Jewish Life in Nazi Germany: Dilemmas and Responses (20 page)

Zionist Hopes

Germany’s defeat in world war I, coupled with London’s replacement of Berlin as headquarters of the world Zionist organization and Britain’s

sponsorship of the Balfour Declaration and the Jewish National Home in Palestine, diminished German Zionism’s prewar influence in the international Zionist movement. on the other hand, the influence of the ZVfD within the larger German-Jewish community, particularly among young Jews, increased considerably during the weimar years. The establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine bolstered the Jewish national idea which, coupled with the sharp rise in both the virulence and public tolerance of antiSemitism in Germany during the weimar period, produced an overall increase in the ZVfD’s membership, in the number of Zionist youth, sports, and other organizations,
¹⁷
and in the circulation of Zionist publications, especially the newspaper
Jüdische Rundschau
. This was particularly evident among Jewish youths in Berlin and in other large cities; as their hopes for a secure future in their native Germany seemed threatened in the new postwar environment, they were increasingly inclined to reject the liberal and “assimilationist”
¹⁸
inclinations of their parents. The growing appeal of Zionism among the young also heightened the traditional rivalries within the Jewish community between the Zionist movement and the major non-Zionist Jewish organizations. Their differences became sharper as the deteriorating political environment for Jews seemed to confirm the Zionist prognosis and to raise more doubts about the arguments of the Centralverein.
¹⁹
Still, of the approximately 40,000 Jews who emigrated from Germany between 1920 and the end of 1932, only some 3,000 went to Palestine. Moreover, the membership level of the ZVfD, despite respectable growth, never reached even half of that of the CV during the weimar years.
²⁰

on 12 August 1932, the Zionist newspaper
Jüdische Rundschau
printed an editorial entitled “Challenges and Tasks in the event of a National Socialist Victory.”
²¹
It predicted the final collapse of the idea of assimilation among Jews in Germany and called on all Jews “to adapt themselves to a new reality.” In a letter to Chaim weizmann of the world Zionist organization dated l5 June 1932, kurt Blumenfeld, president of the ZVfD, wrote: “The German Jews are slipping into a new situation without taking completely into account the fundamental changes.” He further asserted that the deepening economic crisis might be the primary motivation for future converts to Zionism from among the Jews of Germany.
²²
And in his speech to the delegates to the twenty-fourth
Delegi-ertentag
(congress) of the ZVfD in Frankfurt am Main on 11 September 1932, Blumenfeld outlined the grim prospects for Jews in Germany, as well as the essential nature and the undeniable correctness of the Zionist alternative for all German Jews.
²³

In these and other references to the ever-deepening political and economic crisis in Germany and its likely impact on the Jewish community just before January 1933, German Zionists generally did not join with non-Zionist Jewish organizations such as the CV in political activity that might work against a Nazi political victory. This is not surprising in view of the traditional Zionist emphasis on emigration and Palestine, and am-bivalence toward
Abwehr
(self-defense) against antiSemitism.
²⁴
Instead, Zionists focused their efforts on the correctness of the traditional Zionist message, the failure of most German Jews to heed that message in the past, and the singular importance of that message in the coming upheaval. The
Jüdische Rundschau
also followed this editorial approach during the early weeks of the Nazi regime.
²⁵
However, it is also clear that the Zionist leadership in Berlin saw the events of 1932–1933 as an opportunity for Zionism to finally assume a dominant role in German-Jewish life. As kurt Blumenfeld, president of the ZVfD, remarked in a letter to all Zionist local branches (
Ortsgruppen
) in Germany on 20 April 1933: “Nevertheless there exists for us today a unique opportunity to win over German Jews to the Zionist idea. In these days we have the obligation to actively enlighten and recruit.”
²⁶
And this prescribed transformation in Jewish life in Germany would have to play itself out first and foremost within Jewish communal and institutional life in Berlin after January 1933.

By the end of March 1936, there were 23,355 active members of the ZVfD, which consisted of 205
Ortsgruppen
(local branches) throughout Germany.
²⁷
with almost 6,300 members as of 1936, the Berlin Zionist organization was by far the largest branch in the ZVfD, containing one-quarter of all members of the ZVfD, and was almost six times as large as the
Ortsgruppe
in Leipzig, the second largest branch in Germany. There were also about one thousand members of the revisionist Staatszionistische organisation (State Zionist organization) throughout Germany, with the majority of its members in Berlin.
²⁸
of course, by the spring of 1934, all Jewish organizations in Germany were under the strict supervision of police authorities. This required an even more centralized Jewish authority in Berlin for all Jewish organizations, a reality that was intensified in September 1933 with the official opening of the Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden in Berlin.

