5 - Response to the New Nazi Government (1933–1934)

Summary

THE MOST SIGNIFICANT YEAR in recent German history, 1933, began under a cloud. The government was in turmoil and the new chancellor, Kurt von Schleicher, was having no success in achieving parliamentary support. The National Socialists had won a third of the seats in the Reichstag elections of November 1932, and refused to take part in any government unless Hitler was given the chancellorship. At the end of January, Schleicher was forced to resign, like the previous chancellor, Franz von Papen. It was then that President Paul von Hindenburg invited Adolf Hitler to form a government. On 30 January Hitler took the oath of office and soon afterwards persuaded Hindenberg to order new elections for the Reichstag. These took place on 5 March, with the National Socialists receiving nearly 44 per cent of the vote. Chancellor Hitler was now firmly in power.

CONTROVERSY: WEINBERG AND THE NAZIS

Ever since Hitler's assumption of power in January, the world Jewish community had been expressing grave concern over the future of German Jewry. This was not shared by Weinberg, who had a very hopeful and, even for March 1933, naive view of the new government. In mid-March he travelled to Mukachevo (Munkács), Czechoslovakia, where he had been invited by his good friend and ideological opponent, Rabbi Hayim Eleazar Shapira (1872–1937), to attend his daughter's wedding. While there, Weinberg gave an interview to the local Jewish paper, Di Yidishe Tsaytung, about the situation in Germany. In this interview he played down the antisemitic nature of the new regime, denied that Jewish political rights or livelihoods were at risk, and expressed optimism for the Jewish future in Germany, a country based on the rule of law.

A few days later, on his way back to Berlin, Weinberg stopped in Vienna where he gave another interview, this time to the Vienna Orthodox weekly Die Judische Presse. Here he reaffirmed and expanded upon his optimistic view that the Jews had nothing to fear from the Nazis. He also claimed that individuals and governments outside Germany were sharply exaggerating the extent of antisemitic incidents in order to further their own political interests. He claimed that any actions by foreign governments on behalf of Germany's Jews were being taken against the wishes of the German Jews themselves.