The Reckoning Page 12

  After Zettler and Kaplan there were no more arrests.13 Stern’s trail was cooling fast. On 18 October, Giles ordered one of his senior officers to approach David Raziel to see if he could help them track down his former friend. The meeting took place in the Arab National restaurant in East Jerusalem. The unnamed officer described how he started off talking about the government’s concern at the recent activities of the Stern group. As well as robbing banks they were ‘also said to have attempted to establish contact with the Italians’, though he admitted that ‘how true this latter point was I could not tell’.14 However, the government had decided that ‘the continued existence of this group was not in its interests, and we are anxious to trace Stern and certain of his followers’. The officer pointed out that the Revisionist movement and the Irgun were now supposed to be on Britain’s side and should therefore be morally obliged to oppose Stern and his men. However, their leaders had ‘not openly denounced them as traitors to the Revisionist movement’.

  Raziel accepted that the Stern group was operating against both the Revisionists’ and the government’s interests. However, he ‘regretted he could not help us to find Stern. Even if I produced evidence of the alleged Italian connection … he could not denounce a member or an ex-member of the Irgun.’ Raziel seemed eager not to appear too unhelpful and threw the policeman a comforting rumour. It appeared that Eliahu Golomb, the leader of the Haganah in Tel Aviv, ‘had planned to arrest Stern and a few others and keep them in some remote … colony to cool their heels for a spell. He thought something of the kind might have happened already.’

  Whether or not Golomb, a tough pragmatist and a founder of the Haganah who had tried to build better relations with the Irgun, ever contemplated such a plan, it did not come to fruition. Anyway, it would no longer be enough to satisfy the British. All the Mandate security services now had the Stern group in their sights. On 25 October, Giles Bey received a handwritten letter from a senior officer at British Forces headquarters in Palestine. The writer – whose signature is indecipherable – said that, as it now seemed unlikely that the group would be put away on criminal charges, the emergency regulations should be used to round them up.15 According to an internal CID memo, the Jewish Agency and ‘a responsible Revisionist leader’ were of the same opinion. A wanted list was drawn up with thirty-seven names on it; at the head of it was Stern, who was said to have ‘disappeared’ and was last reported to be in Metula, a village on the Lebanese border. On 6 November the police swooped, raiding a number of addresses and capturing fourteen of those on the wanted list. The accuracy of the intelligence suggested that someone inside the organization had supplied the information.16

  The round-up was prompted in part by the fact that intelligence reports were starting to put flesh on the bones of the rumours of Stern’s pro-Italian activities. ‘Information from a very large number of reliable sources has consistently affirmed that the Stern group’s policy was to ingratiate themselves with the Italians with the idea that should the Italians invade the country they would be backed as the dominant Jewish party,’ reported Harry Rice, Giles’s deputy at the CID, on 8 November 1940.17 This was a sensational claim. The full story of Stern’s international intrigues would turn out to be even more extraordinary.

  * Soffer spells it ‘Eylan’ in his report. Hebrew and Arabic names were phonetically transcribed and often appear in different forms in official documents.

  SEVEN

  ‘They Will Cover Your Memory with Spittle and Disgrace’

  The idea of an Italian alliance had been floating around since the early days of the war. It was planted by a man called Moshe Rothstein, a mysterious figure in a very murky story. Rothstein said that he was in contact with Italian secret agents and approached the Irgun with an interesting offer. He claimed that the Italians were keen on a partnership with some anti-British force in Palestine. The Irgun, with their nationalist and militaristic ideology and record of antipathy to the empire, seemed the perfect fit.

  It is unclear exactly when the initial approach was made. Irgun veterans would later say that the first overture was to David Raziel shortly after he emerged from Mazra’a in October 1939. Raziel treated it with extreme caution. He had, after all, agreed to cooperate with the British and although Mussolini had not yet signed up to Hitler’s war, cosying up to the Fascists could only be interpreted as a hostile act. There were also real doubts as to Rothstein’s bona fides. He had been hanging around the fringes of the Irgun since the early thirties when he lived in the Revisionist stronghold of Rosh Pinna. He had played little or no part in operations and how he came to be in touch with the Italian secret service was a mystery.

