Jewish Life in Nazi Germany: Dilemmas and Responses (23 page)

In Berlin, perhaps more than any other city in Germany or, for that matter, the rest of europe, the culture of emancipation and assimilation had enabled Jews to have the most profound and positive effect on the

larger society in which they lived. David Clay Large observes that the Zionists were critical of Berlin’s Jews for trying to hold onto something that was in reality “alien” to them, but also noting in agreement with Peter Gay that the Nazis, not the Jews, were the real aliens in Berlin. He seems to put his finger on the central dilemma under which the Zionists labored in their efforts to transform the culture of Jews in Ber-lin.
⁷⁴
For in the end, the German Zionist movement, notwithstanding its new-found political pre-eminence during the 1930s in Jewish life in Berlin, was never able to transform that culture as a necessary or even desirable preliminary step to a new life in a Jewish state in Palestine, even under the harsh conditions of Nazi rule. one German Zionist observed in a letter to Palestine in November 1933, written while on a trip to Yugoslavia, that the brief respite in Nazi pressure on Jews in the fall of 1933, and the consequent slowdown in Zionist activity at that time, demonstrated that “the Jews cling to every hope and are always ready to adapt to the status-quo. This is nothing to be proud of, and this tendency is not one of the positive characteristics of German Jewry.”
⁷⁵

The desired transformation would require time and, of necessity, an environment that preserved some of the basic elements of Jewish emancipation. This is particularly apparent because Zionist work was naturally so clearly focused on the young. Zionist strategy had always sought to re-educate mainly younger Jews before their departure for Palestine; their established and largely assimilated parents and grandparents would live out their days as Jews in Germany. This necessary reeducation and training of the young would require a relatively benign environment to effectively accomplish those ends. But the Na-zis rapidly dismantled the foundations of Jewish emancipation after 1933 so that the necessary environment for a long-term transformation could not materialize. Instead, Zionist efforts had to be undertaken under the most adverse of conditions. It is true that the Nazis, in their determination to remove Jews from Germany, encouraged Zionist work in Germany and the promotion of Jewish emigration. However, what appeared on the surface to be a community of interests between the Zionists and the Nazis was in fact a relationship in which the all-powerful Nazi state used the Zionist movement to implement its policy of disenfranchising and expelling the Jews from Germany. Zionists in Germany were generally not exempt from the brutality of political, economic, and social disenfranchisement meted out to all Jews. Thus, Zionist work in the Third Reich, unlike in the weimar years, was rendered extraordinarily difficult and dangerous.

Approximately 53,000 German Jews, or about 10 percent of the 1933 Jewish population in the
Altreich
, made it to Palestine between 1933 and 1941, with an additional almost 12,000 from Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia beginning in 1938. Most were young, with about 58 percent under the age of thirty.
⁷⁶
Some ended up leaving Palestine for other destinations after the war. Most of those who made it to Palestine were probably committed Zionists, and some no doubt considered emigration to Palestine as the only way out of an impossible situation with very few options.

The German Zionist movement did become a major force in the political and cultural life of Berlin Jews between 1933 and 1941. This was particularly evident among Jewish youths in Berlin, as noted by ZVfD president Benno Cohn in a February 1938 memo that described the considerable impact of Zionist
hachschara
programs on the attitudes and lives of non-Zionist youths in Berlin and elsewhere.
⁷⁷
But the Zionist movement was permitted neither the time nor the conditions conducive to gradually transforming the culture of Berlin’s Jewish community; in the end, it had to scramble to secure the departure of as many Jews as possible from Berlin and the rest of Germany, as quickly as possible, regardless of their commitment to Zionism and Palestine. Certainly by the outbreak of war in 1939, rescue had replaced reeducation as the imperative in the efforts of the Zionist leadership in Berlin; and with that, some of Zionism’s youthful idealism was forced to give way to harsh reality.

Notes

1. See Peter Gay,
   My German Question: Growing Up in Nazi Berlin
   (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 15.
   
2. See Michael Meyer, ed.,
   Joachim Prinz, Rebellious Rabbi: An Autobiography—the German and Early American Years
   (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 87–88, 90–92.
   
3. Ruth Gay,
   The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait
   (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 126, 145–146.
   
4. See Joseph walk,
   Jüdische Schule und Erziehung im Dritten Reich
   (Frankfurt a.M.: Verlag Anton Hain Meisenheim, 1991), 14ff.
   
5. See Hermann Meier-Cronemeyer, ed.,
   Juden in Berlin 1671–1945: Ein Lesebuch
   (Berlin: Nicolai, 1988), 183. See also Andreas Nachama, Julius Schoeps, and Hermann Simon, eds.,
   Jews in Berlin
   (Berlin: Henschel Verlag, 2002), 141ff. In 1871, only 7 percent of German Jews lived in Berlin. By 1910, some 23 percent lived there.
   
