German-Jewish Internal Politics under Hitler 1933 - 1938 (Part C)
Source: J. Boas, German-Jewish Internal Politics under Hitler 1933-1938", in: Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook , 1984, pp. 3-25.
The two elements in the ZVfD did not mesh, and the presence of Kareski further complicated relations 68 . Kareski, for example, had an unseemly habit of collectively branding the ZVfD leadership as "the reds in Meinekestrasse", not infrequently within earshot of Herr Kuchmann, a familiar and durable Nazi prop at many Jewish gatherings of an official nature 69 . Kareski's removal from the mainstream organisation seemed only a matter of time; and it came in August 1933, in the aftermath of an "obscure incident" involving a militant attempt, which he apparently led, to occupy the Jewish welfare office in Berlin. Kareski's refusal to bow to the ZVfD demand that he quit the Berlin Executive was followed by his expulsion from the parent body. The role he had played in the affair at the welfare office, coupled with his espousal of Revisionism, not only deepened the rift between the Juedische Volkspartei and the ZVfD leadership, but also fomented a split within the ranks of the Juedische Volkspartei itself 70 : three of its fourteen members in the Berlin Assembly broke away to form an independent unit known as the Zionistische Fraktion . When two Fraktion members on the Berlin Executive quit that body in the course of 1933 in a show of revulsion against Kareski, his collaborators in the Juedische Volkspartei and Berlin's support of the Erneuerungsbewegung , the road was cleared for the Kareski-dominated Juedische Volkspartei in the Executive 71 . In the revision of the Executive that followed the introduction of representational parity in November 1935, reducing it from twelve to seven members 72 , all three Zionist positions went to the Juedische Volkspartei . A similar struggle took place inside the liberal camp, which was divided into two parts: the Centralverein , which fought discrimination, and the community liberals, who took aim at Zionism and Orthodoxy. However, with the emergence of a younger generation in the Centralverein sympathetic to Palestine, a chasm opened up between the Centralverein leadership and the community liberals. Thus in the last (Berlin) community elections before Hitler, a group of pro-Palestine "young liberals" had opposed "old liberals" like Stahl, Moritz Rosenthal and Wilhelm Kleemann, Stahl's predecessor as Chairman of the Executive. Diverging social backgrounds further breached the gap: academicians, serving with pay, generally held sway in the Centralverein, while well-to-do businessmen, serving without remuneration, dominated the community liberals 73 .
The respective struggles within the liberal and Zionist camps produced the 1937 combinations Stahl-Kareski-Berlin versus Centralverein -ZVfD- Reichsvertretung . Precluded from participating in community politics by the Juedische Volkspartei , "Meinekestrasse" Zionists discovered that they had more in common with pro-Palestine Centralverein leaders in the Reichsvertretung than with their ideological brethren in the Berlin Executive. And, conversely, the circle of "Friends of Palestine" in the Centralverein was closer to the general Zionists in the Reichsvertretung than to the community liberals in Berlin 74 . (For these reasons, too, the R.J.F. after 1933 replaced the Centralverein as the political antipode to the ZVfD 75 .)
Berlin left no stone unturned in its pursuit of power. But the ZVfD, too, claimed custody of the disputed body of German Jewry, and the two contestants, Berlin and Zionism, inevitably came to bitter blows. Bristling with invective, the Juedische Rundschau told its readers that an anti-Zionist dictatorship of liberals ran Berlin 76 . Berlin, Zionists claimed, was unresponsive to the needs of Jewish schools, particularly Zionist schools 77 , neglected occupational retraining, youth and cultural matters 78 . Of a total budget of 12,000,000 RM, only three to four percent went to "Zionist" departments ΓÇô i.e. museums, libraries, archives, the community's least important administrative branches 79 . Zionists complained that Berlin was opposed to anything that smacked of change; it put up barriers against Judification 80 , monopolised the community evenings and the newspaper 81 , and stubbornly resisted rejuvenation from the top down 82 .