In a 26 June 1934 directive to state police agencies throughout Germany, Reinhard Heydrich ordered all Jewish organizations to register all events with the local police authorities, regardless of the nature of those events.
²⁹
Throughout the Reich, meetings and events of all kinds, whether political, youth, women, sports, educational, or otherwise were usually

attended by police observers who filed detailed reports with Berlin on the nature of the events, the number of people in attendance, the purposes and program, and whether the events proceeded without incident. The police authorities strictly prohibited all activities that in any way encouraged Jews to ride out the storm and remain in Germany, stipulating that any organization that did not follow this directive was to be dissolved immediately.
³⁰
Since most events were attended by police observers, these directives had a debilitating impact on the non-Zionist organizations such as the CV, the Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten (Reich League of Jew-ish war Veterans, or RjF), and the Verband nationaldeutscher Juden (Association of National German Jews, or VnJ), greatly reducing the number of, and attendance at, their various events. Zionist and Zionist-affiliated groups, on the other hand, were constantly visited and encouraged to continue by police observers, who reported large crowds and a consistent emphasis on Jewish emigration from Germany and settlement in Palestine.

In short, between 1933 and 1935, the Zionist movement rapidly be-came the only political option for Jews in Germany as its growth soon outstripped that of the non-Zionist organizations and it came to dominate the political discourse among the German-Jewish leadership in Berlin.
³¹
In November 1935, the Verband nationaldeutscher Juden (VnJ) was dissolved, and the CV was forced to change its name to the Centralverein der Juden in Deutschland (Central Association of Jews in Germany) and to eliminate any and all “assimilationist” tendencies. The Jewish war veterans’ organization was slowly eliminated over the next three years. with the CV and the RjF rendered increasingly irrelevant, the two Zionist organizations were the only Jewish organizations of a political nature that continued to function and grow, albeit under increasingly difficult conditions.

The dramatic increase in the public activities of the various organizations affiliated with the Zionist movement in Germany is indicative of its increasingly dominant role in Jewish life in Germany during the 1930s. Zionist youth and sports movements such as the Jüdische Turn-und Sportverein Bar kochba, the Hechaluz, Habonim noar Chaluzi, Hashomer Hazair, and the Jüdische Pfadfinderbund Makkabi Hazair, as well as women’s organizations such as the Verband jüdischer Frauen für Palästina-Arbeit (Association of Jewish women for Palestine work), held many public events at which speakers, films, and panel discussions about Zionism and settlement work in Palestine were featured.
³²
All of these organizations were headquartered in Berlin, mostly at Meineckestrasse 10. At events that were almost daily occurrences in Berlin and other major cities in Germany, topics under discussion

included the futility of emancipation and assimilation as solutions to the Jewish Question, the correctness of Zionism, and the issues and problems involved in settlement work in Palestine, such as Jewish land purchases, relations with the Arabs and the British Mandate authorities and the integration of German Jews into the
yishuv
(Palestine Jewish community).
³³
Hebrew courses were increasingly in demand as more and more youths considered emigrating from Germany to Palestine. Prominent Berlin Zionists such as Rabbi Joachim Prinz, kurt Blumenfeld, Georg Landauer, Siegfried Moses, and others spoke often in Berlin and traveled constantly to other German cities to be featured speakers. Some, like Blumenfeld, Landauer, and others, were permitted to return to Germany from time to time after their emigration to Palestine in 1933 to speak at Zionist events. All events were registered with the authorities, and police observers were always in attendance.
³⁴
According to police reports, attendance, especially in Berlin, was almost always very high, ranging from one hundred to one thousand or more, and the police reports always expressed satisfaction with the course of the events, particularly with the programs’ emphasis on doing everything to promote emigration to Palestine.

f
Igure
4.2.:
An all-day seminar sponsored by the Zionistische Vereinigung für Deutschland, Berlin, 1935.
Courtesy
: Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem.

Zionist institutions rapidly grew in size as well as in influence. Zionist meetings that before 1933 rarely drew more than 100 people soon filled the meeting room at Meineckestrasse 10 beyond its capacity of 800. By 1936, Zionists occupied half of the seats on the committees of the Ber-lin Jewish community, and shared power equally with the CV in the Reichsvertretung in Berlin as it focused most of its efforts on preparing German Jews for emigration, especially to Palestine. Moreover, in Berlin in December 1938, the Palestine office of the Jewish Agency for Palestine was incorporated into the Reichsvertretung (and its successor in 1939, the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland [Reich Association of Jews in Germany]) after the two German Zionist organizations, along with all other autonomous Jewish organizations, were dissolved. By october 1935, the 38,000 circulation of the twice-weekly
Jüdische Rundschau
almost matched that of the older and hitherto dominant 40,000 circulation
CV-Zeitung
, the newspaper of the Centralverein. Jew-ish schools, with an academic emphasis on Jewish culture and history, and on the teaching of Hebrew and the geography of Palestine, naturally experienced an unprecedented boom throughout Germany, especially in Berlin, where the number of Jewish students in public high schools dropped precipitously after 1933.
³⁵
Membership in the two Zionist sports organizations in Berlin, Makkabi and Bar kochba, soon exceeded that of the comparable non-Zionist organizations, with 22,000 and 2,800 members, respectively, by 1938.