6. See S. Adler-Rudel,
   Jüdische Selbsthilfe unter dem Naziregime 1933–1939. Im Spiegel der Berichte der Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland
   (Tübingen: Mohr/ Siebeck, 1974), 8.
   
7. Meier-Cronemeyer,
   Juden in Berlin
   , 191.
   
8. on the general subject, see Michael Brenner,
   The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany
   (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).
   
9. See Francis R. Nicosia, “Der Zionismus in Leipzig im Dritten Reich,” in
   Judaica Lipsiensa: Zur Geschichte der Juden in Leipzig
   , ed. ephraim Carlebach Stiftung (Leipzig: edition Leipzig, 1994), 167–178.
   
10. See most recently Francis R. Nicosia,
    Zionism and AntiSemitism in Nazi Germany
    

    (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), chs. 1–3.
    

11. Nachama et al.,
    Jews in Berlin
    , 128.
    
12. See kurt Jacob Ball-kaduri,
    Das Leben der Juden in Deutschland im Jahre 1933
    (Frankfurt am Main: europäische Verlags-Anstalt, 1963), 33, 39, 42, 122; and Donald Niewyk,
    The Jews in Weimar Germany
    (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001), 148–152.
    
13. See for example his diary entry for 11 June 1938 and his assertion that “the Jews must get out of Berlin. The police will help me accomplish this.” Ralf Georg Re-uth, ed.,
    Joseph Goebbels: Tagebücher, 1935–1939
    , Bd. 3 (München: Piper-Verlag, 2003), 1223.
    
14. In spite of the pace of Jewish emigration from Germany after 1933, especially from Berlin, there were still some 140,000 Jews in Berlin in 1938. whereas about one-third of all German Jews had lived in Berlin in 1933, in 1938, the percentage had actually risen to about 40 percent. This can be explained only by the internal migration of Jews from smaller towns and the countryside to cities such as Berlin, a phenomenon that was usually encouraged by the police authorities. See walk,
    Jüdische Schule
    , 102.
    
15. See David Clay Large,
    Berlin
    (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 289ff.
    
16. Ibid., 272ff.
    
17. See for example Jacob Borut, “‘Verjudung des Judentums’: was There a Zionist Subculture in weimar Germany?” in
    In Search of Jewish Community: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918–1933
    , ed. Michael Brenner and Derek J. Penslar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 92–114.
    
18. I use the term “assimilationist” to refer to those secular, non-Zionist or anti-Zionist German Jews who viewed themselves as Jewish by some confessional or cultural identity or practice, but German by nationality and culture, and who were very much integrated into the political, economic, social, and cultural life of their German homeland. It is important to remember that both the Zionists and the Nazis referred to them and their various organizations as “assimilationist.” However, the great majority of these so-called assimilationist German Jews neither sought to deny their Jewish identity nor stopped believing that one could be both Jewish and German at the same time. See Ruth Gay,
    The Jews of Germany
    , 202; and Saul Friedländer,
    The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945
    (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 5.
    
19. Avraham Barkai,
    “Wehr Dich!” Der Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen
    

    Glaubens 1893–1938
    (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2002), 257. See also Avraham Barkai, “Between Deutschtum and Judentum: Ideological Controversies within the Centralverein,” in Brenner and Penslar,
    In Search of Jewish Community: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918–1933
    , 74–75, 84–86.
    

20. Moshe Zimmermann,
    Die Deutschen Juden 1914–1945
    (Munich: R. oldenbourg, 1997), 32–35. See also Richard Lichtheim,
    Geschichte des deutschen Zionismus
    (Jerusalem: R. Maas, 1954), 234–235.
    
21. Jüdische Rundschau,
    12 August 1932, reprinted in Jehuda Reinharz, ed.,
    Dokumente zur Geschichte des deutschen Zionismus
    1882–1933 (Tübingen: Mohr/ Siebeck, 1981), No. 210: 528–530.
    
22. kurt Blumenfeld,
    Im Kampf um den Zionismus. Briefe aus fünf Jahrzehnten
    (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1976), 122.
    
23. Jüdische Rundschau,
    16 September 1932, as reprinted in Reinharz, ed.,
    Dokumente,
    

    No. 211: 530–542.
    

24. For the ambiguous relationship between the ZVfD and the idea of defense against antiSemitism in weimar Germany, see Arnold Paucker,
    Der jüdische Abwehrkampf gegen Antisemitismus und Nationalsozialismus in den letzten Jahren der Weimarer Republik
    (Hamburg: Leibnitz, 1969), 391f.; and Jehuda Reinharz, “The Zionist Response to Antisemitism in Germany,”
    Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook
    30 (1985): 105–140.
    
25. See for example
    Jüdische Rundschau,
    3l January and 29 March 1933.
    
26. Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem (hereafter CZA): Z4–3567 VIII, Rundschrei-ben der Zionistischen Vereinigung für Deutschland, 20 April 1933.
    
27. See Bundesarchiv, Berlin (hereafter BArch): Z/B1–96, “Stärke der Zionistischen Vereinigung für Deutschland,” (no date).
    