The introduction, however, of equal representation in the Berlin Executive in November 1935 and in the Reichsvertretung in August 1936, and the concurrent virtual elimination of Palestine as a haven for Jewish emigrants 83 , blunted the overall Zionist offensive. Even so, what not so long before had represented only a minor ideological current in the community now virtually ruled the mainstream. Once the despised stepchild of German Jewry, Zionists had lived to see their theories vindicated and their program appropriated piecemeal, even though they never left off bemoaning the dearth of Zionist spirit with which that program was enacted 84 .
Two trump cards held by Zionism facilitated its rapid rise. One was Palestine; the other was the "most-favoured-nation treatment" accorded it by a Nazi officialdom appreciative of its unsparing efforts on behalf of Jewish emigration 85 . Of the 138,000 Jews who had left Germany by the summer of 1938, 38,000 had opted for Palestine, the majority with the indirect assistance of the Haavara (Transfer Agreement), the special arrangement worked out in August 1933 between Nazi Germany and the agencies of World Zionism. (The agreement permitted Jews who wished to leave Germany for Palestine to transfer their money in German goods, thus circumventing the prevailing restrictions on the export of capital; they were to be reimbursed in British pounds upon arrival in Palestine 86 .) The idea of a national home for Jews in the Middle East was bound to appeal to a certain type of Nazi-"idealists", scrupulous constructionists of National Socialist glosses on Volk and Raum , who were wont to identify with the national aspirations of the Jewish people 87 . Well aware of this particular current in Nazi thought, the ZVfD in the spring of 1933 commissioned Kurt Tuchler, a member of the Juedische Volkspartei on the Berlin Executive, to fire the imagination of such broad-minded Nazis for the Jewish enterprise in Palestine. Tuchler found an interested party in Baron Leopold Itz von Mildenstein, the Judenreferent in the S.S.; and later that spring the two men, accompanied by their wives, embarked on their Palestinian jaunt. Upon his return the Baron, who also dabbled in journalism, persuaded the editors of Der Angriff, Goebbels's newspaper, to devote a series of illustrated articles to this curious fact-finding journey. Having learned a little Hebrew, von Mildenstein also brought back with him a collection of records from Palestine; to Tuchler's astonishment, strains of familiar Hebrew folk songs greeted him on entering the Baron's office in 1934. To commemorate the voyage of a Nazi to Palestine, Der Angriff even had a medal struck showing the Swastika on one side and the Star of David on the other 88 .
Bizarre as this example might seem, in essence it summarised some of the Alice-in-Wonderland quality of the Nazi-Zionist dialogue. It was a fact that in the opening years of the Hitler regime, the Nazi leaders favoured Zionists over non-Zionists 89 , and Zionists themselves proclaimed that of all Jewish groups, only they could approach the Nazis in good faith, as "honest partners" 90 . By making a distinction between race-minded, emigration-conscious Zionists and "assimilationists"-bent, as they said, on destroying National Socialism -powerful Nazis like Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of the Sicherheitsdienst , the intelligence arm of the SS, indirectly backed Zionist attempts to take control of the community. Heydrich echoed the official SS position that the activities of Zionists should be encouraged, those of non-Zionists discouraged. Consequently, Zionists were granted privileges denied to other groups. A police decree of March 1935, for example, instructed officers to be more tolerant of the doings of Zionist youth groups than ofthose non-Zionist ones. As, access to Nazi functionaries generally proved easier for Zionists than for others; and, forbidden to display the national colours, a special provision in the Nuremberg Laws permitted Jews to hoist their own banner, that is to say, the Zionist standard, the current flag of Israel 91 .
Needless to say, German Zionism held no brief for National Socialism. If both agitated for a Jewish exodus from Germany, they did so for radically different reasons and purposes. It should hardly need repeating that Zionist principles differed from those of National Socialism as night differs from day. Zionism believed in the existence of different races, but not in the superiority of one race over another. Zionist nationalism, as elaborated by the ZVfD, harked back to an earlier period, the Mazzini-type conception of nationalism as a liberating force leading, ultimately, to the harmonious coexistence of all the world's peoples. And although Zionism, like National Socialism, repudiated individualism, rootlessness and decadence, unlike National Socialism it never lost sight of the individual human being independent of race. Nor did the sanctification of the soil as the mainspring of spiritual and national well-being, preclude Germany's Zionists from advocating the peaceful coexistence of Arab and Jew in a Palestinian bi-national state
.
