WI: Adenauer killed in 1952?

[lerk]

In 1952, there was an assassination attempt plotted by Menachem Begin, who would later on become Israeli PM, against German chancellor Konrad Adenauer. This was plotted as the debate over reparations was going on in both Germany and Israel. The attempt failed, but what if it succeeded? Would reparations still be paid?

 

[Lalli]

This would kick back of Jews badly. There would be new rise of antisemitism.

 

[raharris1973]

Would reparations still be paid?

Nope- so this could be a very economically bad 1950s and 1960s for Israel. Maybe it collapses or cannot afford to arm itself.

 

[Livius wannabe]

"We thought the Germans should pay directly to the survivors of the Holocaust and that the government of Israel should not take the money from them in the name of the Jewish people and buy tractors with it for the kibbutzim."

Didn't most of the survivors receive compensation? Thing is, entire extended families had been wiped out, so who was going to receive it?

I don't understand Begin's endgame. Did he want revenge instead?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

I don't understand Begin's endgame. Did he want revenge instead?

He was an extremist and wanted to refuse any dealings with Germany, saying any deal would be forgiving the Holocaust.

This was the group that sent the bomb on his order:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun

Two of the operations for which the Irgun is best known are the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 and the Deir Yassin massacre, carried out together with Lehi on 9 April 1948.

The Irgun has been viewed as a terrorist organization or organization which carried out terrorist acts.[3][4][5][6]Specifically the organization "committed acts of terrorism and assassination against the British, whom it regarded as illegal occupiers, and it was also violently anti-Arab" according to the Encyclopædia Britannica.[7] In particular the Irgun was described as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, British, and United States governments; in media such as The New York Times newspaper;[8][9] as well as by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry,[10][11] the 1946 Zionist Congress[12] and the Jewish Agency.[13]

In 1948, The New York Times published a letter signed by a number of prominent Jewish figures including Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, Sidney Hook, and RabbiJessurun Cardozo, which described Irgun as "a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine".[85][86][87] The letter went on to state that Irgun and the Stern gang "inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and widespread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute."[81]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Begin#Political_career

In November 1948, Begin visited the US on a campaigning trip. During his visit, a letter signed by Albert Einstein, Sidney Hook, Hannah Arendt, and other prominent Americans and several rabbis was published which described Begin's Herut party as "terrorist, right-wing chauvinist organization in Palestine,"[28] closely akin in its organization, methods, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties" and accused his group (along with the smaller, militant, Stern Gang) of preaching "racial superiority" and having "inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community".[29][30]

One of the fiercest confrontations between Begin and Ben-Gurion revolved around the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany, signed in 1952. Begin vehemently opposed the agreement, claiming that it was tantamount to a pardon of Nazi crimes against the Jewish people.[33] While the agreement was debated in the Knesset in January 1952, he led a demonstration in Jerusalem attended by some 15,000 people, and gave a passionate and dramatic speech in which he attacked the government and called for its violent overthrow. Referring to the Altalena Affair, Begin stated that "when you fired at me with cannon, I gave the order; 'Don't [return fire]!' Today I will give the order, 'Do!'"[34] Incited by his speech, the crowd marched towards the Knesset (then at the Frumin Building on King George Street) and threw stones at the windows, and at police as they intervened. After five hours of rioting, police managed to suppress the riots using water cannons and tear gas. Hundreds were arrested, while some 200 rioters, 140 police officers, and several Knesset members were injured. Many held Begin personally responsible for the violence, and he was consequently barred from the Knesset for several months. His behavior was strongly condemned in mainstream public discourse, reinforcing his image as a provocateur. The vehemence of Revisionist opposition was deep; in March 1952, during the ongoing reparations negotiations, a parcel bomb addressed to Konrad Adenauer, the sitting West German Chancellor, was intercepted at a German post office. While being defused, the bomb exploded, killing one sapper and injuring two others. Five Israelis, all former members of Irgun, were later arrested in Paris for their involvement in the plot. Chancellor Adenauer decided to keep secret the involvement of Israeli opposition party members in the plot, thus avoiding Israeli embarrassment and a likely backlash. The five Irgun conspirators were later extradited from both France and Germany, without charge, and sent back to Israel. Forty years after the assassination attempt, Begin was implicated as the organizer of the assassination attempt in a memoir written by one of the conspirators, Elieser Sudit.[35][36][37][38]

 

[Livius wannabe]

He was an extremist and wanted to refuse any dealings with Germany, saying any deal would be forgiving the Holocaust.

I read all that and I understand the sentiment, but not the logic.
Wouldn't it have been better for Germany not to pay the Wiedergutmachung then?

I mean, what's the advantage with a we won't speak to you no matter the money you pay attitude? Keeping the moral high ground?

 

[Lalli]

I read all that and I understand the sentiment, but not the logic.
Wouldn't it have been better for Germany not to pay the Wiedergutmachung then?

I mean, what's the advantage with a we won't speak to you no matter the money you pay attitude? Keeping the moral high ground?

Terrorists aren't always very logical or at least they don't very often think very far.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

I read all that and I understand the sentiment, but not the logic.
Wouldn't it have been better for Germany not to pay the Wiedergutmachung then?

I mean, what's the advantage with a we won't speak to you no matter the money you pay attitude? Keeping the moral high ground?

He was known as a very emotional, irrational man and lost his parents in the Holocaust. I don't think we can truly understand his mindset, not having experienced the traumas he did.

 

[oberdada]

To my knowledge, the bomb had very little chance of actually reaching the Chancellor, and that was intentional.

To disturb the German-israeli diplomacy yes, but not actually killing the Chancellor was the aim.

Adenauer did not have a majority on his own for the reparations, he needed the support of the SPD, but since that was one of the few things that Schumacher was in agreement, that worked out.

Really depends on who would be the next Chancellor. Probably not Erhardt, maybe Schröder or Kaiser ...

 

[raharris1973]

To my knowledge, the bomb had very little chance of actually reaching the Chancellor, and that was intentional.

To disturb the German-israeli diplomacy yes, but not actually killing the Chancellor was the aim.

Adenauer did not have a majority on his own for the reparations, he needed the support of the SPD, but since that was one of the few things that Schumacher was in agreement, that worked out.

Really depends on who would be the next Chancellor. Probably not Erhardt, maybe Schröder or Kaiser ...

Hmm that's the kind of thing to make me think "eff you, 1950s version of CDU-CSU"

 

[David T]

Especially if Begin can indeed be shown to have known about the bombing, Ben Gurion is going to crack down pretty hard on Herut...

 

[raharris1973]

Especially if Begin can indeed be shown to have known about the bombing, Ben Gurion is going to crack down pretty hard on Herut...

Begin might be forever ineligible for the Cabinet after that, at least not rehabilitated in time to join the Cabinet in 1967. Then again, 15 years is a long time in politics, and a comeback might not be absolutely impossible.

 

[Lalli]

Begin might be forever ineligible for the Cabinet after that, at least not rehabilitated in time to join the Cabinet in 1967. Then again, 15 years is a long time in politics, and a comeback might not be absolutely impossible.

But he hardly could ever be prime minister. But in other hand in politics has seen many strange things.