Was Göring's brother half-Jewish and did he save Jews?

Gerhard Spörl @ Spiegel: Göring's List: Should Israel Honor a Leading Nazi's Brother?

Leading Nazi Hermann Göring was instrumental to Hitler's reign of terror, but research suggests his brother Albert saved the lives of dozens of Jews. Israel must now decide whether he deserves to be honored as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations." [...]

But why did Albert Göring help those in need in the first place? There are no written documents describing his motivation for helping people in trouble. It is clear that the Hitler cult of personality was repugnant to him. His brother was the antipode, and his two sisters were married to ardent Nazis.

Albert was the exception in the family, an outsider who was respected and derided at the same time. There is, however, a story in his biography that lends a grotesque twist to this case of the unsung hero. According to a relative who prefers to remain anonymous, it was an open secret in the family that Albert was in fact only a half-brother. He was allegedly the product of an affair between his mother, Franziska, or Fanny, and the Göring family's wealthy physician. In fact, photos show a resemblance between Albert and the doctor, Hermann von Epenstein. Epenstein was rich and sophisticated, and he owned two castles, one in the Franconia region of Bavaria and one in the Austrian state of Salzburg. He was also of Jewish origin. If Epenstein was the father, Albert Göring, according to Nazi Rassenlehre (racial theory), was a "Jewish mongrel." Some might interpret this aspect of the family history as a motive for Albert Göring to rescue victims of the Nazis instead of becoming a Nazi himself or leading a life of luxury in his brother's shadow.

His life in Third Reich was certainly not without danger because it was possible to exploit the knowledge of his origins. But the Gestapo apparently did not discover the family secret, or else it would have caused more trouble for both Albert and Hermann Göring.

Long tradition of disrupting Israeli speakers in German universities

"Beat Zionists dead, make the Near East red"

Die Bombe im Jüdischen Gemeindehaus, by Wolfgang Kraushaar, Hamburger Edition HIS Verlagsges, 300 pp., 2005. Reviewed by Manfred Gerstenfeld (October 1, 2006). Extract:

Left-Wing Anti-Semites at Universities

Contemporary commentators often think that the twenty-first-century efforts to prevent or disturb the appearances of Israeli speakers at universities are innovative.

Kraushaar devotes an entire chapter to the experiences of Asher Ben Nathan [photo], the first Israeli ambassador to Germany, at the country’s universities. He was shouted down in June 1969 at Frankfurt University by members of the leftist student group SDS, Palestinians, and leftist Israelis from the Matzpen group. Two days later, Ben Nathan was unable to finish his lecture at Hamburg University because of the many interruptions. When the ambassador wanted to speak in September that year in Berlin, he was told that the climate at both the Free and the Technical universities was such that he should not do so. He then spoke at a meeting organized by the young Christian Democrats. Before the meeting, a leftist publication attacked Ben Nathan in a way that Kraushaar interprets as an invitation to carry out an attempt on the Israeli ambassador’s life. Ben Nathan’s lecture at Munich University in December of that year was also severely disrupted. One poster in the auditorium carried the words: "Only when bombs explode in 50 supermarkets in Israel will there be peace".

There are also other examples besides those Kraushaar mentions of left-wing Germans pioneering extremist actions against Israelis. A case in point is that of Internationale Solidarität, an ad hoc group established to prevent the vice-chancellor of the Hebrew University from addressing a meeting at Kiel University. A leaflet distributed by Internationale Solidarität concluded with the slogan, "Schlagt die Zionisten tot, macht den Nahen Osten rot" (Beat Zionists dead, make the Near East red).[1]

After Ben Nathan ended his ambassadorship, he wrote a book on the letters he had received while in Germany. The German boulevard paper Bild-Zeitung thereupon asked for letters of solidarity with Israel and Ben Nathan. The latter on that occasion also received many anti-Semitic letters, both from the Left and the Right.

An important formative influence on the ideology of many left-wing students was that of the philosophers of the Frankfurt school. One of its prominent members, Theodor W. Adorno, a Jew, wrote a letter in 1969 to his former colleague, Herbert Marcuse, in whose works many of the student leaders of the Paris disturbances sought inspiration. Adorno said he was extremely depressed and afraid that the German student movement would become fascist. He added: "You only have to look into the maniacally frozen eyes of those who probably, basing themselves on us, turn their anger against us".  Kraushaar concludes that apparently Adorno at the time did not want to make this letter public.

