The History of ‘Der Angriff’s’ Famous ‘Nazi-Zionist’ Palestine Memorial Coin

If you have ever seen or participated in the debates over Zionism, then you’ll have seen a particular piece of evidence routinely cited and photos of it provided. This is a memorial coin that was created in 1934 with a swastika on one side and a star of David on the other.

For the sake of clarify this is what it looks like: (1)

The inscription reads:

‘EIN NAZI FÄHRT NACH PALÄSTINA, UND ERZÄHLT / DAVON IM / Angriff’

Which translates to:

‘A Nazi Travels to Palestine and Tells About it in [the] Angriff’

This is often used as absolute proof of ‘Nazi-Zionist collaboration’ by anti-Zionists – the claim comes from Lenni Brenner’s widely-read book 1983 ‘Zionism in the Age of Dictators’ – (2) who claim it shows how ‘the Nazis’ worked ‘hand-in-glove’ with the Zionists in the 1930s and 1940s.

Meanwhile Zionists furiously deny any such claim and assert that either jews ‘didn’t know about it’ or ‘it was a Nazi conspiracy’. (3)

Both sides are not only wrong but ridiculously so and the reason is that there is absolutely no historical context applied by either side. Only desperation to accuse Zionists of being connected to the Third Reich on one side and equally desperate denials of any such accusation by Zionists.

To begin with they miss three basic facts that should be immediately obvious to anyone who knows anything much about the Third Reich:

A) This memorial coin was issued in 1934 and relates to an event in 1933 so thus it refers to a key time in ‘Der Angriff’s’ history when Goebbels had just been appointed to be Reichminister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, which effectively removed him from a lot of his job as Gauleiter of Berlin and editor of ‘Der Angriff’. This led (from 1933) to a decline in ‘Der Angriff’s’ circulation and readership (4) compared to the run-away success of some of its rivals like Julius Streicher’s famous ‘Der Sturmer’. (5)

B) Goebbel’s ‘Der Angriff’ was no stranger to using clever marketing techniques and stunts to improve its circulation and readership. (6)

C) Despite claims this memorial coin is ‘to remember’ the event; it is clearly not a memorial coin but rather a marketing gimmick being used to promote ‘Der Angriff’.

We can therefore see that little actual thought has been put into understanding where this memorial coin came from nor why it was made despite it being quite clear that is was produced by Goebbels’ ‘Der Angriff’ at a time when ‘Der Angriff’ was losing readership to its rivals and Goebbels was no longer actually editing it (as he was too busy) but promotes a series of articles that appeared in ‘Der Angriff’.

Now you might reasonably question why ‘Der Angriff’ would perform such a marketing gimmick beyond gaining additional circulation and whether it was effective.

It certainly was effective since the series of articles appeared from the 27th September to 9th October 1934 in the pages of ‘Der Angriff’ (7) and quickly also become a book titled ‘Ein Nazi fahrt nach Palastina’ later that same year published by the NSDAP’s publishing house Franz Eher Verlag. (8) This indicates how popular the articles were and also how successful they were in helping temporarily revive ‘Der Angriff’s’ lagging commercial fortunes.

As Verbovszky guardedly remarks:

‘As a result, it is possible that Goebbels used the opportunity to bring his newspaper back to the forefront by publishing a sensational article that would catch the attention of the paper’s readership. There is evidence for such sensationalism in both the title of the article and Mildenstein’s style of writing.’ (9)

In essence then the memorial coin was a successful marketing stunt by ‘Der Angriff’ - as even the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum implies (10) and Itay Ilnai even goes so far as to (accurately) call them a form of ‘sales promotion’ – (11) and as such is not evidence of ‘Nazi-Zionist collaboration’ as such, but it could still be argued that it shows there was convergence between the two as a fall back position for anti-Zionists.

There is some truth in this but again we are subjected to a lot of false and speculative claims on this subject since the history of the visit to Palestine by Baron Leopold von Mildenstein – the author of the piece and then a new member of the SS (having joined in 1932) – that lasted a total of six months from late 1933 to early 1934 and the resultant articles that were published in ‘Der Angriff’ in late 1934 has never actually been seriously consulted by either side who are just content to shriek ‘Nazi’ at each other.

Paul Bogdanor – who is a Zionist – vapidly claims that:

‘“It was created by the Nazis to pretend that they wanted an ‘honourable’ solution to the ‘Jewish Question’ via the transfer agreement, which the Nazis later abandoned.

