Caught: Germany Bought Israel’s Nukes

The existence of an Israeli nuclear program is no longer a secret. This is not altered, Israel continues internationally on a mythology of “intentional ambiguity” and restricts any mention of its own nuclear weapons program under threat of strictest punishment.

Over the last few decades, all the secrets of Israel’s nuclear program have been made public. All – except for one thing: who financed the program. But even this last secret nuclear Israel can now be revealed. The country, which financed the nuclear arming of Israel with almost certainly is the Federal Republic of Germany.

That the former President of Israel, Shimon Peres, this has recently denied this again, is irrelevant. German-Israeli cooperation in the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology is still held in the strictest secrecy. In addition to that every Israeli leader enforces military censorship involving all nuclear weapons information.

Photo: picture alliance / ZB Hans Rühle is considered one of the leading nuclear experts in Germany. He was from 1982 to 1988 Head of Planning at the Federal Ministry of Defense, and then held management positions in NATO. He is a colonel in the reserve

Israel’s nuclear history began in 1952 with the founding of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. In July 1955, the Jewish state signed a contract offered by the United States to purchase under the program “Atoms for Peace”, a small research reactor for peaceful use. But even at that time Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and the then Director General of the Ministry of Defence, Shimon Peres , had ulterior motives.

In November 1956 Peres asked the French Defence Minister Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury: “What will you say when Israel creates their own potential for nuclear retaliation?” A year later, Peres signed with representatives of the Mollet socialist government  three secret agreements. (Editor’s note:  France was part of NATO until 1961.  These acts were a violation of the NATO charter)

France provided a 24-megawatt heavy water reactor, Israel borrowed 385 tons of natural uranium and France would cooperate with Israel in the research and manufacture of nuclear weapons and help the country build a reprocessing plutonium separation plant.

Nuclear program ran from under the strictest secrecy

The construction of the reactor began in late 1957 near the town of Dimona in the Negev Desert. In 1964 it was done, a year later was the reprocessing plant was finished. The end of 1966, the Israeli engineers had their nuclear bomb. At the start of the Six-Day War in 1967 Israel possessed two ignitable warheads, at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 there were ten to 20.

Of course, all this came to an end in the strictest secrecy. But in 1960, the plant in Dimona was unmasked by the strategic reconnaissance of the United States. Moreover, the French President Charles de Gaulle demanded that Israel should clearly explain publicly the purely civilian character of the system.

The end of 1960, therefore, an appropriate statement was Ben Gurion from: the reactor was intended solely to non-military use of nuclear energy. In addition, we build in the vicinity of the reactor a scientific center for the study of arid zones.

With this obvious lie, the Israeli government had public pressure to justify the construction work in Dimona initially collected. But the apparent clarification, the investment of Dimona if it were a “textile factory”, did not alter the international assumptions about their true purpose.

Photo: picture-alliance / dpa nuclear facility at Dimona, Israel

Despite widespread distrust: Direct evidence of military use of Dimona was not available. For this particular situation a precedent was established in 1957, responsible for the protection of military nuclear program secrets – Lakam (Hebrew acronym).

Not even the ubiquitous even in Germany’s foreign intelligence service Mossad was informed about the structure of Lakam. Isser Harel, the then head of the Mossad complained later: “Lakam was built behind my back and without my knowledge.” But Lakam was successful – until 1986.

In October of that year, the “Sunday Times” published statements of Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli engineer who had worked from 1976 to 1985 in Dimona. According to him, produced in Israel 40 kilos of plutonium, enough for eight to ten bombs. The statements Vanunu were credible, not least because he had documented the inner workings of the system of Dimona up to the model of a hydrogen bomb by a large number of photographs.

Now it became clear that “Dimona” not only the name of a heavy water reactor was but nine other buildings included, of which at least one of six floors had been built underground. From this the core of the system, the reprocessing plant to production plutonium was constructed.

Dimona was a complete nuclear weapons factory. Taking the representation Vanunu on the production capacity of the plant of Dimona as a basis, Israel now has at least 200 strategic nuclear weapons Hiroshima / Nagasaki Category (15 kilotons) as well as nuclear artillery shells.

How was the nuclear program funded?

A question about the Israeli nuclear program was not made after Vanunu’s revelations. How could a country like Israel at that time beggarly equipment like Dimona, in the work up to 2700 people, finance?

