Dresden (9 page)

JEWS HAD NEVER SETTLED
in Dresden in the numbers typical of other central and eastern German cities. In 1933 there were 30,000 Jewish citizens in Breslau, 12,000 in Leipzig, and 160,000 in Berlin, but only just over 6,000 in Dresden.

The first Jews were said to have settled in Dresden around 1300. The exact date is unknown. What is certain, however, is that Jews were burned alive on the Altmarkt (old market) after being blamed for the Black Death that in 1348–49 swept through Europe. This was no isolated incident—in Prague, three thousand were massacred. Throughout the rest of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance period, Jews were by turn permitted, then expelled or persecuted, then tolerated again at the whim of successive rulers. Most were moneylenders, welcome when the powerful needed cash, less so when the cash had to be repaid. In 1705 a Dresden merchant complained that Jews were “every day to be seen walking all the streets and thoroughfares, openly and shamelessly plying their trade.”

It was only under Augustus II and III that Jews became permanently tolerated (though not yet given equal rights). A Jewish banker, Behrend Lehmann, was instrumental in collecting the vast sums that Augustus the Strong needed to purchase the Polish throne. A decade later, in 1708, recompense for Lehmann came in the form of a royal proclamation:

The Dresden Jews were labeled
Hofjuden
(court Jews), in the mildly contemptuous phrase of the time. They accepted the limitations of this role. Later in the eighteenth century, it was the energetic, mercantile Jews in Leipzig—vital to the functioning of the annual fairs that made the city rich—who pressed for full legal emancipation.

By 1763 there were around eight hundred Jewish residents, mostly trading in some way or other, most still associated with supplies for the court and the army. Nevertheless, until the early nineteenth century a sign forbade Jews and dogs access to the pleasure gardens of the Brühl Terrace. Only when a general's wife's inability to take the air without her pet led to a lifting of the animal ban were the authorities shamed into relenting in the case of Jews as well. The sign was, however, restored in 1935.

Things gradually improved, aided by the French Revolution and the spread of the doctrine of human rights and liberty. Nevertheless, though in Prussia and the West German states Jews were emancipated in 1806, their Saxon coreligionists had to wait another thirty years or more. A measure of equality in commercial, economic, and religious matters was somewhat reluctantly granted by the Saxon legislature in the laws of 1837–38. Full civil rights had to wait until the 1848 revolution. The next year, 1849, Bernhard Hirschel—in 1825, the first Jewish boy to be admitted to a
Gymnasium
(high school)—was also elected as the first Jewish city councillor.

One definite advantage, however, was that Jewish communal worship became permitted (until 1837, religious devotions were confined to private houses). The Jews of Dresden could now realize their dream of building a synagogue to match those that had existed in Prussian and West German cities for decades. Even while the law of emancipation was being discussed, a committee had been set up with this in mind. It began raising money among the community. In 1838, with the law now passed, representatives approached the young gentile architect Gottfried Semper. At thirty-five, Semper was already profes
sor at the Dresden Academy of Arts, and running a busy practice whose current projects included two museums and alterations for plans to the Royal Theater. He was also well known (perhaps even notorious) for his liberal views. Exactly who first contacted him is no longer clear, for most of the committee's papers have been lost, but it is known that the fee offered (500 talers) was fairly modest. All the same, Semper did not hesitate. He saw the symbolic importance of the project immediately, and wanted to be involved.

A master builder and a master carpenter were hired. A site was purchased behind the Brühl Terrace, not far from the Elbe. Soon the prolific young architect had draft plans ready: an Oriental-style building complex, topped by a dome that had the look of a Byzantine or Romanesque cathedral. From the middle of the cuboid main building rose a polygonic structure topped by a pyramid roof. The design allowed plenty of room for the congregation with, by tradition, in the center a clearly defined area where the
Almenor
—the table on which the Torah scroll was set—the candelabra, and the eternal light would be proudly placed. The height of this central area (with its carefully located windows) would allow extra light into the synagogue that would otherwise be limited by the intrusion of the two women's galleries overlooking the main area of worship. Two towers, each with a Star of David on its pinnacle, would be built either side of the entrance lobby.

