Jewish Life in Nazi Germany: Dilemmas and Responses (19 page)

G
erman
z
ionism and

J
ew ish
L
ife in
n
azi
B
er Lin

R

Francis R. Nicosia

Introduction

There is general agreement about the decisive role that the Jews of Berlin played in the economic and cultural life of the city dur-ing the age of Jewish emancipation. Indeed, without them it seems unlikely that Berlin would have become a major world city in such a short period of time. As Peter Gay has observed in his memoir, “Berlin’s Jews . . . helped to shape its [Berlin’s] culture, far out of proportion to their numbers, as scientists, historians, poets, musicians, editors, critics, lawyers, physicians, art dealers, munifi collectors, and donors to museums.”
¹
And, in his recently published autobiography, the late Rabbi Joachim Prinz comments on the pivotal role of Berlin’s Jews, during the century or so prior to 1933, in the development of music, theater, art and architecture, literature, and the media in the Reich capital and throughout Germany.
²
As a consequence, much of Jewish institutional and cultural life in Germany was centered in and dominated by Berlin, a reality that would become even more apparent under the harsh totalitarian rule of the Nazis after 1933. The demographics of German Jewry from German unifi

and the establishment of the
Kaiserreich
in 1871 to the Holocaust

provide an essential analytical framework for any study of modern German-Jewish history that must at least begin with Berlin.

Jews in Germany flocked to Berlin in the nineteenth century, as Ruth Gay has written, because its size, rapidly expanding importance, and its proximity to the Prussian court offered them opportunities

unavailable in other German cities.
³
From a mere 6,000 in 1837, the Jewish population of Berlin increased six fold to 36,000 by 1871; by 1925, there were almost 170,000 Jews living in Berlin, constituting about one-third of the Jewish population in Germany, and about 4 percent of the total population of the city.
⁴
By 1933, the Jewish population of Berlin had declined to 160,564. The city’s largely assimilated Jewish community was by far the largest in Germany, followed by Frankfurt, Breslau, Hamburg, Cologne, and Leipzig, in that order. The majority of Berlin’s Jews were middle class and politically liberal, with some 80 percent living in Tiergarten, Mitte, Charlottenburg, wilmersdorf, Schöneberg, and Prenzlauer Berg.
⁵
Moreover, since the late nineteenth century, Berlin’s geographical location and economic importance made it a major gateway for millions of eastern european Jews on their way west, with thousands staying on in the Reich capital. of the approximately 560,000 Jews in Germany in 1925, about 100,000, or almost 20 percent, were foreign Jews, mostly from eastern europe.
⁶
Almost one-quarter of the Jews in Berlin, some 45,000, made up not quite half of all of the
Ostjuden
in Germany.
⁷
They were more inclined to retain their Jew-ish cultural and religious identity and traditions, which prompted a natural growth in Hebrew and Yiddish periodicals, publishing hous-es, and literature in general during the pre-Nazi years. This, along with the growing intensity and public acceptance of antiSemitism throughout Germany, contributed to a renewed interest and renaissance in Jewish culture in Germany.
⁸
They strengthened somewhat the conservative and religiously orthodox minority within German Jewry, and certainly accounted for some of the membership growth in the Zionist movement in Berlin and other cities following world war I.
⁹

At the turn of the twentieth century, relatively few Jews in Germany embraced Zionism. This was particularly so in Berlin, where fears of antiSemitism seemed to be off-set for many by the Jewish community’s many successes and considerable prominence in the life of the city, as well as by a parallel trust in a German legal sys-tem that most believed would protect the Jews. They vehemently rejected Zionist arguments that Jewish emancipation could never be a solution to the Jewish question; that the assimilation of Jews as Jews into German life was futile; that the Jews were Jewish by nationality, and not German; and, that they must leave Germany and rebuild their national, cultural, and spiritual life in Palestine.

Most saw Zionism as an apparent confirmation of the antiSemitism around them, and thus part of the problem.
¹⁰
But Zionism did be-come a viable alternative and minority movement among German Jews during the weimar years, particularly in Berlin. Despite fluctu-ations, membership in Zionist organizations increased significantly, due in large measure to the slow but steady development of the Jew-ish National Home in Palestine, the effectiveness of a multitude of Zionist institutions inside and outside of Palestine, among them the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the world Zionist organization, the influx of more
Ostjuden
into Germany during the 1920s, and the growing public tolerance of antiSemitism and acceptance of National Socialism in Germany after 1930.

Despite its relative unpopularity among Berlin Jews, and Ger-man Jews in general, Zionism was able to establish itself in Germany before 1914. The headquarters of the world Zionist organization opened in Berlin in 1911, and the leadership of the Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland (Zionist Federation for Germany, or ZVf D), established in 1897, required all of its members at a minimum to embrace the principle of eventual emigration to and settlement in a future Jewish state in Palestine. Still, the great majority of German Jews, particularly in Berlin, subscribed to the arguments of the much larger, liberal Berlin-based Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, or CV), established in 1893. The CV pursued the ideal of a symbiosis between
Deutschtum
and
Judentum
, and a vigorous program of
Abwehr
(self-defense) of German Jews against antiSemitism. The CV proclaimed in 1913: “we cannot, however, claim unity with the Zionist, who denies his German national feeling, who considers himself to be a guest among a foreign host people, and whose national sentiment is exclusively Jewish.”
¹¹

