Israel Mission

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The Israel Mission was an administrative organization of the State of Israel for the processing of reparations . The basis for its establishment was the Luxembourg Agreement of September 11, 1952, on the basis of which the Federal Republic of Germany delivered goods to the State of Israel as reconstruction aid. The mission was based in Cologne .

history

The establishment of the mission was derived from Section 12 of the "Agreement of September 10, 1952 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Israel" ("Luxembourg Agreement"). This determined that the State of Israel should send the mission to Germany as the only representative. The mission officially started work on May 4, 1953 and was accompanied by the closure of the consulate in Munich . Since the two states did not establish diplomatic relations until 1965, the mission and its staff did not have diplomatic status. It was a "trade mission" (so-called purchasing delegation) subordinate to the Israeli Ministry of Finance) with a single mandate, namely to provide administrative support for the resolutions from the agreement ratified in 1952. In addition, after lengthy negotiations, the Federal Republic of Germany allowed the mission to run a consular section. This was subordinate to the Israeli Foreign Ministry . In March 1959, at the height of its operations, the mission numbered 158.

On the basis of annually agreed lists of goods already anchored in the agreement, the mission in Germany bought up industrial goods, the value of which averaged 250 million DM per year from 1953 to 1955 . As agreed, the goods should improve the settlement and reintegration of Jewish refugees in Israel. The total volume of the agreement up to the dissolution of the mission in 1965 was over DM 3 billion. These reparations were known in Israel under the name Shilumim (“retaliation”, “payment”), coined by the Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharet .

The management of the mission was in the hands of the economic expert Felix Elieser Shinnar , who held his office with the rank of ambassador. However, he was not the representative of a state, but only the "head of a non-diplomatic government agency", which could lead to protest notes from Arab countries at diplomatic receptions. Previously, as deputy head of the Israeli delegation, he was instrumental in drawing up the reparation agreement. His period of service was marked by a great commitment to building up relations between the Federal Republic and Israel. A report in the Kölnische Rundschau on May 22, 1955 emphasized that Shinnar “endeavored” from the outset to maintain good relationships and attached great importance to “extreme thrift”.

The duration of the Luxembourg Agreement, with it the reparations and the business basis of the Israel Mission, was linked to the amount of the annual installments paid by Germany to Israel. Based on the planned annual rate of 310 million D-Marks, the agreement would have expired on March 31, 1965, which was delayed by one year to March 31, 1966 due to a contractual reduction to 250 million D-Marks. As a result, the Israel Mission was dissolved in May 1966.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Israel Mission, the City of Cologne, the Cologne Synagogue Community and the Israeli Embassy organized a festival day in May 2013, during which a memorial plaque was attached to the Jewish Welfare Center of the Synagogue Community in Cologne- Ehrenfeld has been.

Administrative headquarters

When it came to the location of the mission, the mission could choose between several cities in West Germany . The decision in favor of Cologne and to the disadvantage of the " provisional " capital Bonn was made, among other things, from the consideration of avoiding the impression of an official diplomatic representation in and recognition of the Federal Republic of Germany by Israel, but still staying close to the seat of government . The nearby Ruhr area , which is important for the activities of the trade mission and the center of heavy industry , probably also influenced the decision. On the other hand, it was possibly also a " chevaleresque gesture " towards the Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer .

When it began its work in Cologne in April 1953, the mission initially "lived" for around a year in insufficient space in the buildings of the synagogue community in the ( Ehrenfeld ) Ottostraße 85, the former Jewish hospital . In the spring of 1954, around 60 rooms in the new building of the Stadtsparkasse Cologne at Habsburgerring 2-12 could be occupied. The office building, which was completed shortly beforehand according to a design by the architects Theodor Kelter and Toni Schunk, was, however, permanently unsuitable due to the lack of suitable storage facilities.

In 1954, the architecture firm “ Goldschmidt + Ungers ” worked out the design for an independent branch in collaboration with the Israeli Bauhaus students Munio Weinraub and Alfred Mansfeld . Possibly influenced by the departure of Oswald Mathias Ungers (on January 1, 1955), but Hanns Koerfer was then given the contract. According to a design by the architects Hanns Koerfer and Helmut Goldschmidt, who are part of a joint venture, a deliberately unadorned four-storey office building in Ehrenfeld, Subbelrather Straße 15 , was built between July 1954 and the move in May 1955 , a canteen , a large archive, extensive basement rooms for storing goods and 12 guest rooms to provide accommodation for the changing negotiating partners in the still badly damaged city of Cologne. In 1955, the Israel Mission employed around 100 people at this location, including 65 Israelis.

Following the establishment of diplomatic relations between Germany and Israel on May 12, 1965, the office of the Israeli embassy under Ambassador Asher Ben-Natan moved into the property in August 1965; however, the office was relocated to Bad Godesberg the following year . After the Mission was dissolved in 1966 until it was sold at the end of 1967, the property remained largely unused. After a subsequent change of tenants, around 2002 the demolition in favor of an office and administration building, the "Colonius Carré", which had been completed by 2006 and which was built according to the planning of the Mronz & Schäfer office.

See also

Literature and Sources

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Agreement of September 10, 1952 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Israel "Luxembourg Agreement"
  2. ↑ a b c d e Yeshayahu A. Jelinek: Germany and Israel 1945-1965: a neurotic relationship . In: Studies on Contemporary History , Volume 66, Oldenbourg Verlag, 2004, pp. 251 ff.
  3. ^ A b c d e f g Kölnische Rundschau: Israel mission in our own house.
  4. ↑ Information on the contract on dhm.de accessed on February 13, 2013.
  5. ↑ Der Spiegel, 4/1960: Streit im Hufeisen, accessed on February 15, 2013.
  6. ↑ Hartmut Weber (Ed.): The Cabinet Protocols of the Federal Government, Volume 16. 1963, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag , Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-486-57918-5 , p. 546.
  7. ↑ a b Barbara Becker-Jákli: The Jewish Cologne. History and present. A city guide.
  8. ↑ "60 years of the first mission of the State of Israel in Germany" on Stadt-Koeln.de, accessed on March 4, 2018.
  9. ^ Wolfram Hagspiel: Cologne. Marienburg. Buildings and architects of a villa suburb. (= Stadtspuren. Monuments in Cologne, Volume 8), JP Bachem Verlag , Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7616-1147-1 , Part 2, p. 860.
  10. ↑ a b Wolfram Hagspiel: Cologne and its Jewish architects.
  11. ↑ Tobias C. Bringmann: Handbuch der Diplomatie, 1815-1963: Foreign Heads of Mission in Germany and German Heads of Mission Abroad By Metternich Bis Adenauer , Walter de Gruyter, 2001, ISBN 978-3110956849 , p. XIX.
  12. ↑ Colonius Carré on bilderbuch-koeln.de accessed on February 15, 2013.
  13. ↑ Colonius Carré on bilderbuch-koeln.de accessed on February 15, 2013.
  14. ↑ Colonius Carré on strabag.de ( memento of March 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on February 15, 2013.
  15. ↑ Colonius Carré on mronz-schaefer.de accessed on February 15, 2013.

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 55 "  N , 6 ° 55 ′ 53.8"  E