He was born in Berlin into a Portuguese orthodox Jewish family settled in Hamburg.[citation needed] At 16, Shaltiel joined the Zionist youth movement Blau Weiss, and he went to Palestine in 1923. However, he was not happy there, and returned to Europe in 1925. From 1925-1930 he was enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. In 1934 he returned to Palestine. There he started working for the Haganah, being charged with buying arms in Europe. In 1936 he was captured in Aachen, Germany, by Gestapo. Shaltiel spent the three next years in prisons/ concentration camps, including Dachau and Buchenwald. When he was sent to Berlin in 1939 the Haganah succeeded in freeing him. He then went back to Palestine. There he was at first condemned to death for murder by the British, but a British War Council lat