Berlin Film Festival Peace Prize winner questions Israel's right of existence

Israeli Berlin correspondent Eldad Beck told EJP that he was disgusted with the “overtly anti-Israeli” undertone which Fleifel portrayed in his film because he knew that it would be seen as harmless by the average viewer. What disturbed him most, however, was the lack of sensitivity and judgment which the patrons of the film prize showed. [...] The film's title was inspired by the novel of Palestinian activist Ghassan Kanafani. Kanafani, a former spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was implicated in the 1972 Lod Airport massacre carried out by members of the Japanese Red Army. 26 people were killed in the attack.  (Amazingly the Festival is supported by the International Auschwitz Committee...)

Oliver Bradley @ BERLIN (EJP)--- Criticism against Danish-Palestinian film director Mahdi Fleifel is growing after he publicly questioned Israel's legitimacy, only days after receiving the Peace Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. The jury of the Peace Film Award (PFA) honored Fleifel's autobiographical documentary, 'A World Not Ours', for its “social-political and humanistic” background.

Jury-members were impressed with Fleifel's depictions of “hopelessness and isolation... free from the unusual patterns classifying the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians”. The jury recognized Fleifel's film as a “plea for a new peace process in the Middle East... at a time where more and more people around the world have to live in refugee camps”. But the jury members apparently did not listened to the public Q&A sessions which followed the public screenings. The simplified yet extenuated appraisals which Fleifel projects in his film - implicating Israel with sole responsibility for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem or lack of any kind of sympathy during his visit Yad Vashem memorial – is tempered through the documentary's tragic yet “heartwarming” humor that could easily win over the hearts of a non-critical moviegoer.

But the ensuing Q&A revealed Fleifel's true intentions of “creating a cliché-ridden narrative”, as one moviegoer put it, “with an overt anti-Israeli sentiment which would have disqualified the film from any sort of peace prize – had the judges remained put for several minutes after the film's screening”. At the public Q&A Fleifel did not recognize Jewish legitimacy to their biblical homeland. He also made a plea for the right of Palestinian refugees to be able to return within the 1967 borders of Israel.

Typical of EU: Patience Runs Out: EU To Crack Down on Israeli Settlement Products

Unsurprisingly Europeans are obsessed with Israel - negatively of course - it is not the 26 million unemployed, the poverty and other problems besetting Europe -  it's Israel.

Der Spiegel has the story: Israeli settlers living in the Palestinian terroritories often deceptively give their products a "Made in Israel" label. The European Union wants to move soon to end the practice and appears to be set on a collision course with the country.  Continue reading.

Germany: Bla.la, the anti-Israel on-line dictionary (updated)

Updated February 8, 2013:
Wall:  "Indeed, the victory of the Palestinian people rises higher than the Israeli wall."

To annihilate:  "Israel has been pursuing a scorched-earth policy to annihilate the Palestinian people." (Thanks to Adam Levick)

______
Elyes Kahn @ JSS wrote an article about an on-line dictionary created by three young Germans.  The dictionnary - Bla.la offers translations and usage examples.  And many of the usage examples are anti-Israel.  

Founding members: Andreas Schroeter, Thomas Schroeter, Patrick Uecker

Here are two examples of how to use and understand the word "greedy":
- Israel continued its greedy seizure of Arab territories.
- In truth, Sharon wanted to seize Palestinian land and annex it to Israel in order to satisfy his greedy desires.

Isn't this a beautiful image?  How could one imagine to explain the word "greedy" without referring to Jews and Israel?  Isn't it beautifully and audaciously put: "In truth, Sharon wanted to seize Palestinian land and annex it to Israel in order to satisfy his greedy desires."   

And to emphasise  their greediness, the following example is:  "And you will undoubtedly find them the greediest of all people for life, (more greedy) than even those who associate partners with God."  Surprisingly translated into French:   "Et Allah connaît bien les injustes."  

Wall:

"The construction of the separation wall violated every right of the Palestinians."

Ghetto:

"This has walled in Palestinian cities, towns and villages and transformed them into massive prisons and ghettos."

"How much longer would the United Nations continue to tolerate the new string of Warsaw ghettoes that the Occupied Palestinian Territory had become?"

"Generation upon generation of Palestinian children have never had a home other than the ghettos and camps that they have occupied throughout the world."

