The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Secret Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine

This book included information about those who supported the Jewish effort to escape continual discrimination as well as those who wanted to make money from the effort, for personal gain. Not every Jew agreed with the idea of creating a homeland.The book also tells of how the Germans were more than willing to work with the Jews even to the point of rounding up and jailing "hooligans" who only wanted to persecute them. In spite of the information one learns about the war, according to the author's research only a relatively small number of Jews were saved in the process of transference to Palestine. If you love world history, this book is full of details which are not included in historical WWII history and covers a very important time during WWII.

This scholarly, fact-filled book tells of such things as western European Jews looking down upon the Ostjuden (p. 4), the American-Jewish founding of the NAACP and the ACLU (p. 40), Jews in Mussolini's Fascist government (pp. 61-62), large Jewish-led boycotts against tsarist Russia and against Henry Ford (pp. 26-33; the latter of whom caved). Ironically, such boycotts played into the hands of those who portrayed Jews as powerful. Some Jewish leaders opposed them in part because of possible ineffectiveness or backfiring. (p. 21, 272). [Moshe Shonfeld, in his THE HOLOCAUST VICTIMS ACCUSE, goes as far as reckoning the boycott of Hitler a tragic miscalculation that radicalized Nazism, prompting Hitler to up the ante by taking Europe's Jews hostage and eventually retaliating collectively against them through genocide.] Hitler successfully blamed the Versailles accords for Germany's problems, and they are, to this day, sometimes invoked as an excuse for his rise to power. In actually, such things as WWI-era hunger (p. 21) and part of post-WWI German economic problems (p. 24) were caused by German policies themselves. The Versailles accords themselves were, far from exceptionally harsh and unprecedented, at worst comparable to German policies against, for example, vanquished Russia: "Lenin was forced to submit his new nation to the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Its terms defrocked Russia of a third of her farmland...a third of her railroads...half her industrial capacity..." (p. 22). Early Zionism had a pronounced German geopolitical orientation. (p. 121). Those who try to marginalize the 1933 Zionist-Nazi accord point out the fact that only 1-2% of pre-WWII German Jews supported ANY form of Zionism. Black agrees with this percentage (p. 35, 168), but highlights the effectiveness of a small number of influential people (p. 250), and notes that the overwhelming opposition of German Jews to Zionism stemmed primarily from their deeply-rooted attachment to Germany. Among religious Jews, there was also the belief that only the Messiah could restore Israel. Ironically, among Zionist factions, the Mapai were the ones that struck the deal with the Nazis (p. 158) while the Revisionists, supporting the boycott all along, had a fascist ideology, and its paramilitary branch (Betar) even used Nazi-style uniforms and salute. Ben Gurion called Revisionist leader Jabotinsky "the Jewish Hitler." (p. 143). The fully-realized deal would not only have ended the boycott; it would've actively helped Germany sell products while enabling Jews to acquire inexpensive farmland in Palestine. (p. 127). Black portrays the Transfer Agreement as one in which both sides were using each other for their own ends (p. 176), both sides realizing that they had sealed a devil's pact (p. 172), one that came the closest, up to that time, of creating a Jewish state (p. 250) and which, although significantly increasing Jewish population (p. 373) and wealth in Palestine (p. 373, 375, 379), ultim

This was an area of World History that I had no clue about prior to reading this book. This is indeed a tragic story of the plight of Jews in Europe during Hitler's regime. This book was so suspenseful I simply could not put it down. Black does an excellent job of engaging the reader and does not reveal the details of unfolding events until the last moment. Simply WOW! As person who is not Jewish I think it is important for everybody to learn the lessons of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. However, equally important is that there were greedy and ideology zealots that contributed to the growth of the Third Reich via the Transfer Agreement, i.e., Sam Cohen and even Hoffien and Landauer. The Transfer Agreement was just that a business arrangement to transfer German Jews to Palestine in return German exports would be bought through Zionist entities to ensure the economic growth and wealth of Palestine. Moreover, what was incredibly stunning was the ability of the 18th Zionist Congress to go against the international boycott movement by suppressing the Revisionists- strong arming them into abandoning their ideology. This makes me wonder what would have happened if the boycott prevailed and the Third Reich "cracked"? Would there still be a Germany today? Would we even have had the Holocaust? I know it may sound harsh and I am sure I will be labeled an anti-Semite because of this, but the reality is according to Black, the Zionists contributed significantly to the rise of the economic and military might of the Third Reich. This book is simply a phenomenon in and of itself. It completely forces one to reshape how they view events during that time period. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn about a different dimension of relationships between the Third Reich, German Jews, and Zionists. This will definitely throw you off and have you thinking for days. Definitely one of my top 10 books of all time.

