The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year
321
Year 321 ( CCCXXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Crispus and Constantinus (or, less frequently, year 1074 ' ...
, and continued through the
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
(5th to 10th centuries CE) and
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended ...
(''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the
Ashkenazi Jewish community. The community survived under
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first E ...
, but suffered during the
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...
. Accusations of
well poisoning during the
Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
(1346–53) led to mass slaughter of German Jews and they fled in large numbers to
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
. The Jewish communities of the cities of
Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...
,
Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer lie ...
and
Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany
Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...
became the center of Jewish life during medieval times. "This was a
golden age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the '' Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the G ...
as area bishops protected the Jews resulting in increased trade and prosperity."
The
First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ...
began an era of persecution of Jews in Germany. Entire communities, like those of
Trier
Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the ...
, Worms, Mainz and
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
, were slaughtered. The
Hussite Wars
The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were a series of civil wars fought between the Hussites and the combined Catholic forces of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Papacy, Eur ...
became the signal for renewed persecution of Jews. The end of the 15th century was a period of religious hatred that ascribed to Jews all possible evils. With
Napoleon's fall in 1815, growing
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
resulted in increasing repression. From August to October 1819,
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
s that came to be known as the
Hep-Hep riots
The Hep-Hep riots from August to October 1819 were pogroms against Ashkenazi Jews, beginning in the Kingdom of Bavaria, during the period of Jewish emancipation in the German Confederation. The antisemitic communal violence began on August 2, ...
took place throughout Germany. During this time, many
German states stripped Jews of their civil rights. As a result, many German Jews began to emigrate.
From the time of
Moses Mendelssohn
Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the '' Haskalah'', or ...
until the 20th century, the community gradually achieved
emancipation
Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranch ...
, and then prospered.
In January 1933, some 522,000 Jews lived in Germany. After the
Nazis took power and implemented their
antisemitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Ant ...
ideology and policies, the Jewish community was increasingly persecuted. About 60% (numbering around 304,000) emigrated during the first six years of the
Nazi dictatorship
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. In 1933, persecution of the Jews became an official
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
policy. In 1935 and 1936, the pace of antisemitic persecution increased. In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them from participating in education, politics, higher education and industry. On 10 November 1938, the state police and Nazi paramilitary forces orchestrated the Night of Broken Glass (''
Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...
''), in which the storefronts of Jewish shops and offices were smashed and vandalized, and many synagogues were destroyed by fire. Only roughly 214,000 Jews were left in Germany proper (1937 borders) on the eve of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
.
Beginning in late 1941, the remaining community was subjected to systematic
deportations to ghettos and ultimately, to
death camps
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. T ...
in
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
.
In May 1943, Germany was declared ''
judenrein'' (clean of Jews; also ''judenfrei'': free of Jews). By the end of the war, an estimated 160,000 to 180,000 German Jews had been killed by the
Nazi regime
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and their collaborators. A total of about six million European Jews were murdered under the direction of the Nazis, in the genocide that later came to be known as
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...
.
After the war, the Jewish community in Germany started to slowly grow again. Beginning around 1990, a spurt of growth was fueled by immigration from the
former Soviet Union
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
, so that at the turn of the 21st century, Germany had the only growing Jewish community in Europe,
and the majority of German Jews were
Russian-speaking. By 2018, the Jewish population of Germany had leveled off at 116,000, not including non-Jewish members of households; the total estimated enlarged population of Jews living in Germany, including non-Jewish household members, was close to 225,000.
Currently in Germany,
denial of the Holocaust
Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements:
...
or that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust (§ 130 StGB) is a criminal act; violations can be punished with up to five years of prison.
In 2006, on the occasion of the
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...
held in Germany, the then-
Interior Minister of Germany
The Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Community (german: Bundesministerium des Innern und für Heimat, ; ''Heimat'' also translates to "homeland"), abbreviated , is a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its main ...
Wolfgang Schäuble
Wolfgang Schäuble (; born 18 September 1942) is a German lawyer, politician and statesman whose political career has spanned for more than five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he is one of the longest-serving politi ...
, urged vigilance against
far-right extremism
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
, saying: "We will not tolerate any form of extremism,
xenophobia
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
, or antisemitism."
In spite of Germany's measures against these groups and antisemites, a number of incidents have occurred in recent years.
From Rome to the Crusades
![GermanJews1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/GermanJews1.jpg)
Jewish migration from
Roman Italy
Roman Italy (called in both the Latin and Italian languages referring to the Italian Peninsula) was the homeland of the ancient Romans and of the Roman empire. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home promised by Jupiter to ...
is considered the most likely source of the first Jews on German territory. While the date of the first settlement of Jews in the regions which the
Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
called
Germania Superior
Germania Superior ("Upper Germania") was an imperial province of the Roman Empire. It comprised an area of today's western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions, and southwestern Germany. Important cities were Besançon ('' Vesontio ...
,
Germania Inferior
Germania Inferior ("Lower Germania") was a Roman province from AD 85 until the province was renamed Germania Secunda in the fourth century, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Agripp ...
, and
Magna Germania is not known, the first authentic document relating to a large and well-organized Jewish community in these regions dates from 321 and refers to
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
on the
Rhine
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, source ...
(Jewish immigrants began settling in Rome itself as early as 139 BC). It indicates that the legal status of the Jews there was the same as elsewhere in the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
. They enjoyed some civil liberties, but were restricted regarding the dissemination of their culture, the keeping of non-Jewish slaves, and the holding of office under the government.
Jews were otherwise free to follow any occupation open to indigenous Germans and were engaged in agriculture, trade, industry, and gradually money-lending. These conditions at first continued in the subsequently established
Germanic kingdoms under the
Burgundians
The Burgundians ( la, Burgundes, Burgundiōnes, Burgundī; on, Burgundar; ang, Burgendas; grc-gre, Βούργουνδοι) were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared in the middle Rhine region, near the Roman Empire, and ...
and
Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools ...
, for
ecclesiasticism took root slowly. The
Merovingian
The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gaul ...
rulers who succeeded to the Burgundian empire were devoid of fanaticism and gave scant support to the efforts of the Church to restrict the civic and social status of the Jews.
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first E ...
(800–814) readily made use of the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
for the purpose of infusing coherence into the loosely joined parts of his extensive empire, but was not by any means a blind tool of the
canonical law
Canon law (from grc, κανών, , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is th ...
. He employed Jews for diplomatic purposes, sending, for instance, a Jew as interpreter and guide with his
embassy to Harun al-Rashid. Yet, even then, a gradual change occurred in the lives of the Jews. The Church forbade Christians to be
usurers
Usury () is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is ch ...
, so the Jews secured the
remunerative
Remuneration is the pay or other financial compensation provided in exchange for an employee's ''services performed'' (not to be confused with giving (away), or donating, or the act of providing to). A number of complementary benefits in addition ...
monopoly of
money-lending
In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that de ...
. This decree caused a mixed reaction of people in general in the
Carolingian Empire
The Carolingian Empire (800–888) was a large Frankish-dominated empire in western and central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the L ...
(including Germany) to the Jews: Jewish people were sought everywhere, as well as avoided. This ambivalence about Jews occurred because their capital was indispensable, while their business was viewed as disreputable. This curious combination of circumstances increased Jewish influence and Jews went about the country freely, settling also in the eastern portions (
Old Saxony
"Old Saxony" is the original homeland of the Saxons. It corresponds roughly to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, eastern part of modern North Rhine-Westphalia state (Westphalia), Nordalbingia ( Holstein, southern part of Schleswig-Holstei ...
and
Duchy of Thuringia
The Duchy of Thuringia was an eastern frontier march of the Merovingian kingdom of Austrasia, established about 631 by King Dagobert I after his troops had been defeated by the forces of the Slavic confederation of Samo at the Battle of Wogas ...
). Aside from
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
, the earliest communities were established in Mainz,
Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany
Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...
,
Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer lie ...
, and
Regensburg
Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the ...
.
The status of the German Jews remained unchanged under Charlemagne's successor,
Louis the Pious
Louis the Pious (german: Ludwig der Fromme; french: Louis le Pieux; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aqu ...
. Jews were unrestricted in their commerce; however, they paid somewhat higher taxes into the state treasury than did the non-Jews. A special officer, the ''Judenmeister'', was appointed by the government to protect Jewish privileges. The later
Carolingians
The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippi ...
, however, followed the demands of the Church more and more. The bishops continually argued at the
synods
A synod () is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word '' synod'' comes from the meaning "assembly" or "meeting" and is analogous with the Latin word mean ...
for including and enforcing decrees of the
canonical law
Canon law (from grc, κανών, , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is th ...
, with the consequence that the majority Christian populace mistrusted the Jewish unbelievers. This feeling, among both princes and people, was further stimulated by the attacks on the civic equality of the Jews. Beginning with the 10th century,
Holy Week
Holy Week ( la, Hebdomada Sancta or , ; grc, Ἁγία καὶ Μεγάλη Ἑβδομάς, translit=Hagia kai Megale Hebdomas, lit=Holy and Great Week) is the most sacred week in the liturgical year in Christianity. In Eastern Churches, w ...
became more and more a period of antisemitic activities, yet the
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
emperors did not treat the Jews badly, exacting from them merely the taxes levied upon all other merchants. Although the Jews in Germany were as ignorant as their contemporaries in secular studies, they could read and understand the
Hebrew prayers and the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...
in the original text.
Halakhic
''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical comman ...
studies began to flourish about 1000.
At that time,
Rav
''Rav'' (or ''Rab,'' Modern Hebrew: ) is the Hebrew generic term for a person who teaches Torah; a Jewish spiritual guide; or a rabbi. For example, Pirkei Avot (1:6) states that:
The term ''rav'' is also Hebrew for ''rabbi''. (For a more nuan ...
Gershom ben Judah
Gershom ben Judah, (c. 960 -1040) best known as Rabbeinu Gershom ( he, רבנו גרשום, "Our teacher Gershom") and also commonly known to scholars of Judaism by the title ''Rabbeinu Gershom Me'Or Hagolah'' ("Our teacher Gershom the light of the ...
was teaching at
Metz
Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand ...
and Mainz, gathering about him pupils from far and near. He is described in Jewish
historiography
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians h ...
as a model of wisdom, humility, and piety, and became known to succeeding generations as the "Light of the
Exile
Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...
". In highlighting his role in the religious development of Jews in the German lands, ''
The Jewish Encyclopedia
''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...
'' (1901–1906) draws a direct connection to the great spiritual fortitude later shown by the Jewish communities in the era of the Crusades:
He first stimulated the German Jews to study the treasures of their religious literature. This continuous study of the Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
and the Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...
produced such a devotion to Judaism that the Jews considered life without their religion not worth living; but they did not realize this clearly until the time of the Crusades, when they were often compelled to choose between life and faith.
Cultural and religious centre of European Jewry
The Jewish communities of the cities of
Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer lie ...
,
Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany
Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...
, and
Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...
formed the league of cities which became the center of Jewish life during Medieval times. These are referred to as the ShUM cities, after the first letters of the Hebrew names:
Shin for Speyer (''Shpira''),
Waw for Worms (''Varmaisa'') and
Mem
Mem (also spelled Meem, Meme, or Mim) is the thirteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Hebrew mēm , Aramaic Mem , Syriac mīm ܡ, Arabic mīm and Phoenician mēm . Its sound value is .
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek ...
for Mainz (''Magentza''). The ''
Takkanot Shum
The ( he, תקנות שו"ם), or Enactments of SHU"M were a set of decrees formulated and agreed upon over a period of decades by the leaders of three of the central cities of Medieval Rhineland Jewry: Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. The initials of th ...
'' ( he, תקנות שו"ם "Enactments of ShUM") were a set of decrees formulated and agreed upon over a period of decades by their Jewish community leaders. The official website for the city of Mainz states:
Historian
John Man
John Man (1512–1569) was an English churchman, college head, and a diplomat.