New book exposes indifference to Nazis after World War II

A lot has been written about the Holocaust and its perpetrators, but very little about the many Nazis who escaped all form of punishment.  It was left to the victims, like Simon Wiesenthal, who with his wife had lost 90 members of his family, to go after their tormentors and killers. Even those who were tried were treated with astonishing leniency.  That was the case of the infamous Edmund Veesenmayer, a German politician, officer (SS-Brigadeführer) and war criminal. He significantly contributed to The Holocaust in Hungary and Croatia. He was a subordinate of Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Joachim von Ribbentrop; and collaborated with Adolf Eichmann in Hungary. Veesenmeyer was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment in 1949, which was reduced to 10 years in 1951. He was released on December 16 of the same year, having served almost 6 minutes for each murder that he was responsible for (500,000 victims).

Algemeiner: A new book claims that governments around the world were unwilling to track down Nazi criminals in the wake of World War II because of “vested interests.”

The UK’s Daily Mail writes that “Nazi Hunt: South America’s Dictatorships and the Avenging of Nazi Crimes,” by German historian Daniel Stahl [1], calls the half-hearted efforts of postwar governments a ‘coalition of the unwilling.’

Stahl writes that the French feared prosecutions would expose their collaboration during the war, the South Americans feared a spotlight on their own murderous regimes and the West Germans wanted to help ‘old comrades’ get away.

The Daily Mail article refers specifically to Joseph Mengele, “The Angel of Death,” Gustav Wagner, responsible for 150,000 deaths at the Nazi extermination camp of Sobibor and S.S. Colonel Walther Rauff, one of the developers of the mobile ‘gas vans’ used to kill Jews before the static death camp gulag was built.

Even Interpol, the international criminal police organization, failed to aid in tracking down the Nazis.

Interpol secretary general Marcel Sicot, responding to a request in 1962 from Jewish organizations to more vigorously track them down, said: “Why should war criminals be prosecuted since the victor always imposes his laws, anyway?”

“No international entity defines the term ‘war criminal.’” Sicot said he regarded the criminal prosecution of Nazi crimes as “victor’s justice.”

Poll: Majority of Germans see Israel as 'aggressive'

What a surprise.  Germans don't like Jews/Israel, they are not happy with their Muslim population. Germans  are a reflection of what Europe has become.  European Jews are incapable of changing the situation - they can complain, hope, pray, be alarmed, but poll after poll show what the reality is.

Head of Germany’s Jews alarmed about negative view of Israel, rejection of responsibility toward Jewish state by Germans.  Source: JPost, by Benjamin Weinthal, Berlin.

Dr. Dieter Graumann, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the mass circulation Bild newspaper on Thursday that he is “worried and sad” about a new poll that revealed a solid majority (59 percent) of Germans view Israel as an “aggressive” country and reject a special responsibility toward the Jewish state because of the Holocaust. 

The Stern magazine poll was published on Wednesday and the anti-Israel sentiments expressed among a broad swath of Germans troubled Graumann. He said he “wishes more understanding and less coldness” for the Jewish state “in view of the permanent existential threat that Israel faces.” Forsa, a polling agency, conducted the survey for Stern in advance of the visit of Germany’s new president Joachim Gauck to Israel and the Palestinian territories between May 28 and 31. According to the Stern poll, 60% of Germans believe that the Federal Republic has no responsibility toward Israel because of the crimes of the Holocaust. A mere 33% of those questioned agree that Germany has a responsibility because of the Holocaust.

Graumann said,“Of course, the results make me worried and sad.” He added, however, that resignation is not an option and “We must make it clearer that Germany and Israel share a real community of values, which is based on democracy, freedom and tolerance.” The Stern poll showed that 70% of Germans believe Israel pursues its interests without consideration for other peoples. In contrast to a 2009 poll, the recent Stern survey showed an 11% increase in German attitudes toward Israel pursing its own interests at the expense of other groups. A strong majority—65%--said Germany should recognize an independent Palestinian state.

Israel-bashing: Norwegian Church Minister in Jerusalem to open Gullvåg exhibition

German-Norwegian perfect cooperation!

"Requiem for the children of Gaza" (9 metres wide)

Source: Norway, Israel and the Jews 

Ministry of  Government Administration, Reform, and Church Affairs
Press release 2011 12 02 (No signature)

The Minister of Government administration, reform and church affairs, Rigmor Aasrud,  is to visit Jerusalem.