The imposing structure began to rise, soon clearly visible from the river Elbe. There were those who regarded it with respect, those who harbored envy toward a community that could fund and build such an extraordinary house of worship in so short a time, and those who felt a little of both. What outsiders did not know was that the financing was quite quickly in real trouble. Rabbi Fränkel, who had pushed so hard to make this project happen, was soon criticized for having overestimated the wealth of his congregation. A third of the 119 Jewish heads of households in Dresden were in receipt of poor relief, and only a further third earned enough to pay taxes. Some of those who had pledged funds were now pleading financial problems, or withholding contributions because of sudden reservations about aspects of the design.

Nevertheless, the money was found. On May 8, 1840, the solemn consecration of the Dresden synagogue took place. It was now the
largest Jewish house of worship in Germany, providing room for three hundred men and two hundred women to attend divine service. All the king's ministers attended. The Jewish community in Dresden at last had a highly visible focus to its spiritual and cultural life.

Semper's synagogue, as part of the skyline along the Elbe, was also constant, living evidence of the achievement of equality for the Jewish religion and people in the city. It would survive for ninety-eight years and almost exactly six months, and its destruction would anticipate the fate not just of Dresden's Jewish community but also of the city itself.

 

FROM THE HUNDRED
or so households of 1840, the Jewish population grew steadily, though not quite in proportion to Dresden's overall expansion. While there were 1,279 inhabitants of Jewish origin in 1876 out of a city total of 187,500, thirty years later the figures were 3,510 and 517,000 respectively—representing in percentage terms a modest decline. Compared with foreigners resident in Dresden—at twenty-eight thousand representing over 5 percent—the Jews were a fairly small group, outnumbered by the four thousand or more British and American residents. Between 1905 and 1925, with an influx of so-called
Ostjuden
(eastern Jews) from Poland and Russia, there was almost a doubling of the Jewish community to just over six thousand. The proportion increased, but only to 1 percent.

The arrival of the
Ostjuden
brought both an increase in numbers and the introduction of more orthodox methods of worship. The first-generation immigrants were also often more conspicuous, with their traditional black gabardine and their heavy foreign accents. In Dresden, as elsewhere in Germany, the established Jewish population was inclined to be a little embarrassed at any association with the “foreigners,” especially as the latter were seen as a constant reminder of bad old stereotypes.

Despite the low number of Jews in Saxony and Dresden, levels of anti-Semitism were always relatively high. This is complex, because in many ways the actual active discrimination against Jews—that is, expressed in boycotts and direct protests of various kinds—was limited. The Dresden branch of the radical right Pan-German League, for instance, was preoccupied much more with anti-Slav than anti-Jewish
propaganda (a result of Dresden's proximity to the border with Bohemia and Moravia), even though anti-Semitic clauses remained imbedded in their program and anti-Semitic rhetoric routinely featured in their agitation. Before the First World War there was no aggressive discrimination against Jews, or campaigns against Jewish businesses, whether banks or property brokers or hotels (although there may have been private discrimination). What definitely grew was the ideological rootedness of anti-Semitism, giving a low-level noise of hatred even when the conscious attention was involved elsewhere.

Respectability was lent to anti-Semitism by the centrality of the work of the nationalist historian Heinrich von Treitschke. Born in Dresden to a prominent Saxon military family and for many years professor of history in Berlin, Treitschke was famous for his vivid rhetorical skills and his influential five-volume
History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century
. He shaped, arguably corrupted, the mindset of a whole generation of students, sending them out into the world not just worshipping power (that is, the Prussian monarchy) but infected with a lethal, slow-release dose of anti-Semitism. Treitschke's essay “A Word about Our Jewry,” published in 1879, provided an academic underpinning to the notion of the Jews as racially alien to “Germandom,” no matter their actual religious allegiance. “The Jews are our misfortune,” Treitschke proclaimed, in a phrase that echoed down the decades. It would be used to lethal effect by both Josef Goebbels and the notorious Gauleiter of Nuremberg, Julius Streicher, who emblazoned the brilliant, dangerous professor's words on the masthead of his pornographic anti-Semitic sheet,
Der Stürmer.

