West Germany And Israel: Foreign Relations, Domestic Politics, And The Cold War, 1965-1974

369 Pages·2019·2.184 MB·English

by  Carole Fink

West Germany and Israel
By the late 1960s, West Germany and Israel were moving in almost
oppositediplomaticdirectionsinapoliticalenvironmentdominatedby
the Cold War. The Federal Republic launched ambitious policies to
reconcile with its Iron Curtain neighbors, expand its influence in the
Arabworld,andpromoteWestEuropeaninterestsvis à vistheUnited
States.Bycontrast,Israel,unabletoobtainpeacewiththeArabsafterits
1967militaryvictoryandthreatenedbyPalestinianterrorism,became
increasingly dependent upon the United States, estranged from the
USSR and Western Europe, and isolated from the Third World.
Nonetheless,thetwocountriesremainedconnectedbysharedsecurity
concerns, personal bonds, and recurrent evocations of the German
Jewish past. Drawing upon newly available sources covering the first
decadeofthecountries’formaldiplomaticties,CaroleFinkrevealsthe
underlyingissuesthatshapedthesetwocountries’fraughtrelationship
andsetstheirforeignanddomesticpoliciesinaglobalcontext.
CaroleFinkisHumanitiesDistinguishedProfessorofHistoryEmerita
atTheOhioStateUniversity.Sheistheauthorofmanybooks,including
ColdWar:AnInternationalHistory,andWriting20thCenturyInternational
History:ExplorationsandExamples.ShewastwiceawardedtheGeorge
LouisBeerPrizeof theAmericanHistoricalAssociationforDefending
theRightsofOthers:TheGreatPowers,theJews,andInternationalMinority
Protection, 1878 1938, and The Genoa Conference: European Diplomacy
1921 1922.