28. Francis R. Nicosia, “Revisionist Zionism in Germany (II). Georg kareski and the Staatszionistische organisation, 1933–1938,”
    Leo Baeck Institute Year Book
    32 (1987): 265.
    
29. Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv (hereafter BLHA), Potsdam: Pr.Br. Rep. 2A I pol., 1167. Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt/Berlin to alle Staatspolizeistellen, II 1 B.2 24650, 26 June 1934.
    
30. BArch: R/58–276, Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt to alle Staatspolizeistellen, III B2– 60934/J.191/35, 10 February 1935.
    
31. Stephen Poppel,
    Zionism in Germany, 1897–1933: The Shaping of a Jewish Identity
    

    (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1977), 176–177.
    

32. For instance, during the 1930s, there were 4,239 members of the
    Verband jüdischer Frauen für Palästina-Arbeit
    , with more than 600 in Berlin alone. See: BArch: Z/B1–96, “ortsgruppen des Verbandes jüdischer Frauen für Palästina-Arbeit,” (no date).
    
33. Nicosia, “Der Zionismus in Leipzig,” 171–173.
    
34. See for example BArch: Z/B1–582, Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland to die Geheime Staatspolizei Berlin, Betr. Landesvorstandssitzung der ZVfD, 16 July 1937.
    
35. walk,
    Jüdische Schule
    , 74ff.
    
36. See Nicosia,
    Zionism and AntiSemitism
    , ch. 7.
    
37. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,washington, DC (hereafter USHMM): 11.001M.01, 2–173, Abschrift aus der Jüdischen Telegraphen-Agen- tur (J.T.A.), Nr. 70, Jahrgang xIII, vom 24 March 1934.
    
38. See Avraham Barkai,
    From Boycott to Annihilation: The Economic Struggle of German
    

    Jews, 1933–1943
    (Hanover: University Press of New england, 1989), 85ff.
    

39. otto Dov kulka, ed.,
    Deutsches Judentum unter dem Nationalsozialismus: Dokumente zur Geschichte der Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden 1933–1939
    (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1997), 483.
    
40. See werner Angress,
    Between Fear and Hope: Jewish Youth in the Third Reich
    (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
    
41. See Leon Shapiro,
    The History of ORT: A Jewish Movement for Social Change
    (New York: Schocken Books, 1980).
    
42. USHMM: 11.001M.01, 3, “entwurf einer Vereinbarung zwischen Reichsnährstand und Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland betr. die landwirtschaftliche und gärtnerische Ausbildung von Juden zur Vorbereitung der künftigen Auswanderung,” (no date).
    
43. USHMM: 11.001M.01, 2–137, “Jüdisches Umschulungslager Altkarbe”, 23 July 1935; and 4–305, “Umschulungslehrgänge für Juden,” from the magazine
    Der jüdische Handwerker
    , xxVII, Nr.9, 9 September 1935.
    
44. USHMM: 11.001M.01, 2–173, Staatspolizeistelle für den Landespolizeibezirk Berlin to die Preussische Geheime Staatspolizei, Berlin, Stapo. 8 A 1777/36, 15 May 1936.
    
45. USHMM: 11.001M.01, 4–305, Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland to die Geheime Staatspolizei, “Berufsausbildung von Juden im Ausland, erziehungsclear-ing,” 7 March 1938. For details on agricultural retraining for German Jews in Holland, see USHMM: 11.001M.01, 4–237, Abschrift aus der Jüdischen Telegraphen-Agentur, xIII, Nr. 65, 19 March 1934.
    
46. USHMM: 11.001M.01, 7–514, Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland, “Übersicht über die nach Durchführung einer Berufsausbildung ausgewanderten Personen,” 17 January 1938. Although most of the trainees from the various Zionist retraining centers emigrated from Germany to Palestine, a considerable number went elsewhere. For example, the agricultural retraining site in Neuendorf sent 689 of its 1182 graduates to Palestine between July 1932 and January 1938, with 263 going to Argentina, and the remainder going to Denmark, Brazil, France, Holland, the United States, Luxemburg, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria, New Zealand, ecuador, and elsewhere. See USHMM: 11.001M.01, 4–305, “Landwirtschaftliches Lehrgut Landwerk Neuendorf,” (no date).
    
47. BArch: Z/B1–96, entire file.
    
48. For a concise account of the internal politics among German-Jewish organizations during the 1930s, particularly the ongoing rivalries among the Zionists, non-Zionists, and anti-Zionists in the Reichsvertretung, see Jacob Boas, “German-Jewish Internal Politics under Hitler 1933–1938,”
    Leo Baeck Institute Year Book
    29 (1984): 3–25.
    
49. See for example
    CV-Zeitung,
    13 october 1935.
    
50. Boas, “German-Jewish Internal,” 23–25.
    
51. For the history of the RjF see Ulrich Dunker,
    Der Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten 1919–1938. Geschichte eines jüdischen Abwehrvereins
    (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1977).