Auction 28 - Objects - Judaica, Ceremonial Art and Israeliana

Nazi Medallion with a Swastika and a Star of David–" A Nazi Travels to Palestine", 1934

Opening: $800
Sold for: $1,063
Including buyer's premium
A medal struck in honor of the series of articles" A Nazi Travels to Palestine" which was published in the Nazi journal "Der Angriff" (The Attack). A memento of the cooperation that took place between the Nazi Party and the German Zionist Federation, in their mutual goal of relocating German Jews to Palestine. Germany, 1934.
The recto of the medallion depicts a Star of David in the center, surrounded by the inscription in German "A Nazi Travels to Palestine" (Ein Nazi fährt nach Palästina). The verso depicts a swastika in the center and the words "And he writes about it in The Attack" (Und erzählt davon in Angriff).
In the beginning of the Nazi rule in Germany, the Zionist Movement was inclined to cooperate with the line that the Nazi government adopted at the time – encouraging immigration of German Jews to Eretz Israel. In the spring of 1933, the leaders of the German Zionist Association decided to contact elements within the Nazi party who might support the Zionist cause. Kurt Tuchler, a German-Jewish lawyer and judge and member of the managing committee of the German Zionist Federation, contacted Leopold von Mildenstein, a senior Nazi officer who was head of the Jewish department of the SD (the security service of the SS and the Nazi party), and asked him to publish an article in the Nazi press about the Jewish settlements in Eretz Israel. In 1933, the two men traveled to Eretz Israel with their wives and spent a month touring the country, to enable von Mildenstein to get an impression of the booming Jewish industrial, agricultural and settlement efforts in Palestine. Ina report to Yad Vashem years later, Tuchler wrote, "The purpose of the visit was to create in an important Nazi newspaper an image that would promote the Zionist cause in Eretz Israel." After their return to Germany, von Mildenstein published a series of 12 illustrated articles in the Nazi newspaper "Der Angriff" (The Attack), which was the mouthpiece of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister. To commemorate the articles, Goebbels struck this medallion.
Circumference: 3.5 cm. Fine condition.
Tokens, Coins and Medals
Tokens, Coins and Medals