The influence of von Treitschke and his disciples proved insidious. Racial (as opposed to religious) anti-Semitism gradually became more acceptable. By and large, before the turn of the twentieth century, a Jew who converted to Christianity was accepted as no longer Jewish. This began to change before the First World War. Even in quite “respectable” circles, “blood” came to condition everything. This change was part of the polarization in German society, which fed internal extremism and external aggression, and arguably played its part in the genesis of the 1914–18 European conflict.

The growth in prejudice varied to some extent according to region, and Saxony did not feature on the philo-Semitic side. In Dresden and Leipzig, because of widespread anti-Semitic feeling,
privileged Jews tended to marry within their own group much more than in other parts of Germany. Historical conditions created a climate relatively favorable to Jewish participation in public life in, for example, Hamburg and Altona, Frankfurt-on-Main and Baden, but virtually disbarring Jews in the kingdom of Saxony or the city of Bremen.

Between 1914 and 1918 the nationalist right's dreams of Germany as a world power vaporized in the realities of the trenches. Meanwhile, German Jews appeared to figure prominently in the antiwar movements and later in the left-wing parties of the new republic. The right identified them as the “enemy within,” whose subversive activities had led to the otherwise inexplicable defeat of the Reich. This view found widespread support among the educated classes. It was easy to ignore the large numbers of Germans of Jewish descent who had fought and died in the First World War, or who shared the right's patriotic, socially conservative views in every other respect except their anti-Semitism.

The Nazi accession to power led to torchlight processions, demonstrations, and improvised anti-Semitic outrages in Dresden too. Gauleiter Mutschmann could not resist the call of his soul mate (and geographic near neighbor), Gauleiter Julius Streicher, for a one-day boycott of Jewish shops and businesses. This took place on April 1, 1933. Even before the day, many non-Jewish-owned businesses in the city had posted signs in their display windows declaring messages such as: “Recognized German-Christian Enterprise.”

The day of the boycott dawned. Columns of Brownshirts marched from the Schützenplatz to the Altmarkt, where an SA orchestra was playing. From here groups swarmed out and blockaded Jewish-owned shops, doctors' surgeries, and lawyers' practices. SA troops also stood at the entrances to the Justice Building, denying access to Jews. In some cases Jewish lawyers were beaten and dragged from the building. The Nazi thugs brandished signs such as: “He who gives his money to Jews/Makes the German economy lose!” or “Anyone who buys from Jews is supporting the Jewish boycott of German goods abroad!”

Soon a special division of the Dresden Gestapo, Section IIB3 (“Freemasonry, Émigrés, Jewry”) was set up to oversee action against the Dresden Jews. For some years this was led by a police professional. In 1941 SS-Untersturmführer Henry Schmidt took over, becoming head of
what became known as the Judenreferat, or Jewish Department. Schmidt would remain in charge of the surveillance, deportation, and persecution of the Jews in Dresden until the bitter end. He led a small staff. In interrogating the unfortunates summoned to his offices in the Bismarckstrasse, he was assisted by the boss of the SD (SS intelligence service) in Dresden, Hans Max Clemens, and another Gestapo official, Arno Weser. The few Jews who survived the war remember that Weser, Clemens, and Schmidt were nicknamed “the spitter, the hitter, and the shouter” according to the specialty each espoused during interrogation sessions. One Jewish wife of an Aryan businessman recalled standing in the corner of the interrogation room and being spit at for two hours between the questions and accusations.

Dresdeners of all classes thought they lived in one of the most beautiful, cultured, and well-administered cities in twentieth-century Europe. These things remained in most respects true for those Aryan Dresdeners who gave the regime no trouble. Not so for their Jewish fellow citizens, no matter their political beliefs. What the latter began to realize—some sooner than later—was that, against this seemingly unchanging backdrop of time-honored beauty combined with judicious modernity, their circumstances were about to return to those of the Middle Ages.