Source: W. Angress, "The German Jews, 1933 - 1939", in: M. Marrus, (ed.), The Nazi Holocaust , Westport & London, 1989, Vol. 2, pp. 484 - 497.
Whatever hopes the Jewish leadership still had for an acceptable accommodation with Hitler's regime were shattered in September 1935 with the passage of the Nuremberg racial laws. Yet even earlier, in the spring of that year, after Hitler had announced Germany's remilitarization, the provisions of the new defence act of May 1935 excluded Jews from active service. This made it clear to all perceptive observers that Jews were now officially regarded as barely tolerated second-class citizens. The Nuremberg Laws merely substantiated this new status through specific and humiliating definitions. The Nuremberg Laws signalled in legal terms what had been evident de facto since 1933: the end of Jewish emancipation in Germany.
This fact was not lost on the Jewish leaders, and they acted accordingly. Two days after the announcement of the racial laws, the chief organ of the Zionists, the Juedische Rundschau, demanded that immediate measures be taken to step up emigration, especially for the young generation. A week later the C.V Zeitung also suggested the establishment of systematic and co-ordinated plans for the emigration of Jewish youth. Thus, assimilationists and Zionists, whose traditional feuds had gradually abated after 1933, still implied in their respective statements that while the young no longer had a future in Germany, the older generation of Jews might be permitted to stay - though under highly restrictive and humiliating conditions - until natural attrition would solve the "Jewish Question" in Germany once and for all 26 .
Yet before long that hope, too, began to dissipate. Besides embarking on an intensified program of financial assistance for the growing number of impoverished Jews, of counselling, and of occupational training projects, the Reichsvertretung, with the assistance of the CV and the Zionist Federation, also accelerated the search for every available avenue of emigration. It had become apparent soon after passage of the Nuremberg Laws that the initial expectation of restricting emigration efforts mainly to the young generation was unrealistic. Toward the end of 1935, the Reichsvertretung prepared a program for mass emigration which, given the world-wide economic Depression and the widespread aversion of most countries to admit large numbers of Jewish refugees, proved to be extremely difficult 27 . We cannot dwell on the details of these efforts, important though they were. What concerns us here is that Jewish emigration was planned, co-ordinated with the Nazi authorities, and the necessary funding was secured by that educated segment of German Jews that in 1933 assumed the thorny task of organising what proved to be the liquidation of a Jewish presence in Germany, which had existed there for two thousand years. Their efforts enabled more than half of Germany's Jews-roughly two hundred and seventy thousand-to emigrate. Unfortunately, many of them merely went to neighbouring countries rather than overseas and were ultimately caught in the dragnet of Hitler's European-wide Final Solution.
We have so far been concerned with the response of the Jewish leaders to the most pressing practical needs their community faced after 1933. But besides dealing with such vital matters as emigration, occupational retraining, and welfare, they also recognised the importance of educational and cultural needs, two additional spheres within German society from which Jews were gradually but relentlessly excluded. But it was not merely necessity that gave rise to educational and cultural programs. A number of intellectuals, inspired largely by Martin Buber, saw the crisis the triumph of National Socialism had created for their community as a challenge. It provided an opportunity for the rediscovery of Jewish values and traditions and, with it, the age-old commitment to learning. With these considerations in mind, an intensive adult education program was launched in 1933, first in Buber's Lehrhaus in Frankfurt am Main, and subsequently - sponsored by the Reichsvertretung - in all cities with a sizeable Jewish population 28 . The curriculum varied widely and was by no means restricted to religious studies.
Philosophy, history, economics, music, and literature were taught by such prominent scholars as Franz Oppenheimer, Ernst Kantorowicz, Arnold Berney, and Hans Liebeschuetz. Thus various courses which Jews could no longer take at German universities were taught by Jewish academicians no longer allowed to teach at German universities. In addition to as well as within the context of traditional disciplines the courses did emphasise Jewish themes in an attempt to rekindle pride and self-respect among men and women who, because of their religion and alleged racial inferiority, were daily exposed to humiliations and slurs on the part of their neighbours and the media. The signal for this short-lived Jewish renaissance - it lasted until the end of 1938 - at a time when the ties with the beloved German homeland were irrevocably dissolving had been given on April 4, 1933, in response to the boycott, by Dr. Robert Weltsch, Editor-in-Chief of Juedische Rundschau. "Wear it with pride, the yellow spot!" read the headline of his editorial, which urged the Jews to affirm their Jewishness 29 .
