CENTRALVEREIN DEUTSCHER STAATSBUERGER JUEDISCHEN GLAUBENS (Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith; CV)
An organization, active between 1893 and 1938, that aimed to safeguard the civil and social equality of the Jews in Germany while fostering their German identity. Many Jewish organizations became associate groups of the CV, coming under its aegis.
The Organization Begins to Operate.
The CV itself was founded in response to the rise of political antisemitism. Until World War I, it worked principally through legal channels and conducted information activity. At the end of that war, the CV began to work more through political channels. In 1929, an archive on the Nazis was established and the collected data put at the disposal of newspapers and political parties. From 1922 onward, it also published a weekly, Zeitung-CV, and a literary and ideological biweekly, Der Morgan.
Early Responses to Nazism.
The CV stressed the fostering of German awareness and saw Jewry as a religious and spiritual group only; consequently, it was against Zionism until well into the Nazi period. Some of the younger leaders, however, viewed settlement in Palestine positively and eventually they became the heads of the CV. With the rise of Nazism, defense became insufficient and the CV had to adapt to new conditions. It continually reminded President Paul von Hindenburg and German conservatives of their duty to protect the rights of all citizens, and opened a legal office to fight for Jewish rights. It also launched a comprehensive information campaign, which at first sought to soothe German Jewry.
After the First Nazi Anti-Jewish Acts.
Especially after the anti-Jewish boycott, the CV organized independent educational and religious activities, hoping for a short time that this would constitute the basis for an arrangement with the government, a second "emancipation" that would establish recognition of German Jewry as a separate group in the country. In September 1933, the CV helped sponsor the newly created Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden (Reich Representation of German Jews).
After the Nuremberg Laws.
In the fall of 1935 after the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws, the CV was obliged to change its name to the Centralverein der Juden in Deutschland (Central Union of Jews in Germany) and again, in 1936, to the Juedischer Centralverein. The organization increasingly recognized emigration and vocational training as chief priorities, becoming more supportive of Zionism. Its last chairman, Ernst Herzfeld, said in 1937 that the only difference of opinion between its members and the Zionists was whether emigration to countries other than Palestine should be welcomed or merely accepted as a necessary evil.
The Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht).
The CV ceased to exist as an independent group after the Kristallnacht disturbances of November 1938. Like other Jewish bodies, it was incorporated into the compulsory new central organization, the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Association of Jews in Germany), established on July 4, 1939. Its representatives continued to occupy central positions in the leadership of Germany.
