Talk:German Templer colonies in Palestine

Gotthilf Wagner

Exactly how is "collaborated with the Nazis during the war" supported by "interned by the Palestine Government during the war"? Everyone can see that it is a contradiction. The highly implausible story repeated without verification by Bergman requires that he was in Europe, which is impossible if he was interned in Palestine. The sources contradict each other and both contain nonsense. He was a Nazi party member but "S.S. group leader" is ridiculous. His signature appears on published financial statements for Sarona in March 1941, May 1942, June 1942, March 1943, May 1943, March 1944, March 1945 and May 1945 at least (I stopped searching). That's enough to prove Bergman's story is impossible and JTA does not say he collaborated with the Nazis during the war anyway. There is also plenty of other evidence that he was not in Europe but in Palestine, for example the book "From Desert Sands to Golden Oranges" by Helmut Glenk describes his activities in Palestine during the war and shows documents. Incidentally, in June 1938, the British government appointed him "an Honorary Member of the Civil Division of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire" — not a bad achievement for an SS group leader if you are gullible enough to believe it. Zero^talk 04:32, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

The contradiction you claimed is that he was in Palestine during the war. There is no contradiction between that and being a Nazi collaborator. If you don't selectively pick a single sentence from the sources you cite, you'll see that the sentence immediately after "interned by the Palestine Government during the war. " is "He acted as liaison agent between the other detained Palestine Nazis and the Administration, and also served as trustee for their property. ". Inf-in MD (talk) 10:51, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

"Collaborated with the Nazis" is a strong statement that implies he helped the German war effort. The Bergman source is the only one which supports that, but it places him in Europe which proves it is unreliable. The JTA source does not say that he collaborated with the Nazis. It is true that he acted as liason between the interred Sarona residents and the Palestine government, and it is also true that some fraction of the Sarona residents were members of the Nazi party, but "collaborated with the Nazis" takes a bit of JTA polemic overstatement and makes it outright misleading. Incidentally, Davar also said he was interred in Palestine during the war. Zero^talk 02:21, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Incidentally, I have found that the most lurid stories about Wagner originated with journalist Habib Kanaan, who also originated the fake story about poisoning Tel-Aviv's water supply and the fake story about gas chambers in the Jordan Valley. Zero^talk 02:30, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

"Collaborated with the Nazis" is a strong statement that implies he helped the German war effort. - I don't think so. If you check this for example- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jewish_collaborators_with_Nazi_Germany - the majority of those categorized as Nazi collaborators were ghetto administrators. One is listed as such for signing a vow of loyalty to Hitler. Inf-in MD (talk) 14:59, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Collaboration means cooperation; check a dictionary. Merely stating allegiance is not collaboration and if some other place in Wikipedia has that wrong it should be corrected. Nothing like collaboration is known of the interred Templers in Palestine, nor is it plausible as they were under the guard of British and Jewish soldiers. In fact we don't a source for Nazi allegiance during the war either so there is nothing to argue about. Time to fix the article. Zero^talk 01:22, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

There's no need for your patronizing language, especially when it is non-responsive to what I wrote . Of course collaboration means cooperation, but it does not mean cooperation to "help the are effort", which is the false claim you made. It is beyond dispute that he cooperated with the Nazis during the war, per the JTA source (and others). The article is fine Inf-in MD (talk) 11:30, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

So you put it back with yet another source that does not support it. The only mention is "Contemporary reports say Wagner was targeted because he had been a prominent Nazi." Contemporary reports about a murder by persons unknown mean very little, but the important thing to note is that the source has nothing whatsoever about collaborating during the war. If Wagner was a prominent Catholic, would you write that he collaborated with the Vatican during the war? We have a policy that all edits have to be supported by reliable sources. When are you going to obey it? Zero^talk 13:46, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I couldn't help noticing "The movement was reconstituted as the Temple Society in Germany and Australia, and in 1962 it was paid 54m Deutsch Marks by Israel for the loss of its properties - the equivalent of about $100m (£65m) in today's money." Amazing, while Israel was negotiating with Germany for vast reparations it paid $100m to a bunch of Nazis. Who would have thought? (The actual amount was 2,139,000 pounds sterling at 1950 value, I have the contract.) Zero^talk 14:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

That Wagner was a prominent Nazi does not mean all Templars were Nazis nor that those who lost property shouldn't be compensated for it. I'm surprised this needs to be said. Inf-in MD (talk) 16:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC) Strike sock