Yet much of the idiom through which Zionism expressed its main ideas bore a striking, if superficial, resemblance to the voelkisch ideas of the day 92 . As much may be gathered from the following excerpt of a statement from a ZVfD position paper submitted to the Nazi authorities on 2lst June 1933: 'Zionism believes that a rebirth of a national life, as has occurred in German life through the adherence to Christian and national values, must also become a reality for the Jewish national entity. For Jews, too, racial origins ( Abstammung ), religion, community of fate and consciousness of their special racial nature ( Artbewusstsein ) must exercise the decisive influence on how they shape their life. This requires that they overcome the egoistic individualism of the Liberal Era through community spirit and a willingness to shoulder responsibility.' 93
Zionists were not unaware of the vexing parallelism between their own brand of voelkisch thought and that of National Socialism and went to great lengths to dissociate themselves spiritually from the latter. Nevertheless, at bottom it was this elemental consonance with currently popular voelkisch modes of thought 94 , in addition to the existence of Palestine as a potential haven, which enabled Zionists to gain the upper hand in the prolonged struggle for supremacy in the Jewish community. Even though the Jewish newspapers frequently reminded their readers that humanitarian values must take precedence over those contingent on race and might, such caveats were bound to ring a trifle hollow against a background pulsating with ideas that appeared to carry all before them. The seemingly endless victory parade of National Socialism suggested the hand of Providence, and the temptation for Jews to appropriate for their own use certain aspects of its style, thought, rhetoric, and behaviour was great and not always averted. Warning Jews against the dangers of "brown assimilation", the Executive Director of the Berlin Jewish community, Walter Breslauer, wrote in a 1934 C.V Zeitung leader: 'The National Socialist State excludes Jews from its culture... but it leaves them their freedom in the internal Jewish sphere and in no way expects that within this sphere Jews appropriate and duplicate its store of ideas of totality, leadership principle, the rejection of 'liberal' opinions. A 'brown assimilation' is thus in no way enjoined upon Jews; national Jewish and German-Jewish circles have equal cause to keep their distance from it, which unfortunately does not always happen on either side.' 95
Despite the considerable residual strength of Jewish liberalism - 'the majority of German Jews clung to the principles of liberalism with something like desperation' 96 - the enticements of contemporary ideas proved strong indeed. The proliferation of voelkisch ideas and influences was not entirely absent in the Jewish community, and ran the gamut from political rhetoric to the "one-pot" meals of the Jewish Winter Relief; from teach-ins on leadership to the penchant of Jewish youth formations for flags, emblems and bunting; from the downgrading of intellectual pursuits to the upgrading of physical labour 97 .
Significantly, the attraction of the National Socialist "store of ideas" mentioned by Breslauer was particularly glaring in the Israelitisches Familienblatt , the newspaper that up until its final days considered itself the trustee of neutral Jewish opinion. The Familienblatt not only had kind words for Italian fascism 98 ; it also spoke highly of Gleichschaltung and Fuehrerprinzip , exhorting Jews to step up to the times by grafting these principles of modern state craft onto their own unruly body politic 99 . And its leading article of l0th August 1933 rued the fact that so little of the regenerative spirit currently abroad in the "new state" had filtered down to the Jewish community. (In all this, however, it would be well to bear in mind the special conditions, alluded to earlier, under which the Jewish press toiled).
The chief casualty of the changing mood in the community was the Centralverein , the stubborn conscience of Jewish liberalism. Already on the defensive before 1933, Hitler's sweep to power dealt it a crushing blow. The "unflinching cultivation of German identity" and the sharp vigil it kept to safeguard the still tender shoots of emancipation, the very heart of the Centralverein programme, shrivelled under the heat of the supercharged illiberal climate of Nazi Germany. At last, concluded a study of the influence of voelkisch ideas on Germany Jewry, albeit too sweepingly, 'the C.V Zeitung found itself the sole spokesman for a liberalism which had been rejected by most Germans and Jews alike' 100 .
