DECEPTION: How the Nazis Tricked the Last Jews of Europe

One of the most notorious and yet mysterious events of WWII was the "Blut Gegen Waren" Blood for Trucks (Goods) plot of 1944, an ultimately unsuccessful scheme hatched between SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann and the group of Hungarian Zionists known as "Va'ada", led by young Jewish businessmen Joel Brand and Rezso Katzner. While Hungary remained part of the Axis it was relatively safe for Jews and Brand and his group organised safety for some 700,000 European Jews there. However, in the Spring of 1944 as the tide was turning against Hitler, Germany invaded Hungary to prevent it deserting the Axis and Adolf Eichmann led a special SS unit to Budapest to begin the transport of thousands of Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in southern Poland in cattle trains. The majority were gassed, then incinerated. But just as the trains were about to start, Brand and Katzner asked the SS to negotiate, a previously unthinkable scenario. Even more surprisingly, Eichmann made an astonishing offer - "a million Jews for 10,000 trucks". The trucks to be supplied by the Allies would be used solely on the Eastern front, a clear indication of how he saw events unfolding and that the non-Soviet Allies would see the post-war advantage of this. So Brand flew to Istanbul but was arrested by British police and interrogated in Cairo. Their story of the barter provoked utter incredulity, confusion and dismay amongst the highest echelons in London and Washington. And even if it were true, how, on the eve of the D-Day landings, could the Allies cope with the release of almost a million Jewish refugees? Both were arrested as German spies and immediately Eichmann and his henchmen began their murderous business, sending 12,000 men, women and children a day to their terrible fate. But was Eichmann's offer made in good faith? What was his real motivation? Hale explores Eichmann's plot and unveils murderous deceit on an unimaginable scale, and particularly how he manipulated Brand and Katzner, decent men but completely out of their depth here. Hale presents a new account of the ?Brand Mission? based on evidence in the national archives of Germany, Hungary, Britain and the United States and takes the reader through the myriad connections which makes this story so compelling and an impressive addition to Holocaust literature. 448pp, photos.