensive against the Soviets, commenced; three armies and eleven armored divisions began driving towards the Caucasus Mountains. Additionally, the Axis captured Fuka and Mersa Matruh, Egypt. Gruppe von Weichs of the Wehrmacht attacked on a ninety‐mile front in the Soviet Union with its left south of Orel and its right on Oboyan. Colonel‐General Maximilian von Weichs sent in his own 2nd Army, the 4th Panzerarmee (Colonel‐General Hermann Hoth), and the Hungarian 2nd Army (Colonel‐General Gusztáv Jany), in all twenty‐three divisions, including three Panzer and two motorised. Axis submarine I‐10 sank British merchant ship Queen Victoria in the Mozambique Channel, Axis bombers severely damaged Soviet destroyer leader Tashkent in the Black Sea, and Axis bombers attacked Weston‐super‐Mare in southwestern England, massacring one hundred two and wounding four hundred; Axis intelligence had incorrectly determined that Winston Churchill was at Weston‐super‐Mare this night. Hans‐Joachim Marseille also received Swords for his Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross medal from his Chancellor at Wolfsschanze near Rastenburg, East Prussia. He also received Oak Leaves for his Knight’s Cross, an award he had won earlier in this month.