She will speak to religious leaders on Israeli and Palestinian side, and visit religious sites.

Among her visits, one will be a visit to the Augusta Victoria church [German Hospital and church ("Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ascension") on the north side of Mount of Olives]in Jerusalem, to see an exhibit by Norwegian artist Håkon Gullvåg; which will open on December the 16^th. The exhibition is sponsored by the Norwegian Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church, The Country Municipality of Sør- Trøndelag (the first  and only county council that adopted a boycott Israel motion), the Municipality of Trondheim, (which regularly sponsors pro-Arab, anti-Israel art), Fagforbundet i Trondheim, the  local union chapter that asked  The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) in Trondheim to convert the Mai 1 Labour Day parade into a Pro-Palestinian event. The fourth sponsor is a commercial bank who to my knowledge maintains impeccable neutrality to preserve its commercial reputation. However, three out of 4 sponsors are rabid anti-Israeli’s all coming form what now appears to be the hub of anti-Israel political initiatives in Norway, with the NTNU being their standard bearer.

Mr. Gullvåg is the artist who got the hump when the French Cultural Center in Damascus took down some of his paintings exhibited for the Terra Sancta exhibition. Censure, he furiously claimed, until confronted with the reality that his blood tainted pictures were not deemed sufficiently anti-Israel by the Damascus art lovers.

Ian Kershaw on the Last Days of the Third Reich: 'Hitler's Influence Was Fatal'

"SPIEGEL: You write that the German arms industry produced its largest volume of weapons in December 1944, despite the devastating bombing war.

Kershaw: Without Speer's ability to maintain arms production under the most adverse circumstances, the war would have ended much earlier. Until the Ardennes Offensive, he and his people performed veritable miracles when it came to producing ammunition. There is no other way of putting it."

In a SPIEGEL interview, the best-selling British historian Ian Kershaw talks about the last days of the Third Reich, why the Germans persevered when it was clear that all was lost and the devastating consequences of the failed July 20, 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler.

SPIEGEL: Professor Kershaw, you have spent the last three years studying the collapse of Nazi Germany. In the end, are we left to shake our heads in amazement at the absurdity of the final phase, or do you, as a historian, also feel something akin to admiration for the perseverance of the Germans?

Kershaw: The head-shaking predominates, at any rate. I'm convinced that we English would have given up much earlier. It's certainly unusual for a country to continue fighting to the point of complete self-destruction. It's the sort of thing we usually see in civil wars, but not in conflicts in which hostile nations are at war with one another.

SPIEGEL: The question of why the Germans persevered for so long is the starting point of your new book. What would have been the obvious thing to do?

Kershaw: In any armed conflict, there is eventually a point at which one side realizes that it's over. If the people in power don't give up but instead continue to plunge the country into ruin, there is either a revolution from below, as was the case in Germany and Russia near the end of World War I, or there is a coup by the elites, who attempt to save what can still be saved. An example of that is the overthrow of Benito Mussolini in Italy in July 1943.
Read the whole piece :
Part 1: 'Hitler's Influence Was Fatal'

• Part 2: 'There Was Something Typically German about It'

Young Jewish artists in Germany boldly define the 'New Jew'

Source: Spiegel on Line

Monsters occasionally assume a completely unexpected appearance. All of a sudden, Adolf Hitler is standing onstage wearing an Adidas tracksuit and flip-flops, and his name isn't Hitler; it's Oliver Polak. And the monster isn't really Adolf Hitler, either; it's the audience's laughter. It starts with a sputter, like something trying to break free from its restraints. But then it bursts out as if suddenly liberated. 

These are the moments in which Polak has gotten very close to the truth. It's a complicated truth because it has to do with something that became a given long ago: that Germans are supposed to be ashamed and sad about what they did to the Jews. And somehow that was also enough.

But what happens when someone stands onstage at a comedy club in Berlin making jokes about Jews and the Holocaust? When the mere mention of the railway system triggers a segue into the subject of deportations? When he slyly adds: "I'm allowed to do that. I'm a Jew." And when his audience primarily laughs because it isn't quite sure whether it's even OK to laugh?

The 'New Jew' Movement
Polak is a comedian. A few weeks after his show, the 35-year-old is sitting in a friend's apartment in Berlin's downtown Mitte district. Darkness is slowly descending on the street outside.

