The Maghreb Review, Vol. 46, 2, 2021 © The Maghreb Review 2021 This publication is printed on FSC Mix paper from responsible sources DANIEL MARWECKI, GERMANY AND ISRAEL: WHITEWASHING AND STATE BUILDING. LONDON, HURST & COMPANY, 2020 Marwecki’s book is a fascinating, well-documented account of the great contribution the Federal Republic of Germany (FDR) has made to the consolidation of the state of Israel and the maintenance of its security. His conclusions about the aims that informed its Israeli policy are not altogether flattering. For he maintains that “German politics towards Israel served not to confront the past but to whitewash its continuities, a rationale accepted in Israel in return for the means to build a state (p.99), and that the measures the FRG undertook to support Israel were not “one sided transactions undertaken out of guilt”, but ones informed by Germany’s interests. (p. 105). However, his account shows that these conclusions are not valid for the entire period covered in his book. This is especially true of the aim of whitewashing. It is unquestionable that whitewashing was the aim pursued by Konrad Adenauer, the chancellor of the FDR, when he initiated the process of reconciliation with Israel which led in 1952 to the conclusion of an agreement over the payment of reparations to it. Adenauer considered reconciliation with Israel a means of promoting Germany’s international standing and its integration in the community of the Western states. Intertwined with this aim was his belief in the great power the Jews had, especially in the USA. (Pp. 15 ff. & 32). Adenauer himself was at no time a Nazi, but the FDR’s bureaucracy was still manned predominantly by former Nazis and many of its prominent politicians had a Nazi past. The Reparations Agreement was ratified by the Bundestag (parliament) on 18 March 1953, and the parliamentarians who spoke in its favour argued exclusively in terms of its positive impact on clearing Germany’s name and promoting its international standing. (pp. 32-3). Israel’s prime minister Ben-Gurion demanded of Chancellor Adenauer to make a public affirmation of the whole German nation’s guilt for the crimes committed against the Jews, but in the end came to terms with an evasive statement Adenauer made in the Bundestag on 27 September 1951 in which he said that the majority of Germans were aware “of the immeasurable suffering that was brought upon the Jews …during the time of National Socialism” and that the Nazis’ crimes called “for moral and material indemnity”. (p. 27). In Israel, a large proportion of whose population consisted at the time of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Europe who escaped Nazi persecution, opposition to reconciliation with Germany was strong; but Ben-Gurion and his Labour Party went ahead with it out of pragmatic considerations. Israel’s state budget was in deficit, and its economy was overburdened by the cost of integrating the large number of Jewish immigrants from Europe and Arab countries. (Pp. 37-43). The Reparations Agreement enabled Israel to override BOOK REVIEWS 223 its budget deficit, carry out a wide-scale industrialisation programme and, with German help, develop its military power. (Pp. 41-9). German weapons had reached the Zionist forces in Palestine already in 1947. (p. 47). After 1957 the FDR delivered Israel with light weapons and motor patrol boats and provided military training. After 1962 the FDR delivered Israel also with heavy artillery, helicopters, planes, boats and submarines, and upon the request of the American administration provided Israel in 1964 also with 150 M48 Paton tanks. (pp.6061 ). Marwecki says that “the military force displayed by Israel in the decisive war of 1967 could not have been developed to this level without the FRG’s prior support.” (p.61). Marwecki’s account shows that a shift occurred in the FDR’s relations with Israel after its astounding victory against its Arab foes in 1967 and the defeat of Egypt’s president Abdel-Nasser who personified the threat of Arab nationalism to it. (p.115). With diplomatic relations having been established in 1965 and the taking over by the USA of Germany’s role as Israel’s main backer and provider of weapons, the...