Did Hitler support zionism?

Question

According to Ken Livingstone (UK Labour politician, former Mayor of London), Hitler supported Zionism:

Evening Standard:

Mr Livingstone told BBC Radio London he had never heard anyone in the party say anything anti-Semitic. Then he went on: “Let’s remember, when Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel.

"He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.

The Guardian has the exact same quote, as do many others.

Although the claim does not appear to be explicitly challenged, Livingstone was suspended from the Labour-party for “anti-semitism”, which does imply that his remark was considered controversial within the Labour Party. Is it accurate and fair to say that Hitler (at one point) supported Zionism?

Answer 1

Wiktionary support, verb:

3. To back a cause, party, etc., mentally or with concrete aid.

4. To help, particularly financially.

Although there is evidence that Hitler agreed to (perhaps initiated) a framework for resettling Jews to Palestine, this does not imply he backed the Zionist cause in the political meaning of support.

The Haavara Agreement was a resettlement agreement between Nazi Germany and the Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland (Zionist Federation of Germany). The latter had some 20,000 members in the late 1920s. According to The Transfer Agreement, this rescued 60,000 Jews:

This book documents the agreement between Nazi Germany and an organization of Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland in 1933 to salvage the smallest amounts of German Jewish Assets and the voluntary emigration of German Jews to Palestine before the Third Reich implemented confiscation, expulsion and then extermination. The Transfer Agreement rescued some 60,000 German Jews. A sweeping, worldwide economic boycott of Germany by Jews helped spur a deal between the Nazis and Zionists¹. At that time, there were few Jews in Palestine, but from 1933 through 1936, 60,000 German Jews immigrated into the region², bringing with them a portion of the assets they once held in Germany³.

¹ Edwin Black discusses The Transfer Agreement Book TV on C-SPAN, George Mason University, History News Network.

² U.S. Holocaust Museum Article on Refugees

³ Edelheit, Abraham J.; Edelheit, Hershel (1994). History of the Holocaust : a handbook and dictionary. (New ed.). Boulder: Westview. p. 44. ISBN 978-0813322407.

Black, Edwin (2009), The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine, Tradeselect Limited, 2009, ISBN 978-0914153139

The number 60,000 is disputed:

How many German Jews settled in Palestine? Black says 60,000 between 1933 and 1941, all of them through some form of the agreement. He cites no sources for these figures. Yisraeli, using German foreign-policy documents, tells of 32,995 emigrants between 1932 and 1937, of whom only 12,500 used the transfer agreements.

For comparison, there were around 523,000 Jews in Germany in January 1933.

As far as I'm aware, the historical veracity of this agreement is undisputed, so in the logistical/organisational sense, one can say that Hitler did indeed effectively support Zionism.

However, in the ideological meaning, it is not shown that Hitler backed the cause of Zionism, which traditionally aims a better future for the Jewish people. To the contrary, there is overwhelming evidence that Hitler hated Jews before, during, and after the Transfer Agreement.

In summary:

• Hitler did aid Jews (Zionists) to get from Germany to Palestine, but
• Hitler hated Jews and he certainly wasn't a Zionist.

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See also: Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries.