Background: Since the Nazis hated the Jews one might at first think they would favor Zionism’s campaign to build a Jewish state, thus encouraging Jews to leave Germany. They did in fact encourage Jewish emigration to Palestine, even ordering newspapers in Germany not to print stories about the difficulties Jews faced there. However, this article from one of the most widely circulated Nazi periodicals rejects the idea. Zionism is seen as part of the general Jewish plot to control the world. Der Schulungsbrief was a general interest Nazi periodical with a circulation of over 1,000,000 in 1936. Nazi block wardens attempted to sell copies to every German citizen.
The source: Arno Schickedanz, “Der Zionismus,” Der Schulungsbrief 3 (April 1936), pp. 149-150.
by Arno Schickedanz
Through Karl Marx-Mordechai, Jewry overcame the problems and difficulties that came with industrialization and the transformation of ownership resulting from the development of the fourth estate, falsifying their justified demands in a way that served Jewry’s interests. With his assertion of constant exploitation based on his materialist view of history, Karl Marx created a front that ran through all nations, stamping it with “internationalism” and the Jewish spirit. His doctrine ripped nations apart. Their resistance to outside forces collapsed as parties struggled bitterly with one another. It is surprising that few have noticed that Karl Marx-Mordechai’s doctrines were Jewish in nature. He believed that he could take the materialist view of history and the exploitive nature of the Jewish people and apply them to all the other peoples.
The claim of “constant exploitation” removed the parasitic lifestyle of the “chosen people” from the center of attention of other nations as well as of the class claimed by Marxism. But it continued to reign as the leader of speculative finance capital, bound to no territory or national community. It also led the Marxist organization that spanned all boundaries of land and ethnicity, just as “Jahwe” rules over the universe.
The growing wealth of the Jews, along with the increasing influence that their wealth gave them led to a certain loosening of Jewish cohesiveness. Increasing numbers went from the Mosaic to the Christian faith purely to gain further advantages. There was a certain “assimilation” and a “liberal” Jewry also developed that accepted those precepts of Jewish doctrine that were pleasant and comfortable, but rejected those that caused discomfort, without however leaving the Jewish faith. Karl Marx-Mordechai’s doctrines were even reflected in the Jewish organization “Paole Zion” among the poor Jews found only in the East who had not accomplished anything.
Zionism resulted from thinking about the position of the Jews within their host peoples and from knowledge of their financial and political power. It was an attempt to balance these facts and combat the spiritually divergent tendencies in Jewry. Its founder Herzl spoke more or less openly in various places in his diaries: “Where it exists, one can no longer abolish the legal equality of the Jews. This is not only because it goes against the modern mind, but also because all Jews, rich and poor, would immediately be forced into revolutionary parties. There is really nothing they can do to us. In the past one took their jewelry from the Jews; can one today take their movable wealth? The impossibility of getting at the Jews has only strengthened and embittered hatred. Anti-Semitism grows daily, even hourly, in the population. It will continue to grow since its causes continue to exist and cannot be eliminated.” (Th. Herzl, The Jewish State). “I do not wish to write about the history of the Jews. It is familiar. I must mention only one thing: In our two thousand years in the diaspora, there has been no unified leadership. That is what I think is our primary misfortune.” To overcome this “misfortune” Herzl founded political Zionism.
Gentile observers and writers on Zionism, who see political Zionism only as an attempt at “national renewal” rather than an effort to establish a unified Jewish leadership as well as Jewish rule over the world, are therefore incorrect. The confusion of political Zionism with Palestine can be understood only through the Jewish prophecies in which Jewry is assured of control over all the goods of this world. Knowing that the time was near, and would culminate in taking possession of Palestine, Zionism developed the nonsensical notion of an “historic claim” to the “promised land,” to which Jews “without any outside pressure” would gradually emigrate.
In the ideology of political Zionism, Palestine fulfilled the role of an indispensable part of prophecy, just as certain rules are the guarantee for success in the magical ceremonies of primitive peoples. Political Zionism never intended Palestine to be the destination of all Jews, but rather it merely wants to make Palestine the center of Jewish world policy. That must naturally be protected by a strong Jewish population. The Zionist publication Jüdische Rundschau wrote: “No one at any time has proposed that all Jews today should emigrate to Palestine.” Nahum Sokolow, Weizmann’s colleague and current chairman of the Zionist Committee, said it clearly in 1921: “The Jewish people wants to return to Palestine; the Jewish people will have its center in Palestine. Large parts of Jewry will live as a Jewish diaspora in the world. They must be cared for; their dignity and their national rights must be assured.”
This is also clear from the text of the state treaty Jewry concluded with England, the so-called Balfour Declaration: “His Majesty’s Government favors the establishment of a national home in Palestine for the Jews, and we will make the greatest efforts to reach this goal, although it is clearly understood that nothing will be done that will affect the civil and religious rights of Gentile communities in Palestine or the rights and political standing of Jews in any other country.”
That provides a correction to the idealization of Zionism, which springs from a different race. From a political standpoint, it would be in the interests of the whole world, of all the host peoples, if the Jews now scattered throughout the whole world were to voluntarily emigrate to some habitable territory. If political Zionism were not interested in such a solution to the Jewish Question, it would be in the interests of the host peoples to point it in that positive direction. The only question would be whether Palestine is the proper gathering place, which no one would likely maintain. Palestine is not able to absorb all the Jews in the world, entirely aside from the fact of increasing Arab opposition to Jewish infiltration. The Arabs are, after all, the undisputed owners of the land. But what other territory would be appropriate? And at the instant Palestine ceased to be the goal of Jewish emigration, political Zionism would collapse, since Palestine is seen as a means for the fulfillment of prophecy. Without that, the whole enterprise would lose its point. Jewry itself would make the most passionate and bitter attacks, and before long any undertaking that ignored Palestine would be crippled by Jewry itself. Palestine incorporates for Jewry its special position. Ignoring this would be ethnic suicide for Jewry, since political Zionism also has as a goal maintaining and strengthening Jewry’s special situation.
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