German-Jewish Internal Politics under Hitler 1933 - 1938 (Part B)
Source: J. Boas, German-Jewish Internal Politics under Hitler 1933-1938", in: Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook , 1984, pp. 3-25.
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One of the signatures on the Renewal Movement's proclamation belonged to Ludwig Freund, the Executive Director of the R.j.F. By far the largest of all conservative groups, the Jewish veterans association also vied for the contested right of representing Germany's Jews. With 30,000 members in sixteen provincial branches, plus 14,000 young people in affiliated youth and sports groups 33 , the R.j.F. considered itself eminently qualified to fill this role. Citing a proven record of sacrifice - 12,000 war dead, according to its own figures - the R.j.F. prided itself both of initiating young Jews into the time-tested ethos of the German soldier and on its pioneering efforts in the areas of physical fitness and occupational retraining 34 .
The R.j.F. could point to some modest victories in the struggle for Jewish rights. Because of the immunity of Jewish war veterans from the liabilities of the April 1933 non-Aryan legislation, the R.j.F. leader Leo Loewenstein credited his organisation with having kept thousands of Jews in their jobs. Loewenstein also drew attention to the decree promulgated by the Reich Minister of Labour in August 1933, which entrusted the Reichsbund with the representation of all non-Aryan war casualties vis-a-vis the authorities 35 .
It was the Nazi rise to power that allowed the R.j.F. to abandon its former neutrality in Jewish affairs 36 , and the change in the organisation's policy was expressed by Ludwig Freund in his remarks on the future of German Jewry: 'A leader in this struggle [the struggle for equal rights] now can only be that individual who, analogous to the new political type in Germany, is capable of standing up for his convictions with his entire being and life.' 37 Perceiving itself as the chosen instrument to effect this "new political type", the R.j.F. aspired to taking the Jewish community in hand. To begin with, it introduced the Fuehrerprinzip in its own ranks. At the same time it embarked on a vigorous correspondence with the agencies and leaders of the New Order, omitting neither von Hindenburg nor Hitler. Unsolicited, it petitioned, among other things, for Jewish service in the Wehrmacht , the enrolment of all Jewish youths into one organisation and their military training under R.j.F. auspices. It further proposed that the community's current political formations be liquidated and replaced by a central organisation of "absolute loyalty" to the regime, structured along authoritarian lines 38 .
Evidently Zionists did not measure up to the "absolute loyalty" standard, for they were told they were no longer welcome in the R.j.F 39 . This rule, which in effect predated 1933 but until then had not been rigidly enforced, cast Zionism as the principal Jewish villain in the German-Jewish drama. Zionism not only was considered "un-German" and therefore an obstacle to the peaceable and honourable understanding between Germans and Jews; worse, Zionism had made light of the R.j.F. figures of Jewish war fatalities, putting their faith instead in those supplied by antisemitic sources 40 .
The R.J.F. vied for the leadership of German Jewry as late as February 1936. Its bid came in response to a similar challenge mounted by the Zionists 41 . But by then it had virtually exhausted its store of available sympathy, and its attempt at leadership collapsed. The R.j.F.'s long record of service to the nation and its endless protestations of "absolute faith" in Germany no longer passed current with the authorities. In respect to its brethren, the R.j.F.'s material basis for its claim to leadership had been removed with the "surrender" at Nuremberg in September 1935 of the thousands of Jews it once boasted of having kept in their jobs.
The political battle for community control swept across the entire plain of Jewish organisational and institutional life. Nowhere, however, was it more bitterly contested than within, and between, the two principal rivals for power, the Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden (after the Nuremberg Laws: the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland and the Juedische Gemeinde zu Berlin .
The Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden was the self-appointed political representative of Germany's Jews vis-a-vis Nazi authorities 42 , though the latter never officially recognised it as such. It was the creation of roughly two dozen prominent German Jews 43 , and an instrument of the three major organisations of German Jewry, the Centralverein , the R.j.F., and the ZVfD. No popular elections preceded its formation and the traditional centres of active Jewish life, the Jewish communities, received only token representation in it. Yet, at its constituent meeting, held in Berlin on l7th September 1933, all major Jewish organisations and institutions, including the communities, were won over to its support. Rabbi Leo Baeck, its newly installed president, terminated the conference with a most fervent appeal to German Jews to close ranks in the face of an assault unmatched for its ferocity in Western Jewry's recent past 44 .
Harmony and solidarity - the qualities apostrophised by Baeck in his closing address - proved in short supply during the entire life span of the Reichsvertretung . The R.j.F. opposed co-operation with the ZVfD, which it considered to be less than one hundred percent loyal to Germany 45 ; Zionists, in turn, feared being swamped by anti-Zionist forces 46 .
To be sure, the Essen triumvirate credited with initiating the Reichsvertretung - Rabbi Hugo Hahn, the banker Georg Hirschland, and the lawyer Ernst Herzfeld - were staunch supporters of the Centralverein ; indeed, Herzfeld served as its last Director. But these three belonged to the Jewish Agency wing of the Centralverein ; that is to say, they supported the construction of Palestine without, however, sharing the racial conception of Jewry of their Zionist associates in the Agency. In fact, the creation of the Jewish Agency in Germany owed much to the trail-blazing efforts of the two men who filled the top posts in the Reichsvertretung Leo Baeck and Otto Hirsch, respectively its President and Executive Director. Leo Baeck even assumed the presidency of the Keren Hayessod , the principal funding agency for the construction of Palestine.
It would be wrong, however, to equate the pro-Palestine sympathies thus manifested with pro-Zionism per se 47 . Among the Centralverein leaders the proposition that the goals of Zionism had little or no bearing on the problems or needs of German Jewry qualified as dogma. The Jews they meant to benefit with their support for the "up-building" of Palestine in pre-Hitler Germany lived to the east of them, the so-called Ostjuden . The attitude that Palestine was not quite the place for a German Jew died hard, even after 1933 48 .
The ZVfD nevertheless decided to join the Reichsvertretung , evidently in the hope of furthering its own ambitious plans. However, these expectations soon collided with the solidly resisting force of anti-Zionist sentiment within the Reichsvertretung . As a result, the ZVfD was compelled to settle for co-equal status with non-Zionists, the principle of power-sharing adopted by the Reichsvertretung in August 1936; based on the practice of the "expanded" Jewish Agency, this agreement allocated half of all seats to Zionists and the other half to non-Zionists. By that time, however, the mathematics of shared power was of little consequence, the rout of non-Zionists in the Reichsvertretung being virtually complete 49 .
The Zionists, far from seeking the destruction of the Reichsvertretung , were determined simply to recast what was essentially an instrument of the Centralverein in their own image. In their aim they were rather less drastic than the Juedische Gemeinde zu Berlin , which sought the outright destruction of the Reichsvertretung .
Jewish Berlin occupied a position within German Jewry analogous to that of Berlin to the Reich as a whole. With one-third of all Jews and another third in t Preussischer Landesverband juedischer Gemeinden , which it dominated, Berlin towered over all the other Jewish communities in Germany. Jews in the German capital contributed the most taxes; they had the biggest budget and the most extensive administrative apparatus. Not surprisingly, Berlin considered itself the most logical candidate for the contested throne of German Jewry.