The Centralverein , in picking over every bit of ideological terrain, yielded but grudgingly. It responded testily to Zionist claims that it had forfeited its right to lead German Jewry by accusing the ZVfD of Schadenfreude 101 . What German Jewry needed least of all, the C.V Zeitung cautioned in December 1933, was a "revolution" of its own 102 . Elsewhere, Jews were reminded that leaders were not made overnight 103 . Lastly, turning vice into virtue, the organisation blandly dismissed charges of ineptitude with the argument that sometimes it took more courage not to act than to act 104 .
References:
68.) Meyer, loc. cit. , p. 171. Franz Meyer was a member of the Reichsvertretung and of the Executive of the ZVfD in Breslau.
69.) Levine, loc. cit. , pp. 259ΓÇô260. See also, Tuchler, op. cit. , p. 6, though Tuchler does not mention Kareski by name.
70.) The sources are somewhat confusing here. Benno Cohn puts the departure of the two Zionistische Fraktion members (Arthur Rau and Siefried Moses) in the summer of 1933. Op. cit. , p. 1. On the other hand, there is no mention of Siegfried Moses, the Chairman of the ZVfD, leaving the Berlin Executive until November 1933, the reason given being Berlin's support of the Erneuerungsbewegung . See Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXV (23rd November 1933). Nor was I able to find any references in the Jewish press to Rau's departure. The Israelitisches Familienblatt , being closer to the actual events, is more likely to be correct than Cohn. Steering a mid-course, in the text I have combined the reasons.
71.) See Juedische Rundschau , XXXX (12th November 1935).
72.) The original intent was to expand rather than decrease the ExecutiveΓÇôthis, to reduce Kareski's influence. Kareski objected, and possibly alerted the Nazi authorities to the existence of a law of 1847 prohibiting such an expansion and, in fact, mandating its reduction. See Levine, loc. cit. , p. 265. Tuchler credits Stahl with bringing about a smooth transition, claiming that Stahl was a "real leader personality" whose achievements have been underrated. Op. cit. , pp. 2ΓÇô3. Benno Cohn, at the time the Executive Director of the ZVfD, agreed with this assessment. Op. cit. , p. 1. Not Joachim Prinz, however. Rabbi Prinz, a fervent advocate of emigration, repeatedly preached the need for Jews to leave Germany, which put him in opposition to the established leadership, including Stahl. Stahl happened to be present at one of those sermons, and when a day later Prinz visited him at his expensive undertaking, Prinz reports that Stahl "grew only angrier... He was a rich man, independent and highly respected, and he lived in a splendid villa not far from my house. As I entered the house I saw that his famous collection of Impressionists had been removed from the wall. I enquired about the paintings. He replied that he had sent them to his son in Belgium because they were no longer safe here. I looked at him with great amazement and said: Evidently to save the paintings is more important; to save Jews is not'. I never saw him again. It must be said to his honor that he was a victim of his own convictions. He died in Theresienstadt". Joachim Prinz, A Rabbi under the Hitler Regime', in Gegenwart im Rueckblick. Festgabe fuer die Juedische Gemeinde zu Berlin 25 Jahre nach dem Neubeginn , eds. H. A. Strauss and K. R. Grossman, Heidelberg 1970, pp. 237ΓÇô238.
73.) Cohn, op. cit. , pp. 1ΓÇô2.
74.) Ibid. , p. 2; Meyer, loc. cit. , p. 170.
75.) Ball-Kaduri, The National Representation', p. 176.
76.) Juedische Rundschau , XXXIV (2nd February 1934); XXXVIII (17th September 1933).
77.) Juedische Rundschau , XXXX (17th May 1935); XXXX (24th May 1935).
78.) Juedische Rundschau , XXXIX (1st May 1934).
79.) Juedische Rundschau , XXXIX (31st May 1934); XXX (14th May 1935).
80.) Juedische Rundschau , XXXIX (2nd February 1934).
81.) Juedische Rundschau , XXXIX (27th April 1934).
82.) Juedische Rundschau , XXXIX (24th April 1943).
