Sunday, November 3, 2013

DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

As WWII drew to a close, Hitler sought the rapid annihilation of every remaining Jew. A group of Revisionist Zionists enlisted Swiss politician Jean-Marie Musy to convince Heinrich Himmler to go against the Fuhrer’s orders. In a remarkable episode largely overlooked to this day, the effort was partially successful


Adolf Hitler shakes hands with Heinrich Himmler, somewhere in Germany on May 18, 1944. From left to right; Hitler, Minister Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Admiral Karl Doenitz, Himmler and Field Marshal General Erhard Milch. (photo credit: AP)
On November 3, 1944, Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Reichsfuhrer SS and General Plenipotentiary of Nazi Germany Heinrich Himmler, was traveling on a German military train from Breslau to Vienna. Sitting with him was his longtime friend, Dr. Jean-Marie Musy, the former president of the Swiss Confederation. 

Their conversation that day set in process a remarkable saga that led to thousands — and possibly even tens of thousands — of European Jews being saved from Nazi extermination. It ranks as one of the more extraordinary stories of the war, and yet it is an all but unpublicized one.  

Musy had known Himmler since the 1930s and had been the publisher of a pro-German newspaper, La Jeune Suisse. During that period he had worked to reduce the prominence of Jews in economic and public life. But by 1944, he had reversed his position, stopped his publication, and decided that the Nazis were criminals and murderers. Unbeknown to Himmler, Musy had gone so far as to switch his loyalties and become an emissary of the Irgun, the Revisionist Zionist movement.

Unsurprisingly, the Irgun’s route to Musy, and via him to Himmler, was a convoluted one. It originated with Dr. Reuben Hecht, who worked as an Irgun representative in Zurich. Hecht forged a close relationship with the American consul general there, Samuel Edison Woods, and persuaded him to embrace Zionism. Woods, in turn, introduced Hecht to Yitzchak and Recha Sternbuch, an Orthodox Jewish couple who ran the Swiss branch of the Emergency Rescue Committee (Va’ad ha-Hatzalah) of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis. They established contacts with the Papal Nuncio to Switzerland and gradually gained influence with the broader Swiss diplomatic community. And in September 1944, they came into contact with Musy, recruited him to the Zionist cause and, astoundingly, proved able to negotiate with Himmler through him.

A 1974 conference at Yad Vashem, and the resulting documentation, indicated that these negotiations ultimately saved the lives of many thousands of Jews. As World War II was drawing to a close, Hitler ordered the extermination of all remaining Jews in Nazi death camps throughout Europe. But under pressure from Musy, Himmler — the monstrous architect of the Holocaust, now seeking to save his own skin and that of his comrades rather than go down with the ship as Hitler intended to do — countermanded the Fuhrer’s order.

Himmler’s late November 1944 countermand ordered a halt to the murder of Jews throughout the Reich and called for the destruction of the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. This order, it need hardly be stated, came far too late to save the millions upon millions of Jews and others whom the Nazis had murdered. Himmler, it also need hardly be stressed, was a central cog in that genocidal Nazi machine. His intervention to counter Hitler toward the very end of the war was entirely cynical and self-motivated. It was also not universally implemented. Hitler himself worked to ensure that his will not be subverted. And lower-level commanders took independent actions in the chaos at war’s end. Despite Himmler’s orders to the contrary, there were death marches which continued until the last day of the war.

But scholarly data indicates that at least some of the Jews who were still alive in the camps when the war ended were there because of Himmler’s intervention — a countermand that led Hitler to condemn his former faithful deputy for betrayal.

Evidence of Himmler’s intervention and its consequences derives from a number of reliable sources — some of which were cited at the 1974 Yad Vashem conference – including testimony from the Nuremberg War Trials, the Rudolf Kastner War Trial, the Archives of the Holocaust, the Hecht Archive (which includes an enlightening interview of Hecht by Monty Noam Penkover, professor emeritus of Jewish History at the Machon Lander Graduate Center of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem), and US Foreign Service documents.

These documents indicate that Musy was able to persuade his old friend Himmler that, while the war was lost, there was still a narrow window of opportunity available to him: that if he worked against Hitler to keep camp inmates alive, stopping the death marches, gassings and executions, he could expect somewhat more favorable international treatment and a greater chance of post-war survival.

