German-Jewish Internal Politics under Hitler 1933 - 1938 (Part D)
Source: J. Boas, German-Jewish Internal Politics under Hitler 1933-1938", in: Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook , 1984, pp. 3-25.
To the degree that its ideological position crumbled over the years, the Centralverein resorted to stressing pragmatism over ideology, representing itself to the community as the "creative centre of German Jewry" 105 . But with each new piece of anti-Jewish legislation, with every Nazi act of terror and intimidation, insult and slight, the Centralverein lost ground, until, at last, it was compelled to espouse a goodly portion of the Zionist point of view 106 and practically all of its program.
The general shift in Jewish socio-political attitudes. The liberal persuasion, with its emphasis on the self-realising individual and the political forms to which it had given rise, was being supplanted by an appreciation of the complex of values - broadly designated as voelkisch - derived from Volkstum. It would be a mistake, however, to interpret this new-fashioned receptivity to voelkisch ideas and ideals as showing nothing more than mimesis. Rather, it must be understood in the sense of furnishing Jews with a powerful heuristic model for exploring and coming to grips with their own collective identity as Jews.
As the champion and embodiment of Jewish Volkstum , the ZVfD emerged as the uncontested beneficiary of this changing outlook. There are numerous indications that Zionism provided an attractive alternative to a liberalism that seemed to have passed the point of no return. For instance, the circulation figure of the Juedische Rundschau quadrupled 107 . Financial contributions to Zionism in the period 1933-1936 tripled over those collected during 1931-1932 - and this from a much impoverished base 108 . Indicative, too, of the new outlook in the community was the change in attitude toward Palestine on the part of a number of influential "German-Jewish" spokesmen and organisations. Thus, in 1903 Heinrich Stahl had returned from a trip to Palestine convinced that the place could not be made fit for human habitation; in 1936 he believed that only Palestine could save the Jews 109 . Eva Reichmann-Jungmann likewise returned full of praise for the Jewish settlements after visiting Palestine around the beginning of 1938 110 . And by the end of 1935 even the R.J.F. claimed to be furthering the work there 111 . Zionism made converts prodigiously among Jewish youth also. Already at the end of 1934, the ZVfD claimed that eighty percent of all organised young Jewish men and women were enrolled in Zionist youth groups 112 . In June 1935, the formerly neutral Verband der juedischen Jugendvereine Deutschlands came out in favour of the building-up of Palestine. In March 1936, the Verband reported that it had decided to integrate itself into the Zionist movement 113 . With the erstwhile groundswell rising to a mighty wave, by the end of 1935 Zionism could justly claim that it had gained the confidence of the broad Jewish masses 114 .
It is of course impossible to ascertain with any degree of certainty how many German Jews in the first five years of Nazism shifted their allegiance to Zionism or repudiated their former liberal convictions. Whatever the precise dimensions of this re-orientation may have been, there can be little doubt that a shift of some sort took place in those years, and that it was by no means negligible. After 1933, more and more Jews began speaking of themselves as a Volk and of their community as a Volksgemeinde , which is another way of saying that they began seeing themselves as a separate and distinct nationality. The confusion, turmoil and disorientation of the pre-1933 period had prepared the soil for this transformation, but it took Hitler's accession to power to bring it to a head. Hence it was not just the existence of Palestine but the entire sweep of recent German - and beyond that of recent European - history that determined the relative ease with which a large number of Jews slipped from a liberal role into Zionism, an ideology decidedly more attuned to the times.
References:
105.) C.V Zeitung , XIII (25th October 1934); XIV (3rd May 1935).
106.) The process by which non-Zionists came to adopt much of the Zionist "line" has been traced back to the period of the Weimar Republic, especially its last year. See Peter M. Baldwin, Zionist and Non-Zionist Jews in the Last Years Before the Nazi Regime', in LBI Year Book XXVII (1982), pp. 87ΓÇô108.
107.) Strauss, Jewish Press', loc. cit. , p. 34 (from roughly 10,000 before 1933 to approximately 38,000 by the end of 1933). Robert Weltsch, the editor of the Juedische Rundschau during the Nazi years, fixed his paper's pre-1933 circulation at 5,000 to 7,000 per issue. Lamm, op. cit. , p. 175, note 1.
108.) Arendt, op. cit. , p. 59.
109.) Juedische Rundschau , XXXXI (12th April 1936); XXXXI (8th May 1936).
110.) C.V Zeitung , XVII (24th February 1938).
111.) See Juedische Rundschau , XXXX (10th October 1935).
112.) Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXVI (6th December 1934).
113.) Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXVII (8th August 1935); XXXVIII (5th March 1936).
114.) See Juedische Rundschau , XXXX (17th December 1935). It should be remembered, though, that the growth of Zionism predated 1933. In 1926, 18,000 Jewish Berliners voted for Zionism; by 1930, their number had risen to 30,000. See Juedische Rundschau , XXXX (17th April 1935).
