Abba Kovner and ‘the Other Six Million’

Everybody (well, almost everybody) knows that the Nazis and their accomplices killed six million Jews. But few know that the Jews almost killed six million Germans in September 1945 – right after the end of World War II.

The idea was as simple as it was horrible: to poison water supplies of four major German cities, including Nuremberg – the ‘Nazi cradle’ with enough toxic substance to kill six million Germans. An eye for an eye. The other three cities to be attacked were Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich.

The simple thought that thousands and thousands of Allied troops stationed in these cities (who earlier that year saved European Jews from complete annihilation) apparently did not bother the conspirators in the slightest.

This ‘brilliant’ idea belonged to a certain Abba Kovner – somewhat of a legend of Jewish wartime armed resistance. A poet, writer and Jewish political activist, he put together and became a leader of one of the few Jewish guerilla groups that actively fought the Nazis.

From September 1943 until the arrival of the Soviet army in July 1944, Kovner commanded a guerilla force called the Avengers (“Nokmim“) in the forests near Vilnius (Lithuania) and engaged in sabotage and guerrilla attacks against the Germans and their local collaborators.

At the end of the war, Kovner became obsessed with the idea of avenging the deaths of all Jews murdered by the Nazis according to the Old Testament principle “an eye for an eye”. For this purpose, he formed a secret organization he called Nakam (revenge), also known as Dam Yisrael Noter (“the blood of Israel avenges”, with the acronym DIN meaning “judgement”).

Its primary plan was to kill exactly six million Germans (one for each Jewish victim of the Holocaust) by poisoning the water supplies of Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, and Nuremberg. In pursuit of this plan, Nakam members were infiltrated into water and sewage plants in these cities, while Kovner went to Palestine in search of a sufficient quantities of a suitable poison.

According to Kovner’s own account, Chaim Weizmann (later the first president of an independent Israel) approved the idea and put Kovner in touch with the scientist Ernst Bergmann, who gave the job of preparing poison to Ephraim Katzir (later president of Israel) and his brother Aharon.

After sufficient quantities of poison were manufactured, the substance was concealed in the cargo of condensed milk cans and put on the British ship bound for Germany.

However, the revenge did not happen. Apparently, Jewish leaders in Palestine who knew of this plan got (rightfully) horrified by the inevitable consequences of the plan and tipped off the British military police. Kovner was arrested on board the ship but at the last moment managed to throw the whole deadly cargo overboard, leaving the British with no hard evidence. Who reluctantly had to let him go.

Jewish leaders (specifically David Ben-Gurion, then head of the Jewish Agency and later Israel’s first prime minister) got terrified not because they cared about the lives of German civilians. They didn’t. They were scared to death because they knew for a fact that Judeophobia in Europe and elsewhere was so rampant that the terrorist act (let’s call a spade a spade) of such magnitude committed by the Jews would have meant a certain death sentence for the latter. All of them. Worldwide.

All major nations would have quickly and efficiently finished what the Nazis had started. Abba Kovner and his co-conspirators, blinded by the idea of revenge (the deadly sin of hatred) simply did not understand it.

Nakim still managed to commit one unsuccessful act of revenge – on a much smaller scale. In April 1946, members of Nakam broke into a bakery used to supply bread for the Langwasser internment camp near Nuremberg, where many German POWs (mostly Waffen SS which had nothing to do whatsoever with the Holocaust) were being held.

Nakam members attempted to coat all bread loaves with arsenic but were disturbed and fled before finishing their work. More than 2,200 of the German POWs fell ill and 207 were hospitalized, but no deaths were reported.

Interestingly enough, Abba Kovner is considered a hero in Israel to this day. Apparently, no one there is bothered by the fact that this character was a madman with a mentality of a mass murderer which made him no different than Himmler or Heydrich. The only difference was that he failed (through no fault of his own) and they succeeded.

This incident also proves that the idea of killing millions of innocent civilians as a reprisal for crimes committed by a few thousand is still very much alive and well. And that the Nazis by no means had a monopoly on such unspeakably horrible ideas.

The Genocide Age

When one reads books, articles, blog posts by so-called ‘mainstream historians’ one sooner rather than letter gets an impression that Holocaust was the only one genocide in the XX century and that the Nazis were only ones guilty of mass murder. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, genocides and democides (when people have been murdered only because they belonged to a certain social group) were so common in the XX century that it can be rightfully called ‘the genocide age‘. Or, actually more precisely, the democide age.