70 years ago the Mufti of Jerusalem arrived in Nazi Germany

"Germany stands for an uncompromising struggle against the Jews. It is self-evident that the struggle against the Jewish national homeland in Palestine forms part of this struggle, since such a national homeland would be nothing other than a political base for the destructive influence of Jewish interests. Germany also knows that the claim that Jewry plays the role of an economic pioneer in Palestine is a lie. Only the Arabs work there, not the Jews. Germany is determined to call on the European nations one by one to solve the Jewish problem and, at the proper moment, to address the same appeal to non-European peoples."—Adolf Hitler to Haj Amin Al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, November 28, 1941

On 6 November 1941, the Führer of the Arabs arrived in Berlin and was welcomed by the Führer of the Germans.

Source: The Hoover Institute (The Mufti and the Holocaust - John Rosenthal on Der Mufti von Jerusalem und die Nationalsozialisten by Klaus Gensicke)

The persistence of widespread Judeophobia in the Muslim world is hardly a matter of dispute, even if many commentators are inclined to dismiss it as merely an “understandable” reaction to Israeli “oppression.” Among those who take the phenomenon seriously, however, a debate has been taking place of late about its origins. The debate has been spurred on, notably, by the publication in English translation of the German political scientist Matthias Küntzel’s book Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11. The central thesis of Küntzel’s book is that anti-Semitism — or, more precisely, modern anti-Semitism as crystallized in the “Jewish world conspiracy” theory — was largely imported into the Muslim world from Nazi Germany.

Now, one might have expected that opponents of Islamism would welcome a book showing the direct influence of the Third Reich upon the development of the Islamist movement and, most notably, on the Muslim Brotherhood, the pivotal organization in its history. In normal political discourse, after all, pointing out the links of an organization or movement to National Socialism does not exactly constitute an endorsement. Ironically, however, Küntzel’s book has been most roundly criticized — indeed outright denounced — by precisely the most adamant foes of Islamic extremism. For the most part self-styled experts in Islam, the latter have insisted, as against Küntzel’s thesis, that Muslim anti-Semitism is, in effect, a strictly Muslim affair.

The Gensicke volume provides considerable support for the thesis that “native” Islamic sources of anti-Semitism are primordial in Muslim or Arab anti-Semitism.

Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and the “father” of Palestinian radicalism, is obviously a key figure for such debates. As is well known, from 1941 to 1945 Husseini lived in Berlin as the honored guest of Nazi Germany. During this time, he notably collaborated with the Nazis in assembling the Muslim ss division “Handzar” in Bosnia, as well as in numerous propaganda activities aimed at Arab speakers. Whereas the facts of Husseini’s collaboration with the Nazis are widely known, what is less know, however, is the degree to which the mufti was influenced by or indeed himself influenced his hosts on an ideological and programmatic level. But a new book by German historian Klaus Gensicke titled Der Mufti von Jerusalem und die Nationalsozialisten — “The Mufti of Jerusalem and the National Socialists” — sheds light on precisely this question. Based largely on primary source materials from the German archives, Gensicke’s volume provides unparalleled insight into the details of the mufti’s relationship to his Nazi hosts: at least as seen from the German side.

More HERE

Germans use ‘anti-Israel’ Jews to soothe Holocaust guilt

Source: TJP, article by Benjamin Weinthal

Analysis: What mechanisms are causing some German educators, students, EVZ foundation employees to turn Israel into whipping boy for Europe’s guilt?

BERLIN – The Jerusalem Post exposé on the German Holocaust foundation Remembrance, Responsibility, Future (EVZ) in late September and October revealed that two of its Holocaust high school student programs were being fueled by hatred of the Jewish state.

What social and psychological mechanisms are causing some German educators, students and EVZ foundation employees to marginalize the Holocaust and turn the State of Israel into a public whipping boy for Europe’s guilt about the crimes of the Shoah?

In a series of interviews with leading Israeli and Dutch specialists last week and on Sunday, the Post examined the need of many Europeans to expunge feelings of culpability about the memory of their ancestors’ complicity in the Holocaust.

The EVZ used 38,690 euros ($53,687) to finance studentexchange programs in 2010- 2011, in which Israel was equated with the former repressive Stalinist East German state, and students published crude cartoons of Jews in a brochure. German taxpayer monies funded the speaking engagement of a hardcore anti-Israel Holocaust survivor, Hajo Meyer, at the Anne Frank high school in Gütersloh.

