Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- PART I THE MAKING OF THE MULTIPLE TRAP
- PART II THE RESCUE DEBATE, THE MACRO PICTURE, AND THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
- PART III THE SELF-DEFEATING MECHANISM OF THE RESCUE EFFORTS
- PART IV THE BRAND–GROSZ MISSIONS WITHIN THE LARGER PICTURE OF THE WAR AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS
- 25 The Zionist Initiatives
- 26 Rescue, Allied Intelligence, and the SS
- 27 Hungarian Rescue Deals in the Eyes of the Allies
- 28 How the Missions Were Born
- 29 The Demise of a Rescue Mission
- 30 Open and Secret War Schemes and Realities
- 31 The WRB's Own Reports: OWI's Reservations
- PART V THE END OF THE FINAL SOLUTION: BACK TO HOSTAGE-TAKING TACTICS
- Epilogue: Self-Traps: The OSS and Kasztner at Nuremberg
- Notes on Sources
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
27 - Hungarian Rescue Deals in the Eyes of the Allies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- PART I THE MAKING OF THE MULTIPLE TRAP
- PART II THE RESCUE DEBATE, THE MACRO PICTURE, AND THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
- PART III THE SELF-DEFEATING MECHANISM OF THE RESCUE EFFORTS
- PART IV THE BRAND–GROSZ MISSIONS WITHIN THE LARGER PICTURE OF THE WAR AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS
- 25 The Zionist Initiatives
- 26 Rescue, Allied Intelligence, and the SS
- 27 Hungarian Rescue Deals in the Eyes of the Allies
- 28 How the Missions Were Born
- 29 The Demise of a Rescue Mission
- 30 Open and Secret War Schemes and Realities
- 31 The WRB's Own Reports: OWI's Reservations
- PART V THE END OF THE FINAL SOLUTION: BACK TO HOSTAGE-TAKING TACTICS
- Epilogue: Self-Traps: The OSS and Kasztner at Nuremberg
- Notes on Sources
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Fritz Laufer's bids for rescue “deals,” which he was indeed spreading among Jewish rescue workers upon his visits as a trusted American agent in Istanbul, and his contacts with the SD and the Gestapo, the latter being very probably one of his employers from the beginning in Prague, could have been easily seen in Jewish eyes as if they reflected some change on the Nazi side. But in Allied eyes a rescue “deal” involving the Jews of Hungary could be initiated by the Nazis to enhance sinister conspiracies such as using the Jews to drive a wedge between the Allies and their own citizens. Bring a disaster on FDR's head in an election year – around the uncertain results of the Normandy invasion – to make it seem as if he were fighting a “Jew's war,” and drive a wedge between the Western Allies and Stalin. This is how OSS-SI in Washington reacted to Brand's and Grosz's arrival in Istanbul, connecting them as “German double agents” to the precedent of one actual ransom deal authorized by the Nazis in occupied Hungary, that of the release of the rich Weiss family in exchange for its property (see cable 53647, REGIS in Washington to USTRAVIC, London; Copies sent to Director, Deputy Director, OSS, X-2, OSS, offices in the Middle East, Madrid, and Europe):
1. with the complete assistance of the german government, the weiss group mentioned in your (cable) #57377 (#178 to Madrid) reached Lisbon … [further details in previous cables between O.S.S. stations stations Bern and Washington – S.A.] and also to saint [O.S.S.–X-2 or counterintelligence – S.A.] about report that the signing of a 20-year lease of the weiss works [by the SS – S.A.] was forced as a bargain by the Germans.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews , pp. 237 - 240Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004