Life
He was born at Lacock or Winterbourne Stoke, in Wiltshire. He was educated at Winchester College from 1523, and New College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1 ...
describes Mainz as "the capital of European
Jewry
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
", noting that
Gershom ben Judah
Gershom ben Judah, (c. 960 -1040) best known as Rabbeinu Gershom ( he, רבנו גרשום, "Our teacher Gershom") and also commonly known to scholars of Judaism by the title ''Rabbeinu Gershom Me'Or Hagolah'' ("Our teacher Gershom the light of the ...
"was the first to bring copies of the Talmud to Western Europe" and that his directives "helped Jews adapt to European practices." Gershom's school attracted Jews from all over Europe, including the famous biblical scholar
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzchaki ( he, רבי שלמה יצחקי; la, Salomon Isaacides; french: Salomon de Troyes, 22 February 1040 – 13 July 1105), today generally known by the acronym Rashi (see below), was a medieval French rabbi and author of a compre ...
;
and "in the mid-14th century, it had the largest Jewish community in Europe: some 6,000." "In essence," states the City of Mainz web site, "this was a golden age as area bishops protected the Jews resulting in increased trade and prosperity."
A period of massacres (1096–1349)
![Massacre of Jews](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Massacre_of_Jews.jpg)
The
First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ...
began an era of persecution of Jews in Germany, especially in
the Rhineland.
[Riley-Smith, Jonathan (1991). The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading. University of Pennsylvania. . pp. 50–7.] The communities of
Trier
Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the ...
, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, were attacked. The
Jewish community of Speyer
The history of the Jews in Speyer reaches back over 1,000 years. In the Middle Ages, the city of Speyer (formerly Spira), Germany, was home to one of the most significant Jewish communities in the Holy Roman Empire. Its significance is attested to ...
was saved by the bishop, but
800 were slain in Worms. About 12,000 Jews are said to have perished in the Rhenish cities alone between May and July 1096. Alleged crimes, like desecration of the host, ritual murder, poisoning of wells, and treason, brought hundreds to the stake and drove thousands into exile.
Jews were alleged to have caused
the inroads of the Mongols, though they suffered equally with the Christians. Jews suffered intense persecution during the
Rintfleisch massacres of 1298. In 1336
Jews from Alsace were subjected to massacres by the outlaws of
Arnold von Uissigheim.
When the
Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
swept over Europe in 1348–49, some Christian communities accused Jews of
poisoning wells. Compared to the south and west of the Holy Roman Empire, the persecutions appear to have brought less drastic effects in the eastern parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Nonetheless, in the
Erfurt Massacre of 1349, the members of the entire Jewish community were murdered or expelled from the city, due to superstitions about the Black Death. Many persecutions were clearly favoured by a royal throne crisis and the
Wittelsbach
The House of Wittelsbach () is a German dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including Bavaria, the Palatinate, Holland and Zeeland, Sweden (with Finland), Denmark, Norway, Hungary (with Romania), Bohemia, the Electorate ...
-
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
dualism, therefore recent German research proposed the term “Thronkrisenverfolgungen” (throne crisis persecutions).
[Christophersen, Jörn R. (2021). Krisen, Chancen und Bedrohungen. Harrassowitz . p. 720 (English Summary).] Royal policy and public ambivalence towards Jews helped the persecuted Jews fleeing the German-speaking lands to form the foundations of what would become the largest Jewish community in Europe in what is now Poland/Ukraine/Romania/Belarus/Lithuania.
In the Holy Roman Empire
![Codex Trevirensis folio 24 recto](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Codex_Trevirensis_folio_24_recto.jpg)
The legal and civic status of the Jews underwent a transformation under the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...
. Jewish people found a certain degree of protection with the
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...
, who claimed the right of possession and protection of all the Jews of the empire. A justification for this claim was that the Holy Roman Emperor was the successor of the emperor
Titus
Titus Caesar Vespasianus ( ; 30 December 39 – 13 September 81 AD) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death.
Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a mili ...
, who was said to have acquired the Jews as his
private property
Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property and personal property, which is owned by a state entity, and from collective or ...
. The German emperors apparently claimed this right of possession more for the sake of taxing the Jews than of protecting them.
A variety of such
taxes
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, o ...
existed.
Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Louis IV (german: Ludwig; 1 April 1282 – 11 October 1347), called the Bavarian, of the house of Wittelsbach, was King of the Romans from 1314, King of Italy from 1327, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1328.
Louis' election as king of Germany ...
, was a prolific creator of new taxes. In 1342, he instituted the "golden sacrificial penny" and decreed that every year all the Jews should pay the emperor one
kreutzer out of every
florins of their property in addition to the taxes they were already paying to both the state and municipal authorities. The emperors of the
House of Luxembourg
The House of Luxembourg ( lb, D'Lëtzebuerger Haus; french: Maison de Luxembourg; german: Haus Luxemburg) or Luxembourg dynasty was a royal family of the Holy Roman Empire in the Late Middle Ages, whose members between 1308 and 1437 ruled as kin ...
devised other means of taxation. They turned their prerogatives in regard to the Jews to further account by selling at a high price to the princes and free towns of the empire the valuable privilege of taxing and
fining the Jews.
Charles IV, via the
Golden Bull of 1356
The Golden Bull of 1356 (, , , , ) was a decree issued by the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg and Metz ( Diet of Metz, 1356/57) headed by the Emperor Charles IV which fixed, for a period of more than four hundred years, important aspects of the con ...
, granted this privilege to the seven electors of the empire when the empire was reorganized in 1356.
From this time onward, for reasons that also apparently concerned taxes, the Jews of Germany gradually passed in increasing numbers from the authority of the emperor to that of both the lesser sovereigns and the cities. For the sake of sorely needed revenue, the Jews were now invited, with the promise of full protection, to return to those districts and cities from which they had shortly before been expelled. However, as soon as Jewish people acquired some property, they were again plundered and driven away. These episodes thenceforth constituted a large portion of the medieval history of the German Jews. Emperor
Wenceslaus
Wenceslaus, Wenceslas, Wenzeslaus and Wenzslaus (and other similar names) are Latinized forms of the Czech name Václav. The other language versions of the name are german: Wenzel, pl, Wacław, Więcesław, Wieńczysław, es, Wenceslao, russian ...
was most expert in transferring to his own coffers gold from the pockets of rich Jews. He made compacts with many cities, estates, and princes whereby he annulled all outstanding debts to the Jews in return for a certain sum paid to him. Emperor Wenceslaus declared that anyone helping Jews with the collection of their debts, in spite of this annulment, would be dealt with as a
robber and peacebreaker, and be forced to make restitution. This decree, which for years allegedly injured the public credit, is said to have impoverished thousands of Jewish families during the close of the 14th century.
![Burning Jews](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Burning_Jews.jpg)
The 15th century did not bring any amelioration. What happened in the time of the Crusades happened again. The war upon the
Hussites
The Hussites ( cs, Husité or ''Kališníci''; "Chalice People") were a Czech proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus, who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation.
The Huss ...
became the signal for renewed persecution of Jews. The Jews of Austria,
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
,
Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The ...
, and
Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. S ...
passed through all the terrors of death,
forced baptism
Forced conversion is the adoption of a different religion or the adoption of irreligion under duress. Someone who has been forced to convert to a different religion or irreligion may continue, covertly, to adhere to the beliefs and practices whi ...
, or voluntary
self-immolation
The term self-immolation broadly refers to acts of altruistic suicide, otherwise the giving up of one's body in an act of sacrifice. However, it most often refers specifically to autocremation, the act of sacrificing oneself by setting oneself ...
for the sake of their faith. When the Hussites made peace with the Church, the Pope sent the Franciscan friar
John of Capistrano to win the renegades back into the fold and inspire them with loathing for heresy and unbelief; 41 martyrs were burned in
Wrocław
Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, r ...
alone, and all Jews were forever banished from Silesia. The
Franciscan
, image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans
, abbreviation = OFM
, predecessor =
, ...
friar
Bernardine of Feltre brought a similar fate upon the communities in southern and western Germany. As a consequence of the fictitious confessions extracted under torture from the Jews of
Trent, the populace of many cities, especially of Regensburg, fell upon the Jews and massacred them.
The end of the 15th century, which brought a new epoch for the
Christian world
Christendom historically refers to the Christian states, Christian-majority countries and the countries in which Christianity dominates, prevails,SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christendom"/ref> or is culturally or historically intertwin ...
, brought no relief to the Jews. Jews in Germany remained the victims of a religious hatred that ascribed to them all possible evils. When the established Church, threatened in its spiritual power in Germany and elsewhere, prepared for its conflict with the culture of the
German Renaissance
The German Renaissance, part of the Northern Renaissance, was a cultural and artistic movement that spread among German thinkers in the 15th and 16th centuries, which developed from the Italian Renaissance. Many areas of the arts and scienc ...
, one of its most convenient points of attack was
rabbinic literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic w ...
. At this time, as once before in France, Jewish converts spread false reports in regard to the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...
, but an advocate of the book arose in the person of
Johann Reuchlin
Johann Reuchlin (; sometimes called Johannes; 29 January 1455 – 30 June 1522) was a German Catholic humanist and a scholar of Greek and Hebrew, whose work also took him to modern-day Austria, Switzerland, and Italy and France. Most of Reuchlin' ...
, the German humanist, who was the first one in Germany to include the
Hebrew language
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserve ...
among the humanities. His opinion, though strongly opposed by the
Dominicans and their followers, finally prevailed when the humanistic
Pope Leo X
Pope Leo X ( it, Leone X; born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, 11 December 14751 December 1521) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1513 to his death in December 1521.
Born into the prominent political an ...
permitted the Talmud to be printed in Italy.
Moses Mendelssohn
![Moses Mendelson P7160073](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Moses_Mendelson_P7160073.JPG)
Though reading German books was forbidden in the 1700s by Jewish inspectors who had a measure of police power in Germany, Moses Mendelson found his first German book, an edition of
Protestant theology
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
, at a well-organized system of Jewish charity for needy Talmud students. Mendelssohn read this book and found proof of the
existence of God
The existence of God (or more generally, the existence of deities) is a subject of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God or deities can be categorize ...
– his first meeting with a sample of European letters. This was only the beginning to Mendelssohn's inquiries about the knowledge of life. Mendelssohn learned many new languages, and with his whole education consisting of Talmud lessons, he thought in Hebrew and translated for himself every new piece of work he met into this language. The divide between the Jews and the rest of society was caused by a lack of translation between these two languages, and
Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sym ...
translated the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
into German, bridging the gap between the two; this book allowed Jews to speak and write in German, preparing them for participation in German culture and secular science. In 1750, Mendelssohn began to serve as a teacher in the house of Isaac Bernhard, the owner of a silk factory, after beginning his publications of philosophical essays in German. Mendelssohn conceived of God as a perfect Being and had faith in "God's wisdom, righteousness, mercy, and goodness." He argued, "the world results from a creative act through which the divine will seeks to realize the highest good," and accepted the existence of miracles and revelation as long as belief in God did not depend on them. He also believed that revelation could not contradict reason. Like the deists, Mendelssohn claimed that reason could discover the reality of God, divine providence, and
immortality of the soul
Christian mortalism is the Christian belief that the human soul is not naturally immortal and may include the belief that the soul is “sleeping” after death until the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment, a time known as the inte ...
. He was the first to speak out against the use of excommunication as a religious threat. At the height of his career, in 1769, Mendelssohn was publicly challenged by a
Christian apologist
Christian apologetics ( grc, ἀπολογία, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity.
Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in ...
, a
Zurich pastor named
John Lavater, to defend the superiority of Judaism over Christianity. From then on, he was involved in defending Judaism in print. In 1783, he published ''Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism''. Speculating that no religious institution should use coercion and emphasized that Judaism does not coerce the mind through dogma, he argued that through reason, all people could discover religious philosophical truths, but what made Judaism unique was its revealed code of legal, ritual, and moral law. He said that Jews must live in civil society, but only in a way that their right to observe religious laws is granted, while also recognizing the needs for respect, and multiplicity of religions. He campaigned for emancipation and instructed Jews to form bonds with the gentile governments, attempting to improve the relationship between Jews and Christians while arguing for tolerance and humanity. He became the symbol of the Jewish Enlightenment, the Haskalah.
