Histoire Des Juifs En Allemagne
The history of Jews in Germany is emblematic of the history of Jews in Western Europe between anti-Judaism , integration related to the universalism of the Enlightenment and anti-Semitism today.
Check-in regions Rhine in the time of the Roman Empire , the Jewish community flourished until the late eleventh century. From the first Crusade , it traverses a long period of turmoil punctuated by massacres, of accusations of ritual murders , extortion and various expulsions. Its legal status is deteriorating. Most trades are forbidden to Jews. In the eighteenth century, philosophers of the Enlightenment, with Moses Mendelssohn , roused from their miserable condition. But the road to their emancipation is long and hard for nearly a century. It is accompanied by the integration of Jews in society. Assimilation allows economic success and intellectual arouses jealousy in some quarters. The coming to power of Hitler in 1933 put the Jews to the margins of German society. Persecution succeeds deportation and annihilation during the Second World War. After the war, the Jewish community is rebuilding slowly. The federal government around the Jewish community all his care.
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Jews arrived in the time of the Roman Empire in the provinces of Germania Inferior and Superior , which they identify with the land of Ashkenaz , hence the name of Ashkenazim. They come from Gaul or Italy. They include some Jewish merchants from Palestine. There are also converted from across the Empire, a Jewish proselytism assets existing at that time. Large populations of Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, North Africa or even Germany have embraced the faith of Moses . Heinrich Graetz believed that Jews were present in Germany long before the Christians . The Germanic invasions did not change their living conditions. In the early Middle Ages , Jewish communities are mainly located in the Rhine basin, mainly in Worms , Speyer and Mainz , but also in Regensburg , Frankfurt , Passau ... At that time, they live mainly on trade. Jewish merchants traded with the Orient and with the neighboring Slavic countries. They have great autonomy . The communities develop until the late eleventh century through the tolerance of sovereign Merovingian and Carolingian. In the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries, many French Jews found refuge in Germany. German Jews speak a Germanic dialect close to the Alsatian , the Yiddish , which became that of all the Jews of Central Europe.
The Carolingians to the First Crusade
In the Carolingian Empire , the Jews are like everyone else pay the tithe on the goods. Jewish merchants, the Radhanites , provide the essential relationships between Western Christianity and Islam. Isaac the Jew even became ambassador of Charlemagne to the caliph Harun al-Rashid in 797. The Carolingians protect Jewish communities. They are exempt from military service as opposed to free men of the Empire. As the Church forbids usury, the Jews eventually monopolize this business. Under the Carolingians to the end of the eleventh century, Jewish merchants exporting to the Italy , the Spanish slaves, furs, weapons and import in the Empire spices, balms, dates, precious metals. They contribute to the valleys of the Rhine and upper Danube axis movement key. The contacts between the communities of the Frankish Empire and that of Spain or North Africa are numerous, either commercially or in terms of religious correspondence . Under Louis the Pious , three charters are granted, but they are certainly individuals and at their request. They guarantee to protect their Jewish lives and property, freedom to trade and religious freedom (liceat eis secundum legem vivere illorum "it was granted to live under their own law") . The Jews are under the direct protection of the emperor and his men are. If a Jew is killed, the murderer must pay the enormous fine of ten pounds of gold is twice what it should pay if he killed a Christian knight. The money goes directly into the treasury of the emperor . One officer, Judenmeister, is appointed to defend their privileges . Henry III threat in the middle of the eleventh century in the loss of eye and right hand person who kills a Jew . The Carolingians even promote their implementation. Some lay lords and church do the same . In 1084, Rdiger , bishop of Speyer , invited Jews to settle in his city "a thousand times to increase the honor of our city," he says. It gives them a whole series of rights known as the privilege of Rdiger . It gives them a separate district from which they can stand guard on their walls "that they are not bothered by the crowd." The Jewish quarter , near the Rhine is surrounded by a wall and includes a cemetery and a synagogue. The Jews have their own police district, the right to hire Christian servants and sell meat kosher to non-Jews. They can bring in foreign Jews. Their mayor is equal to that of Spire. These privileges are confirmed by the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1090 which extends to Worms. The charter is renewed in Worms in 1157 by Frederick I Barbarossa , which also grants a charter to the city of Regensburg in 1182 . In the eleventh century, the institution appears in rabbinic communities Rhine. It is based on the rule of the rabbi, spiritual leader of the community, or even an entire region. Some centers Rhine, Speyer , Worms synagogue which has a Byzantine style built in 1034 , Mainz , give the Western Judaism a reputation of knowledge and piety, like the French centers. Thanks to them, the Talmud is a work primarily Western .
