Leopold Itz,

Edler Edler () was until 1919 the lowest rank of nobility in Austria-Hungary and Germany, just beneath a ''Ritter'' (hereditary knight), but above untitled nobles, who used only the nobiliary particle ''von'' before their surname. It was mostly given t ...

von Mildenstein (30 November 1902 – November 1968) was an SS officer who is remembered as a lead supporter in the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported th ...

of some of the aims of

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

during the 1930s. He sometimes worked as a writer and signed using his initials, LIM. In English he has sometimes been called a "

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knigh ...

" although his rank of ''Edler'' meant "nobleman" and has no exact equivalent; perhaps the nearest translation is "

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentleman a ...

". After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Mildenstein continued to live in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

, where he joined the Free Democratic Party and was elected to its Press Committee. In 1956, he went to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

to work for a radio station, and after the capture of

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

, a claim which was neither confirmed nor denied. Nothing was heard of him after 1964, when he published a book on cocktails.

Life up to 1945

Born in 1902 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a tempera ...

, then part of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1 ...

, von Mildenstein belonged to the lowest tier of the

Austrian nobility The Austrian nobility (german: österreichischer Adel) is a status group that was officially abolished in 1919 after the fall of Austria-Hungary. The nobles are still part of Austrian society today, but they no longer retain any specific privil ...

and was brought up as a Roman Catholic. He trained as an

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the lim ...

and joined the

in 1929, receiving the membership number 106,678. In 1932 he joined the SS, becoming one of the first Austrians to do so. According to

Dieter Wisliceny Dieter Wisliceny (13 January 1911 – 4 May 1948) was a member of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) and one of the deputies of Adolf Eichmann, helping to organise and coordinate the wide scale deportations of the Jews across Europe during the Holocaust. ...

, his former SS colleague, von Mildenstein visited the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europea ...

, including British-administered Palestine, several times until 1935.Jacob Boas, "A Nazi Travels to Palestine" in ''History Today,'' Vol. 30, Issue 1 (1980), pp. 33–38 On 30 January 1933

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...

came to power as Chancellor of Germany. Mildenstein had taken an early interest in Zionism, even going so far as to attend Zionist conferences to help deepen his understanding of the movement. He actively promoted Zionism as a way out of the official impasse on the Jewish question: as a way of making Germany '' Judenrein'' (free of Jews). Some Zionists, whose movement had grown tremendously in popularity among German Jews since Hitler came to power, co-operated. On 7 April 1933, the '' Juedische Rundschau,'' the bi-weekly paper of the Zionist movement, declared that of all Jewish groups only the Zionist Federation of Germany was capable of approaching the Nazis in good faith as "honest partners".Jacob Boas, ''The Jews of Germany: Self-Perception in the Nazi Era as Reflected in the German Jewish Press 1933–1938'', Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Riverside, (1977), p. 111 The Federation then commissioned Kurt Tuchler, an acquaintance of Mildenstein, to make contact with possible Zionist sympathisers within the Nazi Party. Tuchler hoped to convince von Mildenstein's circle that the Nazis should openly promote Jewish nationalism. Tuchler asked von Mildenstein to write something positive about Jewish Palestine in the press. Mildenstein agreed, on condition that he be allowed to visit the country in person, with Tuchler as his guide. So, in the spring of 1933 a party of four set out from Berlin, consisting of von Mildenstein, Tuchler, and their wives. They spent a month together in Palestine,''Yad Vashem studies'', Vol. 37, part 1, p. 134 and von Mildenstein began to write a series of articles for ''

Der Angriff ''Der Angriff'' (in English "The Attack") is a discontinued German language newspaper founded in 1927 by the Berlin Gau of the Nazi Party. The last edition was published on 24 April 1945. History The newspaper was set up by Joseph Goebbels, ...

'', a Nazi Party newspaper in Berlin, founded by

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 194 ...

in 1927. According to

Lenni Brenner Lenni Brenner (born 1937), formerly known as Leonard Glaser or Lenny Glaser, is an American Trotskyist writer. In the 1960s, Brenner was a prominent civil rights movement activist and vocal opponent of the Vietnam War. Since the 1980s, his activ ...