During Meyer’s talk with the students, he termed Israel a “criminal state” and equated the suffering of Palestinians to the persecution and mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust.

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, the chairman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs who authored a book on the abuse of the memory of the Holocaust, said that “comparing Palestinians with Shoah victims is part of the much broader distortion category of Holocaust inversion. These inverters portray Jews as Nazis. The few such Jewish ideological perverts get publicity because many more non-Jews want to hear these things from Jews.”

Gerstenfeld, who was raised in Holland and is an expert on modern European anti-Semitism, cited the writer Leon de Winter’s views about the “falsifiers of history” who impose higher ethical standards on Jews because of the Holocaust. “The writer Leon de Winter once said to me: ‘They present the Shoah as an educational institute for Jews to teach Jewish morals. In other words, the Nazis held courses in the concentration camps in order to imbue Jews with humanity,’” added Gerstenfeld.

German law-maker makes organ trafficking accusation against a "rich Israeli"

Source: JSS

Arte, a French-German TV channel, held a debate on 29 Setember on illegal human organ trafficking.

When asked if they were aware of organ trafficking cases in Europe, the French guest replied that she estimated that there had been 4 ou 5 in France in 2010.

The other guest, German Member of the European Parliament Dr Peter Liese (Christian Democrat) eagerly replied that to his knowledge there had been only one in Germany: "a rich Israeli who had had an organ from a poor Moldavian peasant".

Organ trafficking. Poor Moldavian peasant. Rich Israeli.

Is Germany a true friend of Israel?

Next month, Chancellor Merkel faces the easiest human rights test in Germany’s post-war history. The Germans can continue to embarrass themselves by supporting a UN-sponsored anti-Semitic lynch mob in the guise of a rally against racism, or they can walk out.

See also: Berlin still has not pulled out of ‘anti-Israel’ Durban III, Anne Bayefsky

German parliament continues to court Israel’s most despicable foes in Tehran, by Benjamin Weinthal

Next month, New York will host an event marking the 10th anniversary of another dark hour, the notorious UN-sponsored Durban world conference on racism, which became a platform for some of the world’s worst human rights abusers to call for Israel’s destruction.

On September 22, the UN will welcome representatives from 186 of the 193 member countries for the third meeting of the Durban process. At the second Durban conference in Geneva in 2009, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust and proclaimed the Jewish state “illegitimate” and “criminal.”
He called for the obliteration of Israel and Zionism, declaring "Governments must be encouraged and supported in their fights at eradicating this barbaric racism. Efforts must be made to put an end to Zionism."  Iran's despot used his UN stage to voice his oft-repeated denial of the Holocaust, saying that Israel was "created on the pretext of Jewish suffering from World War II."  Sadly, but unsurprisingly, he is expected to speak again next month in New York.

While the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and naturally Israel have declined to attend an event whose participants call for the elimination of a UN member, Germany will send its diplomats to the third Durban conference, as its parliament continues to court Israel’s most despicable foes in Tehran.

Protestant Church Said Eichmann Was 'Kind-Hearted'

Records Reveal Warm Words for Holocaust Organizer

Source: Spiegel

Protestant church officials in Austria and Germany lobbied the West German government to try to help Adolf Eichmann, one of the main organizers of the Holocaust, after his arrest by Israeli agents in 1960. One church leader described Eichmann as "fundamentally decent" and "kind-hearted."

The German Protestant Church put in a good word for Adolf Eichmann, the chief logistics organizer of the Holocaust, after his arrest in Argentina by Israeli agents in 1960, SPIEGEL has learned.

The Superintendent of the Protestant Church for Upper Austria, Wilhelm Mensing-Braun, based in the Austrian city of Linz were Eichmann was born, wrote a letter to the foreign affairs department of the Evangelical Church in Germany in Frankfurt claiming that the mass murderer "had a fundamentally decent disposition," was "kind-hearted," and was characterized by "great helpfulness."

At that time, Eichmann was about to be put on trial in Jerusalem for crimes against humanity.

Braun went on that he could not imagine that the former SS officer "would ever have been capable of cruelty or criminal acts."

Eichmann's family had enlisted Mensing-Braun's help because they wanted Eichmann to be tried by an international court rather than an Israeli one.