During the weimar and Nazi years, institutional Jewish life be-came even more centralized in Berlin. kantstrasse 158 housed the headquarters of such important Jewish organizations as the Preussische Landesverband jüdischer Gemeinden (Prussian State Association of Jewish Communities), the Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden (Reich Representation of German Jews), the Zentralausschuss der deutschen Juden für Hilfe und Aufbau (Central Committee of German Jews for Assistance and Construction), the kinder und Ju-gendalijah (Children and Youth Aliyah), the Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der deutschen Juden (Central welfare Agency of German Jews), the

Jüdische Frauenbund (Jewish League of women), and others. The Zionist movement, led by the ZVf D, established its headquarters in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin at Meineckestrasse 10. The offices of the ZVf D, the Palestine office (Palästinaamt) of the Jew-ish Agency for Palestine, the Jüdische Sportvereine (Jewish Sports Associations), the international Zionist youth movement Hechaluz, the Zionist newspaper
Jüdische Rundschau
, and other Zionist agencies were located in the same building at Meinecke Strasse 10. The Misrachi, the Zionist organization adhering to orthodox Judaism, was also headquartered in Berlin, with its own youth movement Brith Chaluzim Datiim (Bachad) and its own monthly journal,
Zion
. There were some forty Jewish publishing houses and major bookstores in Berlin, most notably the Jüdischer Verlag, established by German Zionists in 1909 under the literary direction of Mar-tin Buber. Among the fifty or so Jewish newspapers and magazines published in Berlin in 1930 were such influential Zionist or Zionist-oriented newspapers and magazines as the
Jüdische Rundschau
,
Hed Bethar
,
Der Junge Jude
,
Der Makkabi, Der Jüdische Student, Unser Werk,
the
Berliner Jüdische Zeitung
, and
Zion.

one of the most influential political organizations in Berlin was the Jüdische Volkspartei (Jewish Peoples Party, or JVP), founded in 1920 in Berlin to represent Zionist interests at communal bodies in the city. Its goal was to win over Berlin’s Jews to Zionism, and its strong Zionist activism often proved effective in political battles within the Berlin Jewish community and, by example, in Jewish communities in other cities in Germany before 1933. The party drew much of its support from the relatively large community of eastern european Jews in Berlin as it promoted community programs that were intended to help the
Ostjuden
. The leadership of the ZVfD, situated as it was in Berlin, played an active role in the JVP, which provided the Zionist movement with a platform from which to promote the Zionist idea and Zionist programs in the Reich capital and beyond.
¹²

Hitler’s anti-Jewish measures during the 1930s were especially harsh on the Berlin Jewish community because of its comparative size and location in the German capital, and its relatively large number of eastern european Jewish immigrants. Berlin Jews were also subject to the administration of the city’s Gauleiter, Joseph Goebbels, who never tired of making their lives perilous, particularly through intimidation and violence, in an effort to get them to leave.
¹³
Moreover, after 1933, Jews from the countryside and smaller cities moved in significant numbers to

f
Igure
4.1.:
The
Hauswegweiser
(office Directory) at the headquarters of the Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland and the Jewish Agency for Palestine at Meineckestrasse 10, Berlin.
Courtesy
: Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem.

the larger urban centers, especially to Berlin.
¹⁴
As they felt increasingly exposed and vulnerable in the smaller cities, towns, and rural areas of Germany, tens of thousands sought refuge in large cities such as Berlin

with their larger Jewish communities and established Jewish institutions and support networks. The 1 April 1933 anti-Jewish boycott seemed focused on Berlin in part because of the large number of major Jewish retail businesses, while the laws in 1933 regarding the legal and medical professions, the media and culture, and the schools were especially hard on Ber-lin Jews due to the relatively high percentage of Jewish lawyers, physicians, writers, artists of all sorts, and university students in the city.
¹⁵
The Nazi assault on Jews in the media and the arts had some of its most devastating consequences for the Jews of Berlin. The Reich capital was the location of such media giants as the
Berliner Tageblatt,
published by the Mosse Verlag, and the
Vossische Zeitung
and the
Berliner Illustrierte,
published by Ullstein Verlag. The exodus of Jewish writers and artists from Berlin, even before 1933, was huge. Jewish-owned independent theaters, operated by the new-ly formed kulturbund der deutschen Juden (Cultural League of German Jews) opened in Berlin and elsewhere in June 1933. Jews in the German film industry in Babelsberg, just outside of Berlin, were also forced to leave their jobs and many emigrated.
¹⁶

The National Socialist
Machtübernahme
(assumption of power) in January 1933 confronted German Zionist leaders in Berlin with both obvious dangers as well as opportunities for growth in Germany. After almost four decades of modest success among German Jews, the advent of National Socialism in Germany seemed to confirm the Zionist message and to lend an air of prophecy to its theoretical and political arguments. In other words, the radically new circumstances created conditions that seemed likely to ensure the ultimate success of Zionist efforts to win over more German Jews to Zionism and emigration to Palestine. Berlin’s central role in Jewish affairs and its increasing influence over Jewish communities throughout Germany, coupled with Nazi efforts after 1933 to further centralize authority in Jewish institutional life in the capital, meant that the critical efforts of the Zionist leadership would naturally originate in Berlin. But the anticipation among Zionists that their efforts in Germany would finally achieve success would soon be frustrated, as the realities of Nazi antiSemitism and Jewish policy after 1933 created conditions that made effective Zionist work problematic and Zionist hopes and goals in the end unachievable.