Hubert Pollack

Hubert Pollack was born in Germany in 1903. As a student he studied law and public finance. After the election of Adolf Hitler some of his friends were arrested: "These prisons were the forerunners of the Gestapo prisons and the concentration camps. The personnel were among the most depraved sadists to be found in the various SA, and later SS, formations. Trade unionists, social democrats, communists, socialists, pacifists and other left-wingers were abducted from their homes or from the street. After a while, the bodies could be collected from the hospital in the Scharnhorststrasse." (1)

Pollack was an ardent Zionist, committed to the creation of a permanent Jewish homeland in Palestine, and set up his own advisory office for Jewish emigrants. Pollack was recruited by Frank Foley, the MI6 agent who worked at the British Embassy at Berlin into his spy network. His cover job was Director of the Passport Control Office. (2)

Pollack later recalled: "My work was mainly secret and brought me into contact with various categories of political agents. I was in regular and close contact with Captain Foley and cooperated with him time and again on matters that were not strictly passport control." (3)

Hitler urged Jews to leave Nazi Germany. Some wanted to move to the Jewish homeland in Palestine. Since the First World War Britain had administered the area with instructions from the League of Nations to "facilitate Jewish immigration". However, after Palestinian Arabs began to riot, British policy on immigration was a constant attempt to appease the Arabs with strict limits on the number of Jews to be allowed into Palestine. In April 1936, the Arabs declared a general strike, began attacking Jewish property and killed 21 Jews in Palestine. (4)

On 29th March 1933, Foley sent a message to London: "This office is overwhelmed with applications from Jews to proceed to Palestine, to England, to anywhere in the British Empire." (5) By the end of the year some 65,000 Germans had emigrated. Most of these headed for neighbouring countries such as France and Holland, believing that Hitler would be removed in the near future and they could return to their homes. (6)

Benno Cohen, chairman of the German Zionist Organisation, complained that after the Arab unrest began, the British Government limited the influx of Jews to Palestine more and more severely. "It was the period of the British policy of appeasement when everything was done in Britain to placate the Nazis and to reduce Arab pressure in Palestine and the whole of the Middle East to a minimum. There were British envoys in posts in Berlin at that time who carried out London's policy to the letter, who were impervious to humanitarian considerations and who more often worked for the greater good of the Nazi regime in friendly cooperation with its ministers". (7)

Pollack worked closely with Frank Foley helping the Jews. He later commented: "Immigration rules were very strict in those days of economic depression in order to prevent the entry of additional manpower looking for employment. But in the conflict between official duty and human duty Captain Foley decided unreservedly for the fulfilling of his human duty. He never took the easy way out. He never tried to make himself popular with the ambassador or the Home Office by giving a strict and narrow interpretation of the rules. He did not mind incurring the displeasure of top officials in the British Foreign Office and Home office. On the contrary, he was not above sophistic interpretation if he could help Jews to emigrate." (8)

Pollack later admitted that he was given money to bribe Nazi officials: "I alone paid out more than 8,000 Reichsmarks in bribes to Nazi officials. They were Reichsbank exchange control inspectors; tax officials; police officers; customs inspectors; Gestapo and SS men of all ranks. Individual sums ranged from 20 marks to 350. The normal amount was around 25 marks. Passports, tax clearance certificates; foreign exchange approval; visas for stateless persons and foreigners; and release from prisons, although not from concentration camps, were all produced as if by magic. I would meet two or three men in civilian clothes or black or blue uniform in a certain wine restaurant in the Potsdamer or Franzosischen Strasse and handed over the right sum. It always worked." (9)

On 25th August, 1939, Captain Foley and his team were ordered home. In a letter written on the ferry to Harwich, his assistant, Margaret Reid, expressed her regret at leaving the Berlin Passport Control Office behind. "They were a good crowd there and though I was worked off my feet I enjoyed the feeling of being of use and trusted." (10) Hubert Pollack has claimed that the Foley's team saved the lives of thousands of German Jews: "The number of Jews saved from Germany would have been tens of thousands less, yes, tens of thousands less, if an officious bureaucrat had set in Foley's place. There is no word of Jewish gratitude towards this man which could be exaggerated." (11)

After the war Hubert Pollack moved to Israel and became a member of the military intelligence service Aman. He also gave several interviews on the work of Frank Foley.

Hubert Pollack died in 1967.

Primary Sources

(1) Hubert Pollack, Personal and Confidential Note on the late Major Francis E. Foley (Central Zionist Archives CZA K11/391)

My work was mainly secret and brought me into contact with various categories of political agents. I was in regular and close contact with Captain Foley and cooperated with him time and again on matters that were not strictly passport control...

I alone paid out more than 8,000 Reichsmarks in bribes to Nazi officials. They were Reichsbank exchange control inspectors; tax officials; police officers; customs inspectors; Gestapo and SS men of all ranks. Individual sums ranged from 20 marks to 350. The normal amount was around 25 marks.

Passports, tax clearance certificates; foreign exchange approval; visas for stateless persons and foreigners; and release from prisons, although not from concentration camps, were all produced as if by magic. I would meet two or three men in civilian clothes or black or blue uniform in a certain wine restaurant in the Potsdamer or Franzosischen Strasse and handed over the right sum. It always worked.

Spartacus Educational

Hubert Pollack

Primary Sources

(1) Hubert Pollack, Personal and Confidential Note on the late Major Francis E. Foley (Central Zionist Archives CZA K11/391)

Student Activities

References

(1) Michael Smith, Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews (1999) pages 44 and 45

(2) Lynn Barton, Western Morning News (2015)

(3) Hubert Pollack, Personal and Confidential Note on the late Major Francis E. Foley (Central Zionist Archives CZA K11/391)

(4) Michael Smith, Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews (1999) page 96

(5) Frank Foley , cable to MI6 headquarters (29th March 1933)

(6) Michael Smith, Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews (1999) page 45

(7) Benno Cohen, statement (25th April, 1961)

(8) Michael Smith, Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews (1999) page 110

(9) Hubert Pollack, Personal and Confidential Note on the late Major Francis E. Foley (Central Zionist Archives CZA K11/391)

(10) Margaret Reid, letter to her mother (August, 1939)

(11) Michael Smith, Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews (1999) page 171