What Did Hitler Think of Mandatory Palestine?

0:00 So I'm sure you've heard about Palestine and I'm also sure you've heard about Hitler, but what were Hitler's views on Palestine? Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, conquered by the British during World War I and then the British wanted to make a Jewish homeland in that region but how did Hitler view this? And did he have plans to conquer this region? Find out more today! Good to have you back on the channel. If you're new, you know who I am? No? I'm Stefan and I love to make videos about history and you know, if you find it interesting as well and you're new, consider subscribing, hit the notification bell and this is quite of a niche topic. I have no idea how many people will watch this video, but if you're one of them, thank you so much! And if you want to

0:46 support me you can buy me a coffee via BuyMeACoffee.com. British Mandatory Palestine what was this and how did it come to be? By the time WW1 came around the area what is today known as Israel and the Palestinian territories was under Ottoman rule. That region was conquered by British forces and when World War I was over the British established Mandatory Palestine. Already during the war the British had issued the Balfour Declaration in which they showed their willingness to create a homeland for the Jewish people that had been persecuted in Europe, for example in Russia. In the interwar period Jewish migration from Europe to Mandatory Palestine increased: this caused tensions with the local Arab population. More and more violent clashes ensued. It would be after WW2 that the British left

1:36 the area and the State of Israel was declared. So when Hitler came to power in 1933, what were his views on Palestine? In his infamous book Mein Kampf (My Struggle) he mentions Palestine once: “When the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the new national consciousness of the Jews will be satisfied by the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, the Jews thereby adopt another means to dupe the simple-minded Gentile. They have not the slightest intention of building up a Jewish State in Palestine so as to live in it. What they really are aiming at is to establish a central organization for their international swindling and cheating. As a sovereign State, this cannot be controlled by any

2:21 of the other States. Therefore it can serve as a refuge for swindlers who have been found out and at the same time a high-school for the training of other swindlers.” So Hitler basically denies that the Jews want to have a state of their own in order to be safe from persecution, but rather that they wanted to continue the swindler activities over there. In another document I found called Hitler's collection of speeches (1922 - 1945) Hitler addresses the issue several times: on many occasions he does this to speak bad about the British and wants to point out that they are the hypocrites for criticizing German policies, for example on the 1st of April 1939. “If a British statesman today demands of me that all problems related to Germany’s vital

3:12 interests first be discussed with England, then I could as well insist that all issues pending in Great Britain had first to be discussed with us. It is entirely possible that the English would retort to this: “The Germans have no business being in Palestine!” Indeed, we do not want to be in Palestine. And just as we Germans have no business being in Palestine, the English have no business being in our German Lebensraum! And now they declare the issues at stake to be general questions of law and legitimacy. This opinion would hold good only if they were universally binding ones. They tell us that we have no right to do this or no right to do that. I would like to ask in turn: What right have the English-to cite only one example-to go

4:02 about shooting Arabs in Palestine only because these stand up to defend their homeland? Who gives them this right? We in Central Europe, on the other hand, have not slaughtered thousands.” Yet, World War II hadn't started yet and Nazi mass killings would commence as soon as the Germans crossed the Polish border. The German invasion of Poland would occur 5 months from the moment he gave this speech. Germany had taken over the Czech lands by this point. Near the end of the month on the 28th of April he addresses US President Roosevelt in a speech in the Reichstag in which Hitler says the following: “Equally, it appears to have slipped Mr. Roosevelt’s mind that Palestine is not being occupied by German troops but by English ones. By brute force,

4:48 England is curtailing Palestinian freedom and is robbing the Palestinians of their independence to the advantage of Jewish intruders for whose cause the Palestinians suffer the most cruel of abuses. The Arabs living in this territory assuredly have not complained to Roosevelt of German aggressions. Rather, in persistent appeals to international public opinion, the Arabs lament the barbaric methods by means of which England seeks to overpower a people who loves its freedom and fights only to defend it.” Again Hitler uses the issue of the Palestinians to blame the British. In wartime speeches he does not address the issue anymore. In the first years of the Nazi regime Hitler wanted to encourage Jewish migration to Palestine under the terms of the so-called Haavara Agreement, signed between

5:37 Zionist Jews and Nazi Germany on the 25th of August 1933. About 60,000 German Jews immigrated to British Mandatory Palestine. Jewish nationalism was initially supported by Nazi leaders because they saw this as an effective means to segregate the Jewish population from the Aryan population. Initially Hitler did not have much sympathy for the Arab cause because he wanted to have an alliance with Great Britain. He also saw the Arabs as an inferior race: during the 1936-39 Arab Revolt against the British in Palestine Germany ignored Arab requests for help. Things changed after World War II broke out, that Jewish immigration out of the Third Reich and Nazi occupied territories

6:24 was now prohibited. Hitler found an ally in Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. “Hitler promised al-Husseini that, following German victory in North Africa, the Levant, and victory over the Soviet Union in the Caucasus, Germany would move to exterminate the Jews of Palestine.” There are conflicting accounts of this conversation because others claim that Hitler said to al-Husseini he wanted to destroy the power protecting the Jews in Palestine, in other words: he wanted to defeat the British. Hitler rebuffed the Mufti's request for a public declaration to support the Arabs. This is what I read in the book Nazis in the Holy Land written by Heidemarie Wawrzyn about what Hitler promised to Hajj Amin al-Husseini: “Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition

7:14 to the Jewish national home in Palestine.... Germany would furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle.... Germany’s objective [is]...solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power.” And in June 1942 the Nazis they established Einsatzkommando Egypt and this Einsatzgruppe was to be accompanied the Wehrmacht into Egypt and Palestine, but events overtook him because the Germans were defeated during the Second Battle of El Alamein, so they never reached the Middle East. Now according to some historians the establishment of Einsatzkommando Egypt is

8:02 the proof that the Nazis had concrete plans to exterminate the Jews of Palestine but to what extent is it actually the case... well I covered that in another video, right here.