One may wonder why the Jews have an unusual religious tolerance at the time. Jews are seen as witnesses to the passion of Christ , curators of the old law, and as people called to conversion to approach the end of time , . In the tenth century, the Holy Week , which begins to be subjected to religious celebrations, became a period of harassment or persecution of the Jews .
Rabbeinu Gershom , Meor nicknamed HaGolah (Lighting of exile), born in 960 in Metz , died in Mainz in 1028 , gathered around him many pupils. It deepens the study of Talmud and Torah inspired by methods of Talmudic academies of Babylon. It introduces the prohibition of polygamy , the prohibition for a man to divorce without the consent of his wife, and the prohibition of taunts against Jews forcibly converted and then returning to their faith. His fame extends throughout the medieval Jewish world .
The Crusades to the Reformation
Time of Massacres
During the first crusades , following rumors that the Saracens would be taken to holy sites with the help of the Jews, massacres of Jewish people in Germany are numerous, mainly in the Rhine valley. Present for centuries, Jews and foreigners suddenly become murderers of Christ should be punished before issuing the holy places . Communities were massacred along the path of the crusaders in the Rhine at Speyer, Mainz, Worms , Regensburg , especially vulnerable to the sword they felt unlikely warnings from the Jewish communities in France. In Mainz, eleven hundred Jews are killed in one day, the synagogue and other community buildings are destroyed. If the community of Regensburg offers the unusual spectacle of a group swimming in the Rhine (in the Danube, Regensburg is because on this river?) To escape death, the most common reaction is the opposite of choice for sanctify the divine name. These shows of mass suicides, mothers killing their children and husbands their wives, a profound Christian imagination, leading to the accusation of ritual murder against Jews. Perhaps twelve thousand Jews have died in 1096 . Sometimes bishops protect the community from the city . The Pope condemned the violence, often the work of the dregs of society, but that the perpetrators of massacres are never disturbed, except for an agitator killed by the bishop of the city in person. In 1097 , Jews forcibly converted are authorized by the Emperor Henry IV to return to their faith , and some of their belongings were returned, with a large ransom.
The killings begin again in 1146 , during the Second Crusade at the instigation of a former Cistercian monk. But thanks to the energetic intervention of Bernard of Clairvaux , persecution and do not stop the size of those of the first crusade. Recognition of the Jewish community to Bernard of Clairvaux is immense . Then comes the time for accusations of ritual murder. In Germany as throughout Western Europe, Jews were accused of killing children during Passover to collect their blood. At Pforzheim , Wissembourg and Oberwesel , the same accusations again. In 1270 , the Judenbreter devastate communities of Alsace. In 1285 , the Jewish community in Munich is accused of ritual murder: one hundred and four to twenty Jewish men, women and children are locked into the synagogue and burned alive in it . There are 941 victims of the massacre of Wurzburg in 1298. The same year, the knight Rindfleisch ravaged communities Franconia . In the only city of Rothenburg , there were 470 victims. From 1336 to 1339 , bands of poor peasants, Judenschlger (killer of Jews), a reign of terror of Alsace in Swabia.
The Black Death that ravaged Europe from 1349 is that new charges, those of poisoning wells to spread the disease, and new massacres. The mayor of Strasbourg refuses to believe the rumors and stated its intention to protect the Jews of the city. He was immediately dismissed from his post and 16 February 1349 , over nine hundred Jews die on a pyre . Jewish property are then looted and distributed among the citizens of the city, the bishop and the municipality. The latter guarantees impunity to its citizens who participated in the massacres . The Jews of Worms are the next victims and not less than four hundred of them were burned alive on March 1, 1349. On July 24 , the Jews of Frankfurt prefer to immolate holocaust , by fire destroying part of the city. The largest number of casualties is recorded Magenza (Mainz), where over six hundred Jews perished on 22 August 1349. In this city, for the first time, Jews defended themselves and killed over two hundred rioters, but at the number of attackers and their unequal struggle, they barricaded themselves in their homes and, faced with the choice of starvation or be baptized, set fire to their homes and perished in the flames. Two days later, it was the turn of the Jews of Cologne and the same month, the three thousand Jewish inhabitants of Erfurt are victims of popular superstition and hatred.