, Von Mildenstein himself remained in Palestine for a total of six months before his return to Germany. and He even learnt a few words of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

. In August 1933 Hitler's government and German Zionists entered into the

Haavara Agreement The Haavara Agreement () was an agreement between Nazi Germany and Zionist German Jews signed on 25 August 1933. The agreement was finalized after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the d ...

, which encouraged emigration by allowing Jews to transfer property and funds from Germany to Palestine. On his return to Berlin, von Mildenstein's suggestion that the solution to the Jewish problem lay in mass migration to Palestine was accepted by his superiors within the SS. Between 9 September and 9 October 1934, ''Der Angriff'' published a series of twelve quite pro-Zionist reports by Mildenstein, entitled ''A Nazi Goes to Palestine'', in honour of which the newspaper issued a commemorative medallion, cast with the

swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. ...

on one side and the

Star of David The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the ''seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorative ...

on the other. From August 1934 to June 1936, von Mildenstein worked in the headquarters of the ''

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the ''Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...

'' (SD), the security service of the SS, in Section II/112, in charge of the Jewish Desk, with the title of ''

Judenreferent The or (German plural: ; ), variously translated as Jewish advisers or Jewish experts, were Nazi SS officials who supervised anti-Jewish legislation and the deportations of Jews in the countries under their responsibility. Key architects of the ...

'' (Jewish Affairs Officer). This title meant that he was responsible for reporting on "Jewish Affairs" under the overall command of

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...

. During those years, von Mildenstein favoured a policy of encouraging Germany's Jewish population to emigrate to Palestine, and in pursuit of this policy he developed positive contacts with Zionist organisations. SS officials were even instructed to encourage the activities of the Zionists within the Jewish community, who were to be favoured over the assimilationists, said to be the real danger to Nazism.

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...

, believed that his big break came in 1934, when he had a meeting with von Mildenstein, a fellow-Austrian, in the

Wilhelmstrasse Wilhelmstrasse (german: Wilhelmstraße, see ß) is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte and Kreuzberg districts of Berlin, Germany. Until 1945, it was recognised as the centre of the government, first of the Kingdom of Prussia, later of th ...

and was invited to join Mildenstein's department. Eichmann later stated that Mildenstein rejected the vulgar

anti-semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

of Streicher. Soon after his arrival in the section Mildenstein gave Eichmann a book on Judaism by Adolf Böhm, a leading Jew from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. In the summer of 1935, then holding the rank of SS-''

Untersturmführer (, ; short: ''Ustuf'') was a paramilitary rank of the German ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) first created in July 1934. The rank can trace its origins to the older SA rank of ''Sturmführer'' which had existed since the founding of the SA in 1921. ...

'', von Mildenstein attended the 19th Congress of the

Zionist Organization The World Zionist Organization ( he, הַהִסְתַּדְּרוּת הַצִּיּוֹנִית הָעוֹלָמִית; ''HaHistadrut HaTzionit Ha'Olamit''), or WZO, is a non-governmental organization that promotes Zionism. It was founded as the ...

Lucerne , neighboring_municipalities= Adligenswil, Ebikon, Emmen, Horw, Kriens, Malters, Meggen, Neuenkirch Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label= Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, as an observer attached to the German Jewish delegation. Von Mildenstein's apparently pro-Zionist line was overtaken by events, and after a dispute with

in 1936 he was removed from his post and transferred to the Foreign Ministry's press department. He had fallen out of favour because migration to Palestine was not proceeding at a fast enough rate. His departure from the SD also saw a shift in SS policy, marked by the publication of a pamphlet warning of the dangers of a strong Jewish state in the Middle East, written by Eichmann. Von Mildenstein was replaced as the head of his former section by Kuno Schroeder. Later in December 1939, Eichmann was made chief of the Jewish Department ''Referat IV B4'' of the

RSHA The Reich Security Main Office (german: Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and ''Reichsführer-SS'', the head of the Nazi ...

, of which the SD became a part in September 1939. As Germany moved into the Second World War, von Mildenstein continued to write propaganda articles and books, including "Around the Burning Land of the Jordan" (1938) and "The Middle East Seen from the Roadside" (1941).

