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
31 - The WRB's Own Reports: OWI's Reservations
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
The Germans apparently did not read all of the WRB's messages, and in fall 1944 the State Department shifted to code machines and stopped using the previously decoded ciphers.
Thus, in addition to the German decrypts of WRB's activities, let us now examine its own reports by invoking the same “kaleidoscopic” method.
The WRB claimed to have been able to save Jews by intervening with German-allied governments, including the Horthy regime in occupied Hungary. It took steps, as mentioned in a report on the WRB's activities from October 1944, “in cooperation with a private agency,” probably the Zionist Rescue Committee in Istanbul, “to establish contact with a mysterious person known only as ‘Willy’ [Wisliceny – S.A.] who was reported to have been successful in arresting the deportation of Jews from Slovakia.” This passage tells us first that those who communicated with “Willy” took him seriously, and thus Kasztner and Brand, who probably stood behind it, indeed believed in the Slovak myth or had to stick to it, having no other option but to try to make it a reality due to changed conditions on the ground. Second, they did reach the WRB in this regard, before Brand was sent to Istanbul, when on April 20 the WRB itself “asked an intermediary in Switzerland [probably Saly Mayer – S.A.] to explore with him [i.e., with Wisliceny] the possibility of arranging for evacuations from Hungary to neutral countries or for holding up deportations or permitting sending relief to those detained.
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- Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews , pp. 271 - 278Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004