Here is (very probably incomplete) list of genocides and democides perpetrated in the XX century:

1. Armenian genocide in Turkey (1915-16). In 1915, the Ottoman Empire was at war with Russia that also had a sizable Armenian population. All-Muslim Turkish government considered the Armenian citizens of Turkey the Russian ‘fifth column’ and a major security threat. Whether there was such a threat, is debatable but even if it was, the decision of the Turkish government to exterminate all ov its 2 million Armenians was way out of proportion. The ‘Young Turks’ ended up killing 1.5 million – or three out of four Armenians. 25 years later, the Nazis used the same faulty reasoning (actually, much more faulty) to arrive at the similar ‘final solution’ of the ‘Jewish question’
2. Red Terror during the Civil War in Russia (1918 – 1922). The Bolsheviks conducted the brutal policy of democide, exterminating the whole social groups (businessmen, intellectuals, wealthy peasants, etc.). However, they also committed acts of genocide, murdering about 500,000 Cossacks (not surprisingly, in WWII the latter overwhelmingly supported Hitler). An estimated 1.5 million Russians perished in the Red Terror. To be honest, the opponents of Bolsheviks conducted their own ‘White Terror’, killing about 100,000 Jews and tens of thousands Russians.
3. Forced Collectivization in the Soviet Union (1929 – 1935) which included deportation of the whole social group of wealthy farmers (the ‘kulaks’) to the inhospitable areas of Siberia, Kazakhstan, etc. About 700,000 died as the result.
4. Holodomor in Ukraine (1933) – the artificial famine that Stalin and his cronies used to eliminate the (mostly imaginary) Ukrainian resistance movement. Resistance to Stalin’s dictatorship, that is. The death toll was around 3 million (more than that of Operation Reinhard)
5. Great Terror in the Soviet Union (1936 – 1938). It was essentially a Great Purge of the Communist Party, Soviet government, Red Army and security services (NKVD and GUGB) from actual, potential and perceived opponents of Joseph Stalin who used it to obtain the absolute power and to become essentially the ‘Red Emperor’. About 2 million citizens of the Soviet Union lost their lives.
6. Gulag system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union (1930 – 1953). Estimated death toll – 4 million. Slave labor was the key tool of the ‘industrialization’ of the Soviet Union in 1929 – 1939 and in rebuilding of the Soviet economy after the World War II.
7. ‘Asian Holocaust’ (1937 – 1945). During the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II, the Japanese military committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity which were often way worse than those of the Nazis. It is estimated that the Japanese have murdered around 6 million of Chinese, Taiwanese, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos and Indochinese, and others, including Western prisoners of war. Making it exactly the ‘Asian Holocaust’ – in terms of the death toll (only the methods were much more brutal)
8. Deportation of whole nations in the Soviet Union (1941 – 1949 mostly; although ethnic cleansing under the Bolshevik regime began in 1929). Around 3.3 million were deported to Siberia and other inhospitable regions and about 1.4 million died.
9. Mass murder of Soviet POWs by Germans (1941 – 1942). Death toll – 3.5 million. Holocaust was not the only mass murder committed by the Nazis; the tragic death of about 60% of Soviet POWs definitely qualifies as one. Regardless of whether it was the result of a criminal neglect or a deliberate extermination policy or (more likely) a bit of both, the Nazis are still responsible for this horrible crimes against humanity.
10. Mass murder of civilians in anti-guerilla warfare on German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union and other nations (1939 – 1944). Estimated death toll – 4 million. This is still another crime against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis.
11. Internment of ethnic Japanese in the USA (1941 – 1945). Technically, it was not an act of genocide as only several dozen died (mostly shot during escape attempts) out of about 120,000 interned in concentration camps. However, it is a loud and clear reminder that deportations and internment of the whole nation based on the (incorrect) perception that it constitutes a major security threat during the war was more or less standard operating procedure in many nations – not just in Germany.
12. Allied firebombing of Germany (1943 – 1945). Both USAF and RAF deliberately targeted civilians – in blatant and brutal violation of the Hague convention on the laws of warfare, killing (mostly by burning alive) an estimated 600,000 No one was ever prosecuted for these crimes.
13. U.S. firebombing of Japan (March – August 1945), including nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Estimated death toll – 800,000 (equal to the number of victims in the Treblinka concentration camp). It took the USAF half as much time as the Nazis to claim the same number of victims. Again, no one was ever prosecuted for these crimes.
14. Expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe (1945 – 1950). 14 million deported to Germany; up to 2.5 million brutally killed (exceeding the death toll of Operation Reinhard). These horrible crimes against humanity were being committed right parallel to the infamous Nuremberg farce, where Nazis were being tried for essentially the same crimes that the Allies and their puppets were committing.
15. Democide in Communist North Korea (1948 – 1987). Death toll: over 1.6 million. Other estimates run as high as 3.5 million. Persecutions and murder of ‘enemies of the people’ continue to this day.
16. ‘Cultural Revolution’ in China (1966 – 1976). Death toll – 3 million (more than perished in Operation Reinhard). 36 million more were persecuted (beaten, imprisoned, sent to forced labor camps, exiled to rural areas, etc.). Large-scale human rights abuses are still a part of a supposedly modern China.
17. Khmer Rouge democide in Cambodia (1975 – 1979). Death toll – 2 million (about 25% of the total population). Pol Pot and his cronies would have killed a lot more, but, fortunately, the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979 and quickly put an end to the Khmer Rouge bloody dictatorship and its crimes.
18. Tutsi genocide in Rwanda (1994). In just three months (April – July) about 1 million Tutsis (the same number of Jews have been killed in Auschwitz in three years) have been killed in unspeakably brutal ways. This massacre could have easily been prevented but neither the UN, nor any major power (Britain, France, the USA, etc.) cared a damn. It seems that nothing has changed in half a century.