West Germany and Israel
ForeignRelations,DomesticPolitics,andtheCold
War, 1965–1974
Carole Fink
TheOhioStateUniversity,Emerita
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Identifiers:LCCN2018037325|ISBN9781107075450(hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Germany (West) Relations Israel. | Israel Relations
Germany(West)|Germany(West) Politicsandgovernment.|Israel Politics
and government 1948 | Middle East History 20th century. | BISAC:
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Contents
ListofIllustrationsandMaps pageviii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv
ANoteonUsage xvii
ListofAbbreviations xviii
1 Prologue:DistantStates–WestGermanyandIsrael,
1952–1965 1
2 TheShockofRecognition:1965–1966 25
3 Upheaval 45
4 1968 74
5 ChangesinLeadership:1969 102
6 Ostpolitik 124
7 1971:ADensePoliticalWeb 154
8 TheYearofMunich 185
9 AnnusTerribilis 219
10 Finale:ExeuntMeirandBrandt 261
Conclusions 292
Bibliography 297
Index 336
vii
Illustrations and Maps
Illustrations
1.1 EichmannTrial,1961 page9
2.1 Ben-GurionwithAdenauer,Israel1966 26
2.2 Anti-GermanDemonstration,1965 35
5.1 AsherBen-NatanattheUniversityofFrankfurt,1969 114
6.1 EbanatDachau,1970 126
6.2 Brandt’sKniefall,1970 151
8.1 AbortiveWestGermannegotiationswiththePalestinians,
1972 204
9.1 GoldaMeirandWillyBrandt,1973 240
9.2 DayanandMeirinGolanHeights,YomKippurWar,1973 252
10.1 BrandtandSadat,1974 282
Maps
3.1 Israel:BeforeandafterJune1967War page54
7.1 Germany:OstpolitikandNahostpolitik,1967–1974 158
9.1 TheOctober1973War:TheGolanFront 247
9.2 TheOctober1973War:TheSuez-SinaiFront 248
viii
Preface
Nothing,however,waseversimplebetweenIsraelandGermany.1
This is a study that links Central Europe and the Middle East.
It originated almost two decades agoin a conversation with an eminent
Israelischolarwhostated,“Israelhadno1968,ithad1967.”Struckby
hisdifferentiationbetweentheglobalsummonsforpolitical,cultural,and
socialchangeinthelate1960sandthepublicenvironmentinhiscountry
after its spectacular military victory, I decided to delve deeper into
thisgap.
Drawing on my background as an international historian, I chose to
focusontherelationshipbetweenWestGermanyandIsraelintheperiod
between1965and1974,thefirstnineyearsoftheirformaldiplomatictie.
This period was marked not only by major domestic changes in both
countries but also by the transformation of world politics. Like all
research projects pursued over a long period, this one has grown and
expanded as new documentation surfaced, a rich trove of published
materialbecameavailable,andnewquestionsarose.
The investigation of a bilateral relationship offers a valuable,
nuanced point of observation of change and continuity in domestic,
national, and international history. And few diplomatic partnerships
embody the level of complexity as do the ties between the heir to the
Third Reich and the refuge of its victims. On May 12, 1965, the
FederalRepublicofGermany(FRG)andtheStateofIsraelannounced
the opening of diplomatic relations, a singular event that has been
commemorated over succeeding decades. The beginning, however,
was a difficult one. During its first nine years, the bond between
these two countries – strikingly unequal in their size, population, and
power – was molded not only by a volatile external environment
1Asher BenNatan [Israel’s first ambassador to West Germany], “Bridges over Many
Chasms,” in Otto Romberg and Heiner Lichtenstein, eds., Thirty Years of Diplomatic
RelationsbetweentheFederalRepublicofGermanyandIsrael(Frankfurt:TribüneBooks,
1995),p.49.
ix
x Preface
dominated by the global Cold War but also by their often conflicting
national and domestic desiderata.
Moreover,there was an even more problematicdimension, the tragic
German-Jewishpast,whicheachsideinterpreteddifferently.TheFRG’s
goalafter1965wastoestablishanormalrelationshipthatfocusedmoreon
thepresentandthefuturethanonthepast.Israel,ontheotherhand,was
determined to maintain its special character, insisting that the crimes of
Nazi Germany had created a permanent obligation for unconditional
supportandprotection.
To be sure, informal West German–Israeli relations had already com-
mencedonSeptember10,1952,withthetreatysignedinLuxembourgin
whichWestGermanyhadagreedtopayIsraelDM3.5billioninrestitution
inkind.Thishistoricagreement,whichhadraisedstrongdomesticopposi-
tion, required the intervention of both countries’ forceful and pragmatic
foundingleaders,ChancellorKonradAdenauerandPrimeMinisterDavid
Ben-Gurion,toachieveratificationandtoimplementitsterms.2
Nonetheless,upto1965,therewasagoodmeasureofcongruenceinthe
twocountries’interests.BothwerefirmlyintheUScampandopposedthe
Soviet Union, the overlord of seventeen million East Germans and
three million Soviet Jews. On the bilateral plane, the Bonn government
enhanceditsmoralandpoliticalstandingthroughitsannualpaymentsto
Israel,whichwerecrucialtothelatter’seconomicdevelopment.Thetwo
countriesalsoestablishedsecretmilitaryandfinancialties.
Yet there is also general agreement among scholars that these initial
years were more gray than golden. West Germany refused to risk its
relations with the Arab world by exchanging ambassadors with Israel;
andIsraeliofficials,notingthelargenumberofThirdReichholdoversin
office, referred to Bonn as a “Republic of Restoration.”3 By the early
1960s, global and domestic conditions began to change, and tensions
accumulated on both sides. Nonetheless, until Adenauer and Ben-
Gurionleftofficein1963,theirblendofMoral-andRealpolitikprevailed.4
2ThestandardworkisNaniSagi,GermanReparations:AHistoryoftheNegotiations,trans.
Dafna Alon (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1980); see also Michael Wolffsohn, “Das
deutschisraelische Wiedergutmachungsabkommen von 1952 im internationalen
Zusammenhang,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 36, no. 4 (1988): 691 731;
Ludolf Herbst and Constantin Goschler, eds., Wiedergutmachung in der Bundesrepublik
Deutschland (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1989); Axel Frohn, ed., Holocaust and Shilumim:
ThePolicyofWiedergutmachungintheEarly1950s(Washington,DC:GermanHistorical
Institute,1991).
3Avi Primor, “ ... mit Ausnahme Deutschlands”: Als Botschafter Israelis in Bonn (Berlin:
Ullstein,1999),p.157.
4Twoheavilydocumentedstudiesoffercontrastingperspectives:TheGermandiplomat
NielsHansen,AusdemSchattenderKatastrophe:DiedeutschisraelischenBeziehungeninder
Ära Konrad Adenauer und David BenGurion (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2004), interprets