In addition to the adult education program and, alter the fall of 1935, the rapid expansion of Jewish elementary and secondary schools to accommodate the mounting number of youngsters barred from attending regular state schools a separate cultural program was instituted in 1933 30 . As Jews were ousted from the stage, the film industry, the art academies, and the conservatories, and as Jewish audiences found it increasingly unpleasant, and eventually impossible, to attend theatres, concert halls, or opera houses frequented by the general public, the Jewish Kulturbund (literally, "cultural alliance") was founded 31 . At branches in all the larger cities Jewish actors, singers, and musicians performed for exclusively Jewish audiences until even this segregated cultural phase was terminated following Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," in November 1938 32 . Performances had to be confined to works of foreign or non-Aryan playwrights and composers, although non-popular works by German Aryans and those with specific Jewish themes, like Lessing's Nathan the Wise, were also permitted. The same held true for musical performances. Beethoven and Wagner were forbidden, Mahler and Mendelssohn were not. At a time of constant fear, uncertainty, and stress for most Jews, evenings at the Kulturbund with performances of high quality provided much more than entertainment. They also gave comfort, brief respite from the pressures outside, and pride in the achievement of Jewish artists.
Until June 1939, after most of the remaining Jewish organisations had been banned and after the Rei had been deprived of whatever independence it had still possessed by being renamed Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Association of Jews in Germany) and turned into a Gestapo-controlled organisation 33 , the men and women who then composed the Jewish leadership enjoyed a considerable degree of leeway in taking initiatives and making decisions. Faced by what they gradually realised was the last stage of German Jewry's existence as an identifiable entity, they worked unsparingly to turn this human catastrophe into a dignified and orderly process of dissolution. Their responsibilities were varied and heavy: they represented Jewish concerns to the German authorities; they planned and organised emigration; they assumed the burden of caring for the rapidly rising number of people reduced to poverty; they arranged for occupational retraining and both general and Jewish education for adults and children; and they created an ambitious and, until its termination, highly successful series of rich cultural programs.
Throughout the period, from 1933 until the summer of 1939, when the last remaining possibilities for independent action had been taken away during the months following Kristallnacht, the Jewish leadership was guided by two basic rules. The first pertained to the prevention of discord among the traditionally divisive Jewish factions so as to present a common front when dealing with government or Party officials. The second required the adoption of an unemotional, businesslike manner in all communications with either the Nazi authorities or the Jewish community, and in all contacts with the former a display of dignity and self-restraint. These rules were never spelled out in so many words, but they were quietly adhered to 34 . To be sure, the Jewish leadership had to make certain rather painful concessions when communicating with the ministries and Party offices of the Third Reich, because letters and memoranda had to be phrased in such a way as to make allowances for the peculiar Nazi mentality 35 . In a few instances, moreover, some leaders of Jewish organisations violated these rules, as has been shown earlier. One might add to these infractions the less than edifying hanky-panky that went on between some Zionist leaders and the Gestapo, involving attempts by the former to attain preferential treatment for those Jews who wanted to emigrate to Palestine 36 . Nor would it be amiss to mention the, still undetermined, number of rabbis who shortly after Hitler's "seizure of power" left their congregations and removed themselves, thanks to the benevolent assistance from rabbis abroad, with what is known in diplomatic parlance as "indecent haste" to new pulpits in Adelaide, Cincinnati, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, New York, and other places. Yet aside from these few examples, the men and women entrusted with the organisation of this difficult dissolution process handled their responsibilities with what in retrospect appears as a remarkable display of courage and discipline-attributes that the Nazis always liked to arrogate exclusively to themselves. And while many Jewish intellectuals who had served their dying community faithfully since 1933 joined the last and largest emigration wave between November 1938 and September 1939, a small but dedicated number of them who also might have saved themselves stayed on, literally to the bitter end, because they considered it their moral obligation to do so 37 . Was it Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative that inspired them to do so - and steeped as they were in German culture they knew their philosophers - or did they recall the words of the prophet Habakkuk:
I frill stand at my post, I will take up my position on the watch-tower, I will watch to learn what he will say through me, and what I shall reply when I am challenged. . . ? We shall never know.'