A strong-willed leader was prepared to press the city's claim. He was Heinrich Stahl, formerly a leading figure in the insurance business. Stahl took charge of the city's Jewish community in June 1933 at the age of sixty-five. Prominent in Reichsvertretung affairs, he was invited to Essen, the industrial hub of the Ruhr, to participate in the important final deliberations centring on its actual structure. There Stahl learned to his chagrin that while Berlin was expected to foot a substantial part of the bill for the new creation, it was assigned only a modest participatory role. Realizsng that such negligence was a deliberate attempt to bypass the communities, above all that of Berlin, Stahl gave vent to his pique at the afternoon session, held at the banker Georg Hirschland's villa in Werden an der Ruhr. Upon learning that Leo Baeck and Otto Hirsch were the leading candidates being considered for the top posts in the Reichsvertretung , he took Rabbi Hahn aside and told him: 'Baeck, whom we honour and esteem as a man of great learning, does not have our confidence in political matters, and Otto Hirsch', he added, alluding to the latter's Swabian dialect, 'does not enter the picture because to us Berliners' he speaks a foreign language' 50
Though Stahl's objection to Baeck might have had no other than personal grounds 51 , the real reason for his opposition was of course directly related to the failure to provide Berlin with a substantial role in the Reichsvertretung , one commensurate with its overall standing in the Jewish community. But, by the same token, the original backers of the Reichsvertretung voiced the suspicion that Berlin lacked the foresight and political know-how to steer German Jewry through an uncharted future 52 . Thus they forced Berlin to accept the pre-arranged distribution of power and, without recourse, Stahl grumblingly accepted the promise that he would be given an important post in the Reichsvertretung and that Berlin was to become its permanent seat 53 .
While agreeing to these minor concessions, Berlin remained dissatisfied. At a community evening shortly before the founding session of the Reichsvertretung , three thousand Jewish Berliners' heard Bruno Woyda and Moritz Rosenthal, the "enfant terrible" of the liberals, expound all the familiar reasons why Berlin rather than the Reichsvertretung should be first among German Jewry 54 . At the constituent meeting itself, the delegates of the communities, pleased no more than Berlin by the stratagems in Essen, banded together to demand the transfer of all authority to the communities and Berlin. Several influential participants quickly interceded on behalf of the Reichsvertretung , narrowly averting its stillbirth 55 . Two months later, pushing for Berlin 56 , the Erneuerungsbewegung renewed the campaign; again to no avail.
With that, the ascendancy of the Reichsvertretung seemed secure. Yet three and a half years later it faced the boldest challenge ever to its authority. This challenge originated with Georg Kareski, the founder and leader of the Staatszionisten (Revisionists). Kareski had a well-deserved reputation as a provocative and disruptive, not to say subversive, influence both in the Berlin Jewish community and the world of German Zionism. A member of the Berlin Executive, which he served as financial director, he had looked on in undisguised disapproval as Stahl, bowing to pressure, endorsed the formation of the Reichsvertretung with Berlin in a subordinate position. A year later, he was scheming to take over the ZVfD-administered Palaestina-Amt , the agency of World Zionism charged with allocating Palestine immigration certificates in Germany. Rebuffed, he struck again in late 1935, mounting a drive, with Gestapo backing, for the leadership of the Reichsverband der juedischen Kulturbuende , and again failing. Undaunted, he resumed the offensive early in 1937, taking aim at the Reichsvertretung itself 57 .
That winter Kareski, supported by Stahl and the Preussischer Landesverband , accused the Reichsvertretung of fiscal irresponsibility and of lacking the necessary authority to speak for the community at large 58 . After months of back-and-forth squabbling, the situation came to a head on 15th June, at one of those infrequent sessions of the Reichsvertretung Council, the belated adjunct created in August 1936 to represent the previously slighted communities and provincial associations. A heated debate raged from 10.30 a.m. until 7.00 p.m., while the Gestapo, apprised of the meeting by Stahl four months in advance, quietly took notes 59 . Kareski charged the Reichsvertretung with having been illegitimately founded. Supported by Stahl, he criticised the financial practices of the Reichsvertretung , coupling a demand for a thoroughgoing investigation into those practices with administrative and organisational reforms designed to enhance the influence of the communities at the expense of the ideological formations. For itself Berlin desired a leading role in all the Reichsvertretung committees, and the Kareski-Stahl combination threatened Berlin's withdrawal from that body if it failed to meet these demands. Startled by this resounding condemnation, the majority of the Reichsvertretung Council quickly responded with a vote of confidence for its Presidium, and a committee was set up to deal with the Kareski allegations and the reform proposals 60 .