• Wagner was a "prominent Nazi" per sources such as the BBC. He was a Nazi, which is worse than collaborating.Free1Soul (talk) 15:02, 16 August 2021 (UTC) sock

@Zero0000: the best source on this is Wawrzyn, Heidemarie (1 August 2013). Nazis in the Holy Land 1933-1948. De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-030652-1.. See extract below:

Jewish militants also focused on the remaining Germans in Palestine, whom they perceived as Nazis they were no longer willing to tolerate. On March 22, 1946, Gotthilf Wagner, the last mayor of Sarona and secretary of the Templers, was assassinated by the Hebrew Resistance Movement. A 2007 Israeli television documentary noted that the decision for this act was probably taken by the Haganah. “Wagner was killed in Tel Aviv” was the headline in Jewish newspapers. The Palestine Post reported on the liquidation of “the pro-war German Bürgermeister of the German village Sarona”:

Wagner was on his way from the internment camp Wilhelma to Sarona by car to pay Arab workers hired by the Templers. At about 9 o’clock in the morning, a car suddenly appeared on the road, blocked his way and forced Wagner’s car to slow down. Two men ran over to the car and fired at him. Wagner died instantly from the bullet wounds in the head. With him in the car were his sister, Frida Wagner, Karl Steller, and a Jewish supernumerary policeman. These passengers remained unharmed.

An eyewitness and participant in the assassination explained that the decision to liquidate Gotthilf Wagner was made under the assumption that Wagner and his firm had supported the Arabs during the 1936–1939 uprising. Furthermore, from the Jewish point of view Wagner was seen as an ardent Nazi and the leader of the Germans in Palestine, whom they learned had been named to be Gauleiter for the region had the Germans occupied Palestine. The assassination was intended to make it unmistakably clear that Palestine-Germans could no longer remain in the country. “They will not last here,” was the headline in Jewish newspapers. According to the C.I.D., Wagner’s murder took place in the context of land politics, for he had consistently instructed members of his settlement not to sell land to Jews.

The Templers, however, considered Gotthilf Wagner an anti-Nazi and victim of Jewish terror. Richard Hornung, his nephew, described his uncle and his assassination as follows:

The secretary of the Templers was Gotthilf Wagner, a man in his late forties, de facto the leader, very energetic, stubborn and unafraid of the “authorities,” which were not that clearly defined, making negotiation particularly difficult. He was also one of the very few fluent English speakers of the group. In his view the Templers had earned the right to be guaranteed a future, preferably where they were, but if not, then somewhere else in the British Empire with just and fair compensation for real estate values of the possessions that would have to be relinquished. His negotiations involved discussions with the British, the Zionists, the Arabs — with all of whom he stuck to his guns, being convinced of the justifica- tion of the line he had adopted. This was the time when he began to receive anonymous phone calls, messages to the effect that “We” will make certain that he would never see his grandchildren in Australia again. In 1941, large numbers of younger Templers and their wives and children had been shipped on the Queen Elizabeth to Australia, which brought about the tearing apart of many families.... The warning Gotthilf Wagner had received subsequently turned out to be a bomb explosion in the Sarona community hall, one of the Templer settlements near Tel Aviv, where he was presiding over the meeting of elders. A major mess with many dead bodies would have been the outcome had the meeting for that day not been postponed by 20 minutes or so, a mere non-routine coincidence. I never found out why the meeting had been postponed. Then, on the morning of 22 March 1946, Wagner drove with two others, one of them his sister Frida, from the inland settlement Wilhelma near Lydda, now Bene Atarot near Lod, to nearby Jaffa.... On this business trip unrest was all around: tensions, daily killings, mutual atrocities be- tween Jews and Arabs and occasionally involving the British.... Gotthilf’s wife, Lina, had pleaded with her husband not to go.... In his somewhat gruff manner, Wagner had brushed it all aside saying “Allah ma na” — God is with us — and although he wasn’t a Muslim, many Templers were less reticent, less inhibited when using the Arab tongue in which some were as fluent as the native speakers. After he had driven off in the car, Frida observed two motorbike riders following the car at some distance. Close to the outskirts of Jaffa, in front of a cast iron bridge over the wadi (creek)..., a car across the whole road blocked their way. Two obviously seasoned killers jumped forward at the slowing car from behind a bush, each pumped a bullet into his head and disappeared on their motorbikes. The deed took less than a minute. Gotthilf was almost instantly dead, trying to frame a word resembling “Ende” — the end — and turning off the motor as an already automatic reflex action. Frida, in inexpressible panic, tried to mop up the blood pouring out of the fatal wounds. By the afternoon of that day Wagner’s body was returned to Wilhelma. The entire community, and later all Templers, were stunned, speechless, feeling that time had stood still, and wondering who and what would come next. They certainly felt that the end of their time in that area had come in one form or other. There was no one remotely capable of guiding them through that impossibly chaotic time on the same conviction that Wagner had done, of toughing it out with those in power.... I was a 13-year-old boy in the Templer community and I was Gotthilf’s nephew and he was my mother’s cousin.... My brother, Hans, and I both knew Onkel Gotthilf particularly well, were extremely fond and admiring of him, appreciated his generosity, his sense of humour and his general ability to have fun.... Gotthilf was a positive personality and a role model. Like me, many people puzzled over the need to kill this man. It had nothing to do with the strife in Europe. Wagner was a deeply convinced anti-Nazi.