Early 19th Century
![David Friedlander](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/David_Friedlander.JPG)
In the late 18th century, a youthful enthusiasm for new ideals of religious equality began to take hold in the western world. Austrian Emperor
Joseph II
Joseph II (German: Josef Benedikt Anton Michael Adam; English: ''Joseph Benedict Anthony Michael Adam''; 13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg lands from November 29, 1780 un ...
was foremost in espousing these new ideals. As early as 1782, he issued the ''Patent of Toleration for the Jews of Lower Austria'', thereby establishing civic equality for his Jewish subjects.
Before 1806, when general
citizenship
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
was largely nonexistent in the Holy Roman Empire, its inhabitants were subject to varying
estate regulations. In different ways from one territory of the empire to another, these regulations classified inhabitants into different groups, such as dynasts, members of the court entourage, other
aristocrats
Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'.
At the time of the word' ...
, city dwellers (
burghers), Jews,
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
s (in Prussia a special estate until 1810),
free peasants,
serf
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which developed ...
s,
peddler
A peddler, in British English pedlar, also known as a chapman, packman, cheapjack, hawker, higler, huckster, (coster)monger, colporteur or solicitor, is a door-to-door and/or travelling vendor of goods.
In England, the term was mostly used f ...
s and
Gypsies
The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...
, with different privileges and burdens attached to each classification. Legal inequality was the principle.
The concept of citizenship was mostly restricted to cities, especially
Free Imperial Cities
In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that ...
. No general franchise existed, which remained a privilege for the few, who had inherited the status or acquired it when they reached a certain level of taxed income or could afford the expense of the citizen's fee (''Bürgergeld''). Citizenship was often further restricted to city dwellers affiliated to the locally dominant Christian denomination (
Calvinism
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John C ...
,
Roman Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, or
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
). City dwellers of other denominations or religions and those who lacked the necessary wealth to qualify as citizens were considered to be mere inhabitants who lacked political rights, and were sometimes subject to revocable residence permits.
Most Jews then living in those parts of Germany that allowed them to settle were automatically defined as mere indigenous inhabitants, depending on permits that were typically less generous than those granted to gentile indigenous inhabitants (''Einwohner'', as opposed to ''Bürger'', or citizen). In the 18th century, some Jews and their families (such as
Daniel Itzig
Daniel Itzig (also known as Daniel Yoffe 18 March 1723 in Berlin – 17 May 1799 in Potsdam) was a Court Jew of Kings Frederick II the Great and Frederick William II of Prussia.
Biography
Itzig was born in Berlin. His family was mercantile. I ...
in Berlin) gained equal status with their Christian fellow city dwellers, but had a different status from noblemen, Huguenots, or serfs. They often did not enjoy the right to freedom of movement across territorial or even municipal boundaries, let alone the same status in any new place as in their previous location.
With the abolition of differences in legal status during the
Napoleonic era
The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislativ ...
and its aftermath, citizenship was established as a new franchise generally applying to all former subjects of the monarchs. Prussia conferred citizenship on the Prussian Jews in 1812, though this by no means resulted in full equality with other citizens.
Jewish emancipation
Jewish emancipation was the process in various nations in Europe of eliminating Jewish disabilities, e.g. Jewish quotas, to which European Jews were then subject, and the recognition of Jews as entitled to equality and citizenship rights. It in ...
did not eliminate all forms of discrimination against Jews, who often remained barred from holding official state positions. The German federal edicts of 1815 merely held out the prospect of full equality, but it was not genuinely implemented at that time, and even the promises which had been made were modified. However, such forms of discrimination were no longer the guiding principle for ordering society, but a violation of it. In
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, many laws restricting the trade and traffic of Jewish subjects remained in force until the middle of the 19th century in spite of the patent of toleration. Some of the crown lands, such as
Styria
Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered ...
and
Upper Austria
Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, an ...
, forbade any Jews to settle within their territory; in Bohemia, Moravia, and
Austrian Silesia
Austrian Silesia, (historically also ''Oesterreichisch-Schlesien, Oesterreichisch Schlesien, österreichisch Schlesien''); cs, Rakouské Slezsko; pl, Śląsk Austriacki officially the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia, (historically ''Herzogth ...
many cities were closed to them. The Jews were also burdened with heavy taxes and imposts.
In the German
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. ...
, the government materially modified the promises made in the disastrous year of 1813. The promised uniform regulation of Jewish affairs was time and again postponed. In the period between 1815 and 1847, no less than 21 territorial laws affecting Jews in the
older eight provinces of the Prussian state were in effect, each having to be observed by part of the Jewish community. At that time, no official was authorized to speak in the name of all Prussian Jews, or Jewry in most of the
other 41 German states, let alone for all German Jews.
Nevertheless, a few men came forward to promote their cause, foremost among them being
Gabriel Riesser (d. 1863), a Jewish lawyer from
Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
, who demanded full civic equality for his people. He won over public opinion to such an extent that this equality was granted in Prussia on April 6, 1848, in
Hanover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
and
Nassau
Nassau may refer to:
Places Bahamas
*Nassau, Bahamas, capital city of the Bahamas, on the island of New Providence
Canada
*Nassau District, renamed Home District, regional division in Upper Canada from 1788 to 1792
*Nassau Street (Winnipeg), ...
on September 5 and on December 12, respectively, and also in his home
state of Hamburg, then home to the second-largest Jewish community in Germany. In
Württemberg
Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart.
Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...
, equality was conceded on December 3, 1861; in
Baden
Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine.
History
The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden i ...
on October 4, 1862; in
Holstein
Holstein (; nds, label=Northern Low Saxon, Holsteen; da, Holsten; Latin and historical en, Holsatia, italic=yes) is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is the southern half of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of German ...
on July 14, 1863; and in
Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a ...
on December 3, 1868. After the establishment of the
North German Confederation
The North German Confederation (german: Norddeutscher Bund) was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated st ...
by the law of July 3, 1869, all remaining statutory restrictions imposed on the followers of different religions were abolished; this decree was extended to all the states of the German empire after the events of 1870.
The Jewish Enlightenment
During the
General Enlightenment (the 1600s to late 1700s), many Jewish women began to frequently visit non-Jewish salons and to campaign for
emancipation
Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranch ...
. In Western Europe and the German states, observance of Jewish law, ''
Halacha
''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical comman ...
'', started to be neglected. In the 18th century, some traditional German scholars and leaders, such as the doctor and author of ''
Ma'aseh Tuviyyah'',
Tobias b. Moses Cohn, appreciated the secular culture. The most important feature during this time was the German ''
Aufklärung'', which was able to boast of native figures who competed with the finest Western European writers, scholars, and intellectuals. Aside from the externalities of language and dress, the Jews internalized the cultural and intellectual norms of German society. The movement, becoming known as the German or
Berlin Haskalah offered many effects to the challenges of German society. As early as the 1740s, many German Jews and some individual Polish and Lithuanian Jews had a desire for
secular education
Secular education is a system of public education in countries with a secular government or separation between religion and state.
An example of a secular educational system would be the French public educational system, where conspicuous reli ...
. The German-Jewish Enlightenment of the late 18th century, the ''
Haskalah
The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...
'', marks the political, social, and intellectual transition of European Jewry to modernity. Some of the elite members of Jewish society knew European languages. Absolutist governments in Germany, Austria, and Russia deprived the Jewish community's leadership of its authority and many Jews became
'Court Jews'. Using their connections with Jewish businessmen to serve as military contractors, managers of mints, founders of new industries and providers to the court of precious stones and clothing, they gave economic assistance to the local rulers. Court Jews were protected by the rulers and acted as did everyone else in society in their speech, manners, and awareness of European literature and ideas.
Isaac Euchel, for example, represented a new generation of Jews. He maintained a leading role in the German ''Haskalah'', is one of the founding editors of ''Ha-Me/assef''. Euchel was exposed to European languages and culture while living in Prussian centers: Berlin and Koenigsberg. His interests turned towards promoting the educational interests of the Enlightenment with other Jews. Moses Mendelssohn as another enlightenment thinker was the first Jew to bring secular culture to those living an Orthodox Jewish life. He valued reason and felt that anyone could arrive logically at religious truths while arguing that what makes Judaism unique is its divine revelation of a code of law. Mendelssohn's commitment to Judaism leads to tensions even with some of those who subscribed to Enlightenment philosophy. Faithful Christians who were less opposed to his rationalistic ideas than to his adherence to Judaism found it difficult to accept this ''Juif de Berlin.'' In most of Western Europe, the ''Haskalah'' ended with large numbers of Jews assimilating. Many Jews stopped adhering to Jewish law, and the struggle for emancipation in Germany awakened some doubts about the future of Jews in Europe and eventually led to both
immigrations to America and
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
. In Russia, antisemitism ended the'' Haskalah''. Some Jews responded to this antisemitism by campaigning for emancipation, while others joined revolutionary movements and assimilated, and some turned to Jewish nationalism in the form of the
Zionist Hibbat Zion movement.
Reorganization of the German Jewish Community
Abraham Geiger
Abraham Geiger (Hebrew: ''ʼAvrāhām Gayger''; 24 May 181023 October 1874) was a German rabbi and scholar, considered the founding father of Reform Judaism. Emphasizing Judaism's constant development along history and universalist traits, Gei ...
and
Samuel Holdheim were two founders of the conservative movement in modern Judaism who accepted the modern spirit of
liberalism
Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostilit ...
.
Samson Raphael Hirsch
Samson Raphael Hirsch (; June 20, 1808 – December 31, 1888) was a German Orthodox rabbi best known as the intellectual founder of the ''Torah im Derech Eretz'' school of contemporary Orthodox Judaism. Occasionally termed ''neo-Orthodoxy'', hi ...
defended traditional customs, denying the modern "spirit". Neither of these beliefs was followed by the faithful Jews.
Zecharias Frankel
Zecharias Frankel, also known as Zacharias Frankel (30 September 1801 – 13 February 1875) was a Bohemian-German rabbi and a historian who studied the historical development of Judaism. He was born in Prague and died in Breslau. He was the fo ...
created a moderate reform movement in assurance with German communities. Public worships were reorganized, reduction of medieval additions to the prayer, congregational singing was introduced, and regular sermons required scientifically trained rabbis. Religious schools were enforced by the state due to a want for the addition of religious structure to secular education of Jewish children. Pulpit oratory started to thrive mainly due to German preachers, such as M. Sachs and M. Joel. Synagogal music was accepted with the help of
Louis Lewandowski
Louis Lewandowski (April 3, 1821 – February 4, 1894) was a Polish-Jewish and German-Jewish composer of synagogal music.
He contributed greatly to the liturgy of the Synagogue Service. His most famous works were composed during his tenure as ...
. Part of the evolution of the Jewish community was the cultivation of
Jewish literature
Jewish literature includes works written by Jews on Jewish themes, literary works written in Jewish languages on various themes, and literary works in any language written by Jewish writers. Ancient Jewish literature includes Biblical literature ...
and associations created with teachers, rabbis, and leaders of congregations.
Another vital part of the reorganization of the Jewish-German community was the heavy involvement of Jewish women in the community and their new tendencies to assimilate their families into a different lifestyle. Jewish women were contradicting their view points in the sense that they were modernizing, but they also tried to keep some traditions alive. German Jewish mothers were shifting the way they raised their children in ways such as moving their families out of Jewish neighborhoods, thus changing who Jewish children grew up around and conversed with, all in all shifting the dynamic of the then close-knit Jewish community. Additionally, Jewish mothers wished to integrate themselves and their families into German society in other ways.
Because of their mothers, Jewish children participated in walks around the neighborhood, sporting events, and other activities that would mold them into becoming more like their other German peers. For mothers to assimilate into German culture, they took pleasure in reading newspapers and magazines that focused on the fashion styles, as well as other trends that were up and coming for the time and that the Protestant, bourgeois Germans were exhibiting. Similar to this, German-Jewish mothers also urged their children to partake in music lessons, mainly because it was a popular activity among other Germans. Another effort German-Jewish mothers put into assimilating their families was enforcing the importance of manners on their children. It was noted that non-Jewish Germans saw Jews as disrespectful and unable to grasp the concept of time and place.