  Rothstein was lying about his Italian connection. He did, however, have a clandestine relationship with another intelligence service. He was closely involved with the Haganah’s Shai. The Haganah saw themselves as the legitimate defenders of the Yishuv and the Irgun as dangerous usurpers. They therefore had a strong interest in doing them down. The initial approach to Raziel seems to have been a provocation designed to generate black propaganda to be used, when appropriate, against their rivals.

  With Raziel’s decision to back the British and the subsequent improvement in relations between the Revisionists and the Yishuv’s leftist establishment, the Irgun appear to have taken over Rothstein and his plot and proceeded to run it against Stern. This was certainly how the CID interpreted events. ‘It has been known for some time that following the split which occurred in the IZL (Irgun) in the summer of 1940 and the subsequent formation of the Stern Group, the policy decided upon by the former organization to prevent further members from being enticed away to Stern’s programme … was to expose and emphasize his relations with a foreign power – ie Italy,’ wrote Alan Saunders to Chief Secretary Macpherson when summing up events at the end of 1941.

  ‘With this end in view certain Irgun leaders engineered a meeting between Stern and a person [i.e. Rothstein] … who introduced himself as being in touch with the Italians and able to negotiate on their behalf. Through this person the trick prospered for some time and served the double purpose of keeping the Irgun informed of Stern’s intentions regarding collaboration with the enemy and at the same time actually preventing the group from getting into touch with the Italians.’1

  The man manipulating the plot was probably Israel Pritzker, a senior figure in Irgun intelligence. Pritzker was on close terms with the CID and a copy of the proposed agreement between Stern and the Italians was soon in their hands.

  For all his academic brilliance, Stern could be remarkably gullible. He had been in prison at the time of Rothstein’s first appearance, which could explain his willingness to at least examine the bait that had been rejected by Raziel. His eagerness to bite on it, though, alarmed his lieutenants who warned that it could be a trap. Stern was unconcerned. He argued that, at worst, Rothstein was an agent provocateur, in which case the knowledge that the group was prepared to do a deal with the enemy might wring some concessions from the British. At best, he might be genuine.

  Italy was now on Palestine’s doorstep. A few days after the Italian air force bombed Tel Aviv on 9 September 1940, a large Italian army entered British-held Egypt, advancing sixty miles to construct a forward base. These developments appear to have encouraged Stern to believe that it might not be long before Fascist troops were marching into Palestine. If an Axis victory was imminent, it was a matter of urgency to have arrangements in place before Britain fell.

  Rothstein was in possession of what purported to be some draft proposals from the Italians. According to some Stern group survivors the document went back and forth with additions and amendments before being agreed. The result was the so-called ‘Jerusalem Agreement’. It was a very damaging document. For all his talk of a proud ‘Kingdom of Israel’, Stern seemed prepared to sacrifice sovereignty to the Fascists on several key matters. Under its terms, Italy would organize the transfer of Jews under Axis control to their homeland and provide the wherewithal for a Hebrew
army. The Jews would get a state – but it would be modelled on Mussolini’s Italy and built along corporatist, Fascist lines. Its foreign policy was to be identical to that of Rome, making the new Israel an Axis satellite. The Italian navy would be given Haifa as a base. The Old City of Jerusalem, the longed for, mystical heart of Judaism, would be, with the exception of the Jewish holy places, placed under Vatican control. There is no evidence that these proposals ever reached the Italians and their circulation was limited to the intelligence departments of the Irgun, the Haganah and the CID. Rothstein was eventually rumbled and Yaacov Levstein given the job of killing him. The career double-crosser was understandably prudent and moved lodgings constantly. When Levstein finally tracked him down the house was full of Rothstein’s relatives and ‘since we did not wish harm to innocent people we cancelled the operation’. Rothstein disappeared thereafter ‘and we never heard from him again’.2