Lobbying for Eichmann
Bishop Hermann Kunst, the representative of the Evangelical Church at the West German government, passed the letter on to the German foreign ministry with the note that the assessment was "at least interesting."

Berlin still has not pulled out of ‘anti-Israel’ Durban III

“Germany’s behavior toward the UN’s Durban III conference raises serious questions about its commitment to combat modern anti-Semitism. As an event which will commemorate the hatefest held in Durban in 2001, and its Durban Declaration, which singles out only one country on Earth – the Jewish state – it is shocking that Germany has not refused unequivocally to withdraw in solidarity with Israel, the United States, Canada, Italy and other European nations.” Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro College Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Source: JPost by Benjamin Weinthal

Germany’s Foreign Ministry is moving forward with preparations for the September Durban III anti-racism conference in New York City, a UN-sponsored event that presumably will single out Israel for attacks, as have previous “Durban” events.

In addition, speaking last week in the UN Security Council, a German Foreign Ministry undersecretary blasted Israel for its construction of settlements in the West Bank.

When asked if Germany planned to participate in Durban III, a German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told The Jerusalem Post on Friday that the federal government “will decide on its participation in the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the international racism conference in light of the ongoing preparatory negotiations.”  The spokeswoman added that the German government was “against racism and all other forms of discrimination.  In the context of the international racism conference, [Germany] works to ensure that no individual countries are separately pilloried.”

Last April, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to repair relations that had been strained by Berlin’s criticism of the way Israel has been addressing the Middle East peace process. There were also reports of heated exchanges between the two leaders.

Germany: passionate about Jew-hate

In Europe nowadays one finds communists, greens/ecologists, far-rightists and in France there is even an anti-Zionist party ... nothing really changes!

" Left Party’s politicians and supporters get so riled up about Israel but remain awfully silent about countries where real human rights abuses are unfolding: Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, and the list continues."

"In 2003, Christian Democratic Union MP Martin Hohmann called Jews a “race of perpetrators” and argued that their involvement in the Russian Revolution of 1917 exculpates German atrocities during the Holocaust. Following this perverse line of reasoning, both Germans and Jews committed crimes against humanity."

Source: Ynet Germany's Left Party hard on Israel, remains silent on real human rights abusers, Benjamin Weinthal

Germany’s Left Party passed a resolution earlier this month barring the party’s parliamentary representatives and employees from participating in the upcoming flotilla to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, which remains under the control of the terrorist organization Hamas. Despite the resolution - which also calls for an end to boycotts of Israeli products and demands for the dissolution of the Jewish state - the Left Party remains in denial about anti-Semitism in its ranks.

According to a German study, “Anti-Semites as a Coalition Partner” released last month, “A power has established itself within the parliamentary spectrum of the Left Party, which tolerates anti-Semitic positions.”

In their groundbreaking investigation, Political scientists Samuel Salzborn from the University of Giessen and Sebastian Voigt from the University of Leipzig sharply criticized the entrenched left-wing anti-Israel attitudes within the Left Party.

The Left Party is Continental Europe’s best organized and largest anti-Israel party, and it has over the years promoted efforts to dismantle the Jewish state. The group’s local branches in the German cities of Duisburg and Bremen called for boycotts of the Jewish state. Hermann Dierkes, a city councilman for the Left Party in Duisburg, termed Israel’s right to exist “petty.”

Last year, Left Party city councilwoman Erika Zemaitis voted against funds to build a new Synagogue in the city of Herford, to replace one the Nazis had torched in 1938. The party’s foreign policy spokesman, MP Wolfgang Gehrcke, has participated in demonstrations in support of the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

In May 2010, two Left Party parliamentarians, Inge Höger and Annette Groth, joined a group of radical Turkish Islamists aboard the Mavi Marmara vessel, to violate Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza. When they returned, along with former party foreign policy spokesman and MP Norman Paech, who came along for the ride, Left Party leaders gave them a hero’s welcome in Berlin.

German humanism: Germany To Spend 73 Million Euros In Gaza Projects

Does Germany care really about Gilad Shalit?

BERNAMA - Germany To Spend 73 Million Euros In Gaza Projects

GAZA, June 14 (Bernama) -- Germany will provide 73 million euros (about US$105 million) to support projects in the Gaza Strip, its Minister ...