Because of this, Jewish mothers tried to raise their kids having even better manners than the Protestant children in an effort to combat the pre-existing stereotype put on their children. In addition, Jewish mothers put a large emphasis on proper education for their children in hopes that this would help them grow up to be more respected by their communities and eventually lead to prosperous careers. While Jewish mothers worked tirelessly on ensuring the assimilation of their families, they also attempted to keep the familial aspect of Jewish traditions. They began to look at
Shabbat
Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical stori ...
and holidays as less of culturally Jewish days, but more as family reunions of sorts. What was once viewed as a more religious event became more of a social gathering of relatives.
Birth of the Reform Movement
The beginning of the
Reform Movement in Judaism
Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism, is a major Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its ethical aspects to its ceremonial ones, and belief in a continuous sear ...
was emphasized by
David Philipson
David Philipson (August 9, 1862 – June 29, 1949) was an American Reform rabbi, orator, and author.
The son of German-Jewish immigrants, he was a member of the first graduating class of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. As an adult, ...
, who was the rabbi at the largest Reform congregation. The increasing political centralization of the late 18th and early 19th centuries undermined the societal structure that perpetuated traditional Jewish life.
Enlightenment ideas began to influence many intellectuals, and the resulting political, economic, and social changes were overpowering. Many Jews felt a tension between Jewish tradition and the way they were now leading their lives-religiously- resulting in less tradition. As the insular religious society that reinforced such observance disintegrated, falling away from vigilant observance without deliberately breaking with Judaism was easy. Some tried to reconcile their religious heritage with their new social surroundings; they reformed traditional Judaism to meet their new needs and to express their spiritual desires. A movement was formed with a set of religious beliefs, and practices that were considered expected and tradition.
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism, is a major Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its ethical aspects to its ceremonial ones, and belief in a continuous sear ...
was the first modern response to the Jew's emancipation, though reform Judaism differing in all countries caused stresses of autonomy on both the congregation and individual. Some of the reforms were in the practices:
circumcisions were abandoned, rabbis wore vests after Protestant ministers, and instrumental accompaniment was used:
pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks' ...
s. In addition, the traditional Hebrew prayer book was replaced by German text, and reform synagogues began being called temples which were previously considered the Temple of Jerusalem. Reform communities composed of similar beliefs and Judaism changed at the same pace as the rest of society had. The Jewish people have adapted to religious beliefs and practices to the meet the needs of the Jewish people throughout the generation.
1815–1918
Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
emancipated the Jews across Europe, but with Napoleon's fall in 1815, growing nationalism resulted in increasing repression. From August to October 1819, pogroms that came to be known as the
Hep-Hep riots
The Hep-Hep riots from August to October 1819 were pogroms against Ashkenazi Jews, beginning in the Kingdom of Bavaria, during the period of Jewish emancipation in the German Confederation. The antisemitic communal violence began on August 2, ...
took place throughout Germany. Jewish property was destroyed, and many Jews were killed.
During this time, many German states stripped Jews of their civil rights. In the
Free City of Frankfurt
For almost five centuries, the German city of Frankfurt was a city-state within two major Germanic entities:
*The Holy Roman Empire as the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt () (until 1806)
*The German Confederation as the Free City of Frankfurt ...
, only 12 Jewish couples were allowed to marry each year, and the 400,000
florins the city's Jewish community had paid in 1811 for its emancipation was forfeited. After the
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
reverted to Prussian control, Jews lost the rights Napoleon had granted them, were banned from certain professions, and the few who had been appointed to public office before the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fre ...
were dismissed. Throughout numerous German states, Jews had their rights to work, settle, and marry restricted. Without special letters of protection, Jews were banned from many different professions, and often had to resort to jobs considered unrespectable, such as peddling or cattle dealing, to survive. A Jewish man who wanted to marry had to purchase a registration certificate, known as a ''Matrikel'', proving he was in a "respectable" trade or profession. A ''Matrikel'', which could cost up to 1,000 florins, was usually restricted to firstborn sons.
[Sachar, Howard M.: ''A History of the Jews in America'' – Vintage Books] As a result, most Jewish men were unable to legally marry. Throughout Germany, Jews were heavily taxed, and were sometimes discriminated against by gentile craftsmen.
As a result, many German Jews began to emigrate. The emigration was encouraged by German-Jewish newspapers.
At first, most emigrants were young, single men from small towns and villages. A smaller number of single women also emigrated. Individual family members would emigrate alone, and then send for family members once they had earned enough money. Emigration eventually swelled, with some German Jewish communities losing up to 70% of their members. At one point, a German-Jewish newspaper reported that all the young Jewish males in the
Franconia
Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch'').
The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper ...
n towns of
Hagenbach
Hagenbach () is a town in the district of Germersheim, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated near the border with France, on the left bank of the Rhine, approx. 10 km west of Karlsruhe.
Hagenbach is the seat of the ''Verbandsg ...
,
Ottingen
Oettingen in Bayern ( Swabian: ''Eadi'') is a town in the Donau-Ries district, in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. It is situated northwest of Donauwörth, and northeast of Nördlingen.
Geography
The town is located on the river Wörnitz, a tributa ...
, and
Warnbach had emigrated or were about to emigrate.
The United States was the primary destination for emigrating German Jews.
The
Revolutions of 1848
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europ ...
swung the pendulum back towards freedom for the Jews. A noted reform rabbi of that time was
Leopold Zunz
Leopold Zunz ( he, יום טוב צונץ—''Yom Tov Tzuntz'', yi, ליפמן צונץ—''Lipmann Zunz''; 10 August 1794 – 17 March 1886) was the founder of academic Judaic Studies (''Wissenschaft des Judentums''), the critical investigation ...
, a contemporary and friend of
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...
. In 1871, with the unification of Germany by Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of ...
, came their emancipation, but the growing mood of despair among assimilated Jews was reinforced by the antisemitic penetrations of politics. In the 1870s, antisemitism was fueled by the
financial crisis
A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and man ...
and scandals; in the 1880s by the arrival of masses of ''
Ostjuden'', fleeing from Russian territories; by the 1890s it was a parliamentary presence, threatening anti-Jewish laws. In 1879 the Hamburg anarchist pamphleteer
Wilhelm Marr
Friedrich Wilhelm Adolph Marr (November 16, 1819 – July 17, 1904) was a German agitator and journalist, who popularized the term "antisemitism" (1881) hich was invented by Moritz Steinschneider
Life
Marr was born in Magdeburg as the only son ...
introduced the term 'antisemitism' into the political vocabulary by founding the
Antisemitic League. Antisemites of the ''
völkisch movement
The ''Völkisch'' movement (german: Völkische Bewegung; alternative en, Folkist Movement) was a German ethno-nationalist movement active from the late 19th century through to the Nazi era, with remnants in the Federal Republic of Germany a ...
'' were the first to describe themselves as such, because they viewed Jews as part of a Semitic race that could never be properly assimilated into German society. Such was the ferocity of the anti-Jewish feeling of the völkisch movement that by 1900, ''antisemitic'' had entered German to describe anyone who had anti-Jewish feelings. However, despite massive protests and petitions, the völkisch movement failed to persuade the government to revoke Jewish emancipation, and in the 1912 Reichstag elections, the parties with völkisch-movement sympathies suffered a temporary defeat.
![1890 gustav ermann kaiser soldier saarbrucken Germany](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/1890_gustav_ermann_kaiser_soldier_saarbrucken_Germany.jpg)
Jews experienced a period of legal equality after 1848.
Baden
Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine.
History
The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden i ...
and
Württemberg
Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart.
Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...
passed the legislation that gave the Jews complete equality before the law in 1861–64. The newly formed
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
did the same in 1871. Historian
Fritz Stern
Fritz Richard Stern (February 2, 1926 – May 18, 2016) was a German-born American historian of German history, Jewish history and historiography. He was a University Professor and a provost at New York's Columbia University. His work focused ...
concludes that by 1900, what had emerged was a Jewish-German symbiosis, where German Jews had merged elements of German and Jewish culture into a unique new one. Marriages between Jews and non-Jews became somewhat common from the 19th century; for example, the wife of German Chancellor
Gustav Stresemann
Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as chancellor in 1923 (for 102 days) and as foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, during the Weimar Republic.
His most notable achievement was the reconci ...
was Jewish. However, opportunity for high appointments in the military, the diplomatic service, judiciary or senior bureaucracy was very small. Some historians believe that with emancipation the Jewish people lost their roots in their culture and began only using German culture. However, other historians including Marion A. Kaplan, argue that it was the opposite and Jewish women were the initiators of balancing both Jewish and German culture during Imperial Germany.
Jewish women played a key role in keeping the Jewish communities in tune with the changing society that was evoked by the Jews being emancipated. Jewish women were the catalyst of modernization within the Jewish community. The years 1870–1918 marked the shift in the women's role in society. Their job in the past had been housekeeping and raising children. Now, however, they began to contribute to the home financially. Jewish mothers were the only tool families had to linking Judaism with
German culture
The culture of Germany has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. Historically, Germany has been called ''Das Land der Dichter und Denker'' (the country of poets and thinkers). German cult ...
. They felt it was their job to raise children that would fit in with bourgeois Germany. Women had to balance enforcing German traditions while also preserving Jewish traditions. Women were in charge of keeping kosher and the Sabbath; as well as, teaching their children German speech and dressing them in German clothing. Jewish women attempted to create an exterior presence of German while maintaining the Jewish lifestyle inside their homes.
During the history of the German Empire, there were various divisions within the German Jewish community over its future; in religious terms,
Orthodox Jews
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Jewish theology, Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Or ...
sought to keep to Jewish religious tradition, while liberal Jews sought to "modernise" their communities by shifting from liturgical traditions to organ music and German-language prayers.
The Jewish population grew from 512,000 in 1871 to 615,000 in 1910, including 79,000 recent immigrants from Russia, just under one percent of the total. About 15,000 Jews converted to Christianity between 1871 and 1909. The typical attitude of
German liberals towards Jews was that they were in Germany to stay and were capable of being assimilated; anthropologist and politician
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow (; or ; 13 October 18215 September 1902) was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founder ...
summarised this position, saying "The Jews are simply here. You cannot strike them dead." This position, however, did not tolerate cultural differences between Jews and non-Jews, advocating instead eliminating this difference.
World War I
![1920 poster 12000 Jewish soldiers KIA for the fatherland](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/1920_poster_12000_Jewish_soldiers_KIA_for_the_fatherland.jpg)
A higher percentage of German Jews fought in World War I than of any other ethnic, religious or political group in Germany; around 12,000 died in the fighting.
Many German Jews supported the war out of patriotism; like many Germans, they viewed Germany's actions as defensive in nature and even
left-liberal
Social liberalism (german: Sozialliberalismus, es, socioliberalismo, nl, Sociaalliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism, or simply liberalism in the contemporary United States, left-liberalism ...
Jews believed Germany was responding to the actions of other countries, particularly Russia. For many Jews it was never a question as to whether or not they would stand behind Germany, it was simply a given that they would. The fact that the enemy was Russia also gave an additional reason for German Jews to support the war;
Tsarist Russia was regarded as the oppressor in the eyes of German Jews for its
pogroms
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
and for many German Jews, the war against Russia would become a sort of
holy war. While there was partially a desire for vengeance, for many Jews ensuring Russia's Jewish population was saved from a life of servitude was equally important – one German-Jewish publication stated "We are fighting to protect our holy fatherland, to rescue European culture and to liberate our brothers in the east." War fervour was as common amongst Jewish communities as it was amongst ethnic Germans ones. The main Jewish organisation in Germany, the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, declared unconditional support for the war and when August 5 was declared by the Kaiser to be a day of patriotic prayer, synagogues across Germany surged with visitors and filled with patriotic prayers and nationalistic speeches.