27.Hahn, in In zwei Welten , pp. 108ΓÇô9; Dunker, Reichsbund , pp. 159ΓÇô60; Margaret T. Edelheim-Muehsam, 'Die Haltung der juedischen Presse gegenueber der nationalsozialistischen Bedrohung,' in Deutsches Judentum , pp. 376ΓÇô77. For a tentative assessment of Jewish emigration patterns, including the role played by the Hitler regime, see Schleunes, The Twisted Road , pp. 169ΓÇô213. This topic is still in need of further investigation.
28.For this and the following see Ernst Simon, Aufbau im Untergang. Juedische Erwachsenenbildung im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland als geistiger Widerstand. Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts, 2 (Tuebingen, 1959), esp. pp. 1ΓÇô75; Richard Fuchs, 'The Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums' in the Period of Nazi Rule. Personal Recollection,' LBI Year Book XII (1967), pp. 3ΓÇô31.
30.Solomon Colodner, 'Jewish Education under National Socialism,' YVS , III (1975 [1959]), 161ΓÇô85; Hans Gaertner, 'Probleme der juedischen Schule waehrend der Hitlerjahre, unter besonderer Beruecksichtigung der Theodor-Herzl-Schule in Berlin,' in Deutsches Judentum , pp. 326ΓÇô52.
31.A thorough study of the Kulturbund deutscher Juden , later Juedischer Kulturbund , remains to be written. A good, succinct appraisal is Herbert Freeden, 'A Jewish Theatre under the Swastika,' LBI Year Book I (1956), pp. 142ΓÇô62. See also Elisabeth Flessen, 'Nathan der Weise im Staate der Nazis,' Die Zeit , October 14, 1977; and Erwin Lichtenstein, 'Der Kulturbund der Juden in Danzig 1933ΓÇô1938,' Zeitschrift fuer die Geschichte der Juden , X (1973), 181ΓÇô90.
32.On Kristallnacht , see Lionel Kochan, Pogrom. November 10, 1938 (London, 1957); Erich Lueth, 'Die Reichskristallnacht,' in Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, ed., Die Reichskristallnacht. Der Antisemitismus in der deutschen Geschichte (Bonn, 1959), pp. 9ΓÇô18; Ball-Kaduri, 'The Central Jewish Organisations in Berlin During the Pogrom of November 1938 (Kristallnacht'),' YVS , III (1975 [1959]), 261ΓÇô81; Genschel, Die Verdraengung , pp. 177ΓÇô86; Hermann Graml, Der 9. November 1938 , 'Reichskristallnacht' (Bonn, 1953); Wolfgang Scheffler, Judenverfolgung im Dritten Reich . Zur Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 4 (Berlin, 1964), pp. 29ΓÇô32.
33.Adam, Judenpolitik , pp. 230ΓÇô31; Fabin, in Gegenwart im Rueckblick , pp. 165ΓÇô79; Ball-Kaduri, 'Von der Reichsvertretung' zur Reichsvereinigung',' Zeitschrift fuer die Geschichte der Juden , I (1964), 191ΓÇô99; Shaul Esh, 'The Establishment of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland' and its Main Activities,' YVS , VII (1968), 19ΓÇô38.
34.Gruenewald, in Deutsches Judentum , pp. 320ΓÇô21, 324ΓÇô25.
35.Gruenewald, ibid., p. 320; Brodnitz, in In zwei Welten , p. 108.
36.The crassest case is that of Georg Kareski. See Herbert S. Levine, 'A Jewish Collaborator in Nazi Germany: The Strange Career of Georg Kareski, 1933ΓÇô1937,' Central European History , VIII (1975), 251ΓÇô81. For evidof preferential treatment of Zionists by the Nazi authorities, see Mommsen, 'Polizeistaat,' Vierteljahreshefte , esp. Documents No. 2, 5, 8, and9.