The last months of 1349 saw the attack of the Jews of Nuremberg , and Hannover. After the return to calm, the leaders of the Germanic principalities and cities should determine the punishment to be imposed on murderers of Jews. The emperor, however, imposes a huge fine of twenty thousand marks in money to the people of Frankfurt for the loss he suffered because of the massacre of Jews. Other fines are imposed by the officers of the imperial treasury. The main penalty comes from an imperial law that gives a legacy to the emperor all the debts owed to Jews, so that debtors often cause problems, have won very few of these murders.
In 1510 , forty Jews were burned alive in the Mark Brandenburg. To keep the memory of martyrs in different cities and regions, some communities write Memorbuch. They can recall the names of martyrs on the day of Yom Kippur and very often on the anniversary of the massacres of the First Crusade. The trauma caused by the killing of eleventh and twelfth centuries is one of the reasons that cause the Jews the awareness of being a nation in exile longing for his country of origin . Pethahiah Regensburg written a Directions in Hebrew allowing the diaspora to know the Holy Land.
On the religious level, the change of attitude towards the Jews, can be explained by expectations Doomsday. We must hasten the return of Christ by converting the largest number of Jews to Christianity. The papacy who thinks that Jews are "slaves of the Church" does not preclude the alteration of the status of Jews in the Empire .
Communities
Intellectual and Artistic Activities
Despite persecution, Jewish scholars continue to comment on the Bible and Talmud. A new movement, Hassidei Ashkenaz (the "pious men of Germany"), experts in both Tosafot in Kabbalah , deliver an education that will influence the Jews across the Pyrenees. The rabbis write hymns and liturgical lamentations contained partly in the Ashkenazi prayer books. In the twelfth century, Rabbi Samuel ben Kalonymos offers occult doctrine characterized by stringent legal requirements and the importance it gives to the preparation of sacrifice for the faith . In the thirteenth century, his son Rabbi Judah is distinguished by liturgical compositions and the Sefer ha-Hasidim, the Book of devotees. Same period of the great plague does not end their intellectual activities. It's even in the middle of the fourteenth century that the post of rabbi is reserved for those who have studied and can produce written permission from their school. Mollin Jacob and Isaac Tyrnau definitively determine the ritual of the synagogues in Germany . It is in Germany show delivery Mahzorim , liturgical books containing prayers and liturgical pieces of fixed and mobile feasts of the year. Between the late thirteenth century and early fourteenth century , they are decorated with illuminations representing human beings with heads of birds or animals, to avoid representations of natural rights. The Mahzor Worms is particularly famous . The Mahzorim also contain Kinoti ( elegies ) which tell the persecution .
The workshops also produce beautiful Jewish illuminated manuscripts. The illumination of German cities is characterized by varied themes and iconography of great originality: many hybrid creatures, monsters, legends, lines drawn in safe enhanced with bold colors. In the early fourteenth century, two non-figurative decoration techniques are common: the micrograph , lower case whose lines are the contours of the grounds, and filigree ornament drawn in pen, ink color. The art of illumination stops abruptly in 1348 , when the Black Death and persecution arising therefrom. In the fifteenth century, it still produces Haggadot small size, whose margins are motivated by a biblical scenes enriched legendary elements .
The organization of communities
The community or kahal meets three needs:
- The religious needs. The community therefore establishes a synagogue , a cemetery , the ritual baths and a court that decides both issues of personal status as civil and criminal proceedings. The presiding judge is usually the rabbi. He receives a salary and the cantor or the beadle.
- The aid to the needy through charitable funds and soup kitchens. In large communities, Jews have a hospice and a hospital. All these institutions are financed by taxes and by community donations will.
- Defense and security of life and property. The community leaders are negotiating with the authority on which they depend, emperor, prince or bishop, a sum they take on the entire community. In many cities, the Jews must undertake to defend the city against its enemies .
Voluntary associations, known to havarot, play an important role in community life. They are dedicated to Jewish education, education of poor children, the needy. The most active is the Chevra Kaddish which handles funerals. The dispersal of communities in the Holy Roman Empire makes it difficult to organize a central authority .
