Hitler-Push: Anti-Zionist Jews to the arms of Zionism

With considerable  perspicacity the CV  remarked that the recognition by the  Zionists of “certain postulates of the  German  nationalists” provided the anti-Semites with ammunition, and in a  declaration of policy made by the CV,  there was even talk of Zionism having  dealt the movement a “stab in the back” in the struggle against fascism.13 But the Zionists saw that only  the anti- Semitic  Hitler was likely to push anti-Zionist German Jews into the arms of Zionism.  Robert Weltsch who was  then editor-in-chief of the German Zionist paper, Judische Rundschau, declared on January 8, 1933 (three weeks after Hitler’s assumption of power) during the meeting of the local ZVFD Council. “The anti-liberal character of German nationalism [i.e., the reactionary tendencies of the German bourgeoisie — K.P.] meet with the anti-liberal position of Zionism and here we are faced with the chance of finding, not a basis for understanding but one for discussion.” 14

The call to Hitler on January 30, 1933 to become the head of government was followed by the take-over of all positions of authority by the National Socialist Party, which  meant that sworn anti-Semites were now in power. The German Jews contemplated these happenings with deep misgivings, for the programme of the Nazi  party included the demand to strip the Jews of citizenship (Point 5) and the removal of all Jews from public offices (Point 6) as well as the expulsion all the Jews who had emigrated to Germany after August 2, 1914 (Point 8). Only the Zionists saw some benefit in this turn of events. (The British historian  Christopher  Sykes,  certainly  no  anti-Zionist,  gives as his opinion “that the Zionist leaders were determined at the very out-set of the Nazi disaster to reap political advantage from the tragedy”.15 The first public expression of this came from the Berlin Rabbi, Dr. Joachim Prinz, who was a committed Zionist and who directly after January 30, 1933, described the Hitler takeover as the “beginning of the Jew’s return to his Judaism.”16  In reference to the mounting Fascist terror against the German Jews, Prinz wrote; “No hiding place hides us any longer. Instead of assimilation, we wish for the recognition of the Jewish nation and the Jewish race.”17 This was definitely not the view of an isolated individual. The Judische Rundschau, the official organ of the ZVFD, wrote on June 13, 1933:

Zionism recognizes the existence of the Jewish question and wants to solve it in a generous and constructive manner. For this purpose, it wants to enlist the aid of all peoples; those who are friendly to the Jews as well as those who are hostile to them, since according to its  59 conception, this is not a question of sentimentality, but one dealing with a real problem in whose solution all peoples are interested.” 18

By employing this argument, Zionism was adopting the same political line as the fascists.