Consequently, there should be the Genocides Remembrance Day instead of just the Holocaust Remembrance Days. Otherwise, it will look and feel that only the Jewish lives and sufferings matter and non-Jewish do not. Which is Nazism – plain and simple.

Adolf Hitler as Servant of God?

It is known (not necessarily widely known, but known nevertheless) that Adolf Hitler considered himself as a tool in the hands of his personal God with whom he had a very close, very mystical (obviously) and a very personal relationship (he referred to this entity as either ‘God’ or, more often, as ‘Providence’).

Hence, his decision-making process was the one of a typical mystic. Unlike non-mystics (i.e., practically everyone else as mystics are a very, very rare breed) he based his decisions and actions not on formal logic and/or common sense and/or intuition or even emotions (as almost everyone does), but on mystical revelation. Some would even say ‘divine revelation’ (which in many cases was very probably true).

Surprisingly (or, maybe, not so surprisingly after all), these revelations worked for Adolf Hitler extremely well. At least until the late summer or early fall of 1941 when he made several strategic mistakes on the Eastern front which pretty much resulted in his ultimate military defeat and suicide.

Moreover, on a number of occasions it looked like the Providence supported Hitler directly, arranging for true miracles when he most needed them. His appointment as Chancellor of Germany in January after a significant electoral setback was unexpected (to say the least) and considered by many as truly miraculous.

The Reichstag fire (for which Marinus Van der Lubbe was solely responsible as if guided by the invisible external force) was the ‘miracle of miracles’ which allowed Hitler to establish a dictatorship which he vitally need to rebuild and unify Germany and ultimately to save it from the imminent destruction by the Bolshevik hordes.

His enemies made a number of assassination attempts, but each time something went wrong and the Fuhrer survived. Every time quite miraculously. And last, but not the least, there is a very serious evidence that by attacking the Soviet Union on June 22^nd, 1941, he beat Stalin by less than 24 hours (!).

If you believe in omnipresent and omnipotent God (which He is by definition), you can not believe in coincidences. Hence, for every believer it is crystal clear that some supernatural Higher Power did, indeed, guide, help and protect Adolf Hitler. The billion (if not trillion) dollar question is Why?

Hitler sincerely believed that he was the ‘chosen one’ selected by the Providence to make the German people (the ‘new chosen people’) the global ruler or at least a global leader. Given that Hitler’s policies were usually quite pragmatic and realistic (he usually engaged in very ambitious, but still Realpolitik), the latter was most likely the case.

However, the results of Hitler’s 12-year rule for Germany and the German national were simply catastrophic (to put it mildly). Hence, his perception of intentions and objectives of the Providence were flat out wrong.

So what exactly did this mysterious Providence want from one Adolf Hitler and where did it guide him? The answer (obviously) depends on your own religious faith and convictions. I am Roman Catholic (not a very devout one, but still Catholic) so that’s the way I see it.

Due to a number of reasons (some of which I will cover later), in the fall of 1917 a certain political group (Bolsheviks) seized power in Russia – the largest country in the world (and one of the most populous) which possessed enormous amounts of natural resources. Subsequently, this group (and the whole country) became dominated by one great political, spiritual and military leader – the ‘Red Emperor’ Joseph Stalin.

There was nothing mystical about Stalin – he was simply a modern-day reincarnation (in psychological, not literal sense, of course) of great Asiatic conquerors of the past – Genghis-Khan or (more accurately, Tamerlane) whom Stalin deeply respected, admired and adored).