The synagogue is usually built in the heart of the Jewish quarter. The Church and the local government generally impose restrictions that limit its size. In the Ashkenazi world, they obey the rules Romanesque or Gothic. But as the prayer rooms are usually tiny and narrow, as in Worms, with its plan with two naves with two central pillars , and Regensburg, it is difficult to confuse with the majestic Christian churches . Gothic synagogue has a long room divided into three pillars supporting the roof. The desk occupies the central place. It was destroyed after the expulsion of Jews from the city .
The deteriorating status of Jews
In 1095 , the ban on Jews to bear arms, traditional attribute of a free man, is announcing the end of peaceful coexistence between Jews and Christians . From the twelfth century, the condition of German Jews also degrades the legal. They are considered the descendants of prisoners which Titus had given the imperial treasury, they become the serfs of the Imperial House. The emperor requires of them a right to special protection, then a poll of a penny per head of gold, in memory of former judaicus fiscus. In 1215 , the Fourth Lateran Council ordered them to carry with them the marks of difference: a hat especially sharp tip . Accusations of ritual murder, of desecration of hosts increase. In July 1236 , Emperor Frederick II , who welcomed to his court in Palermo Jews and Muslims call a meeting of Jews converted to Christianity about ritual murders. They say there is no such thing in Judaism. Frederick then publicly dismissed the accusations of ritual murder . But such behavior is not typical. The legal position of German Jews continues to deteriorate. In 1267 , the Synod of Breslau requires all Jews to live in areas reserved for separating Christians. The isolation of Jews is increasing . From de1349, after the Black Death , the doors of ghettos are closed every night . In 1463 , the emperor says he may dispose of the Jews, body and soul, in complete freedom.
The economic conditions of the Jews are changing too. Jews away from agriculture, both under the constraint that to regroup and form organized communities, particularly for worship and schools. The Jews who had privileged places in the Mediterranean trade lose their position when the big Italian or German trade develops. Their status as non-Christian hunt also ends by the Internal Trade. They also end up losing their function of financial institutions with emperors and noblemen. They must also leave the craft that had made their reputation in the German cities . Do they still have more than the pawn and loan risk to the poor, unpopular activity that gives them the reputation as a usurer and exploiter.
The Jews then living increasingly withdrawn into themselves. They fear leaving the ghetto for fear of being molested. Their isolation promotes the birth of Yiddish. The linguistic evolution of German Jews is now different from the rest of the country. The Yiddish incorporates Hebrew words and gradually becomes difficult to understand for non-Jews .
Each imperial accession, Jews are routinely stripped of their property. Under Rudolph of Habsburg , the Jews began to leave the Holy Roman Empire. For fear of losing an important source of revenue, the authorities arrested the chief rabbi, Meir of Rothenburg. From 1355 , the princes seized a portion of the imperial prerogatives and may gradually have full ownership of the Jews. This permission was extended to several free cities. Many Jews emigrated from Germany in Poland booming. Boleslaw the Chaste in 1264 and Casimir the Great in 1344 granted them land and a favorable status. They keep the Yiddish as the language of .