“The coin was of course pure Nazi propaganda, like a rapist pretending to sympathise with his victim.”’ (12)

Bogdanor is spouting complete nonsense here because we know that the memorial coins weren’t anything to do with ‘Nazi propaganda’ but rather… well… a marketing gimmick for ‘Der Angriff’ and we also know that Mildenstein’s interest in Zionism was genuine but didn’t extend – as anti-Zionists like Lenni Brenner often claim – (13) to actual sympathy, ideological commitment nor non-utilitarian support.

Since as Verbovszky explains:

‘Although a Nazi, he took a profound interest in Zionism and frequently attended Zionist conferences. He began to see Zionism as the answer to the Nazis’ desire to force Jews out of Germany.’ (14)

And further that the whole purpose of the trip and the articles in ‘Der Angriff’ were purely utilitarian from Mildenstein’s and the Third Reich’s point of view:

‘From September 27 to October 9, 1934, Der Angriff, the major Nazi newspaper in Berlin, published a series of articles written by Mildenstein entitled “A Nazi Travels to Palestine.” The articles described Mildenstein’s trip to Palestine in 1933 and his observations of Jewish settlement activity. The article series was not just a travelogue meant to entertain the Angriff’s readership but also a position paper in which Mildenstein laid out a forceful argument for the use of Zionist emigration to Palestine as a solution to the Jewish Question. The position outlined by Mildenstein’s articles resonated with Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the SD, who sought to make his organization the only security/intelligence apparatus in Hitler’s new Germany. In Mildenstein, he saw a man who could help accomplish this goal by giving the SD the solution to the Jewish Question. In the summer of 1935, Heydrich put Mildenstein in charge of the Judenreferat, where he worked energetically for the next year to increase Jewish emigration from Germany. He based his tactics upon his earlier experience and continued to attend Zionist conferences. He advocated policies that favoured Zionist activities while severely inhibiting those of assimilationist organizations. He proved to be an efficient administrator, making the Judenreferat one of the most important components of the SD security apparatus. Nevertheless, on July 27, 1936, he resigned from the SD.’ (15)

What Verbovszky is getting at here is that Mildenstein saw Zionism as a potential solution to the jewish question in the Third Reich, went to Palestine as a way to examine this idea, wrote a series of promotional articles which impressed Reinhard Heydrich – the rising star of SS – who appointed Mildenstein as head of the Judenreferat in 1935 which later merged with the similar office of the Gestapo under Mildenstein’s subordinate Adolf Eichmann, but then Mildenstein suddenly resigned on 27th July 1936.

This story seems to validate the anti-Zionist account of rampant and widespread ‘Nazi-Zionist collaboration’ of Lenni Brenner et al: doesn’t it?

But there is a rather large fly in the ointment to this narrative in that the reason Mildenstein resigned in July 1936 seems to have had much to do with the failure of his policy of using Zionism as a way to make Germany ‘Judenfrei’ because many jews simply refused to leave and/or were opposed to Zionism. (16)

As Verbovszky notes - but anti-Zionists simply fail to mention - Mildenstein did a political tout-face and became a rabid anti-Zionist who headed up anti-Zionist propaganda in the Middle East for Goebbels’ propaganda ministry from mid-1936, wrote anti-Zionist books and promoted the Arab revolt in Palestine against the Zionists and the British.

To wit:

‘After Mildenstein left the SD in 1936, he completely reversed his position on Zionism. The choice of the Propaganda Ministry as his destination was indicative of a shift in Mildenstein’s thinking. Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry was known for its heavily pro-Arab stance. Mildenstein became the Chief of Near East Propaganda. While working at the ministry, Mildenstein wrote two travel books, Rings um das brennende Land am Jordan (1938) and Naher Osten-vom Strassenrand erlebt (1941), about subsequent visits to Palestine that he made in those years. Both of these books present an overwhelmingly pro-Arab and anti-Zionist stance. Furthermore, the books fit the specific model of propaganda from Goebbels’ ministry which was violently anti-Semitic toward Jews in Palestine. Mildenstein’s work at the Propaganda Ministry undermined the very policies which he had initiated earlier while working at the SD.’ (17)

The point being that Mildenstein’s support for Zionism as a purely utilitarian solution to the jewish question in Germany had stopped less than two years after the famous memorial coin was made and his articles in ‘Der Angriff’ published. Instead, he promoted violent anti-Zionism from mid-1936 to 1945.

This then leaves the ideas of the Third Reich being supportive of Zionism in any significant way beyond simply as a means by which to get its jewish population to leave in absolute tatters and shatters a significant element of Brenner’s ‘Nazi-Zionist collaboration’ argument in the process.