It was these issues that were discussed by Himmler and Musy on that November 3 journey to Vienna. Two weeks later, on November 18, Musy informed Himmler in writing that the United States government was prepared to participate in negotiations with him, through Musy, via its consul general in Zurich, Woods, over the possible transfer of hundreds of thousands of Jews from concentration camps in the Reich to freedom via Switzerland. On November 24, 1944, Himmler ordered gassings to stop and crematoria to be destroyed at Auschwitz and its 51 sub-camps.

Subsequently, a first trainload of 1,200 Jews from Theresienstadt concentration camp were indeed released, as agreed upon, but no other Jews were liberated in this manner under the Musy-Himmler agreement. Hitler intervened and halted the plan to move these Jews out of Nazi territory by train. Instead, a secondary plan evolved, by which many thousands of Jews were ultimately saved through Himmler’s intervention in Hitler’s evacuation plan and by stopping the complete destruction of the concentration camps late in the war.

Heinrich Himmler (photo credit: Friedrich Franz Bauer/Wikipedia Commons)
Dr. Rudolf Kastner, the former president of the Hungarian Zionist Organization, said in a 1945 affidavit: “After the fall of 1944 Himmler granted several concessions. Thus he permitted the departure for Switzerland of 1,700 Hungarian Jews deported to Bergen-Belsen and also agreed to suspend the annihilation of the Jews of the Budapest ghetto. Himmler permitted the handing over to the Allies the Jews of Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt without a shot being fired, which in his eyes and the eyes of his colleagues was a very generous concession, and certainly one [for] which he expected some political concession be granted in return. In hopes of contact with the Western Allies, Himmler even made concessions without any economic returns. To this end Himmler may be ascribed the general prohibition dated 25 November 1944, concerning the further killing of Jews…. [Adolf] Eichmann, at first, did not obey this order.”

Hitler was unprepared for Himmler’s turnabout, which did not become completely clear to him until April 1945. Himmler had been known as der treue Heinrich, ”the faithful Heinrich.” But though dedicated to the Fuhrer throughout the war, Himmler was not part of Hitler’s inner circle. And despite his unconditional obedience to Hitler — which lasted at least until late 1944 — Himmler preferred socializing with rank-and-file German soldiers. It was of great importance to Himmler that German concentration camp guards be treated as prisoners of war rather than being shot on the spot when Allied victors entered and took over the camps.

As Himmler issued orders to release trainloads of Jews, he was met with resistance and counter-commands from Hitler. Underlings faithful to the Fuhrer brought news of the release of the first trainload of Theresienstadt Jews to Hitler’s attention, and the transfers were halted. Now the secondary course of action went into effect — the effort to halt death marches and the preservation of camps marked for destruction. Himmler was able to partially prevail and keep some camps intact, preventing the immediate death of many prisoners.

The material that follows is drawn primarily from the documentary sources cited above. It comprises compelling testimony about the events and procedures used to influence Himmler to change his course of action.

Hungarian Jews on the Judenrampe (Jewish ramp) after disembarking from the transport trains at Auschwitz-Birkenau, May 1944. To be sent rechts! – to the right – meant the person had been chosen as a laborer; links! – to the left – meant death in the gas chambers. (Photo credit: From the Auschwitz Album)
Twisting Himmler’s arm until it broke

Himmler was no hero for his late wartime actions. He was guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. Nonetheless, the story is worth telling because of the noble efforts of those who twisted Himmler’s arm until it broke. They were not the only people who attempted to influence Himmler but they were possibly the most successful. And they may be the least well-known.

Many aspects of this fascinating story, which has received scant editorial notice, unfolded during testimony in the famous Kastner war trial. The trial itself sought to determine the innocence or guilt of one Jew but, en route, it revealed the audacious and at least partly successful effort to save Jews through negotiations with Himmler. Under questioning by the defense, Hecht revealed how emissaries of the Irgun persuaded former Nazi sympathizer Musy to join their cause and work through Himmler to try to subvert Hitler’s plan to exterminate those Jews remaining in concentration camps at the close of the war.

read more on this great story at:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/deal-with-the-devil








No comments:

Post a Comment