Like the former, Stalin aspired to conquer all known world which for him was… well, the whole our world. Using the enormous human, natural and other resources at his disposal, enormously powerful messianic drive of the Russian nation and a no less powerful Communist (actually, Bolshevist) ideology, he build a military-industrial complex powerful enough to actually conquer the whole world (there is plenty of historical evidence that prove it beyond any reasonable doubt). As well as a global infrastructure – the famous (or infamous) Comintern.

Stalin partially (actually, by 80% or so – at least) restored the Russian Empire and gave it a brand new ‘cosmopolitan’, ‘internationalist’ name – Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR or simply the Soviet Union). With an explicitly and publicly stated ultimate objective (vividly reflected on the national emblem of the country) to one day accept into the USSR ‘the last republic’. Thus completing his global conquest of the entire world.

This ‘global USSR’ was supposed to be even worse than the worst tyranny (Asiatic or otherwise). All subjects were supposed to be total obedient slaves of the ‘Red Tamerlane’, all religion was to be banned and destroyed, everything was supposed to be owned by ‘the state’ (i.e., by Stalin), no private enterprise was to be tolerated, all ‘undesirable’ social groups were to be confined to Gulag for life or eliminated outright; anyone even suspected of the smallest possible disobedience was to be immediately eliminated… and so on.

Hence, for all practical purpose, Stalin’s victory would have resulted in the end of the world as we know it. Human civilization was to be destroyed and replaced by… well, Hell on Earth. Maybe not as extreme as what was subsequently seen in North Korea, China under Mao, Cambodia under Khmer Rouge or Cuba under Castro (although not necessarily), but close. Very close. So for any genuine Christian Joseph Stalin was nothing short of a full-blown Antichrist of the worst possible kind.

Therefore, Hitler’s Providence was a Christian God in some serious disguise. God of both Old and New Testaments. In other words, Jesus Christ. Hitler did not know that, obviously (and would have had a surprise of a lifetime had he found out), but he did work and fight for the Christian God. Happens all the time, actually.

So it was the Christian God who provided Adolf Hitler with abilities, resources, guidance and direct support (in the form of miracles) necessary and sufficient for sufficiently weakening Stalin’s USSR so that it no longer presented an existential threat to the global human civilization.

And for providing a powerful enough incentive for the Western powers (US, UK and Canada, for the most part) to develop a military-industrial complex powerful enough to stop Bolshevist aggression in its tracks. Including a nuclear bomb, strategic bombers, etc.

Adolf Hitler successfully completed his Mission and thus became the genuine Messiah, the true savior of Europe and of the whole global human civilization from destruction by Bolshevik hordes. Why then did the Third Reich collapse? Why was Hitler forced to commit suicide to avoid humiliating capture by the Bolsheviks and subsequent horrors? Why did omnipotent Christian God allow such a seemingly incredible injustice to happen?

It is well-known that God works in mysterious ways and so His reasons for doing this or that (or allowing this or that to happen, for that matter) in some cases may never be known. However, in this particular case (that of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich), I believe there is an acceptable explanation. Based on facts, logic and common sense.

Adolf Hitler started to seriously ‘run out of luck’ right after he invaded the Soviet Union. True, there were setbacks and failures before – Dunkirk, lost Battle for Britain, canceled invasion of Malta and Operation Sea Lion, but for all these there was a perfectly logical and natural explanation – Hitler simply never wanted to fight Britain. Consequently, he simply never had enough drive for this war which for his ‘mystical’ leadership and management style all but guaranteed failure.

On the Eastern Front the situation was radically different. Hitler had more than enough drive and a very powerful and efficient (almost perfect) fighting machine, disintegrating enemy… and still did not win. Due to the whole series of totally inexplicable blunders (oh, BTW, the Allies did not win the WW2 in Europe – Germany lost it which is not the same thing at all). The trillion-dollar question is again – Why?

One obvious (to any Christian) explanation is the easiest one. Prior to invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941, Nazis did not kill Jews. They persecuted the latter, robbed them, forced them to emigrate, herded them into ghettos (but not yet to concentration camps), forced them to work for free but did not take their lives.

Christian God had his issues with Jews for millennia (they approved of torture and murder of His Son, for crying out loud) and so probably thought that they deserved some punishment from another ‘chosen people’. But when Nazis started to kill the original ‘God’s people’ wholesale, including women and children (first by shooting then using poison gas) and especially when they (roughly in July of that year) made a firm and final decision to exterminate all Jews of Europe, God apparently decided that enough is enough and stopped supporting Hitler and his Nazis. Not surprisingly, the latter promptly ran out of luck and (not so promptly) lost the war. And their state as well.