Meanwhile, the Jewish Department of the Gestapo was quietly manoeuvring Leo Baeck to step down as President of the Reichsvertretung so as to make room for its own candidate-Georg Kareski. When Baeck refused to be intimidated by such a move, the Gestapo, with Kareski present, then insisted on the resignation of the entire Presidium, the top decision-making body of the Reichsvertretung . Replying that German Jewry could not be led by "borrowed authority" 62 , Baeck once more resisted. The result of Baeck's stand was that two weeks later Stahl, swallowing his pride, meekly voiced his support for the Reichsvertretung , to the surprise of many Council members 63 . (Incidentally, the fiscal critic Georg Kareski himself was caught tampering with the funds of the Jewish People's Bank ( Iwriah ), resulting in its liquidation, Kareski's outing from the Berlin Executive and his subsequent departure from Germany. 64 )
Berlin's 1937 attempt to destroy the Reichsvertretung was an apt demonstration of political expediency in action. Only a lapse in moral commitment could explain the anomalous case of the liberal Heinrich Stahl who according to one source had spent 40,000 RM of his own money in the 1930 community elections to ensure the defeat of what he then called "Jewish Nazis", to wit, the Zionist opposition 65 , allying himself with the extremist on the right-wing of Zionism, Georg Kareski 66 .
The explanation for Stahl's turnabout shows a less opportunistic cast when considered from the standpoint of the different directions within German Zionism. The overwhelming majority of the German Zionists were in the ZVfD, disciples of the so-called "Blumenfeld Method", also known by the shorthand of "Meinekestrasse", after the location of the organisation's Berlin headquarters. Palestine-centred, geared to educational work, progressive, in the mainstream of West European Zionism, the Blumenfeld orientation played down community politics. The reverse held for the majority position in the ZVfD represented by the Juedische Volkspartei . Confined to Berlin, the Juedische Volkspartei took an active part in community politics and none more so than its controversial founding-member, Georg Kareski 67 .
References:
33.) Leo Loewenstein, Die Linie des Reichbundes juedischer Frontsoldaten', Wille und Weg des deutschen Judentums , Berlin 1935, pp. 7, 10.
34.) See Dunker, op. cit. , pp. 81ΓÇô104.
35.) Loewenstein, loc. cit. , p. 9.
36.) Ibid. , p. 10.
37.) Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXV (24th May 1933).
38.) See Dunker, op. cit. , pp. 132ΓÇô144. Conceding that Nazism often required Jews to act and speak in ways which concealed their actual motivations, the laborious efforts of the R.j.F. to curry favour with the authorities and to create a special niche for itself in the New Germany nevertheless seem to have been excessively suppliant. To what extent the R.j.F. leadership reflected the attitude of the rank and file is, of course, difficult to ascertain. Dunker does not address the question. Dr. Arnold Paucker in a letter to the author of this article, suggests that it did not. See also his review of Dunker's book, Jews for the Fatherland', in The Times Literary Supplement , 28th July 1978, p. 869.
39.) Juedische Rundschau , XXXIX (22nd June 1934).
40.) Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXVI (1st March 1934). In June 1934 the ZVfD in turn decided that it could not cooperate with the R.j.F. Describing the latter as an "anti-zionistische[r] Kampfbund", ZVfD members were no longer allowed to participate in the R.j.F. or in its sports groups. At the same time, ZVfD members were also prohibited from belonging to the Staatszionisten . See Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXVI (21st June 1934).
41.) Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXVIII (13th February 1936). A week later the Israelitisches Familienblatt called for the depoliticisation of the R.j.F.
42.) "Paramount, of course, was the task of representing the German Jews before the government of Reich, Laender and the Department chiefs." Max Gruenewald, The Beginning of the "Reichsvertretung"', in LBI Year Book I (1956), p. 61.
