David Kroyanker, author of Jerusalem Architecture, published a fascinating article on Nazi activity in Jerusalem in Ha'aretz in 2008, entitled "Swastikas over Jerusalem." The local head of the Nazi Party in Jerusalem was a teacher in the Templer school in the German Colony in Emek Refaim.
Haaretz, Thu., November 13, 2008 Cheshvan 15, 5769
The center of German activity in the Land of Israel was in Jerusalem, at the German consulate, which opened in 1842 in the Old City. In the 1880s, the consulate moved to the Street of the Prophets, to a spacious and luxurious building topped by the German eagle and a cross. Until the Nazis' rise to power in 1933, the consulate also helped the city's Jews in a variety of matters, from establishing hostels in the Old City to collecting funds for building the Hurva Synagogue, and above all in protecting Jews who were German subjects. Up until 1939, when diplomatic relations between Nazi Germany and Britain were severed, the consulate functioned as a de facto embassy, and its achievements in strengthening German influence in the Land of Israel were part of the efforts to realize the Drang nach Osten - the policy of a "thrust toward the East."
In March 1933, Germany's president Paul von Hindenburg ordered that the swastika flag - symbol of the Nazi Party - be flown alongside the black, white and red flag of the German Republic at all the German consulates worldwide, including in Jaffa and in Jerusalem. Habib Canaan, a former reporter for Haaretz, writes in his book The Fifth Column: Germans in Palestine (in Hebrew):
When on March 18, 1933, the need arose to fly the swastika flag over the general consulate building in Jerusalem, it turned out that there was no such flag available on the premises. The flag was brought in a frenzy from the home of Cornelius Schwarz (who would later play a key role in the Nazi movement in the Land of Israel). The following day Dr. [Heinrich] Wolff [the consul general] was given another Nazi flag, which was embroidered by the Arab children at the Schneller Orphanage in Jerusalem and brought to the consulate by Frau Maria Schneller, the institution's director.
The leaders of the Jewish community in Jerusalem appealed to consul general Wolff, whose wife was Jewish, to consider their request to remove the Nazi flag and send a telegram to president Hindenburg stating that, "We agree with all our hearts to the black, white and red flag, as many of us have fought in its shadow for the German homeland, and we also identify with the national movement's policy and economic aims; however, we must regretfully note the fact that the sight of the swastika flag is calling the Jews' attention to the latest, very exaggerated reports concerning acts of violence that have been committed against the Jews of Germany." The telegram went unanswered.
The Nazi Party's overseas department instructed the German inhabitants of the Land of Israel to avoid becoming involved in the Arab-Jewish struggle and demanded that they maintain neutrality. It also ordered Nazi representatives in foreign countries not to display the swastika flag and Nazi uniforms in public. In the spring of 1933 the head of the party's foreign department, Ernst Bohle, stated that the National Socialist movement was not intended for export, and that only ethnic Germans would be accepted as members in the party branches abroad. The request of nationalist Muslim circles to establish a party branch in Palestine was rejected and the German consulates in Jerusalem and Jaffa were ordered not to encourage or to aid its establishment.
The Germans were wary of intervention by British Mandate authorities and feared that German citizens would be considered a fifth column. In 1933, German tourists arrived in Palestine wearing swastikas on their lapels, which aroused a great deal of anger among the Jewish inhabitants, who saw it as intentional German provocation. As a result, in March 1934, consul Wolff sent a report to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, asking that German tourists in Palestine refrain from sporting the party symbol.
In his book In Chains: Memoirs of a Fighter, the Lehi underground member Ya'acov Orenstein wrote:
In that year Hitler came into power in Germany, and we decided to take advantage of Germany's attitude to launch our activities. First of all, we could not come to terms with the fact that the battle-cross flag was flying in the skies of the Land of Israel for all to see. Nor could we accept the fact that German goods were being sold in local shops. Within a single week, despite the strict watch of the British police, we tore the swastika flag down from the German consulates in Jaffa and Jerusalem. We smashed shop windows in which German goods were displayed - on that night we attacked the German consulate in Jerusalem, and flames rose from the illuminated consulate building. A hope that at long last we had set out on the right path was ignited in our hearts.
However, the status quo was restored within days, and from September 22, 1935 up until August 1939 - following an explicit order from Berlin to remove the black, white and red flag from all consulates - the swastika flag flew alone over the consulate on the Street of the Prophets.
Unseating the consul
The man who led Nazi activity in Jerusalem, in full coordination with the German consulate, was Ludwig Buchhalter, a teacher from the Templer school, a resident of the German Colony who had been appointed head of Jerusalem's Nazi party branch in 1933. Buchhalter was a graduate of a teachers seminary in Germany. The assemblies and meetings of the party branch, which with its 67 members was the largest in Palestine at the time, were held in various places throughout the city - at Augusta Victoria hostel, at the German Colony's community house, at the Church of the Redeemer in the Old City and at the (Schneller) Syrian Orphanage.
Buchhalter was among those responsible for the firing of consul Wolff. In a report of a Nazi branch meeting dealing with the matter, which was sent to the consulate and to the German Foreign Ministry on August 20, 1934, Buchhalter wrote:
It is known that consul general Wolff is married to a woman of Semite origins. Thus, there exists a well-grounded suspicion that, because of this marriage, he is not able to represent German interests faithfully - especially not the interests of the National Socialist government. Reports have come to my attention to the effect that Mrs. Wolff has given the English negative reports about the Third Reich, and these stories have also been repeated to me by Jewish circles. It is clear, then, that a person who has relations with Jewish circles cannot be loyal to German interests, especially to the interests of National Socialism, even if he wishes to be loyal to them.