The time for evictions
At the end of the fourteenth century, economic jealousy, the need for money from the princes and cities are key drivers of persecution. Initially, cities and princes, who need the income of Jews, invited them to return in exchange for full protection , but once they have regained some of their prosperity, expulsion and dispossession of the Jews multiplied: Ulm in 1380 , Magdeburg in 1384 and Strasbourg in 1388 , Speyer in 1434 , Augsburg in 1410 , in the archbishopric of Mainz in 1420 , in Saxony in 1432 , in Bavaria between 1450 and 1555 , to Wurzburg in 1453 in Nuremberg in 1499 , Regensburg in 1519 . At the end of the fourteenth century, the Emperor Wenceslas even cancels the debts that he himself and the German princes had contracted against Jews. The Jews, driven out of cities in the country fold. So many Jews live in villages. In Wrttemberg , 90% of Jews live together. In the eastern territories as a href = "% C3% Grand-duch A9_de_Posen" alt = "Grand Duchy of Posen"> Poznan, the Jews took refuge in small towns The consequences of the Reformation on German Jews The development of printing in Europe contributes to the propaganda of anti-Jewish stereotypes. The Lutheran Reformation , at first, do not change much about the condition of the Jews. At first, Luther criticizes the Catholic Church to persecute Jews. He hopes to actually convert. But before his failure, he advised the princes to expel them. Luther published in 1543 a pamphlet Von den Juden und ihren Lgen , which incorporates not only the medieval slander, but openly calls for violence against Jews and burn their synagogues . The Wrttemberg in 1551 , the Brandenburg in 1573 , and the Brunswick in 1590 drove the Jews from their territory. At the end of the sixteenth century, there, in Germany, three major communities: Frth , Worms , where fourteen thousand Jews live, and Frankfurt am Main . Charles V , who granted protection to Jews from its inception, has beautiful confirmation of their rights in 1544 and prohibit the expulsion of the Holy Roman Empire, nothing was done because the situation of Jews has depended too long on the German princes and cities . In fact, the theological position of Reformed Christians is the same as that of the Catholics: they think the Jews are rejected by God because they refused to believe in Jesus as Messiah . However, as transubstantiation , which asserts the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist , is rejected by Protestants, accusations of ritual murder and desecration of the host gradually disappear in the European Protestant world . The reform also involves the coexistence of multiple religions in Germany. Unlike religious Jews seems less scandalous. Thus the civil authorities of Hamburg , who want to expel Jews from the city, are opposing from 1621 negative opinions of the Protestant theological faculties of Jena and Frankfurt / Oder . The Treaty of Westphalia , which confirm the religious diversity at the end of the Thirty Years War , began to return to the Jews in Europe. From the seventeenth century, Lutheranism grants Jews the right to live among Christians, under certain conditions: no public worship, and acceptance of a loss of social status. Jews were readmitted to the Brandenburg to 1670. In 1714 , King of Prussia even attending the inauguration of the synagogue Street Heudereuter. It looks like a temple and serves as a model for other structures . However, when Prussia conquered Silesia , the Pomerellia and Posen , in addition to the predominantly Polish, it integrates its territory a large Jewish population spoke Yiddish. As a result, she understands and speaks German quickly. It can thus be used as feedstock in the villages between the administration and the Prussian Polish population. This facilitates the tolerance of the Prussian government. Frederick II also proclaimed in his State of religious tolerance, but in the charter of 1750 on the Jews, it does not grant them civil rights. It restricts their right to marry because he wants to limit their number. He divided the Jews into six classes. Only the first class has the same rights as other Prussian subjects. It includes a few wealthy families of court Jews, bankers or jewelers. In 1763 , Frederick II forced the Jews of the fourth to sixth class to buy a quantity of porcelain royal factories. This tax is known as the "porcelain of the Jews." It is effective at weddings, relocations, awards of shares of residence, travel, or to store openings. In twelve years the Jews spent 900 000 thalers to buy Prussian porcelain . Moses Mendelssohn is in sixth grade. Thanks to his fame, he became the third class of Prussian Jews in 1763 and obtained the right to marry . The eviction of Jews from most jobs leads to impoverishment of the latter. In the eighteenth century, a large proportion of them live in poverty. They rather live wrong than right of hawking and flea market, small livestock trade, wheat and wine . They continue to speak Yiddish ma'arav (Western Yiddish) language increasingly distant from the then German . Poverty and ignorance of the Jews, who form a tightly folded in on itself is the source of many anti-Semitic pamphlets. The predominance of non-sedentary occupations gives rise to the myth of the Wandering Jew who grows from 1600 . However in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mercantilism and absolutism can climb a small elite that represents about 2% of the country's Jews . The court Jews hold important positions in administration