Capital of Germany from 1871 to 1945. General Population at the eve of World War II - 4.34 million - the second largest city in Europe. Berlin was the first centre of Jewish enlightenment in the second half of the 18th century. Its most renowned exponent, Moshe Mendelssohn, lived there. With immigration from the provinces and from the end of the 19th century also from Eastern Europe, Jewish population in Berlin grew steadily from 3,300 in 1812, to 36,000 in 1871, to 142,000 in 1910 and 173,000 in 1925. Jews in Berlin were prominent in various aspects of the city's economic and cultural life. It was also the centre of Germany's major Jewish organisations and press. In addition to 17 major synagogues maintained by the community, there were more than 115 prayer houses. The community maintained a large number of welfare and education institutions, including Jewish schools, hospitals and clinics. During the Weimar republic, many Jews gained fame in the cultural field. At the same time, however, Jews gradually became targets of anti-Semitic attacks. Anti-Jewish riots and incitement followed the murder of the two leaders of the leftist Spartacus League in January 1919 with another wave in November 1923. Anti-Semitism was at the root of the assassination of Germany's Jewish foreign minister Walther Rathenau in June 1922. Nazi activity and anti-Semitic propaganda in Berlin intensified with Goebbels nomination as Gauleiter of Berlin in 1926. The attacks on Jews increased in the years 1931-32. With the Nazi rise to power, the situation of the Jews in Berlin became insecure. On the night of the Reichstag fire, SA troops attacked the offices of the CV - Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith. The city's Jewish leadership strove to assure the Jews' continued existence as a religious minority. There was an upsurge in Zionist activities, and the year 1933 also marked the beginning of a steady rise in Jewish migration. It reached its peak after January 1939, when the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration, was set up by the regime. By September 1939, the Jewish population of the city stood at 82,788, about half of the 1933 figure.
The New Jewish Community
On March 5, 1938, the Berlin Jewish community, like other communities in Germany, was deprived of its status as a recognised public corporate body. In August 1939, it was re-established as a "society" under the aegis of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany. Its chairman was Heinrich Stahl until March 1940, and Moritz Henschel until February 1943. Intensified Anti-Jewish Activity. On Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938), most of the synagogues of Berlin were burnt down; Jewish institutions were attacked; Jewish department stores were ransacked; and the shattering of the shop windows of the Jewish clothing stores on Leipzigerstrasse gave the pogrom its name. Dozens of Jews were murdered and thousands were taken to concentration camps. Jewish institutions were closed down, their property confiscated, and 1,200 Jewish enterprises were subjected to Aryanization. Only one Jewish newspaper, Das Juedische Nachtrichtenblatt, was still allowed to be published. Beginning in December 1938, Jewish residences in the prestigious part of the city were appropriated, and Jewish movement was restricted. Jewish leaders now saw their main task as facilitating emigration. When emigration was forbidden and deportations were begun in October 1941, the Jewish population was about 73,000. From October 18, 1941, until the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, 10,000 Berlin Jews were deported to Lodz, Riga, Minsk, and Kovno. Transports to Theresienstadt started on June 6, 1942 and directly to Auschwitz on July 11 of that year. In May 1942, the Jewish Communist underground exploded a firebomb at an anti-Soviet exhibition, and in retaliation 250 Jews were shot on the spot and 250 were taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. On September 19, 1942, the Jewish badge was distributed in the community offices. On January 28, 1943, the Gestapo ordered the Berlin Jewish community legally liquidated and within a month the process had been completed. During February and March, thousands of Jews were deported, mostly to Auschwitz. On June 10, 1943, with under 7,000 Jews, the city was declared judenrein ("cleansed of Jews"). The last deportation took place on March 27, 1945; in all, some 15,000 were sent to Theresienstadt, and 35,000 to other ghettos and camps.