43.) See Hugo Hahn, Die Gruendung der Reichsvertretung', in Hans Tramer (ed.), In zwei Welten. Siegfried Moses zum fuenfundsiebzigsten Geburtstag , Tel-Aviv 1962, pp. 97ΓÇô105. See also Klaus Drobisch, Rudi Goguel, Werner Mueller (unter Mitwirkung von Horst Dohle), Juden unterm Hakenkreuz, Verfolgung und Ausrottung der deutschen Juden 1933ΓÇô1945 , Frankfurt a. Main 1973, p. 116.
44.) Hahn, loc. cit. , pp. 103ΓÇô104. Naumann's Verand and Separatist Orthodoxy remained aloof however, though the latter joined the Reichsvertretung on an informal basis in 1936.
45.) See Juedische Rundschau , XXXIX (16th February 1934); Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXVI (1st March 1934).
46.) Zionists had boycotted the preliminary talks centring on the founding of the Reichsvertretung . See Herzfeld, op. cit. , p. 15, and Hahn, loc. cit. , pp. 102, 103.
47.) The Juedische Rundschau , XXXXI (16th June 1936) observed that the warmer non-Zionists waxed toward Palestine, the cooler they acted towards the Zionist organisation.
48.) Thus the C.V Zeitung , XIV (13th October 1935) deplored the "politicisation" of Palestine and the inadequate attention being given to other possible emigration sites. See also, C.V Zeitung , XV (6th February 1936).
49.) The new programme of the Reichsvertretung , adopted after the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws, included entry into the Keren Hayessod and a statement to the effect that the hope of Jewry now lay with Palestine. See C.V Zeitung , XIV (26th September 1935).
50.) Quoted in Hahn, loc. cit. , p. 102. Werner Cahnmann, a former Centralverein official, attributed considerable importance to these regional differences, pointing out that the leaders of the Centralverein came primarily from Berlin. Being Prussians, their German nationalism was usually somewhat more pronounced than that of, say, South Germans. Interview with Werner Cahnmann, 16th October 1974, New York.
51.) According to Hans Klee, whose father, Alfred Klee, was a prominent member of the Juedische Volkspartei on the Berlin Executive, Stahl was not on the best of terms with Baeck. Hans Klee, Georg Kareski und die Juedische Volkspartei , 1958, in: Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, p. 7.
52.) Ibid. , p. 13. "In taking this line, the initiators of the Reichsvertretung' were also motivated by their desire to counter the claim of the leaders of the Berlin Kehillah [community], who considered themselves as the natural titleholders and demanded for themselves a leading share in the total representation of Jews in Germany". Max Gruenewald, The Beginning of the "Reichsvertretung"', loc. cit. , p. 58. Hans Klee expressed himself rather more strongly: "It was a downright conspiracy against the communities". Op. cit. , p. 5.
53.) Herzefeld, op. cit. , p. 13. Herfeld conceded that Berlin's claim that it had been forced into supporting the Reichsvertretung was not without foundation. Ibid. , p. 22.
54.) See Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXV (14th September 1933). The Israelitisches Familienblatt , a newspaper with no particular ideological affiliation, opposed Berlin's claim to leadership.
55.) See Franz Meyer (in K. Y. Ball-Kaduri), The National Representation of Jews in GermanyΓÇôObstacles and Accomplishments at its Establishment', in Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance , II (1958), p. 169.
56.) Moritz Rosenthal of the liberals admitted as much. See Juedische Rundschau , XXXVIII (1st December 1933). Though Berlin claimed it had nothing to do with the Erneuerungsbewegung , it provided it with a forum by placing a community evening at its disposal. See Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXV (23rd November 1933).
57.) Kareski's story has been well told by Herbert S. Levine, A Jewish Collaborator in Nazi Germany: The Strange Career of Georg Kareski, 1933ΓÇô37', in Central European History , Vol. XIII, No. 3, September 1975, pp. 251ΓÇô281.