I cannot praise the author, his research, his explanations and his writing enough for this singular tome. Like other reviewers have said, the reader goes into this book, whether Jewish or not, with their mouth open at the incredibility of this occurence. It's easy enough in hindsight to make judgement calls about what the the leaders of the Jewish community world-wide should have done about Hitler's rise to power. However, given the economic situation of the time and the Reich's strategems to place all blame for Germany's economic hardships on the Jews throughout Europe, it's hard to determine that even had the massive boycotts been organized and on schedule, would they have work? And even more important, if Hitler was ousted due to the economic stranglehold on Germany,who or what would have taken his place? And would that have been any less devastating for the Jews in Europe.There are few obvious heros and anti-heros in this book, except for the Nazis as being the ultimate in villains. One man paid dearly for his attempts to save European Jewry...with his life. It was not conclusive as to whome the assassins were and who put out the price on his head. It's all too easy to blame the reactionary groups, but there are obvious questions about whether his death was one of convenience so that blame could be placed by the leading group of Mapai at the door of the reactionary Jewish groups. Sam Cohen was a businessman through and through. His reasoning to press The Transfer agreement was purely motivated by money, and not the need to either save European Jewry or to establish Israel as a separate state. It is this 'selling' of the agreement by so many that is so mind-boggling. So many were willing to take the wealth of German Jewry (and later the funds that were supposed to be used to save the lives of Jews who had no homes or businesses to return to) and use it to set up a home in Palestine...it's beyond my ability to pass judgement on these men as to their motivation, yet I am not certain I could possibly decide to shake the hands of these men. The fact that there was a need to set up a Jewish state, and that there was all this money to fund its establishment is beside the fact. At no other time, was any other method even considered to rescue the millions of Jews trapped, even the children...this is so reprehensible as to curdle anyone's blood.And though this happened, our countries, including the U.S. and Britain were equally at fault for closing immigration quotas, even though they knew what was going on in Germany. It was easier to merely close their eyes and ignore The Holocaust, until it became obvious that no one was safe from Hilter and his cronies.This story is just so incredible that I wish there was some way to make it into a movie that does the story justice. I don't suppose that is a possibility. But it is a tremendous story that needs to be included in European history, as it's impact was great. Edwin Black did a fantastic job. (...)

Readers of this book must be going out of their way to avoid its nightmarish implications; even the author sidesteps them. Indeed, the book is mis-titled. It should properly have been called 'The Great Boycott and its Tragic Abandonment.' The transfer agreement was simply the rationale for the staggering historic blunder whereby Jewish organizations in the diaspora allowed themselves to be persuaded by Zionist forces to puncture the spontaneous and swelling worldwide Jewish boycott of German goods taking place in 1933, a movement with enormous and growing non-Jewish support as well, which, had it been supported rather than undercut by major Jewish organizations, could very well have toppled Hitler from power by the spring of 1934. Not only would this have spared 5-6 million Jewish lives, it would have spared another 45 million or so non-Jewish lives lost in the Nazi holocaust. I once believed like many that the Holocaust led to the fulfillment of Zionism; this book shows rather that it was the fulfillment of Zionism which led to the Holocaust. And it was all for nought. Israel would still have come into being and moreover would have had several million extra potential immigrants to draw from. This book is all about a simply horrific wordwide catastrophe that resulted from an incredibly BAD choice based on ethnic nationalism, and it is made instead to appear as merely a somewhat sordid chapter re. a road to nationhood that featured a few nasty bumps along the way. Mind-boggling!

I originally read this book when it came out as a Macmillan hardback some years ago. The new Carrol Graf edition has some fascinating new insights by the author as of 2001. Undoubtedly this re-issue was timed to coincide with Edwin Black's other major book, IBM and the Holocaust. Although I have read both books, I am still gripped by the power and drama of Transfer Agreement--must reading for those who to understand the State of Israel, Zionism and its intersection with the Nazis. Powerful reading, this is history written as no one else can.