and finance, as the Rothschilds in Frankfurt. Joseph Sss Oppenheimer , better known by the name of Jew Sss , becomes the symbol of the Jews by their financial influence political . At the same time, this minority of Jews are rich, for advocates of Jewish emancipation, the evidence that they can work and adapt to German society. At the end of the seventeenth century began the modern era of Jewish history with the development of capitalism and rationalism. In the eighteenth century, the German Enlightenment pose the problem of the Jewish question , that is to say the Emancipation of the West. The Jews of the Holy Roman Empire manifested throughout the century, a trend towards modernization, that is to say timid opening to the language and German culture, science "profane." The Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, began around 1780. The main figure is Moses Mendelssohn. His experience and intellect allow him to successfully counter an attempted conversion into a public debate that pitted him against the Swiss theologian Johann Kaspar Lavater. The bureaucrat Protestant Christian Wilhelm von Dohm , representative type of the Enlightenment , wrote Ueber die Verbesserung der Juden Buergerliches, at his request . Dohm explains in his book that the "depravity" of the Jews is due to the oppressive laws they suffer, not the nature of the Jews themselves. By abolishing these laws and in encouraging them to adopt Western culture, Jews will become loyal and grateful citizens . His trial will influence many philosophers of the Enlightenment. In 1783 , Mendelssohn wrote Jerusalem, religious or Power and Judaism. He states that Judaism is quite compatible with life in Germany because he does not creed theological-philosophical like Christianity, has not the exclusive hello. He explained that for the Jew, the commandments of God are absolutely intangible nature even if it means choosing between compliance and empowerment . Mendelssohn think religion ethno-centric Jewish and using specific language are barriers to their integration. He encouraged Jews to abandon Yiddish and learn the German language and the Hebrew Bible , language as well appreciated by the Jews by Christians . It strives to develop a taste for modern science. It seeks to reconcile the religious traditions of Judaism with the European society of the Enlightenment. In 1779 , he translated into German the Torah , for the use of Jews. The Enlightenment led some Jews like David Friedlnder to "examine more closely the Mosaic law in its spirit and its goals, and adapt to the times and customs, climate and contemporary forms of government" of Germany . This is the beginning of Reform Judaism. The journal Meassef, written by and for Maskilim the Jews of the Haskalah followers, is the organ of expression of a school of Jewish scholars and writers . Newspapers in Hebrew and Yiddish are also created. There are romantic dramas aimed to convey new ideologies. Germany becomes the center of the Jewish press for a century and a half. In the Holy Roman Empire, the edict of toleration of 1781 accords to Jews as the other religions the freedom of religion . The Leibzoll is abolished in Prussia in 1787. In 1791 , the French Revolution emancipated Jews. Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars put the German territories under French influence. In 1798 , the Executive attaches to the Jews of the left bank of the Rhine complete emancipation. Various measures, modeled on the French example allows an improvement of the Jewish condition, by the abolition of ghettos and others. However in 1808 , by the " infamous decree " Napoleon restricts commercial freedom and professional Jews and freedom of residence for the departments located in the east of the French Empire. If the decree is abolished in France under the Restoration , The States of the left bank of the Rhine on leave in place . The introduction of the Code Napoleon in Germany leads to the legal equality of Jews. There are voices in favor of resolving the Jewish question by integration: Johannes von Mller, a Swiss historian appointed by Napoleon Minister-Secretary of State Kassel and Christian Wilhelm von Dohm. Under their leadership, was promulgated in January 1808 a decree proclaiming the full equality of civil and civic Jews of Westphalia . All limitations on marriage, education, inheritance is abolished. This reform from above considerable debate in Germany and serves as a model to improve the Jewish condition in Baden , and especially in Prussia with the "Edict concerning the conditions of civilian Jews in the kingdom of Prussia" of 11 March 1812. But the Jews are not entitled to civilian jobs in government and the law is limited to four provinces that made Prussia in 1812 : Brandenburg, Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia. Jews acquisitions Prussian 1815 do not benefit from the Edict of 1812 . Where civil equality is established, the Jews committed in the armed forces. They participate in the war of liberation against Napoleon. 