58.) See Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXIX (21st January 1937); Levine, loc. cit. , p. 273.
59.) Herzfeld, op. cit. , p. 36.
60.) See Israelitisches Familienblatt , XXXIX (17th June 1937); Juedische Rundschau , XXXXII (18th June 1937).
61.) See K. Y. Ball-Kaduri, Einige Bermerkungen zum Konflikt zwischen der Reichsvertretung und der Juedischen Gemeinde Berlin , 1944, in Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, p. 1.
62.) Quoted in Gruenewald, The Beginning of the "Reichsvertretung"', loc. cit. , p. 63.
63.) Herzfeld, op. cit. , pp. 37ΓÇô38; see also Juedische Rundschau , XXXXII (9th July 1937). Even so, this was not the end of Berlin's power-seeking. In 1939, Stahl submitted a ten-page broadside to the Nazi overseers of Jewish affairs in which he denounced the Reichsvertretung as a hotbed of political intrigue and do-nothing organisation, requesting that its mandate be transferred to Berlin. Soon thereafter, turning a deaf ear to Berlin's entreaties, the authorities supervised the creation of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deuschland , the ill-starred successor to the Reichsvertretung . K. J. Ball-Kaduri, Vor der Katastrophe. Juden in Deutschland 1934ΓÇô1939 , Tel-Aviv 1967, pp. 254ΓÇô256.
In 1939, as in 1937, Berlin did have a case, though it went to extreme lengths to prove it. Through no fault of its own, the Reichsvertretung never performed the very function for which it had been primarily brought into being: the representation of Jews before the authorities. Additionally, the Reichsvertretung was hamstrung because it was to a large extent dependent upon the financial contributions from the communities and upon funds from abroad. For example, in 1937 the Reichsvertretung spent a total of 3.8 million RM, with a deficit of 250,000 RM. Of this money, 2.5 million RM had come from abroad. See Juedische Rundschau , XXXXIII (14th January 1938). That same year, the Berlin budget was 14 million RM. C.V Zeitung , XVI (30th December 1937). A sizeable chunk of the Reichsvertretung budget came from the provincial associations, with Berlin and Prussia contributing the most. The Reichsvertretung , lamented the Juedische Rundschau of 10th August 1934, has remained a "general staff without an army", at the mercy of the large communities and provincial associations.
The Reichsvertretung's importance was its connection with the Zentralausschuss fuer Hilfe und Aufbau , the agency which dealt with such diverse programmes as emigration, vocational training, credit assistance, and Jewish schools. In April 1935, the Zentralausschuss was formally incorporated into the Reichsve . See Meyer, loc. cit. , p. 170; see also, G. Lubinsky, ibid. (see note 55), p. 173.
64.) According to Jakob Ball-Kaduri's brother, Fritz Ball, Kareski covered up deficits of the Iwriah Bank, of which he was the founder, by forcing a payment of 50,000 RM from the cashier of the Berlin Jewish community. Kareski apparently had a weakness for speculation; twice before he had been involved with banking institutions which had collapsed. K. Y. Ball-Kaduri, Einige Bemerkungen , p. 2.
65.) Benno Cohn, Soziologische Betrachtungen ueber die Fuehrung des deutschen Judentums vor und nach dem Jahre 1933 , 1944, in Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, p. 2.
66.) Herbert S. Levine suggests a possible additional motive for the Stahl/Kareski axis: Stahl may well have availed himself of Kareski's "talent for fixing things with the police'". Apparently Stahl had "some difficulty with the Gestapo because of his support of Social Democratic anti-Nazi efforts in 1932". Levine, loc. cit. , pp. 264ΓÇô265.
67.) See Meyer, loc. cit. , p. 170; Kurt Tuchler, Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen in den ersten vier Hitlerjahren , 1945, in Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, pp. 5ΓÇô6; Klee, op. cit. , p. 1. In November 1934, the Juedische Volkspartei changed its name to Juedischer Volksbund . We, however, shall continue to refer to it by its old name.