Indeed, much of the testimony that Brenner et al rely on is Mildenstein own in the 1960s when he was interviewed by prominent historian Heinz Hohne just just after his former subordinate Adolf Eichmann had been famously tried and executed and Mildenstein had begun to be investigated by the CIA for ‘war crimes’ during the Second World War. (18)

Hence Mildenstein’s comments to Hohne tended to ignore his promotion of violent anti-Zionism from mid-1936 to 1945 and instead focus on his short-lived utilitarian promotion of Zionism as a solution to the jewish question between 1933 and mid-1936 as a way of trying to make himself seem more pro-jewish by claiming to be pro-Zionism and thus save himself from the hangman’s rope that had then so recently claimed his former subordinate Eichmann. (19)

Thus, we can see that the anti-Zionist case simply falls apart when we but examine in it in the proper historical context.

But what of the Zionist denials that Zionists had little-to-nothing to do with Mildenstein or ‘didn’t invite him’? (20)

The problem is that despite all the variations of the story around Kurt Tuchler (a jewish judge and member of the Zionist Federation of Germany) and Mildenstein’s trip to Palestine:

‘It remains unclear if it was Tuchler who personally invited Mildenstein, but it seems to be the consensus that Mildenstein was invited by a Zionist organization. Mildenstein accepted the invitation and spent six months from late 1933 to early 1934 in Palestine, after which he submitted his observations to Joseph Goebbels, who published them in his propaganda paper Der Angriff.’ (21)

Clearly Mildenstein was invited by Zionists to go to Palestine in the hope that Mildenstein would then in turn promote Zionism as a solution to the jewish question in Germany (and also benefit Zionist efforts to colonize Palestine in the process) which was realised in 1935 when Heydrich made Mildenstein the chief of the SD’s Judenreferat and which then facilitated some jewish emigration of which only a portion was to Palestine, but then because of the various Zionist organization’s failure to sufficiently promote Zionism to the jews in Germany.

The policy simply wasn’t successful and Mildenstein quickly realised that Zionism to Palestine was in fact not a solution to the jewish question and instead was potentially even a barrier to it and voluntarily resigned from the Judenreferat and the SD in July 1936 (22) to head up Goebbels’ propaganda ministry’s anti-Zionist Middle East section.

Thus we can see that both the Zionists and the anti-Zionists are completely wrong in their interpretation of both what the memorial coin was and also the historical context of Mildenstein’s trip to Palestine between late 1933 and early 1934 which ended up with Mildenstein becoming a hard-line anti-Zionist from mid-1936 to 1945 due to his experience with both jews and Zionists.

References

(1) See: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn560259

(2) Lenni Brenner, 1983, ‘Zionism in the Age of Dictators’, 1st Edition, Croom Helm: Westport, p. 89

(3) For example: https://www.thejc.com/news/coin-is-not-proof-of-nazi-collaboration-with-zionists-says-historian-fsdz06g7; https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5072424,00.html and https://gnasherjew.com/claim-commemorative-coin-a-proof-of-zionist-nazi-collaboration/

(4) Russel Lemmons, 1994, ‘Goebbels and Der Angriff’, 1st Edition, The University Press of Kentucky: Lexington, pp. 41; 128

(5) Ibid., p. 109; Randall Bytwerk, 2001, ‘Julius Streicher’, 1st Edition, Cooper Square Press: New York, pp. 58-59

(6) David Irving, 1996, ‘Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich’, 1st Edition, Focial Point: London, pp. 59; 62-63

(7) Joseph Verbovszky, 2013, ‘Leopold von Mildenstein and the Jewish Question’, Published Masters Thesis: Case Western Reserve University, p. 7

(8) https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn560259

(9) Verbovszky, Op. Cit., p. 22

(10) https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn560259

(11) https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5072424,00.html

(12) https://www.thejc.com/news/coin-is-not-proof-of-nazi-collaboration-with-zionists-says-historian-fsdz06g7

(13) Brenner, Op. Cit., p. 89

(14) Verbovszky, Op. Cit., p. 7

(15) Ibid., pp. 7-8

(16) Ibid., p. 11

(17) Ibid., p. 10; Jacob Boas broadly agrees with Verbovszky: https://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/palestine/travelpalestine.htm

(18) Verbovszky, Op. Cit., pp. 9-10

(19) Ibid., p. 10

(20) For example: https://www.thejc.com/news/coin-is-not-proof-of-nazi-collaboration-with-zionists-says-historian-fsdz06g7; https://gnasherjew.com/claim-commemorative-coin-a-proof-of-zionist-nazi-collaboration/

(21) Verbovszky, Op. Cit., p. 16

(22) Ibid., p. 8