731 Jews, including more than 500 volunteers, fought in the Prussian army. Twenty-three officers were promoted, among them the youngest son of Moses Mendelssohn, Nathan Mendelssohn . The collapse of the First Empire involves the backflow of reformists in the German states. In 1815 , the Congress of Vienna plans to eventually give "rights of citizens to the followers of the Jewish faith who, in return, will assume the duties of all citizens." Only the states of Saxony-Weimar , Hesse-Cassel and Wrttemberg emancipate their Jews. In the southern states, the emancipation process is stopped . Moreover, improvement of the status of Jews provokes hostile and violent reactions among the population as in 1819. This anti-Semitic reaction begins in Wurzburg and Frankfurt and spread throughout Germany. Throughout Germany, Jews were arrested for shouting " Hep Hep , Jud verreck "(" Hop, hop, die Jew ") and beaten, looted their neighborhoods . In 1822 , a part of the Statute of 1812 was abolished in Prussia, Jews can no longer claim to public employment, except to convert. Between 1810 and 1820 , a group of young Jewish intellectuals in Berlin wants to promote the integration of Jews into German society but also record the fact in Jewish modernity . Their meetings will be born of Judentums Wissenschaft , that is to say, the Science of Judaism. They publish a manifesto in 1822 where they argue that the anti-Semitic campaigns are another time. They feel they have already traveled a path that has radically changed their approach to the world, taking them out of traditional authority community. They think solved through scientific research, the question of their identity within German society . The study of the Torah or the Talmud is beyond the scope of religion. These books are designed for themselves and not in the exercise of religious faith. This is an important break with previous practice . From the years 1840 , liberal ideas spread in Germany. More and more voices are calling for equal rights for Jews. In 1843 , equality is established throughout the kingdom of Prussia in regard to military conscription. But the conscripts are often victims of anti-Semitic prejudice. In 1847 , still in Prussia, Jews have the right to access to public employment unless they can give orders to the Christian subjects . Compared to other countries of Europe , Germany is regarded in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, as the state where Jews are better integrated. Of pogroms taking place in Russia. The Dreyfus affair divides France. It unleashed anti-Semitic press. Until 1900 , the United Kingdom strictly limits the entry of Jews on its territory . Until the nineteenth century, population growth of the Jewish population is less vigorous than the rest of Germany because of the numerous decrees designed to contain its rise. In 1852 , an estimated 62,000 the number of Jews in Prussia, the nucleus of the future Reich. The Jews are absent from some parts of Germany because of the taboos that have long affected in some regions or cities. The social and economic integration of the Jews goes hand in hand with empowerment. The proletarians German Jews disappear almost completely. The level of Jewish life becomes much higher than the overall German population. In 1815 , only 25% of Jews are in the average bourgeois. They are 50% in 1848 and 80% in 1868 . In the late nineteenth century, half the Jewish population worked in the trade. There are many cattle merchants, wine, wheat and many shopkeepers. The share of intellectual and professional circles (teachers, doctors, lawyers) is also relatively large. This can be explained, first by Jewish tradition to discuss and analyze the law that prepares students for legal or intellectual, partly by the desire to work independently without having to rely on the kindness of an employer . By cons there are no rich peasants and very few workers. In industry, many Jews are in possession of SMEs in the electrical machinery, chemicals, nonferrous metals and textiles. The biggest industrial success is Jewish of AEG , the third world electrical company in 1913. In the early twentieth century, Jews have 6-7% of the assets of the Reich, represent 25% of members of boards of directors and 14% of large companies . The Jewish elite so between walk-in the German bourgeoisie. It fully integrates the intellectual values of German culture. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote itself: "Wherever the Jews have gained influence, they were taught to distinguish more subtly, to conclude with more rigor, to write more clarity and sharpness: their task was always to bring people to reason. " Around the Kaiser , there are Jews, great scientists, industrialists as the shipowner or Ballin Walther Rathenau. Empowerment as a corollary the late light districts. The citizens appreciate the pictures they hang on Jewish themes in their interiors. In the nineteenth century, artists and intellectuals, Jews distinguished themselves in various fields. Their contribution is so great that in 1912 , the young journalist Moritz Goldstein wrote in an article: "We administer the intellectual wealth of a country that we had denied all rights and ability to do so . It should however be said that this remark, which only reinforces the anti-Semitic theories of the time, do not match the reality of science and culture in Germany, most intellectuals are non-Jews . Moreover, the intellectual elite of central Europe use German as the language use and turn to the Reich to publicize their work. This is the case of Karl Emil Franzos , born in Galicia , author of numerous stories in which Jews are portrayed as positive traits, of Franz Kafka who is publishing his books in Leipzig or Berlin , the Viennese Joseph Roth, who continues his career Berlin, the philosopher and theologian Martin Buber who founded a publishing house in Berlin, Vienna or even the Marxist Rudolf Hilferding becomes German Minister of Economy, under the Weimar Republic . 