Life after the war

After the war, Mildenstein's works were placed on the list of proscribed literature in the

Soviet occupation zone The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a c ...

and later in the

German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **G ...

. Like the

, Mildenstein's visit to Palestine in 1933, the medal to commemorate it, and the pro-Zionist articles in the Nazi newspaper ''Der Angriff'', they were unwelcome evidence of a relationship between the Nazis and Zionism during the 1930s. Mildenstein visited the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

in 1954, having been granted a

visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

to do so at the request of the government of

. In January 1956, he asked the U. S. Embassy in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr ...

to help him obtain an exchange grant for journalists, although he was not one. By then a member of the Free Democratic Party, in May 1956 he was elected to its Press Committee. In December 1956, a

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

report from

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

confirmed that he had been employed by the

ian government of Gamal Abdul Nasser to work for its

Voice of the Arabs Voice of the Arabs or Sawt al-Arab ( ar, صوت العرب)‎ (621 kHz on Mediumwave to Egypt, 9800 kHz, and many other frequencies on Shortwave to the Middle East, the rest of Europe and North America) was one of the first and most pro ...

radio station. In June 1960, soon after the capture of Eichmann by

Mossad Mossad ( , ), ; ar, الموساد, al-Mōsād, ; , short for ( he, המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים, links=no), meaning 'Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations'. is the national intelligence agency ...

agents in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South Am ...

on 11 May 1960, Mildenstein announced that he had had an operational relationship with the CIA and as a former U. S. intelligence agent claimed immunity from prosecution. This relationship was neither confirmed nor denied by the CIA. In 1964, Mildenstein published a new book on the mixing of cocktails, including some non-

alcohol Alcohol most commonly refers to: * Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom * Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks Alcohol may also refer to: Chemicals * Ethanol, one of sev ...

ic ones, but after that no more was heard of him until he died in November 1968. In 2011, the Israeli director

Arnon Goldfinger Arnon Goldfinger ( he, ארנון גולדפינגר; born 1963) is an Israeli film director and scriptwriter, winner of two Israeli Academy Awards, known for his films '' The Komediant'' and '' The Flat''. Early life Arnon Goldfinger was born i ...

, a grandson of Mildenstein's companions the Tuchlers, produced a film called '' The Flat,'' in which Mildenstein's friendship with his grandparents is discussed at length. Goldfinger's film showed that his grandparents had kept in touch with the Mildensteins after the war. Having researched in the German National Archives, Goldfinger states that Mildenstein joined the Ministry of Propaganda under Goebbels in 1938 and that he later worked as a press officer for

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlan ...

in West Germany until the public Eichmann hearings of 1961, in which Eichmann named him as "the specialist in Jewish affairs." The film ends with an interview in which Goldfinger discusses his findings with Mildenstein's daughter. He has described this scene as "highly conflict-laden" and has said of it "I wanted to show Edda von Mildenstein as a victim of her own father and his lies." Goldfinger finds that she remembers his grandparents and knows more about their lives than he had known himself.Yael Munk, "Arnon Goldfinger’s The Flat: Holocaust Memory, Film Noir, and the Pain of Others", in ''Jewish Film & New Media'' 4, 1 (2016), 25,

References

*Jacob Boas, "]https://www.historytoday.com/archive/nazi-travels-palestine A Nazi Travels to Palestine]", in ''

History Today ''History Today'' is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it presents serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible. The magazine covers all periods and geographical regions and pub ...

'', vol. 30, issue 1, pp. 33–38

Notes

External links

Leopold von Mildenstein, ''Mix mit und ohne Alkohol''
(1964), archive.is
Die Artikelserie "Ein Nazi fährt nach Palästina"
bpb.de, 18.11.2014 (in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Mildenstein, Leopold Von 1902 births 1968 deaths Austrian Roman Catholics Edlers of Austria German Bohemian people SS officers Military personnel from Prague Nazi propagandists Writers from Prague

Life up to 1945

Life after the war

See also

References

Notes

Further reading

External links