The question was not asked because it was considered to be answered long ago. The government Ben-Gurion had back in the early 60s, when it was gone officially only to the civilian use of nuclear energy in the reactor of Dimona, promised to the critics that the financing of the project would be carried out not by budget, but by international donors.

The responsibility was Peres: “We started a confidential fundraiser that yielded a total of more than $ 40 million, meaning half the cost of the reactor, then a very considerable sum.”

This statement by Peres is not only the only available quantitative indication of international donors, it also raises the question of who has paid the other half of the reactor. And who paid for the entire Dimona complex, so much more contained than one reactor and must therefore have been more costly many times?

Until today there is only one reference to a specific foreign funding of Israeli nuclear weapons program and the Peres $ 40 million. At one point, the question of German-Israeli relations once again caused quite a stir. 

Ben-Gurion, during a background discussion with editors Israeli newspapers on 31 March 1963, said that a confrontation with the Adenauer government could interfere with the development of a deterrent and that their importance for Israel’s security and the prevention of future wars is not be overestimated.  (Editor’s note:  In a few short months, President Kennedy, briefed on the German deal and demanding an end, was murdered.  4 years later a half century of continual wars was begun by Israel.)

Two billion marks from Germany

This statement was not the only one, he wrote the following to Ben-Gurion: The Federal Republic of Germany funded, since 1961, the Israeli nuclear weapons program, disguised as a contribution “to the development of the Negev”, a “hobbyhorse” Ben-Gurion  used since the days of the founding of the state. But how could this happen?

Photo: Getty Images 1960: Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in informal discussions in New York

On March 14, 1960, Adenauer and Ben Gurion met in the New York hotel “Waldorf Astoria”. The two leaders agreed that the Federal Republic of Germany awarded Israel a ten-year loan from a total of 500 million – then two billion marks – in the “development of the Negev.”

The agreement was quietly implemented. It was not even an agreement in the technical sense and therefore neither the involvement of the Bundestag nor the Cabinet needed for the top secret ” business friend” – as was the code name in the records of the Foreign Office.

As Niels Hansen, recently deceased former Secretary of State at the Foreign Office and longtime German ambassador to Israel, stated in his fact-rich book “Out of the shadows of the disaster,” in December 1961 and agreement was made between the Israeli Affaires in Germany, Felix Eliezer Shinnar, and Rolf Lahr a Secretary of State at the Foreign Office.

The subsidized loans should be operated under title “Promotion of developing countries through bilateral capital grant aid”. The settlement should be done through the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). The first were called blanket ‘industrial and infrastructure projects “. The net yield should be an average of 3.6 percent.

These formal conditions corresponded to the usual arrangements for capital assistance to developing countries; but the actual implementation of the “Business Friend” was performed under other “rules”. Thus, in the words of a German leaders KfW “unlike in all other cases in which it is active in the field of financing for development, the use of the Israel funds was never checked … it was never discussed with the Industrial Development Bank of Israel as well”.

Although Shinnar indicates that they had KfW on the use of funds “at regular intervals (…) to report” had, but it was apparently a mere formality. Accordingly, the information listed on the purpose of the loans, “Development of the Negev”, “textile factory” or “atomic-powered desalination plant in the Negev” were used as cover for nuclear weapons development facilities with full complicity by the Adenauer government. All these projects are specifically designated as top secret. The loan had to remain secret

Against this background it is not surprising that KfW to this day steadfastly refuses to make the “top secret” documents on payments to Israel in the context of “Business Friend” public. But to answer the question, what has become of the transfers, it does not matter too much. As Hansen commented on the basis of the documents of the Foreign Office, the payments ran under the “business friend” cover until 1973.

A total of more than two billion marks were about this item. The conditions for open years, interest and principal are hereby amended several times over the years – the last time in 1989 to a term of 30 years, ten years, and 2.0 percent interest.

As Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman in the book “Spies Against Armageddon” reports, quoting Lakam boss Blumberg;

Whenever it was necessary to justify the enormous ground movements in the Negev to build a huge imaginary textile factory, it was certainly clear that building a seawater desalination plant in the middle of the desert was never seriously intended to fool anyone.

Franz Josef Strauss as head of the grant?