![Willi ermann a jewish german soldier in wwi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Willi_ermann_a_jewish_german_soldier_in_wwi.jpg)
While going to war brought the unsavoury prospect of fighting fellow Jews in Russia, France and Britain, for the majority of Jews this severing of ties with Jewish communities in the
Entente was accepted part of their spiritual mobilisation for war. After all, the conflict also pitted German Catholics and Protestants against their fellow believers in the east and west. Indeed, for some Jews the fact that Jews were going to war with one another was proof of the normality of German-Jewish life; they could no longer be considered a minority with transnational loyalties but loyal German citizens. German Jews often broke ties with Jews of other countries; the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a French organisation that was dedicated to protecting Jewish rights, saw a German Jewish member quit once the war started, declaring that he could not, as a German, belong to a society that was under French leadership. German Jews supported
German colonial ambitions in Africa and Eastern Europe, out of the desire to increase German power and to rescue Eastern European Jews from Tsarist rule. The eastern advance became important for German Jews because it combined German military superiority with rescuing Eastern Jews from Russian brutality; Russian antisemitism and pogroms had only worsened as the war dragged on.
However, German Jews did not always feel a personal kinship with Russian Jews. Many were repelled by Eastern Jews, who dressed and behaved differently, as well as being much more religiously devout. Victor Klemperer, a German Jew working for military censors, stated "No, I did not belong to these people, even if one proved my blood relation to them a hundred times over...I belonged to Europe, to Germany, and I thanked my creator that I was German." This was a common attitude amongst ethnic Germans however; during the invasion of Russia the territories the Germans overran seemed backwards and primitive, thus for many Germans their experiences in Russia simply reinforced their national self-concept.
![Azannes WWI German Cemetery 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Azannes_WWI_German_Cemetery_2.jpg)
Prominent Jewish industrialists and bankers, such as
Walter Rathenau and
Max Warburg
Max Moritz Warburg (5 June 1867 – 26 December 1946) was a German banker and scion of the wealthy Warburg family based in Hamburg, Germany.
Early life
Max Warburg was one of seven children born to Moritz Warburg, the director of the family's Ha ...
played major roles in supervising the German war economy.
In October 1916, the
German Military High Command administered the ''
Judenzählung
Judenzählung (, German for "Jew census / counting") was a measure instituted by the German ''Oberste Heeresleitung'' (OHL) in October 1916, during the upheaval of World War I. Designed to confirm accusations of the lack of patriotism among Ger ...
'' (census of Jews). Designed to confirm accusations of the lack of patriotism among German Jews, the census disproved the charges, but its results were not made public. Denounced as a "statistical monstrosity", the census was a catalyst to intensified antisemitism and social myths such as the "
stab-in-the-back myth
The stab-in-the-back myth (, , ) was an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, but was instead ...
" (''Dolchstoßlegende''). For many Jews, the fact the census was carried out at all caused a sense of betrayal, as German Jews had taken part in the violence, food shortages, nationalist sentiment and misery of attrition alongside their fellow Germans, however most German-Jewish soldiers carried on dutifully to the bitter end.
When strikes broke out in Germany towards the end of the war, some Jews supported them. However, the majority of Jews had little sympathy for the strikers and one Jewish newspaper accused the strikers of "stabbing the frontline army in the back." Like many Germans, German Jews would lament the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1 ...
.
Weimar years, 1919–33
Under the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
, 1919–1933, German Jews played a major role in politics and diplomacy for the first time in their history, and they strengthened their position in financial, economic, and cultural affairs.
Hugo Preuß
Hugo Preuß (Preuss) (28 October 1860 – 9 October 1925) was a German lawyer and liberal politician. He was the author of the draft version of the constitution that was passed by the Weimar National Assembly and came into force in August 191 ...
was Interior Minister under the first post-imperial regime and wrote the first draft of the liberal
Weimar Constitution
The Constitution of the German Reich (german: Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs), usually known as the Weimar Constitution (''Weimarer Verfassung''), was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic era (1919–1933). The c ...
.
Walther Rathenau
Walther Rathenau (29 September 1867 – 24 June 1922) was a German industrialist, writer and liberal politician.
During the First World War of 1914–1918 he was involved in the organization of the German war economy. After the war, Rathenau s ...
, the chairman of General Electric (AEG) and head of the
German Democratic Party
The German Democratic Party (, or DDP) was a center-left liberal party in the Weimar Republic. Along with the German People's Party (, or DVP), it represented political liberalism in Germany between 1918 and 1933. It was formed in 1918 from the ...
(DDP), served as foreign minister in 1922, when he negotiated the important
Treaty of Rapallo. He was assassinated two months later.
In 1914, Jews were well-represented among the wealthy, including 23.7 percent of the 800 richest individuals in Prussia, and eight percent of the university students. Jewish businesses, however, no longer had the economic prominence they had in previous decades.
The Jewish middle class suffered increasing economic deprivation, and by 1930 a quarter of the German Jewish community had to be supported through community welfare programs.
Germany's Jewish community was also highly urbanized, with 80 percent living in cities.
Antisemitism
![Stab-in-the-back postcard](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Stab-in-the-back_postcard.jpg)
There was sporadic
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
based on the false allegation that
wartime Germany had been betrayed by an enemy within. There was some violence against German Jews in the early years of the Weimar Republic, and it was led by the paramilitary
Freikorps
(, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, rega ...
. ''
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' () or ''The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion'' is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several ...
'' (1920), a forgery which claimed that Jews were taking over the world, was widely circulated. The second half of the 1920s were prosperous, and antisemitism was much less noticeable. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, it surged again as
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
and his
Nazi party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
promoted a virulent strain.
Author Jay Howard Geller says that four possible responses were available to the German Jewish community. The majority of German Jews were only nominally religious and they saw their Jewish identity as only one of several identities; they opted for bourgeois liberalism and assimilation into all phases of German culture. A second group (especially recent migrants from eastern Europe) embraced Judaism and
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
. A third group of left-wing elements endorsed the universalism of
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
, which downplayed ethnicity and antisemitism. A fourth group contained some who embraced hardcore
German nationalism
German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and German-speakers into one unified nation state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as one n ...
and minimized or hid their Jewish heritage. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, a fifth option was seized upon by hundreds of thousands: escape into exile, typically at the cost of leaving all wealth behind.
The German legal system generally treated Jews fairly throughout the period. The
Centralverein, the major organization of German Jewry, used the court system to vigorously defend Jewry against antisemitic attacks across Germany; it proved generally successful.
Intellectuals
![Heidelberg Universitätsbibliothek 2003](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Heidelberg_Universit%C3%A4tsbibliothek_2003.jpg)
Jewish intellectuals and creative professionals were among the leading figures in many areas of Weimar culture. German university faculties became universally open to Jewish scholars in 1918. Leading Jewish intellectuals on university faculties included physicist
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
; sociologists
Karl Mannheim
Karl Mannheim (born Károly Manheim, 27 March 1893 – 9 January 1947) was an influential Hungarian sociologist during the first half of the 20th century. He is a key figure in classical sociology, as well as one of the founders of the sociolo ...
,
Erich Fromm
Erich Seligmann Fromm (; ; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the U ...
,
Theodor Adorno
Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor.
List of people with the given name Theodor
* Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher
* Theodor Aman, Romanian painter
* Theodor Blue ...
,
Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer (; ; 14 February 1895 – 7 July 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist who was famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the Frankfurt School of social research. Horkheimer addressed authoritarianism, militari ...
, and
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse (; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University ...
; philosophers
Ernst Cassirer
Ernst Alfred Cassirer ( , ; July 28, 1874 – April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic philosophy of science.
A ...
and
Edmund Husserl
, thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations)
, thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view
, thesis1_year = 1883
, thesis2_title ...
;
communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
political theorist
Arthur Rosenberg Arthur Rosenberg (19 December 1889 – 7 February 1943) was a German Marxist historian and writer.
Biography
Early years
Arthur Rosenberg was born into a German Jewish middle-class family in Berlin on 19 December 1889, yet he was baptized as a C ...
; sexologist and pioneering
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term ...
advocate
Magnus Hirschfeld
Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician and sexologist.
Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Com ...
, and many others. Seventeen German citizens were awarded Nobel prizes during the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
(1919–1933), five of whom were Jewish scientists. The German-Jewish literary magazine, ''
Der Morgen
''Der Morgen'' (''The Morning'') was a daily newspaper published in the GDR. ''Der Morgen'' was the central organ of the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany. It was published from 3 August 1945 on, six times a week. The premises of the first i ...
'', was established in 1925. It published essays and stories by prominent Jewish writers such as
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...
and
Leo Hirsch until its liquidation by the Nazi government in 1938.
Jews under the Nazis (1933–45)
In Germany, according to historian
Hans Mommsen
Hans Mommsen (5 November 1930 – 5 November 2015) was a German historian, known for his studies in German social history, and for his functionalist interpretation of the Third Reich, especially for arguing that Adolf Hitler was a weak dictator. ...
, there were three types of antisemitism. In a 1997 interview, Mommsen was quoted as saying:
One should differentiate between the cultural antisemitism symptomatic of the German conservatives
Die Deutschen Konservativen (''The German Conservatives'') is a German conservative anti-communist organisation, which developed out of a conservative campaign to support Franz Josef Strauß in the 1980 federal election. Formally established circa ...
—found especially in the German officer corps and the high civil administration—and mainly directed against the Eastern Jews on the one hand, and ''völkisch'' antisemitism on the other. The conservative variety functions, as Shulamit Volkov has pointed out, as something of a "cultural code." This variety of German antisemitism later on played a significant role insofar as it prevented the functional elite from distancing itself from the repercussions of racial antisemitism. Thus, there was almost no relevant protest against the Jewish persecution on the part of the generals or the leading groups within the ''Reich'' government. This is especially true with respect to Hitler's proclamation of the "racial annihilation war" against the Soviet Union.
Besides conservative antisemitism, there existed in Germany a rather silent anti-Judaism within the Catholic Church, which had a certain impact on immunizing the Catholic population against the escalating persecution. The famous protest of the Catholic Church against the euthanasia program was, therefore, not accompanied by any protest against the Holocaust.
The third and most vitriolic variety of antisemitism in Germany (and elsewhere) is the so-called ''völkisch'' antisemitism or racism, and this is the foremost advocate of using violence.
In 1933, persecution of the Jews became an active
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
policy, but at first laws were not as rigorously obeyed or as devastating as in later years. Such clauses, known as
Aryan paragraph
An Aryan paragraph (german: Arierparagraph) was a clause in the statutes of an organization, corporation, or real estate deed that reserved membership and/or right of residence solely for members of the "Aryan race" and excluded from such rights a ...
s, had been postulated previously by antisemitism and enacted in many private organizations.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 102-14468, Berlin, NS-Boykott gegen jüdische Geschäfte](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-14468%2C_Berlin%2C_NS-Boykott_gegen_j%C3%BCdische_Gesch%C3%A4fte.jpg)
The continuing and exacerbating abuse of Jews in Germany triggered calls throughout March 1933 by Jewish leaders around the world for a
boycott of German products. The Nazis responded with further bans and
boycotts
A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...
against Jewish doctors, shops, lawyers and stores. Only six days later, the
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Hitler Service (german: Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, shortened to ''Berufsbeamtengesetz''), also known as Civil Service Law, Civil Service Restoration Act, and Law to Re-es ...
was passed, banning Jews from being employed in government. This law meant that Jews were now indirectly and directly dissuaded or banned from privileged and upper-level positions reserved for "
Aryan
Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ...
" Germans. From then on, Jews were forced to work at more menial positions, beneath non-Jews, pushing them to more labored positions.
The Civil Service Law reached immediately into the education system because university professors, for example, were civil servants. While the majority of the German intellectual classes were not thoroughgoing National Socialists, academia had been suffused with a "cultured antisemitism" since imperial times, even more so during Weimar. With the majority of non-Jewish professors holding such feelings about Jews, coupled with how the Nazis' outwardly appeared in the period during and after the
seizure of power
An epileptic seizure, informally known as a seizure, is a period of symptoms due to abnormally excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Outward effects vary from uncontrolled shaking movements involving much of the body with l ...
