WI, jewish state in German

This is a what if that was posted on the swedish history forum Skalman and i would like to hear your wievs on this. I dont see how this would work

When UN was founded there was a strong opinion to found a jewish state, but it wasnt sure that it would be in the middleeast. Palestine was a Brittish protectorat and the britts wanted to appeace the arabs in the middle east due to the oil and the suezcannal.

So the author makes it like this
1947--The partition of Palestine falls because not only the arabs, but also the latinamerican nations dont want a jewish state there.
att judarnas återvandring till Israel förebådar Kristi återkomst) är stark.

1948--- The permanent members of the security counsil give Thüringen and Saxen-Anhalt to the jews and it becomes a neutral territory with the name of Sion. Its borders are modified to break the border between the west and eastzones and connect WestGermany with Westberlin. Soviet gets Schlesvig-Holsetein and Hamburg as a compensation[sigh]

its more, but i havent the energy to translate it all.
 
Something along the Morgenthau plan, even more radical, might be possible. Even though I'd rather give the Jews a place defendable and not enclosed by German states - the splitting of Germany wasn't supposed to be forever, even then. Also, I'd prefer a place with low population density, to avoid displacing too many people. All that excludes the whole west of Western Germany, the whole south of Eastern Germany, and the whole central areas of the two Germanys. A jewish country would therefore only be survivable in the north. It should border at least one other country - Netherlands, Denmark, or Poland. And it should either be not too much on one side of the Iron Curtain, or 2 countries - one for each side.

I'd furthermore not make it a country exclusively for Jews. Most of the people that were rescued from the concentration camps weren't even Jews, afaik - they were just considered Jews by the nazis because of their ancestry. There may be one or more Jewish areas (states) in it, though. There is also lots of other minorities persecuted by the Nazis - oppositionals, Roma, and so on. Many of them might not want to live among people pretending not to have known anything, or having taken part in the crimes and becoming influential again.

The size of that country could depend upon the number of people living there. I'd try to make the population density pretty equal in Eastern/Western Germany and the according new country - which means flexible borders and possible displacement of people originally no displaced for a few years.

I suppose a good candidate would be Schleswig-Holstein for the West and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for the East. Two countries for the refugees would also have the advantage that the communists moving to their preferred place wouldn't disturb the western areas. The western part could expand to the south, east of Hamburg, if necessary, while the eastern part would expand as much as necessary along the whole width of the GDR. If the goal was to make the remaining Germany a landlocked country, Hamburg, Bremen, and the surrounding parts of Lower Saxony might also be added to the "refugee country".

Naming it might be more difficult - individual states could get names like "Zion" or the likes, but the whole country would probably need something else. I'd suppose the name should neither be associated too much with the former Germany, nor should it be a permanent reminder of the refuge situation. How about "League of European Democratic States" for the western part and "European Socialist Democratic Union" for the eastern part?
 
One thing I don't want to see in ATLs: Nazi skinheads demonstrating and shouting "Jews leave German soil! We want full reunification!"
 
How about some parts of the Ostgebiet? If they move to East Preussia they don't have to live too near the germans (bad memories) and the poles and russians sure would be less hostile then the arabs in Middle East. The land is also more fertile then the Levant. Poland gets Danzig, Silesia and Pommerania like in OTL and Soviet get Balticum so they wouldn't lose that much.
 
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att judarnas återvandring till Israel förebådar Kristi återkomst) är stark.

This means "that the return of the jews to Israel precedes/prophezises the return of christ". Something like that, I am unsure about "förebåda".



:)rolleyes: )
 
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I also think that West Germany and southern East Germany would be too difficult to be given to the Jews. So some areas along the Baltic Sea would be most likely - Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Pommerania or East-Prussia.

But on one hand, the Jews already were established in the Mandate of Palestine. So the choice of Palestine as a future Jewish state would be easier then a Jewish state in Germany - where the Jews had to live with Germans on their borders and several Million Germans driven out of their new land!
I don't really see that they would like to stay there.

It would probably lead to a new boost of Nazism in Germany - and in the whole of Europe: Hitler always claimed that he had to fight the Jews, because they would otherwise destroy the German race. He thought of the war as a war between the races. Jewish settlement in Germany would be seen as just that: the winning race now separates Germany and keeps a part for itself. Thus Israel wouldn't be safer at all!
 
The germans would be driven out of Prussia and Pommerania anyway like they were in OTL. If they live in East Prussia they don't have to be neighbours with Germany. Besides the nazism movement was more or less destroyed after WWII. So the jews would be more safe than in Middle East.
 
I'd be more in favor of the idea that East Pomerania and Silesia go to making a new Jewish homeland rather than going to Poland. If I recall, for a while after the War there were very few people there because all the Germans had fled, were killed, or were expelled and the Poles had not yet resettled the area.

Israel EEuro.PNG
 

Redbeard

Banned
Giving S-H to the Soviets would be unlikely, as that would give them acces to the open sea through the Kiel canal.

Giving some of the abandoned German land to the Jews would perhaps have a narrow window of opportunity if there somehow had been more and early focus on the Polish participation in the round-up of the Jews. Perhaps by the Germans being not quite as arrogant and brutal towards the Poles and largescale recruiting of a Polish SS corps. If we next have this Polish SS be in the front of the progromes we are almost there. A Polish Quisling instead of the "Generalgouvernement" would add the final straw, especially if there is a strong communist fraction among the Jews to start the new state (not unlikely).

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
It might have been a just retribution for the Holocaust. There were however a few issues:
- uncle Joe and his merry Red Army. Place the Sionist (or refugist) state in the East Germany, and will sign the Warsaw pact in a whiff. If the west pays also an additional price (the Kiel canal in communist hand) it would be a major feat of political suicide
- the Jews wanted Sion, and the New Temple in its proper geographic location(..next year in Jerusalem). No way they would accept a different location, much less in a mixed state in the middle of Germany.
- Russians and Poles have consistently been more anti-semitic than Germans

The idea is quaint enough to be found attractive by some American politician, but ultimately real-politik would negate it, like it happened with teh Morgenthau plan. The west (or better the USA) needed to rebuild fast west Germany to stop any Russian move in Central Europe
 
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