In fact, Gotthilf Wagner had been a member of the Nazi party in Palestine. His membership no. 7024779 is recorded at the Public Record Office in London and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Why the Haganah killed him is still unclear. Was Wagner eliminated because Zionists wanted the land of Sarona, which Wagner had constantly refused to sell to them? This is unlikely, because the British authorities had already promulgated the Land Ordinance of 1943, which “enabled the Government to acquire land compulsorily for another party if deemed desirable.... From 1944 onwards, the British expropriated more and more land around Sarona in favour of the Tel Aviv City Council.” More likely is that Wagner’s murder was intended to signal that there was no longer any place in Palestine for Germans. Further hostilities and attacks against them underline this assumption.

Onceinawhile (talk) 15:04, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Seeing that there is so much interest in this topic, from so many concerned editors, I propose to start a new article on it. We can the discuss further there.

See Assassination of Gotthilf Wagner. Onceinawhile (talk) 15:10, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Whitewashing Nazis

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_Templer_colonies_in_Palestine&diff=prev&oldid=1039083643 is not acceptable. These aren't "Jewish reports" the source writes "In fact, Gotthilf Wagner had been a member of the Nazi party in Palestine. His membership no. 7024779 is recorded at the Public Record Office in London and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. " Repeating his Nazi family denials is not acceptable. His Nazism is without any doubt. Free1Soul (talk) 16:26, 16 August 2021 (UTC) sock

I agree. We also have the BBC source say "Contemporary reports say Wagner was targeted because he had been a prominent Nazi. " Inf-in MD (talk) 16:38, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Please discuss this at Talk:Assassination of Gotthilf Wagner, so we keep the discussion centralized. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:09, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: if you do not REVERT YOUR EDIT NOW - in which you place Wagner's Nazism to "Jewish reports ... claimed" - I will consider taking this to the admins and wider community. Tne source says he was Nazi, fact. No claim. Shame. Free1Soul (talk) 17:14, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

The claim is about whether he was "active" or some kind of "collaborator" (see above). That he was a member is undisputed, and can be freely added to the article.

Onceinawhile (talk) 17:16, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

You removed that well sourced information. You need to put it back in. Inf-in MD (talk) 18:15, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

No I did not remove that information. The version I edited stated that he was "a prominent Nazi"; I replaced it with "Jewish reports at the time claimed that Wagner was an active Nazi". Neither version referenced whether he was a member. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

You changed a fact stated by multiple sources- that he was a Nazi- to a "Jewish claim", even while acknowledging that "That he was a member [of the Nazi party] is undisputed" . Please undo that forthwith. Inf-in MD (talk)

Imagine an editor changing “it was a blue car” to “Bob claimed it was a light blue car”. That new text does not imply that it was not a car.

21:43, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

It depends on the context. If the context was that all agree it was a car, and the exact color is in dispute, then you would be correct. If the context was that some claim it was a blue motorcycle, and Bob claimed it was a blue car , it would imply that the nature of the vehicle is subject to competing claims. In this article, you remove an undisputed, sourced fact that he was Nazi, and replaced it with a claim that he was an active Nazi, leaving the fact that he was indeed a Nazi to be merely a claim. Please undo that. Inf-in MD (talk) 21:52, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I see another editor has already done what you stubbornly refused to do. Your behavior here is problematic, and I have to agree with the section title that says this is whitewashing. Inf-in MD (talk)

All of this back and forth stems from a failure to WP:AGF. Your point about context is describing what was in your mind at the time. Not mine. Remember I had posted the Wawrzyn extract at 15:04, forty minutes before I made the edit which you have been referring to. That Wawryzn quote was the one which gave us the incontrovertible proof that Wagner was a Nazi member; I brought that information. The context in my mind at the time was exactly as I have set out above.