, there was little motivation to oppose the anti-Jewish measures being enacted—few did, and many were actively in favor. According to a German professor of the
history of mathematics
The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments ...
, "There is no doubt that most of the German mathematicians who were members of the
professional organization
A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) usually seeks to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals and organisations engaged in that profession, and th ...
collaborated with the Nazis, and did nothing to save or help their Jewish colleagues." "German physicians were highly
Nazified, compared to other professionals, in terms of party membership," observed
Raul Hilberg
Raul Hilberg (June 2, 1926 – August 4, 2007) was a Jewish Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the preeminent scholar on the Holocaust. Christopher R. Browning has called him the founding fath ...
and some even carried out experiments on human beings at places like
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed int ...
.
[Full text]
/ref>
On August 2, 1934, President Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (; abbreviated ; 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany fr ...
died. No new president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
was appointed; with Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...
, he took control of the office of Führer
( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or " guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Nazi Germany cultivated the ("leader princip ...
. This, and a tame government with no opposition parties, allowed Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
totalitarian
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
control of law-making. The army also swore an oath of loyalty personally to Hitler, giving him power over the military; this position allowed him to enforce his beliefs further by creating more pressure on the Jews than ever before.
In 1935 and 1936, the pace of persecution of the Jews increased. In May 1935, Jews were forbidden to join the Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
(Armed Forces), and that year, anti-Jewish propaganda appeared in Nazi German shops and restaurants. The Nuremberg Racial Purity Laws
The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of th ...
were passed around the time of the Nazi rallies at Nuremberg; on September 15, 1935, the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor was passed, preventing sexual relations and marriages between Aryans and Jews. At the same time the Reich Citizenship Law
The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of th ...
was passed and was reinforced in November by a decree, stating that all Jews, even quarter- and half-Jews, were no longer citizens (''Reichsbürger'') of their own country. Their official status became ''Reichsangehöriger'', "subject of the state". This meant that they had no basic civil rights, such as that to vote, but at this time the right to vote for the non-Jewish Germans only meant the obligation to vote for the Nazi party. This removal of basic citizens' rights preceded harsher laws to be passed in the future against Jews. The drafting of the Nuremberg Laws is often attributed to Hans Globke
Hans Josef Maria Globke (10 September 1898 – 13 February 1973) was a German administrative lawyer, who worked in the Prussian and Reich Ministry of the Interior in the Reich, during the Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism and wa ...
.
In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them from exerting any influence in education, politics, higher education and industry. Because of this, there was nothing to stop the anti-Jewish actions which spread across the Nazi-German economy.
After the Night of the Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives (German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Ad ...
, the Schutzstaffel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe ...
(SS) became the dominant policing power in Germany. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
was eager to please Hitler and so willingly obeyed his orders. Since the SS had been Hitler's personal bodyguard, its members were far more loyal and skilled than those of the Sturmabteilung
The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi ralli ...
(SA) had been. Because of this, they were also supported, though distrusted, by the army, which was now more willing to agree with Hitler's decisions than when the SA was dominant. All of this allowed Hitler more direct control over government and political attitude towards Jews in Nazi Germany. In 1937 and 1938, new laws were implemented, and the segregation of Jews from the true "Aryan" German population was started. In particular, Jews were penalized financially for their perceived racial status.
On June 4, 1937, two young German Jews, Helmut Hirsch
Helmut Hirsch (; January 27, 1916 in Stuttgart – June 4, 1937 in Berlin) was a German Jew who was executed for his part in a bombing plot intended to destabilize the German Reich. Although a full and accurate account of the plot is unknown, his ...
and Isaac Utting, were both executed for being involved in a plot to bomb the Nazi party headquarters in Nuremberg.
As of March 1, 1938, government contracts could no longer be awarded to Jewish businesses. On September 30, "Aryan" doctors could only treat "Aryan" patients. Provision of medical care to Jews was already hampered by the fact that Jews were banned from being doctors or having any professional jobs.
Beginning August 17, 1938, Jews with first names of non-Jewish origin had to add Israel (males) or Sarah (females) to their names, and a large J was to be imprinted on their passports beginning October 5. On November 15 Jewish children were banned from going to normal schools. By April 1939, nearly all Jewish companies had either collapsed under financial pressure and declining profits, or had been forced to sell out to the Nazi German government. This further reduced Jews' rights as human beings. They were in many ways officially separated from the German population.
The increasingly totalitarian
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
, militaristic regime which was being imposed on Germany by Hitler allowed him to control the actions of the SS and the military. On November 7, 1938, a young Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan
Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (Yiddish: הערשל פײַבל גרינשפּאן; German: ''Hermann Grünspan''; 28 March 1921 – last rumoured to be alive 1945, declared dead 1960) was a Polish-Jewish expatriate born and raised in Weimar Germany ...
, attacked and shot two German officials in the Nazi German embassy in Paris. (Grynszpan was angry about the treatment of his parents by the Nazi Germans.) On November 9 the German Attache, Ernst vom Rath
Ernst Eduard vom Rath (3 June 1909 – 9 November 1938) was a member of the German nobility, a Nazi Party member, and German Foreign Office diplomat. He is mainly remembered for his assassination in Paris in 1938 by a Polish Jewish teenager, ...
, died. Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the '' Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to ...
issued instructions that demonstrations against Jews were to be organized and undertaken in retaliation throughout Germany. On 10 November 1938, Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust.
He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...
ordered the state police and the ''Sturmabteilung
The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi ralli ...
'' (SA) to destroy Jewish property and arrest as many Jews as possible in what became known as the Night of Broken Glass (''Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...
''). The storefronts of Jewish shops and offices were smashed and vandalized, and many synagogues were destroyed by fire. Approximately 91 Jews were killed, and another 30,000 arrested, mostly able bodied males, all of whom were sent to the newly formed concentration camps. In the following 3 months some 2,000–2,500 of them died in the concentration camps, the rest were released under the condition that they leave Germany. Many Germans were disgusted by this action when the full extent of the damage was discovered, so Hitler ordered that it be blamed on the Jews. Collectively, the Jews were made to pay back one billion Reichsmark
The (; sign: ℛℳ; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until 20 June 1948 in West Germany, where it was replaced with the , and until 23 June 1948 in East Germany, where it was replaced by the East German mark. The Reich ...
(equivalent to billion euros) in damages, the fine being raised by confiscating 20 per cent of every Jewish property. The Jews also had to repair all damages at their own cost.
Increasing antisemitism prompted a wave of Jewish mass emigration from Germany throughout the 1930s. Among the first wave were intellectuals, politically active individuals, and Zionists. However, as Nazi legislation worsened the Jews' situation, more Jews wished to leave Germany, with a panicked rush in the months after Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...
in 1938.
Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...
was a popular destination for German Jewish emigration. Soon after the Nazis' rise to power in 1933, they negotiated the Haavara Agreement
The Haavara Agreement () was an agreement between Nazi Germany and Zionist German Jews signed on 25 August 1933. The agreement was finalized after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the ...
with Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
authorities in Palestine, which was signed on August 25, 1933. Under its terms, 60,000 German Jews were to be allowed to emigrate to Palestine. During the Fifth Aliyah
The Fifth Aliyah ( he, העלייה החמישית, ''HaAliyah HaHamishit'') refers to the fifth wave of the Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe and Asia between the years 1929 and 1939, with the arrival of 225,000 to 300,000 Jews. The F ...
, between 1929 and 1939, a total of 250,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine—more than 55,000 of them from Germany, Austria, or Bohemia. Many of them were doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, and other professionals, who contributed greatly to the development of the Yishuv
Yishuv ( he, ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv ( he, הישוב, ''the Yishuv''), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri ( he, הישוב העברי, ''the Hebrew Yishuv''), is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the ...
.
The United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
was another destination for German Jews seeking to leave the country, though the number allowed to immigrate was restricted due to the Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...
. Between 1933 and 1939, more than 300,000 Germans, of whom about 90% were Jews, applied for immigration visas to the United States. By 1940, only 90,000 German Jews had been granted visas and allowed to settle in the United States. Some 100,000 German Jews also moved to Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
an countries, especially France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...
, and the Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
. However, these countries would later be occupied by Germany, and most of them would still fall victim to the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...
. Another 48,000 emigrated to the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
and other European countries.
The Holocaust in Germany
Overall, of the 522,000 Jews living in Germany in January 1933, approximately 304,000 emigrated during the first six years of Nazi rule and about 214,000 were left on the eve of World War II. Of these, 160,000–180,000 were killed as a part of the Holocaust. Those that remained in Germany went into hiding and did everything they could to survive. Commonly referred to as "dashers and divers," the Jews lived a submerged life and experienced the struggle to find food, a relatively secure hiding space or shelter, and false identity papers while constantly evading Nazi police and strategically avoiding checkpoints. Non-Jews offered support by allowing the Jews to hide in their homes but when this proved to be too dangerous for both parties, the Jews were forced to seek shelter in more exposed locations including the street. Some Jews were able to attain false papers, despite the risks and sacrifice of resources doing so required. A reliable false ID would cost between 2,000RM and 6,000RM depending on where it came from. Some Jews in Berlin looked to the Black Market to get false papers as this was a most sought-after product following food, tobacco, and clothing. Certain forms of ID were soon deemed unacceptable, leaving the Jews with depleted resources and vulnerable to being arrested. Avoiding arrest was particularly challenging in 1943 as the Nazi police increased their personnel and inspection checkpoints, leading to 65 percent of all submerged Jews being detained and likely deported. On May 19, 1943, only about 20,000 Jews remained and Germany was declared '' judenrein'' (clean of Jews; also ''judenfrei'': free of Jews).
Persistence of antisemitism
During the medieval period
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
antisemitism flourished in Germany. Especially during the time of the Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
from 1348 to 1350 hatred and violence against Jews increased. Approximately 72% of towns with a Jewish settlement suffered from violent attacks against the Jewish population.
Regions that suffered from the Black Death pogroms
There were a series of violent attacks, massacres and mass persecutions of Jews during the Black Death. Jewish communities were falsely blamed for outbreaks of the Black Death in Europe. Violence were committed from 1348 to 1351 in Toulon, Barcelo ...
were 6 times more likely to engage in antisemitic violence during the 1920s, racist and fascist parties like the DNVP
The German National People's Party (german: Deutschnationale Volkspartei, DNVP) was a national-conservative party in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Before the rise of the Nazi Party, it was the major conservative and nationalist party in Wei ...
, NSDAP
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
and DVFP gained a 1.5 times higher voting share in the 1928 election, their inhabitants wrote more letters to antisemitic newspapers like "Der Stürmer
''Der Stürmer'' (, literally "The Stormer / Attacker / Striker") was a weekly German tabloid-format newspaper published from 1923 to the end of the Second World War by Julius Streicher, the '' Gauleiter'' of Franconia, with brief suspensions ...
", and they deported more Jews during the Nazi reign. This is due to cultural transmission.
According to a study by Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth, Germans who grew up during Nazi rule are significantly more antisemitic than Germans born before or after them. In addition, Voigtländer and Voth found Nazi antisemitic indoctrination was more effective in areas with pre-existing widespread antisemitism.
A simple model of cultural transmission and persistence of attitudes comes from Bisin and Verdier, who state that children acquire their preference scheme through imitating their parents, who in turn attempt to socialize their children to their own preferences, without taking into consideration if these traits are useful or not.
Economic factors had the potential to undermine this persistence throughout the centuries. Hatred against outsiders was more costly in trade open cities, like the members of the Hanseatic League. Faster growing cities saw less persistence in antisemitic attitudes, this may be due to the fact that trade-openness was associated with more economic success and therefore higher migration rates into these regions
Jews in Germany from 1945 to the reunification
When the Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...
took over Berlin in late April 1945, only 8,000 Jews remained in the city, all of them either in hiding or married to non-Jews. Most German Jews who survived the war in exile decided to remain abroad; however, a small number returned to Germany. Additionally, approximately 15,000 German Jews survived the concentration camps or survived by going into hiding. These German Jews were joined by approximately 200,000 displaced persons (DPs), Eastern European Jewish Holocaust survivors. They came to Allied-occupied western Germany after finding no homes left for them in eastern Europe or after having been liberated on German soil. The overwhelming majority of the DPs wished to emigrate to Palestine and lived in Allied- and UNRRA
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in November 1943, it was dissolved in September 1948. it became part o ...
