Product Description
In 1933, the Zionist movement concluded a controversial pact with the Third Reich transferring some 60,000 Jews and $100 million to Jewish Palestine.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 13 reviews)

Of Course!... "If you prick me do I not bleed?"

I am so glad Ed Black wrote this book.
Every since Schindler's List I have wondered about those Jews and Zionist who collaborated with the Nazis? Of course Jewish businessmen were/are just as sleazy and opportunist as gentile businessmen, so it should be no surprise that this took place.
Of course all criticism of Jews and Israel is anti-semetic. As we all know, Jews are above criticism in America.
Good work Mr Black.

September 11, 2008

Less than it could have been

Glen Yeadon, author of Nazi Hydra in America, had this to say about The Transfer Agreement:

I found it very boring--it was steeped with internal Jewish politics and very little about the actual negotiations with the Nazis or the actual deal and its results. It is geared to Jewish historians and only vaguely to the war and the Nazis... I liked IBM and the War against the Weak - both were good and I bought this one on the strength of the other two. It tried to remain neutral rather than to place the blame on the Zionists. For example, there was no mention of the Zionist who helped load the trains in Hungary to Auschwitz, who was hanged in Israel in the 50s. That type of material was neatly sanitized by omission.
February 10, 2008

Astonishing and powerful read about the realities of Zionism during the Third Reich

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.

October 09, 2007

.....tragic history revisited....

Researchers have recently unearthed `directives' sent from Heinrich Himmler to Dachau, and Mauthausen concentration camps to the effect that all inmates were to be bathed in showers providing insecticides, their heads cleared of hair, their heavy garments that bore Wool Collars were to be burned outright. The reason for such directives was to prevent lice, and leprosy from spreading among all other inmate prisoners.

Gypsies, Polish, Slavs, Soviets (Christians and Jews) who had been incarcerated during the war and routed into the five main Concentration Camps, {which had been established throughout the years 1933 to 1939}, were in their majority suffering lice parasite, notably on youngsters. Himmler ruled "they should be showered in insecticides twice per week in order to remove the nits attached to their hair - difficult to remove without specialized products."

Many inmates were homosexuals' prisoners of war, suffering from venereal diseases - transmissible. This parasite was widely spreading at the time Germany was lacking enough doctors to take care of the prevention process or even to guard against casual means of transmission.

Most doctors were preoccupied with war related engagements; on their priority list was first and foremost to take care of injuries from battles, research, and the last was to worry about concentration camps per se, unless in absolute emergencies like `fear that certain virus might not be contained and would be causing widespread damage'.

In very few pages of this book did the author speak of Concentration Camps - dispersed on ten pages? Even there he did it casually in the context that ""workers were rushed to construct a mysterious political concentration camp at a pastoral village called Dachau...."" """Every train entering Denmark was crowded with German Jewish refugees..""" indicative that the `Transfer' from Germany to Palestine (in transit through neutral Europe - France had fallen by then) gives credence to this book.

Perhaps written books on the `Pogrom' will soon be revisited and be traced back with more up to date material on these most fateful human tragedies of WWII.

October 24, 2006

Simply one of the most incredible history books I've read!

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. (...)
July 19, 2004

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