You are new to Wikipedia, and may be getting off on the wrong foot. Communication in solely written form is difficult as it is easy to assume the worst. If you stick around you might learn to trust us. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:05, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I assumed good intentions for the first few iterations, but when you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the undisputed fact that he was a Nazi, and use terminology like "Jewish reports' despite repeatedly being told that it is offensive, it makes it hard to continue assuming so. Perhaps I was misinterpreting you here - I'll take a look at some of your other edits to see if maybe I was judging you too harshly here. Inf-in MD (talk) 22:14, 16 August 2021 (UTC) strike sock

War-time exchanges with Germany

The basic idea was to fetch Palestinian Jews, their relatives, and Jews with Palestinian immigration certificates from Nazi control by sending Templers in exchange. What actually happened is that by the third of the four exchanges the Germans were unable to locate any more Jews meeting those criteria so it was agreed that other Jews would be sent instead. These were mostly Dutch, Polish and German Jews from various camps. I'm not adding this to the article yet because I only have it on primary documents and a secondary source is preferred. Zero^talk 09:51, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Not all Germans were Templers, or Templers who had returned to the official Protestant Church

The title is inaccurate, too narrow. There were many Germans in Jerusalem - and not only - who had nothing to do with the Templers. The Jerusalem cemetery of the German colony is very mixed. I'm not sure the Waldheim people were all from former Templer families. It's a common generalisation, and a wrong one. Arminden (talk) 01:57, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

The question is what the article is about. It doesn't claim to be about all Germans in Palestine, but only about the Templer Colonies in Palestine. See the first sentences. Non-Templers who lived in Templer colonies are in scope. Germans who had nothing to do with Templers are not. You need to be more clear about your objection. Zero^talk 03:28, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

There is a general tendency to call them all Templers. In Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem there are quarters called "German Colony", with a mixed history. Waldheim was not a Templer colony, and I don't know if they were - all or in part - former Templer families. This must be checked. That's what I meant. The Templers were the most visible (and numerous, I guess), but the distinction is often ignored. I did make a mistake. There are 2 Protestant cemeteries next to each other (wall to wall) in the German Colony of Jerusalem, one indeed belonging to the Templers, and one of the Alliance Church. Sorry. Arminden (talk) 18:27, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the German=Templer mistake is common. Here is a list from a reliable source: The German Templer settlements were Haifa (1869), Jaffa (1869), Sarona (1871), Jerusalem (1873), Wilhelma (1902), and Betlehem (1906). The settlement of Waldheim was founded by the German Protestant Community (Kirchler) sup­ported by the Jerusalemsverein Berlin in 1907. Neuhardthof (1892) was an off-shoot of the Haifa settlement and Walhalla (1888) an off-shoot of the Jaffa settlement. (Helmut Glenk, From Desert Sands to Golden Oranges, 2004, p4.) Zero^talk 02:41, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

1867 first attempt: where?

I have identified and linked as follows:

• Samunieh with Tel Shimron
• Medjedel with Al-Mujaydil.

I cannot tell, however, if the Tel Shimron site was uninhabited at the time, nor how Templers ended up dying in Medjedel/Al-Mujaydil: did they seek out for help? Did they establish a farm or hamlet next to the Arab village? Arminden (talk) 14:55, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Semunieh is described as a small village both before and after the Templers' attempted settlement (eg. Robinson, SWP). In Palmer's "Tent work in Palestine" page 302, he writes "The younger Hoffmann (Christopher) visited Palestine about 1858, and, in 1867, a small trial expedition of twelve men was sent out. They settled in reed huts near Semunieh, on the edge of the Plain of Esdraclon, west of Nazareth ; and in spite of the warning of friends who knew the unhealthy climate of that place, they remained in the malarious atmosphere of the low ground near the springs, until they all died of fever." So it was near the village rather than in the village. Zero^talk 03:49, 23 December 2023 (UTC)