Wonderful and generous Europe:

5-star hotel opens in Gaza under Spanish management

Exposing anti-Israel political activities of German NGO Medico Int'l and BtS

"The German Foreign Ministry – as with other European foreign ministries – should more closely monitor and evaluate how its funding to various NGOs is actually utilized. Groups that receive Foreign Ministry funding should not utilize it in a manner that contradicts the official policies of the government or contradicts the NGOs’ own stated mission and principles."

Source: Jerusalem Post (German NGO Medico International funded Breaking the Silence book presentation in Ramallah where Israeli audiences cannot attend)

BERLIN – Controversy is swirling around the German NGO Medico International for its financial support of the Israel-based NGO Breaking the Silence, including its support for a planned – but subsequently canceled – book presentation on Tuesday in Ramallah.

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the president of the Jerusalem-based human rights watchdog organization, NGO Monitor, told The Jerusalem Post before the cancellation that, “This specific event in Ramallah – funded by a German NGO – highlights Breaking the Silence’s facade. The organization presents itself as a grassroots NGO, directed towards Israeli audiences, but many of its events take place outside of Israel, using funding from European governments and the New Israel Fund.

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Even the name itself is misleading – there is rigorous debate in Israel about IDF actions, and there certainly is no ‘silence’ about Israel to break in Ramallah.”

Medico International, a health-services provider, was listed as a sponsor of Breaking the Silence’s book presentation, according to a posting on the website of the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA).

The AIDA website notice read: “Medico International has been a partner of Breaking the Silence since 2009, and we would be honored if you can come to the book presentation.”

"Remarkable" outbreak of anti-semitism in Germany and in Europe

“The new anti-Semitism is spread not just by neo-Nazis but also by mainstream left-wing members of parliament, left-wing activists, extremist Muslims and the European elites likewise.” ( Dr. Clemens Heni)

Asked whether “Jews try to take advantage of having been victims during the Nazi era.”  Almost half the Germans questioned responded in the affirmative; the country’s 48.9% result was the highest among the Western European countries. The Netherlands provided the lowest percentage, with 17.2% affirming that Jews were trying to exploit the Nazi era. The number for Poland was 72.2%, and Hungary reached 68.1%. France reached 32.3%, England 21.8%, Portugal 52.2% [there are less than 1.000 Jews left in Portugal] and Italy 40.2%.

See also : An amazing 77% of Germans are hostile to Israel 

Source: JPost ('47% of Germans think Israel exterminating Palestinians', by Benjamin Weinthal)

Study shows a strong presence of “anti-Semitism that is linked with Israel and is hidden behind criticism of Israel" in Europe.

BERLIN – A think-tank affiliated with Germany’s Social Democratic Party issued a new report last week that revealed high levels of anti-Semitism in Germany, Poland and Hungary, as well as varying manifestations of racism, homophobia and prejudice in eight European countries.

Dr. Beate Küpper, a researcher from the University of Bielefeld who co-authored the Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s study along with her colleagues Andreas Zick and Andreas Hoevermann, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that the study showed a strong presence of “anti-Semitism that is linked with Israel and is hidden behind criticism of Israel, and is not neutral.”  She termed the outbreak of Jew-hatred in Germany “remarkable” because there were widespread Holocaust remembrance and education events in Germany.

The study – “Intolerance, Prejudice, Discrimination: A European Report” – questioned roughly 1,000 people in each of the selected EU countries.  The investigation was limited to Great Britain, Holland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Poland and France due to financial restrictions and requisite expertise in each country to track anti-democratic attitudes, according to Küpper.

Asked to respond to the statement that “Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians,” 47.7 percent of the study’s participants in Germany expressed agreement – the highest number in Western Europe.  The statement is a typical question used to probe attitudes about equating Israel with the Nazi campaign to exterminate European Jewry.  The US State Department defines the comparison as an expression of modern anti- Semitism, as does the European Union.

Given Poland’s lukewarm foreign policy toward Israel, the finding that 63.3% of the Poles questioned agree that Israel is seeking to obliterate Palestinians may be deeply alarming to some.

The statement “Considering Israel’s policy, I can understand why people do not like Jews” met with 35.6% affirmation in Germany, while 35.9% of British respondents were in agreement. In the Netherlands, 41.1% favored the assertion, as did 55.2% in Poland, 45.6% in Hungary and 48.8% in Portugal. France declined to participate.