PAYING FOR THE HOLOCAUST:
THE CONTROVERSIAL REPA RAT IONS AGREEMENT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND WEST GERMANY, AND THE PLOT TO KILL ADENAUER

Claudia Dunlea

DESCRIPTION: In 1952, Menachem Begin—who later became Prime Minister of Israel, and who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat in 1978—masterminded and funded an assassination attempt against West Germany’s Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Why he would do such a thing is the focus of this lecture. Adenauer and Moshe Sharett, Israel’s foreign minister, had just signed the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany.

This agreement committed Germany to pay Israel for the slave labor and persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, and to compensate for Jewish property that was stolen by the Nazis. For Adenauer, reparations (Wiedergutmachung) were of paramount importance—so why an attempt by Begin to kill the Chancellor? This lecture outlines the controversy on both sides that accompanied the idea of Wiedergutmachung. Exploring the clash over reparations for the Holocaust will provide the backdrop for Begin’s deadly plot.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Dr. Claudia Dunlea is Visiting Instructor of History at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). She received her doctorate in European Integration History from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2003. Dr. Dunlea is the author of a book that investigates the origins of a supranational European foreign policy in the 1950s. Her recent research on the diplomatic relations of the European Union was published in two articles.