83.) Stung by Arab rioting in the spring of 1936, the British launched the Peel Commission to study the Palestine problem. Its 500-page report, which came out in 1937, recommended the tripartition of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states, with the third part to remain in British hands. The Commission also recommended the imposition of severe restrictions on Jewish emigration to the area. Only 8,000 Jews, for example, were to be allowed to settle in Palestine during the period August 1937 to March 1938. See C.V Zeitung , XVI (8th July 1937).
84.) See Juedische Rundschau , XXXIX (4th May 1934); Tuchler, op. cit. , p. 3. Berlin claimed to have carried out the Zionist programme better than the Zionists themselves ever could have. See Juedische Rundschau , XXXIX (10th May 1934); XXXXI (10th October 1936).
85.) "Fest steht, dass sich waehrend der ersten Phasen der nationalsozialistischen Judenpolitik nicht selten eine Situation entwickelte, in welcher es den Nationalsozialisten angebracht erschien, eine pro-zionistische Haltung einzunehmen oder vorzugeben". Hans Lamm, UEber die innere und aeussere Entwicklung des deutschen Judentums im Dritten Reich , Ph. D. diss., Univ. of Erlangen 1951, p. 140. Similarly, Eliahu Ben Elissar writes: "Les seuls Juifs avec lesquels, en fin de comte, divers organismes du Troisieme Reich, et particulierement le ministere des Affaires etrangeres et celui de l'Economie, etabliront de veritables relations de travail, seront bel et bien les sionistes et les Juifs palestiniens". La Diplomatie du IIIe Reich et les Juifs , Paris 1969, p. 87. See also, Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil , rev. and enl. edn., New York 1970, pp. 59ΓÇô60.
86.) For the Haavara , see the three lengthy essays (by Werner Feilchenfeld, Dolf Michaelis, and Ludwig Pinner) in Haavara-Transfer nach Palaestina und Einwanderung deutscher Juden 1933ΓÇô1939 , Tuebingen 1972 (Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts 26). The 38,000 figure is from Feilchenfeld, Die Durchfuehrung des Haavara-Transfers', pp. 37ΓÇô38. Herbert A. Strauss puts the five-year total (1933ΓÇô1938) at 43,200. Jewish Emigration from Germany. Nazi Policies and Jewish Responses (II)', in LBI Year Book XXV (1980), pp. 313ΓÇô361. For the diplomacy of the Haavara , see Ellisar, op. cit. , pp. 85ΓÇô95.
87.) See Arendt, op. cit. , pp. 41ΓÇô42.
88.) See Tuchler , op. cit. , pp. 2, 6. For a more detailed treatment of the von Mildenstein-Tuchler voyage to Palestine, see this author's A Nazi Travels to Palestine', in History Today , vol. 30 (January 1980), pp. 33ΓÇô38. Von Mildenstein's articles (in which he used the pen name "von Limm") ran in Der Angriff from 24th September until 9th October 1934.
89.) See Schleunes, op. cit. , pp. 178ΓÇô181; 193ΓÇô194. Herfeld also reports that in the last months of 1936 the Gestapo acted more leniently towards Zionists than towards "assimilationists". Op. cit. , p. 32. The Israelitisches Familienblatt of 21st March 1935 cited authoritative Nazi sources urging favouritism towards pro-emigration groups like the Zionists. See also, Kurt T. Grossmann, Zionists and non-Zionists under Nazi rule in the 1930's, in Herzl Year Book. Essays in Zionist History and Thought , IV (1961ΓÇô1962), pp. 329ΓÇô344, espeilly the appendices; and Hans Mommsen, Der nationalsozialistische Polizeistaat und die Judenverfolgung vor 1938', in Vierteljahreshefte fuer Zeitgeschichte , Heft 1 (Januar 1962), pp. 68ΓÇô87. Of particular interest are the documents, reproduced by Mommsen, from the Bayerische Politische Polizei, pp. 77ΓÇô87.
90.) Juedische Rundschau , XXXVIII (7th April 1933).