-administered displaced persons camps, remaining isolated from German society. When Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
became independent in 1948, most European-Jewish DPs left for the new state; however, 10,000 to 15,000 Jews decided to resettle in Germany. Despite hesitations and a long history of antagonism between German Jews ('' Yekkes'') and East European Jews ('' Ostjuden''), the two disparate groups united to form the basis of a new Jewish community. In 1950 they founded their unitary representative organization, the Central Council of Jews in Germany
The Central Council of Jews in Germany (German name: Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland) is a federation of German Jews. It was founded on 19 July 1950, as a response to the increasing isolation of German Jews by the international Jewish communi ...
.
Jews of West Germany
The Jewish community in West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...
from the 1950s to the 1970s was characterized by its social conservatism
Social conservatism is a political philosophy and variety of conservatism which places emphasis on traditional power structures over social pluralism. Social conservatives organize in favor of duty, traditional values and social institut ...
and generally private nature. Although there were Jewish elementary schools in West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
, Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
, and Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
, the community had a very high average age. Few young adult
A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...
s chose to remain in Germany, and many of those who did married non-Jews. Many critics of the community and its leadership accused it of ossification. In the 1980s, a college for Jewish studies was established in Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German: ') is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914, of which roughly a quarter consisted of students ...
; however, a disproportionate number of its students were not Jewish. By 1990, the community numbered between 30,000 and 40,000. Although the Jewish community of Germany did not have the same impact as the pre-1933 community, some Jews were prominent in German public life, including Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
mayor Herbert Weichmann; Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sc ...
Minister of Justice (and Deputy Chief Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court
The Federal Constitutional Court (german: link=no, Bundesverfassungsgericht ; abbreviated: ) is the supreme constitutional court for the Federal Republic of Germany, established by the constitution or Basic Law () of Germany. Since its in ...
) Rudolf Katz; Hesse
Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are ...
Attorney General Fritz Bauer
Fritz Bauer (16 July 1903 – 1 July 1968) was a German Jewish judge and prosecutor. He was instrumental in the post-war capture of former Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann and played an essential role in beginning the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials ...
; former Hesse Minister of Economics Heinz-Herbert Karry; West Berlin politician Jeanette Wolff; television personalities Hugo Egon Balder
Hugo Egon Balder (born Egon Hugo Balder; 22 March 1950) is a German television presenter, producer, and comedian.
Early life
Balder was born in West Berlin to Egon Friedrich Balder (1904–1970) and Gerda Balder (née Schure; 1910–1997). Ger ...
, Hans Rosenthal
Hans Rosenthal (2 April 1925 – 10 February 1987) was a radio editor, director, and one of the most popular German radio and television hosts of the 1970s and 1980s.
Life
Rosenthal grew up in a Jewish family on Winsstraße No. 63, in the P ...
, Ilja Richter
Ilja Richter (born 24 November 1952 in East Berlin) is a German actor, voice actor, television presenter, singer, theatre director and author.
Life
Ilja Richter was born to parents Georg and Eva Richter. Georg was a Communist, who named Ilja ...
, Inge Meysel
Inge Meysel (; 30 May 1910 – 10 July 2004) was a German actress. From the early 1960s until her death, Meysel was one of Germany's most popular actresses. She had a successful stage career and played more than 100 roles in film and on televisio ...
, and Michel Friedman
Julien Michel Friedman (; born 25 February 1956 in Paris) is a German author, former CDU politician and talk show host. From 2000 to 2003 Friedman was vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and president of the European Jewis ...
; Jewish communal leaders Heinz Galinski
Heinz Galinski (28 November 1912 – 19 July 1992) was president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland) from 1954–1963 and 1988 until his death in 1992.
Early life
Galinski was born in Marienburg (Malb ...
, Ignatz Bubis
Ignatz Bubis (12 January 1927 – 13 August 1999), German Jewish leader, was the influential chairman (and later president) of the Central Council of Jews in Germany (''Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland'') from 1992 to 1999. In this capacity ...
, Paul Spiegel
Paul Spiegel (31 December 1937, in Warendorf, Germany – 30 April 2006, in Düsseldorf, Germany) was leader of the Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland) and the main spokesman of the German Jews. He was widely ...
, and Charlotte Knobloch
Charlotte Knobloch (born 29 October 1932, as Charlotte Neuland) is the former President of Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland) from 2006 to 2010. She is also Vice President of the European Jewish Congress and ...
(see: Central Council of Jews in Germany
The Central Council of Jews in Germany (German name: Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland) is a federation of German Jews. It was founded on 19 July 1950, as a response to the increasing isolation of German Jews by the international Jewish communi ...
), and Germany's most influential literary critic, Marcel Reich-Ranicki
Marcel Reich-Ranicki (; 2 June 1920 – 18 September 2013) was a Polish-born German literary critic and member of the informal literary association Gruppe 47. He was regarded as one of the most influential contemporary literary critics in the fi ...
.
Jews of East Germany
The Jewish community of communist East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...
numbered only a few hundred active members. Most Jews who settled in East Germany did so either because their pre-1933 homes had been there or because they had been politically leftist before the Nazi seizure of power and, after 1945, wished to build an antifascist, socialist Germany. Most such politically engaged Jews were not religious or active in the official Jewish community. They included writers such as Anna Seghers
Anna Seghers (; born ''Anna Reiling,'' 19 November 1900 – 1 June 1983), is the pseudonym of a German writer notable for exploring and depicting the moral experience of the Second World War. Born into a Jewish family and married to a Hungarian ...
, Stefan Heym
Helmut Flieg or Hellmuth Fliegel (10 April 1913 – 16 December 2001) was a German writer, known by his pseudonym Stefan Heym (). He lived in the United States and trained at Camp Ritchie, making him one of the Ritchie Boys of World War II. I ...
, Stephan Hermlin, Jurek Becker, Stasi
The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990.
The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maintaining state autho ...
Colonel General Markus Wolf
Markus Johannes Wolf (19 January 1923 – 9 November 2006), also known as Mischa, was head of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (), the foreign intelligence division of East Germany's Ministry for State Security (, abbreviated MfS, common ...
, singer Lin Jaldati, composer Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was an Austrian composer (his father was Austrian, and Eisler fought in a Hungarian regiment in World War I). He is best known for composing the national anthem of East Germany, for his long artisti ...
, and politician Gregor Gysi
Gregor Florian Gysi (; born 16 January 1948) is a German attorney, former president of the Party of the European Left and a prominent politician of The Left (''Die Linke'') political party.
He belonged to the reformist wing of the governing So ...
. However, from the 1950s to early 1980s, the State Security Service (the Stasi
The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990.
The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maintaining state autho ...
) persecuted the surviving small Jewish communities in East Germany. This was in keeping with the treatment of religious groups in general, who were often persecuted for their belief systems being considered contrary to socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
values and for having contact with the West. However, in the case of the Jewish population, this persecution was also related to Soviet hostility to Israel, which the Soviet state considered imperialist and capitalist. This hostility was also reflected in the media. Jewish community leaders criticized the media for "provoking popular anti-semitism by the negative portrayal of Israel and Jews". According to the historian Mike Dennis, 'Already decimated by the Holocaust, East German Jewry reeled from the shock of the SED’s (Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (german: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, ; SED, ), often known in English as the East German Communist Party, was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East German ...
) antisemitic campaigns.' Persecution methods ranged from the more brutal repression methods found in the Stalinist era of the 1940s and 50s, to the more subtle decomposition methods
Decomposition or rot is the process by which dead organic substances are broken down into simpler organic or inorganic matter such as carbon dioxide, water, simple sugars and mineral salts. The process is a part of the nutrient cycle and is ...
which were utilised extensively in the 70s and 80s. In the 1980s there was a reprieve, in general, of such persecution and the previous antisemitism was markedly changed with an attempt to "reinvigorate Jewish culture". Economic and political pragmatism drove this change: the socialist leadership was keen to promote East Germany as an anti-fascist state; improve its legitimacy domestically and internationally; and due to their increasingly precarious economic situation, to build bridges with the USA especially in a bid to secure more favourable trading terms and to stabilise the economy. Many East German Jews emigrated
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
to Israel in the 1970s.
Jews in the reunited Germany (post-1990)
The end of the Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
contributed to a growth of the Jewish community of Germany. An important step for the renaissance of Jewish life in Germany occurred in 1990 when Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longes ...
convened with Heinz Galinski
Heinz Galinski (28 November 1912 – 19 July 1992) was president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland) from 1954–1963 and 1988 until his death in 1992.
Early life
Galinski was born in Marienburg (Malb ...
, to allow Jewish people from the former Soviet Union to emigrate to Germany, which led to a large Jewish emigration. Germany is home to a nominal Jewish population of more than 200,000 (although this number reflects non-Jewish spouses or children who also immigrated under the Quota Refugee Law); around 100,000 are officially registered with Jewish religious communities. The size of the Jewish community in Berlin is estimated at 120,000 people, or 60% of Germany's total Jewish population. Today, between 80 and 90 percent of the Jews in Germany are Russian speaking immigrants from the former Soviet Union
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
. Many Israelis
Israelis ( he, יִשְׂרָאֵלִים, translit=Yīśrāʾēlīm; ar, الإسرائيليين, translit=al-ʾIsrāʾīliyyin) are the citizens and nationals of the State of Israel. The country's populace is composed primarily of Je ...
also move to Germany, particularly Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
, for its relaxed atmosphere and low cost of living. Olim L'Berlin
''Olim L'Berlin'' (Hebrew: , lit. "Let's Ascend to Berlin" but more accurately "Let's Move to Berlin," also known as the Milky protest) was the name of a Facebook page that coined a snowclone in 2014, and was terminated in early 2015. Comparing th ...
, a Facebook snowclone
A snowclone is a cliché and phrasal template that can be used and recognized in multiple variants. The term was coined as a neologism in 2004, derived from journalistic clichés that referred to the number of Inuit words for snow.
History and ...
asking Israelis to emigrate to Berlin, gained notoriety in 2014. Some eventually return to Israel after a period of residence in Germany. There are also a handful of Jewish families from Muslim countries, including Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
, and Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
. Germany has the third-largest Jewish population in Western Europe after France (600,000) and Britain (300,000) and the fastest-growing Jewish population in Europe in recent years. The influx of immigrants, many of them seeking renewed contact with their Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
heritage, has led to a renaissance of Jewish life in Germany. In 1996, Chabad
Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch (), is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic group ...
-Lubavitch of Berlin opened a center. In 2003, Chabad-Lubavitch of Berlin ordained 10 rabbis, the first rabbis to be ordained in Germany since World War II. In 2002 a Reform rabbinical seminary, Abraham Geiger College
Abraham Geiger Kolleg is a rabbinic seminary at the University of Potsdam in Potsdam, Germany.
History
Abraham Geiger Kolleg was founded 1999 as the only seminary in Germany since the Holocaust, when the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Jud ...
, was established in Potsdam
Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
. In 2006, the college announced that it would be ordaining three new rabbis, the first Reform rabbis to be ordained in Germany since 1942.
Partly owing to the deep similarities between Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
and German, Jewish studies
Jewish studies (or Judaic studies; he, מדעי היהדות, madey ha-yahadut, sciences of Judaism) is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history (esp ...
have become a popular academic study, and many German universities
This is a list of the universities in Germany, of which there are about seventy. The list also includes German ''Technische Universitäten'' ( universities of technology), which have official and full university status, but usually focus on engin ...
have departments or institutes of Jewish studies, culture, or history. Active Jewish religious communities have sprung up across Germany, including in many cities where the previous communities were no longer extant or were moribund. Several cities in Germany have Jewish day schools, kosher
(also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...
facilities, and other Jewish institutions beyond synagogues. Additionally, many of the Russian Jews were alienated from their Jewish heritage and unfamiliar or uncomfortable with religion. American-style Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism, is a major Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its ethical aspects to its ceremonial ones, and belief in a continuous sear ...
