6 - The Nazi Era (1933–1945)

Summary

AFTER THE SHOCK of the Nazi ascent to power had worn off, German Jews were forced to come to terms with their new status as second-class citizens. The majority response was to remain calm and wait for the inevitable fall of Hitler, a view shared by Weinberg. However, this was not enough for many Jews, who chose instead to leave Germany. This fuelled an exodus that continued until the outbreak of war. For those who remained, there was a whole range of new challenges, both political and religious, which had to be confronted.

It was noted in Chapter 5 that the newspaper of the Orthodox separatists, Der Israelit, stood out from other Jewish papers in its awareness that Hitler's accession to power was not something to be shrugged off lightly. However, this awareness did not lessen the separatists’ desire for a communal life independent of the Gemeinde. An antisemitic regime was certainly not going to cause them to give up their supreme value. Although they would co-operate with the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden when the legal and economic status as well as the honour of the German Jewish community were at stake, they would not give up their autonomy. Unlike the non-separatist Orthodox, they did not recognize the Reichsvertretung as the supreme communal authority.

It was precisely the separatists’ acute awareness of the seriousness of the situation, which became ever more apparent with the passage of time, that led their leaders to send an amazing letter to Hitler in October 1933. This letter, never previously published in full, has been described by Alexander Carlebach as ‘by and large a courageous and dignified document in spite of a certain amount of double-talk and apparent sycophancy which can be understood and judged only by those who have lived in the suffocating, nauseating atmosphere that pervaded Germany in the Nazi era’. In the letter the separatist leaders begin by stressing the Jewish commitment to anti-communism, the contributions that Jews have made to Germany, both through the Old and New Testaments and in World War I, and the fact that they are strong opponents of the world-wide boycott effort against Germany.

The letter then turns to the impossible economic situation in which governmental restrictions and popular prejudice have placed German Jews.