The report continued:
In recent weeks it has been possible to discern that in both fair and foul weather the consulate general flies only small flags. However, what is even more regrettable is that they do not fly the swastika flag at all. Is the Foreign Ministry so impoverished that it must be frugal even in the display of our symbols? The opinion of the local Germans is that the consul's policy of tiny flags is aimed at [appeasing] the mood of the Jews, even though this depresses the spirit of the true German. Today even the Arab janitors at the Consulate General are talking about how Consul Wolff is displaying sympathy for the Jews. I am aware of the fact that the Foreign Ministry esteems Consul Wolff's economic skills, but my opinion is that he is better suited for some other country. In the Land of Israel we need someone who is not emotionally connected to the Jews.
Consul Wolff's diplomatic career came to an end in 1935. Among the German inhabitants in the country, only the Lutherans expressed sorrow at Wolff's dismissal and their Jerusalem newspaper published a warm article in praise of his activities. Similar sentiments were expressed in the Hebrew newspaper Doar Hayom, which lauded his consular activity and heralded his efforts not to hurt the feelings of those opposed to the Nazi regime.
From 1936 until 1939, when the gates of the consulate were locked, Walter Doehle (a German Foreign Ministry official) served as consul general in Jerusalem. During Doehle's term, the Nazi and anti-Semitic activity in the city increased and close ties were forged with a number of local German institutions, most notably the Schneller orphanage and the Augusta Victoria hostel. Ernst Schneller, the grandson of the orphanage's founder, was one of the leading local Nazi Party activists during the 1930s. Both the orphanage and the hostel printed party newspapers and books.
British intelligence documents from that period testify that the criminal investigation department wiretapped and recorded telephone conversations at the orphanage, which revealed, among other things, that it had made efforts to purchase arms and ammunition in Germany in order to train young Arabs.
In the mid-1930s, as the management of Augusta Victoria considered reopening the building as an active hostel under the management of the Diocesan Sisters, one of the facility's heads, Pastor Ernst Rhein, argued that in order to preserve the institution's Protestant character, Jewish guests should be barred. He voiced the concern that German Jews would inundate the hostel, as had happened at the Catholic hostel in Emmaus, which was why other German tourists and pilgrims avoided staying there.
Jewish guards
On March 23, 1938, Consul Doehle informed the Foreign Ministry in Berlin that Jewish employees of the King David Hotel had raised an outcry when they learned that the hotel's Swiss manager had ordered that the swastika flag be flown on the occasion of the visit of a group of German travelers. Doehle wrote: "I contacted Dr. Werner Senator, a member of the Jewish Agency management, and made it clear to him that the attitude of the Jewish press toward the German flag might yield unpleasant results for the Jews. After a conversation with his colleagues at the Jewish Agency administration, Dr. Senator informed me that the Jewish Agency had no part in the Jewish press campaign and that it was not within its powers to stop it. In any case, flying our flag over the King David Hotel is a great and important thing."
In that same month, March 1938, the Mandatory police granted four employees of the German consulate in Jerusalem permits to fly the swastika flag on their cars. That summer, bombs were thrown at passersby from the consul's car, which was identified by means of that small swastika flag.
The tension between Jews and Germans reached a peak in the wake of Kristallnacht, the night between November 9 and 10, 1938. The British authorities were concerned about the wrath of the Jews against the German consulate in Jerusalem. So they sent Habib Canaan, at the time a corporal in the British police, along with four other policemen to ensure the safety of the consul general and his family, who were living in the consulate building. Canaan writes:
I chose four burly Jewish policemen, all of them originally from Germany (and two of whom had already had a taste of the concentration camps). Armed with rifles we marched in the direction of the German Consulate building, on the Street of the Prophets. It was 10 o'clock at night - I rang the bell at the gate and when the Arab gatekeeper opened it, I ordered the squad to enter. Behind the Arab gatekeeper the consul appeared, wearing a dressing gown and white as chalk - and he said 'I thank you very much but you may inform your commander that I do not need such protection.' He was referring of course to protection by Jewish policemen. 'My orders are to ensure your safety and I am not allowed to remove the guard from your house without receiving a new order.' I reported to Major Barnes, who responded in his typical manner: 'I agree with you that the consul's objection derives from the posting of a Jewish guard, but it is we who determine who will guard him. Tell him that if this is what he wants, you are going back to the station with the boys.'
The consul did reject Barnes' order, saying that the consulate's grounds were extra-territorial, and no police could be posed in the building's courtyard. However, several days later he submitted a harsh protest to the chief secretariat of the government about the blow to his dignity on the part of the police.
At the end of August 1939, a telegram ordered German reservists and citizens subject to conscription to return to their homeland immediately, and the consulate was closed. Before their departure, the consular employees burned thousands of files and documents in the courtyard. These documents without a doubt testified to the extent of their subversive activity in Palestine.
The closure of the German consulates in Jerusalem and Jaffa ended one of the most important chapters in the history of the Land of Israel. The German settlers who had arrived in Palestine in the middle of the 19th century overcame difficulties in a backward an unfamiliar country, advancing its development in many fields and winning the admiration of the Yishuv (Jewish community in Palestine) for their determination and diligence.