(which originated in Germany), has re-emerged in Germany, led by the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany
The Union progressiver Juden in Deutschland (UPJ; "Union of Progressive Jews in Germany") is a "Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts", a publicly chartered association, founded in 1997 as the congregational arm of Liberal (also Progressive or Re ...
, even though the Central Council of Jews in Germany and most local Jewish communities officially adhere to Orthodoxy.
On January 27, 2003, then German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder
Gerhard Fritz Kurt "Gerd" Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German lobbyist and former politician, who served as the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germa ...
signed the first-ever agreement on a federal level with the Central Council, so that Judaism was granted the same elevated, semi-established legal status in Germany as the Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and the Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany (german: Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, abbreviated EKD) is a federation of twenty Lutheranism, Lutheran, Continental Reformed church, Reformed (Calvinism, Calvinist) and united and uniting churches, United ( ...
, at least since the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland) is the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The West German Constitution was approved in Bonn on 8 May 1949 and came in ...
of 1949.
In Germany it is a criminal act to deny the Holocaust or that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust (§ 130 StGB); violations can be punished with up to five years of prison. In 2007, the Interior Minister of Germany, Wolfgang Schäuble
Wolfgang Schäuble (; born 18 September 1942) is a German lawyer, politician and statesman whose political career has spanned for more than five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he is one of the longest-serving politi ...
, pointed out the official policy of Germany: "We will not tolerate any form of extremism, xenophobia or antisemitism." Although the number of right-wing groups and organisations grew from 141 (2001)[Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution]
Verfassungsschutzbericht 2003
. Annual Report. 2003, page 29. to 182 (2006),Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (german: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV, often ''Bundesverfassungsschutz'') is Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency. Together with the Landesämter für Verfassungss ...
. Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
Verfassungsschutzbericht 2006. Annual Report
. 2006, page 51. especially in the formerly communist East Germany, Germany's measures against right-wing groups and antisemitism are effective: according to the annual reports of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (german: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV, often ''Bundesverfassungsschutz'') is Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency. Together with the Landesämter für Verfassungss ...
the overall number of far-right extremists in Germany has dropped in recent years from 49,700 (2001), 45,000 (2002), 41,500 (2003), 40,700 (2004), 39,000 (2005), to 38,600 in 2006. Germany provided several million euros to fund "nationwide programs aimed at fighting far-right extremism, including teams of traveling consultants, and victims' groups".The Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
.
Berlin police say 16 arrested during neo-Nazi demonstration.
''Taiwan News
''Taiwan News'' (formerly ''China News'') is an English-language online newspaper in Taiwan. It is owned by foods company I-Mei Foods, which also publishes the Chinese-language news weekly of the same name.
History
''China News'' was founded ...
''. October 22, 2006 Despite these facts, Israeli Ambassador Shimon Stein warned in October 2006 that Jews in Germany feel increasingly unsafe, stating that they "are not able to live a normal Jewish life" and that heavy security surrounds most synagogues or Jewish community centers. Yosef Havlin, Rabbi at the Chabad Lubavitch in Frankfurt, does not agree with the Israeli Ambassador and states in an interview with ''Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' in September 2007 that the German public does not support far-right groups; instead, he has personally experienced the support of Germans, and as a Jew and rabbi he "feels welcome in his (hometown) Frankfurt, he is not afraid, the city is not a no-go-area".
A flagship moment for the burgeoning Jewish community in modern Germany occurred on November 9, 2006 (the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...
), when the newly constructed Ohel Jakob synagogue was dedicated in Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
, Germany. This is particularly crucial given the fact that Munich was once at the ideological heart of Nazi Germany.
Jewish life in the capital Berlin is prospering, the Jewish community is growing, the Centrum Judaicum
The New Synagogue (german: Neue Synagoge) on Oranienburger Straße in Berlin is a mid-19th century synagogue built as the main place of worship for Berlin's Jewish community, succeeding the Old Synagogue which the community outgrew. Because ...
and several synagogues—including the largest in Germany—have been renovated and opened, and Berlin's annual week of Jewish culture and the Jewish Cultural Festival in Berlin, held for the 21st time, featuring concerts, exhibitions, public readings and discussions can only partially explain why Rabbi Yitzhak Ehrenberg of the orthodox Jewish community in Berlin states: "Orthodox Jewish life is alive in Berlin again. ..Germany is the only European country with a growing Jewish community."
In spite of Germany's measures against right-wing groups and antisemites, a number of incidents have occurred in recent years.
On August 29, 2012, in Berlin, Daniel Alter, a rabbi in visible Jewish garb, was physically attacked by a group of Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
youths, causing a head wound that required hospitalization. The rabbi was walking with his six-year-old daughter in downtown Berlin when the group asked if he was a Jew, and then proceeded to assault him. They also threatened to kill the rabbi's young daughter.
On November 9, 2012, the 74th Kristallnacht anniversary, neo-Nazis
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy (often white supremacy), attack ...
in Greifswald
Greifswald (), officially the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald (german: Universitäts- und Hansestadt Greifswald, Low German: ''Griepswoold'') is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostoc ...
vandalized the city's Holocaust memorial. Additionally, a group of Jewish children was taunted by unidentified young people on the basis of their religion.
On June 2, 2013, a rabbi was physically assaulted by a group of six to eight "southern-looking" youths in a shopping mall in Offenbach. The rabbi took pictures of the attackers on his cellphone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
, but mall security and local police instructed him to delete the photos. The rabbi exited the mall, pursued by his attackers, and was driven away by an acquaintance. In Salzwedel
Salzwedel (, officially known as Hansestadt Salzwedel; Low German: ''Soltwedel'') is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the capital of the district (''Kreis'') of Altmarkkreis Salzwedel, and has a population of approximately 21,500. Salz ...
, also in 2013, vandals painted swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. It ...
s and the words "Hitler now" on the exteriors of local houses.
Over the last few years, Germany has witnessed a sizable migration of young, educated Israeli Jews seeking academic and employment opportunities, with Berlin being their favorite destination.
See also
*Association of German National Jews The Association of German National Jews (German: ''Verband nationaldeutscher Juden'') was a German Jewish organization during the Weimar Republic and the early years of Nazi Germany that eventually came out in support of Adolf Hitler.
History, goal ...
*Germany–Israel relations
Germany–Israel relations are the diplomatic relationship between the Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Israel. After the end of World War II and the Holocaust, relations gradually thawed as West Germany offered to pay reparations t ...
*HaGalil Online
''haGalil'' is an online magazine published in German relating to the issues of Judaism, German Jewry and Israel. It is considered as the most widespread magazine of its kind in German, with over 380,000 monthly visitors (August 2009).
Overview
T ...
– an online magazine for Jews in German-speaking countries
*History of the Jews in Cologne
The history of the Jews in Cologne dates to 321 C.E., when it was recorded in a census decreed by the Emperor Constantine I. As such, it is the oldest European Jewish community north of the Alps. The community quickly established itself in what ...
*History of the Jews in Hamburg
The history of the Jews in Hamburg in Germany is recorded from at least 1590 on. Since the 1880s, Jews of Hamburg have lived primarily in the neighbourhoods of , earlier in the New Town, where the Sephardic Community "Neveh Shalom" ( he, link=no ...
*History of the Jews in Hannover The history of the Jews in Hannover began in the 13th century. In 2009, about 6200 people belonged to the four Jewish communities in Hannover.
Early history
Jews were already living in Hanover in the 14th century. They constituted a minority with ...
* History of the Jews in Munich
*History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...
*Jewish Agency for Israel
The Jewish Agency for Israel ( he, הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל, translit=HaSochnut HaYehudit L'Eretz Yisra'el) formerly known as The Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. ...
*List of German Jews
The first Jewish population in the region to be later known as Germany came with the Romans to the city now known as Cologne. A "Golden Age" in the first millennium saw the emergence of the Ashkenazi Jews, while the persecution and expulsion that ...
*Orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
* Peter Stevens (RAF officer)
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Jewish Encyclopedia
''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...
Jewish Virtual Library
Jewish Museum Berlin
Further reading
* Ascher, Abraham. ''A Community under Siege: The Jews of Breslau under Nazism''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007
* Bilski, Emily D., ed. ''Berlin metropolis: Jews and the new culture, 1890–1918''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999
*
* Brenner, Michael. ''The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
* Gay, Ruth. ''The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992
* Geller, Jay Howard. ''Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany ''. Cambridge, 2005
*
* Gidal, Nachum Tim. ''Jews in Germany: From Roman Times to the Weimar Republic''. Heavily illustrated. 1998
* Grenville, J.A.S. ''The Jews and Germans of Hamburg: The Destruction of a Civilization 1790–1945'', 2011
* Hertz, Deborah: "How Jews Became Germans: The History of Conversion and Assimilation in Berlin". New Haven: Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous.
, Yale Universi ...
, 2007
* Kaplan, Marion A., ed. ''Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618–1945''. Oxford University Press, 2005.
* Kaplan, Marion A. ''The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany''. 1994.
* Kaplan, Marion A. ''Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany''. 1999.
* Levy, Richard S., ed. ''Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution''. 2 vols. 2005
* Lowenstein, Steven M. ''The Berlin Jewish community: enlightenment, family, and crisis, 1770–1830''. Oxford University Press, 1994
* Marcus, Ivan G. ''Jewish Culture and Society in Medieval France and Germany''. Ashgate, 2014
* Meyer, Michael A. ''The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany, 1749–1824''. 1972
* Meyer, Michael A., ed.: ''German–Jewish History in Modern Times'', vols. 1–4. New York, 1996–1998:
**vol. 1 ''Tradition and Enlightenment, 1600–1780''
**vol. 2 ''Emancipation and Acculturation, 1780–1871''
**vol. 3 ''Integration in Dispute, 1871–1918''
**vol. 4 ''Renewal and Destruction, 1918–1945''
* Pulzer, Peter G.J. ''The rise of political antisemitism in Germany & Austria'' (2nd Harvard University Press, 1988)
* Pulzer, Peter. '' Jews and the German State: The Political History of a Minority, 1848–1933''. Oxford, 1992
* Ragins, Sanford. ''Jewish responses to antisemitism in Germany, 1870–1914: a study in the history of ideas''. Hebrew Union College Press, 1980
*
* Sorkin, David. ''The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780–1840''. Wayne State University Press, 1999
* Sorkin, David. ''Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment''. University of California Press, 1996
* Stern, Fritz. ''Gold and Iron: Bismark, Bleichroder, and the Building of the German Empire'' (1979) Baron Bleichroder was the richest and most powerful Jewish leader
*
*
* Tal, Uriel. ''Christians and Jews in Germany: Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Second Reich, 1870–1914''. 1975
* Van Rahden, Till. ''Jews and other Germans: civil society, religious diversity, and urban politics in Breslau, 1860–1925''. University of Wisconsin Press, 2008
* Wistrich, Robert S. ''Socialism and the Jews: The Dilemmas of Assimilation in Germany and Austria-Hungary''. 1982
Historiography
*
In German
* Chapters' summary (in English).
* (with an English Summary, pp. 719-727).
* Kauders, Anthony D.: ''Unmögliche Heimat. Eine deutsch-jüdische Geschichte der Bundesrepublik''. Munich, 2007.
* Rink, Thomas: ''Doppelte Loyalität: Fritz Rathenau als deutscher Beamter und Jude''. Published by Georg Olms Verlag, 2002
External links
Leo Baeck Institute, NY
a research library and archive focused on the history of German-speaking Jews
DigiBaeck
Digital collections at Leo Baeck Institute
Berkley Center: Being Jewish in the New Germany
The Jews of Germany
The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot
ANU - Museum of the Jewish People, formerly the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, is located in Tel Aviv, Israel, at the center of the Tel Aviv University campus in Ramat Aviv.
ANU - Museum of the Jewish People is an institution ...
{{History of the Jews in Europe
Middle Eastern diaspora in Germany
The Holocaust in Germany