The Israel State Archives this week released 105 confidential documents covering relations between Israel and Germany between 1961 and 1967. The documents discuss a wide range of issues, including the diplomatic crisis that erupted between Jerusalem and Berlin in 1962, when Israel learned that German scientists had been helping develop missiles and weapons of mass destruction in Egypt, and had even attended successful missile tests. After Israel received information that Egypt had managed to develop the ability to fire radioactive material with the aid of foreign scientists, Jerusalem decided to launch an investigation and take measures against Germany for allowing its citizens to assist Egyptian weapons development. Israel and Egypt may not have been engaged in combat at the time, but they were technically at war. A subsequent "fear campaign," intended to scare foreign nationals out of Egypt, was uncovered in March 1963. Isser Harel, the Mossad chief at the time, had to resign after he butted heads with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Deputy Defense Minister Shimon Peres (today the Israeli president), both of whom believed the fear tactic would cause a rupture in Israeli-German relations. Israel formally requested that Germany immediately put an end to its specialists' involvement in Egyptian weapons development, but Germany summarily denied that its citizens were participating in the development of non-conventional weapons in Cairo.