Germany the lender, and borrower Israeli, used the specialized cover of ” business associate” the same purposes – “Development of the Negev”, “textile factory”, “desalination”.

The German money from the “Action Business Friend” in the Dimona project, that is, in the financing of a nuclear weapons factory: in other words. What this factory – regardless of the actual amounts paid two billion marks – has cost at least remains unknown until the French government, yes essential parts of the system has (in particular the reactor and reprocessing plant) delivered to disclose its bills.

To date, in any case, everything indicates that the loans have been enough “action business friend” for the financing of the nuclear weapons factory. More than that. Given the extremely favorable financial conditions of the “action business friend” (the last term of 30 years at 2.0 percent interest rate), the Israeli nuclear weapons development apparently financed not only by way of credit transfer, but the entire nuclear project was paid for directly by Germany.

According to Kurt Birrenbach, as long ago as 1965, Israel looked on the loan as a “grant” or “donation” based on the long term and extremely low interest rate.  As time went on, the entire credit line was converted to euros and eventually written off.

Only once a prominent German politician was directly associated with the financing of the Israeli nuclear weapons. In an article in the newspaper “Haaretz” of 19 January 1996 on “the German colony in Dimona” was a “forgotten Israeli novel” reported from the 60s, apparently due to a variety of pseudonyms for writers and persons acting at that time the censor had failed.

However, the decryption is not difficult. The central message is the claim that the German Defence Minister Franz Josef Strauss had authorized payment of 500 million Deutsche Marks to finance the reactor in Dimona. He had emptied an unauthorized “reptiles fund” of the German government, for which he was forced to withdraw the money later. (Editor’s note:  A “reptile fund” is typically a fund used to pay off rent-boy blackmail or cover up crimes by state officials.)

For these statements, there is still no evidence. Properly is likely to be that Strauss not only ran  German “military aid” to Israel, but also has the beginnings of the covert illegal nuclear proliferation program as well, a program that he helped shape.  Strauss met with  Peres, several times a year through the 1950s in Germany.

A remarkable transcript of a conversation in December 1957 in Strauss’s private home in Rott am Inn, with the Peres and  the German journalist Rolf Vogel reproduced the content of the meeting with Strauss:

“Germany took the further profound sense, a restitution to Israel, that is, it tried to help protect Israel against the dangers of the future. “

In this context may include the expressed repeatedly by Strauss notes that there are just things that you only disclose in the future and could for discussion.

With the knowledge of the “action business associate” the last yet open gap in the information on the German-Israeli relations is closed. That this was possible in the year of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, is a coincidence, but it met with satisfaction.

The German financial assistance for the development of the Israeli nuclear potential has the state of the Jews given a guarantee of survival of a special kind, which passed the originators of the “Action Business Friend” honor.

[ Editor’s Post Script:  The tone of the article takes on an odd aspect as our German allies seem to be bragging not only about how they have enabled Israel to violate dozens of international accords but that Germany herself stands convicted, in gross violation of NNP (Nuclear Non-Proliferation accords) and of her responsibility as a NATO member.

It is one thing that Germany knowingly financed an illegal nuclear weapons program or that Germany knowingly supplied submarines specially modified to launch nuclear missiles, another NNP violation. 

Germany also supplied the centrifuges for Israel as well, using metallurgy not developed in Germany but rather stolen from the US through espionage against a NATO partner.  

Note that in 1952, when Germany entered on this path of deception, they were still an occupied nation and would remain so for another 3 years.  What is being represented as “war guilt” for the holocaust is something quite different.  For years, Chris Story, Ben Fulford and Michael Shrimpton told us of a German spy organization called the DVD.

If the story above doesn’t sound like “James Bond bad guys” gleefully planning nuclear Armageddon, nothing does.  With what we now have proven about 9/11, the idea that so many knew all along that Israel was a nuclear power, that and knew all along that Germany has been complicit in playing nuclear blackmail games with Europe and the Middle East using Israel as a surrogate…

What this article exposes proves Shrimpton was right all along, any nation that would do this would certainly load a nuclear weapon on a midget submarine to blackmail Britain.  We received multiple high level confirmations on this.  At first we wanted Shrimpton to keep his mouth shut about the DVD as we lacked proof of the existence of this organization.

We have the proof right here and very little “dot connecting” is needed… Gordon ]