fanger
Gold Member
- May 21, 2014
- 5,745
- 507
The passions and propaganda of wartime normally diminish with the passage of time. A striking exception is the Holocaust campaign, which seems to grow more pervasive and intense as the years go by. Certainly the most lucrative expression of this seemingly endless campaign has been West Germany's massive and historically unparalleled reparations payoff to Israel and world Jewry for the alleged collective sins of the German people during the Hitler era. Between 1953 and 1992, the Federal Republic of (West) Germany paid out more than $35 billion in reparations to the Zionist state and to millions of individual "victims of National Socialism."
How did this remarkable program get started? How lucrative has it been? What does it suggest about the "six million" figure? And what are its social and political implications?
Bowing to pressure
In September 1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War, Jewish leader Chaim Weizmann submitted a memorandum on behalf of the Zionist Jewish Agency to the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France "demanding" (in the words of the Encydopaedia Judaica) "reparations, restitution and indemnification due to the Jewish people from Germany" The western Allies lost no time in responding favorably to Weizmann's demands. /1 The American government was particularly eager to have the Germans pay up. /2 As a result, the German government set up by the western Allies at Bonn in 1949 never had any real choice but to acknowledge the alleged collective guilt of the German people during the Hitler era and pay what was demanded.
The Luxembourg Agreement obligated the West German government to pay three billion German marks to the State of Israel and 450 million marks to various Jewish organizations. Accordingly, the West German Finance Minister announced in 1953 that he expected that the reparations payments would eventually total four billion marks. Time would prove this a ludicrous underestimate. /24
By 1963, the German people had already paid out 20 billion marks, and by 1984 the total had risen to 70 billion. /25 In late 1987 the West German parliament approved an additional 300 million marks in "restitution to the victims of National Socialist crimes." The Bonn government announced at that time the 80 billion marks had already been paid out and estimated that by the year 2020 the payoff would total 100 billion marks which, at recent exchange rates, would be the equivalent of $50 billion. /26
Although the West German reparations program is accepted and often praised in the democratic West, it is also, at least implicitly, strikingly undemocratic in two fundamental respects:
First, it regards Jews not as equal and fully integrated citizens of whatever country they live in, but rather primarily as members of an alien and cosmopolitan national group.
Second, it is based on the premise that the German nation, including even the Germans who grew up since 1945, is collectively guilty of terrible crimes, contrary to the democratic notion of individual responsibility for crime.
West Germany's Holocaust Payoff to Israel and World Jewry
Israel did not exist at the time of the Second world War, but the Jews got their mooch on
How did this remarkable program get started? How lucrative has it been? What does it suggest about the "six million" figure? And what are its social and political implications?
Bowing to pressure
In September 1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War, Jewish leader Chaim Weizmann submitted a memorandum on behalf of the Zionist Jewish Agency to the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France "demanding" (in the words of the Encydopaedia Judaica) "reparations, restitution and indemnification due to the Jewish people from Germany" The western Allies lost no time in responding favorably to Weizmann's demands. /1 The American government was particularly eager to have the Germans pay up. /2 As a result, the German government set up by the western Allies at Bonn in 1949 never had any real choice but to acknowledge the alleged collective guilt of the German people during the Hitler era and pay what was demanded.
The Luxembourg Agreement obligated the West German government to pay three billion German marks to the State of Israel and 450 million marks to various Jewish organizations. Accordingly, the West German Finance Minister announced in 1953 that he expected that the reparations payments would eventually total four billion marks. Time would prove this a ludicrous underestimate. /24
By 1963, the German people had already paid out 20 billion marks, and by 1984 the total had risen to 70 billion. /25 In late 1987 the West German parliament approved an additional 300 million marks in "restitution to the victims of National Socialist crimes." The Bonn government announced at that time the 80 billion marks had already been paid out and estimated that by the year 2020 the payoff would total 100 billion marks which, at recent exchange rates, would be the equivalent of $50 billion. /26
Although the West German reparations program is accepted and often praised in the democratic West, it is also, at least implicitly, strikingly undemocratic in two fundamental respects:
First, it regards Jews not as equal and fully integrated citizens of whatever country they live in, but rather primarily as members of an alien and cosmopolitan national group.
Second, it is based on the premise that the German nation, including even the Germans who grew up since 1945, is collectively guilty of terrible crimes, contrary to the democratic notion of individual responsibility for crime.
West Germany's Holocaust Payoff to Israel and World Jewry
Israel did not exist at the time of the Second world War, but the Jews got their mooch on