91.) Paragraph 4 of the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour stated: "1. Jews are not permitted to display the German flag or the national colours; 2. They are, however, permitted to show the Jewish colours. The exercise of this right is protected by the State". Paragraph 5.3 described the penalty for infringing "1": up to one year's imprisonment plus fine, or one of these.
92.) Benno Cohn summarised the problem faced by Zionism as follows: "Dabei war beim Auftreten vor den juedischen Massen in jenen Jahren stets die Gefahr einer... ideologischen Gleichschaltung mit den Nazis gegeben. Die Zionisten hatten ja die Assimilation immer verurteilt und zur Auswanderung, zur Alija, zur Schaffung eines neuen Volkszentrums aufgerufen. Die zionistischen Sprecher mussten sich daher sehr hueten, in ihren Reden nicht etwa eine Assoziation zu den Parolen der Nazis und ihrer Rassentheorien aufkommen zu lassen". Einige Bemerkungen ueber den deutschen Zionismus nach 1933', in In zwei Welten, op. cit. , p. 46.
93.) Cited in Klaus J. Hermann, Das Dritte Reich und die deutsch-juedischen Organisationen 1933ΓÇô1934 , Muenchen 1969, p. 16.
94.) The C.V Zeitung, for example, frequently harped on the similarities between Zionism and the Nazi Weltanschauung. In a May 1934 leader, Eva Reichmann-Jungmann observed that in 1933 the attraction of Zionism was greatΓÇô "tempting and seductive". C.V Zeitung , XIII (31st May 1934). Taking issue with Jewish nationalism Alfred Hirschberg, that paper's Editor-in-Chief, saw it as assimilation to the times. C.V Zeitung , XIII (6th December 1934).
95.) C.V Zeitung , XIII (1st November 1934).
96.) Mosse, op. cit. , p. 103.
97.) "There is little doubt that the existing youth organisations and clubs had for a time substituted symbols, flags, marching songs, etc., for similar forms of expression of the Hitler youth". Solomon Colodner, Jewish Education under National Socialism', Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance , III (1959), pp. 166ΓÇô167. "The Labor Service, the welfare work for the unemployed, the labor camps, the domestic service year, and other such institutions based on collective education were not without influence". Rudolph Stahl, Vocational Retraining of Jews in Nazi Germany 1933ΓÇô1938', Jewish Social Studies , 1 (April 1939), No. 2, p. 180. See also, in connection with labour's upgrading, by the author, Germany or Diaspora? German Jewry's Shifting Perceptions in the Nazi Era (1933ΓÇô1938)', in LBI Year Book XXVII (1982), pp. 121ΓÇô122.
98.) See Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXVI (11th January 1934). Despite its vaunted neutrality in Jewish affairs, the Israelitisches Familie gradually began displaying a marked bias toward Zionism, demanding that it be given more, though not all, power in the community. See Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXVII (6th June 1935); XXXVII (13th June 1935).
99.) See, for example, Arno Herzberg, Anschluss an die Zeit', Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXV (8th June 1933); Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXVI (1st February 1934), praising the fusion of Volk and Staat , as well as the suppression of niggling parliamentary debate; and the 12th April 1934 headline, Wir fordern Gemeindereform an Haupt und Gliedern: Fuehrerprinzip auch bei uns!'
100.) Mosse, op. cit. , p. 102.
101.) The C.V Zeitung , XIV (26th September 1935) spoke of "Siegesfanfaren" and "ill-concealed joy" on the part of Zionism. The Centralverein accused Zionists of a "brutal exploitation of a calamity", said the Juedische Rundschau , XXXX (19th March 1935). Friendly to Zionism, Rabbi Max Gruenewald of the Reichsvertretung wrote in the Juedische Rundschau , XXXX (15th November 1935): "Weder eine voellig palaestinazentrische Einstellung noch die Erbitterung ueber ein jahrelanges Unverstaendnis auf der Seite der verantwortlihen Fuehrung gab das Recht dazu, dass die Judenheit in Deutschland so von fuehrenden Zionisten entbloesst wurde, wie das tatsaechlich geschehen ist".
102.) C.V Zeitung , XII (21st December 1933); XII (18th May 1933).