  In attempting to strike a deal with the Fascists, Stern at least had the excuse of entrapment. But at the same time as the Rothstein affair was playing out he was engaged in another overture to a foreign power, one that was even more ruinous to his reputation and which was not prompted by the manipulations of an agent provocateur. The Italians were the junior partners in the Axis. The real masters of Europe were the Germans. It was they who held the fate of Europe’s Jews in their hands and it was they who had the means to deal Britain the death blow.

  Stern’s idea was a logical continuation of the process that he had begun so successfully with the Poles. If Poland could become a partner in the Irgun project, why not Germany? The principle was the same. They wanted rid of their Jews. Those struggling to bring about the rebirth of Israel needed them – to oppose the British and to populate the land. It was an equation that, in his eyes at least, seemed ripe with the possibilities of mutual benefit.

  At the end of September, a few weeks after the Anglo-Palestine Bank robbery, he sent an envoy to Beirut to make contact with the Germans. Since the fall of France, Lebanon had gone from being a friendly territory to an outpost of Vichy loyalists who were collaborating enthusiastically with the Italians and Germans. Both had diplomatic missions in Beirut. The man chosen for the mission was Naftali Lubentchik, a sophisticated Moscow-born polyglot (he spoke seven European languages) who was in charge of the Stern group’s finances. His job was to open lines of communication with the Nazis, but also to contact Italian officials to find out whether or not there was any substance to the Jerusalem Agreement pantomime.

  Levstein, who had been moved to Haifa to escape police heat following the Anglo-Palestine affair, was in charge of Lubentchik’s arrangements. He had dealings with Jewish and Arab smugglers who moved people and weapons between Haifa and Beirut. He had also found an ally in the French. Under the ‘confused conditions it was easy to obtain arms, even from the official French sources who wanted to be paid in hard currency,’ he wrote. ‘Those sources gladly supplied us with arms of all kinds, knowing that they were intended to attack their British enemy, thus combining French patriotism with profit making.’3 Lubentchik assumed the identity of a Maronite businessman who had been in Haifa to buy merchandise. He reached Beirut without trouble and soon made an appointment to see a visiting German diplomat, Werner Otto von Hentig.

  Von Hentig was head of the Foreign Ministry’s Levant section. He was a survivor from the pre-Nazi era who had served the Kaiser and the Weimar Republic and regarded himself as an honourable man untainted by anti-Semitism. He had been sent to Lebanon and Syria on a month-long fact-finding mission. His task was to check out reports that the French were treating German citizens in the area badly and also locking up pro-German Arabs. On arrival he chose to install himself in the unobtrusive Monopole Hotel rather than the swanky St George and was soon receiving a throng of supplicants seeking the Reich’s favour.

  ‘The most remarkable delegation came from Palestine itself,’ he wrote in his autobiography. It was led by ‘an exceptionally good-looking young officer type’.4 Von Hentig’s memory is faulty on this point and in fact Lubentchik was on his own. Many years later, at the age of ninety-seven, the diplomat gave a fuller version of the encounter to an Israeli journalist. ‘The Jewish young man made a fine impression,’ he told Shlomo Shamgar of Yedioth Ahronoth.5 ‘He was well dressed and had a gift for political persuasion. He told me of his anti-British organization and his willingness to join with the Reich to continue the war against the British. In exchange for participation in the war against the British, he proposed that the Reich help his organization establish a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael and allow the Jews from the occupied lands to make aliyah [immigrate] and settle in it.’

