ocr: The appointment of a Jew, Walter Rathenau, as Minister of Foreign Affairs in Germany in 1922 illustrates the eminence which German Jewry attained in the Weimar period. At the same time, however, it even more emphatically exemplifies the crisis that beset the community. Rathenau, the highest ranking Jewish appointee in German history, was murdered by antisemitic assassins several months after his appointment.
