 However, in August 1940, Irgun member Avraham Stern formed Lehi, a breakaway group which favoured armed struggle against the British to force them out of Palestine and immediately establish a Jewish state.Stern was unaware of the Nazis' intent to exterminate the Jews, and believed that Hitler wanted to make Germany "judenrein" through emigration.Stern proposed an alliance with Nazi Germany, offering the Germans help in conquering the Middle East and driving out the British in exchange for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, which would then take in European Jewry.