  The proposals drawn up by Stern were set out in a memorandum which carried the stamp of the ‘IZL in Israel’, which von Hentig passed to the Foreign Ministry.6 They were repeated in another document, dated 11 January 1941, drawn up by the German naval attaché in Ankara, Admiral Ralf von der Marwitz, and given to the German ambassador in Turkey who transmitted them to Berlin. How he came to hear of them is a mystery, though French intelligence may have tipped him off. In setting out his offer Stern was being economical with the truth. He left out the fact that ‘IZL in Israel’ was only a fragment of the original Irgun. This made his offer of help slightly more impressive. He was offering ‘active participation in the war on the German side’. The Nazis would have the use of his men, in the Middle East and Europe, to carry out sabotage and espionage operations against the British. His condition was that the ‘aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognised’. These were the establishment of an independent Jewish state in Palestine, populated by the Jews of German-occupied Europe who should be allowed free passage to emigrate there.7

  Von Hentig said he received no reply to the proposals before he left Beirut. On returning to Germany he asked Ernst von Weizsäcker, the deputy head of the Foreign Ministry, whether he had seen the memorandum. Von Weizsäcker ‘sharpened his gaze. “Do you really think the Reich could be interested in a Jewish state in [Palestine] when we are trying to win over the Arabs and Muslims to further our war aims?”’ he asked.

  It was a good question. The Germans had already made it clear that their strategy favoured the Arabs. German intelligence and military officials were at that moment working with Iraqi generals and the Mufti, who was now conducting his anti-British and anti-Jewish activities from Baghdad, involved in a conspiracy that would result a few months later in the overthrow of the British-installed Iraqi monarchy. More fundamentally, why did Stern think Hitler would be interested in anything that might bring long-term benefits to the Jews?

  Stern’s belief that a deal with the Germans was both desirable and possible was not a momentary aberration. He clung to it even when it was clear that it would not and could not lead anywhere. In the endless discussions that were an inescapable part of life in the underground, he drove home the distinction between an ‘enemy’ and an ‘oppressor’. The Jews’ enemy was the British who occupied their land and, as the White Paper proved, were now bent on blocking the establishment of a Jewish state. The Germans, for all their hatred and persecution of the Jews, were mere oppressors. Only by fighting the British could you hope to change their minds. Stern was not opposed to an understanding with them. But they would first have to recognize the leadership of the Yishuv as a temporary government that would establish an independent state at the end of the war, recognized by Britain. Until that happened, any collaboration was an act of treason.8

  It was some time before Lubentchik’s account of the episode reached Stern. It described how von Hentig had explained to him that there were two schools of thought among the German leadership regarding the Jewish question. Some took a realpolitik approach and proposed the expulsion of the Jews to some far-flung territory – Madagascar perhaps. The idealpolitik faction was committed to the total annihilation of European Jewry.9

  Despite the failure of Lubentchik’s mission, Stern continued to harbour hopes of an alliance, spinning fantasies of how
collaboration might work. Some were so wild that he shared them with only a chosen few. He confided to them a plan whereby he would offer ‘help divisions’ made up of tens of thousands of young European Jews to the Wehrmacht to fight with them against the British in North Africa. If the Germans never made it to Palestine, the ‘help divisions’ would then desert and head for the Holy Land. Such was his devotion to a deal with the devil that he was prepared to stand at the head of a quisling government, willingly accepting his inevitable assassination by Jewish patriots. This, he told a friend, ‘will be my sacrifice to the resurrection of the kingdom of Israel and the rescue of the Jewish nation’.10 Such suicidal visions may have seemed plausible to Stern himself but to most they were incomprehensible.

  Apologists would later claim that his policy was driven solely by the burning urge to pursue all means possible to rescue Europe’s Jews. But Stern’s own words suggest that his main motive was to obtain the manpower for the conquest of Palestine. ‘All we want of the Germans is to enable us to transfer this army to the coasts of Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel], and the war against the British to liberate the homeland will begin here,’ he declared to an old comrade, Yaacov Orenstein. ‘The Jews will attain a state, and the Germans will, incidentally, be rid of an important British base in the Middle East, and also solve the Jewish question in Europe.’11