Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang, wanted to partner with Nazi Germany to expel Britain from Mandatory Palestine and establish a Jewish State
Newly declassified Israeli files reveal pre-state Zionist militias contacted Nazi Germany officials for help in establishing a Jewish state in Palestine as World War II raged.
The newly released files are from the Israeli army’s archive, and were declassified at the request of Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
One file from May 1941 includes statements from Eliyahu Golomb, founder and de facto commander of the Haganah, a pre-state Zionist militia in Mandatory Palestine, which was under British control.
Golomb indicates that a rival Zionist militia was seeking to establish contacts with officials in Nazi Germany for help in expelling the British.
“I have information … about suspicion regarding a group of Jews who have connections with the enemy,” Golomb said, referring to the Germans.
“According to the information, there is a man who contacted the Germans. This man is known; his name is S,” he added.
“S” was Avraham “Yair” Stern, leader of Lehi, the pre-state underground Zionist militia also known as the Stern Gang.
Golomb’s remarks were recorded in real time in a Haganah intelligence document filed under “Contacts with the Axis.”
The declassified file includes material collected by the Haganah, and later by the Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security service) and the Israeli army, regarding the Stern Gang’s attempts to establish ties with the Axis powers, Italy and Germany.
Stern wanted help from Nazi Germany to expel the British and capture Palestine from its indigenous Muslim and Christian Palestinian inhabitants for the Jews.
His position differed from that of most of the Jewish community in Palestine, which had suspended its struggle against Britain to fight Germany in the broader European war.
“With the outbreak of World War II … there is no better time for a war of independence than during wartime. Britain’s forces are tied down … and it would be possible to overcome them,” Stern argued.
“The Jews are a party in the war and therefore cannot be neutral. Britain betrayed the Jewish people and will never allow the establishment of a Jewish state. On the other hand, Germany has no special interest in Palestine, and since the Nazis want to cleanse Europe of Jews, nothing is simpler than transferring them to their own state,” he added.
The document further states that Stern believed “it is possible to reach a practical agreement with the Germans … negotiations should be opened, and Jews of Europe should be recruited into a special army that would fight its way to Palestine and conquer it from the British. The Germans, he argued, would agree because it would rid them of the Jews while also removing the British from the Near East.”
According to Stern, some German officials supported strengthening Jewish settlement in Palestine by bringing Jews from Europe, believing they would be grateful and would later assist Germany.
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In the file tracking the Stern Gang’s contacts with the Axis powers, Stern is reported to have said: “We will manage somehow with the Germans after they conquer the land, just as the Soviets managed with them when necessary.”
Another document states that Stern wanted “to seize control of all of Eretz Yisrael [Palestine] by force with the help of a foreign power,” and that “it is clear he seriously considered becoming a ‘Jewish Quisling,’ with the aid of a foreign power.”
One document showed that the Stern Gang proposed an “active partnership” with Germany in the war, based on “shared interests between German policy and Jewish national aspirations.”
It also suggested that if a Jewish state were established in Palestine, it would form an alliance with Nazi Germany.
An internal Stern Gang pamphlet suggested that Britain had betrayed the Jews, making a partnership with Germany desirable.
“Britain is a traitor. Who decided the opposing side must necessarily be against the Jews? In any case, Jews must conduct independent politics and connect with whoever is worthwhile.”
“The Nazis are indeed against the Jews, but their hatred is directed at the Jews of the diaspora. There is no opposition in the Nazi program to a Judenstaat (a Jewish state),” the pamphlet added.
A document in the released file mentions that Naftali Lubenchik, a Stern Gang member sent to meet with German representatives, rejected the idea that Nazi Germany and its allies were seeking to exterminate European Jewry. Lubenchik believed “the Axis does not seek the physical destruction of the Jewish people, but rather their expulsion from Europe and their concentration in one place.”
It further states that he sought “to prove to Axis policymakers that it would be worthwhile to designate Eretz Yisrael as that place of concentration, thereby gaining the friendship of the Hebrew people, who would enlist for this purpose in the war against England.”
According to the files, another Stern Gang leader, Natan Friedman (Natan Yellin-Mor), who became a member of the Knesset, wrote in 1943: “Germany has not yet been defeated and may still become our ally.”