Towards Emancipation
miserable conditions
Tolerance towards Jews is based on a belief in their future conversion promised by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. A missionary effort is made to obtain their conversion . The Jews are crushed by oppressive regulations and taxes varied. In Frankfurt, the number of Jewish marriages is limited to fifteen per year to prevent the Jewish population of the town grew too fast . Everything is good for the Jews to pay a toll body, the Leibzoll ; the payment of the escort of a police officer or a safe-conduct, the Geleitzoll to travel or stay in certain places. The Enlightenment and the birth of the Jewish question
The French Revolution and the German Jews
The integration of Jews into German society
Emancipation
The revolutions of 1848 proclaimed the equality of Jews. The Frankfurt Parliament has elected even seven Jews. But the failure of the Spring of Nations (the name given to the revolutionary movements of 1848, which ignited Europe) marks a reversal for a large number of states . However, this revolutionary year allows Jews to get involved more in politics alongside liberal parties . In late 1860 , the liberal movement regain its influence and results in a progressive generalization of the lifting of all legal restrictions. Prussia, very reluctant, eventually granting emancipation as part of the North German Confederation. The Act of 3 July 1869 no longer admits of differences of treatment between Jews and Christians . But as Bismarck chancellor remains, no Jew acquires major position in foreign affairs, army and state administration of Prussia. This practice continued during the reign of William II . The social and economic integration
Demographic and socio-economic
With emancipation, the Jewish population growth is higher than non-Jews. Jews migrated en masse to large commercial cities: Hamburg, Cologne and Leipzig. Moreover, in areas with long maintained stringent measures against Jews, the Jewish population decreases . In 1910 , the Jewish community has about 610,000 members . Urbanization and emancipation accompanied by the secularization of Jewish populations and the abandonment of Yiddish in favor of German . Religion, Arts and Ideas
. The majority of German Jews chose to join the Reform Judaism.
Meanwhile, the modern Orthodox Judaism, strong minority, was founded by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Azriel Hildesheimer. They advocate a cautious acceptance of the achievements of modernity, but reject any changes, major or minor, tradition. Azriel Hildesheimer, born in Halberstadt in 1820 , is the model traditionalist scholars. After studying at Jewish schools, he entered the University of Berlin where he studied oriental languages, philosophy, history, mathematics. He designed a curriculum for rabbis and pious laity, in the rabbinical seminary in Berlin, he created and directed in 1873. He thinks that Orthodoxy is compatible with a scientific study of Jewish sources . This school trains many rabbis across Europe. In Eastern Europe, Rabbi Moshe Sofer , a leader of Orthodox Judaism at the time, corresponding to the movement Haredi present, rejects outright the intellectual approach of the Enlightenment . Orthodox rabbis, modern or not, are educated in yeshivas , traditional rabbinical schools.
The new synagogues were built in different parts of cities rather than in a specific neighborhood. They take place as a public building. Their street facade bears a social function of representation and is therefore responsible for an identity dimension. Mixtures of different architectural styles, they reflect the prosperity of the community. The neo-Romanesque style is the dominant synagogue between 1840 and 1900 either in the monumental synagogues Edwin Oppler, which adapts the neo-Romanesque Hanover (1864-1870) and Breslau (1865-1872); those Dsseldorf Kleesatel Josef (1904) and Berlin Street Fasanen of Hessel Ehrenfried (1907-1912) . Following changes in ritual, prayer rooms synagogues of Reform Judaism are designed to focus the ceremony around a single point. The holy ark and desk are placed side by side . The prayer hall of the Frankfurt synagogue, built in 1860 is shown. It is divided by two rows of columns. Assistance may stand facing the wall, where the ritual takes place . It should also include the White Stork Synagogue in from Breslau , a city of 20,000 Jews in 1910.
Integration or assimilation?
Throughout the nineteenth century, Jews refrain from all linguistic and cultural particularism: they call themselves citizens "of the Jewish faith" and show patriotism touchy . For many years the traditional historiography has defended the thesis of complete assimilation of Jews in the late nineteenth century. This thesis is now being challenged. Jacques Ehrenfreund, a lecturer at the Bar-Ilan University (Israel) said that there was "building a Jewish-German identity, complex and ambiguous, and a new minority culture, secular" . The community tends to move away from the Jewish faith. Mixed marriages affect 25% of Jews, conversions to Christianity are increasing. The Jews assert their pride in Jewish contributions to Western civilization or German: the Bible and monotheism , and the work of Moses Mendelssohn considered a "new Moses," Heinrich Heine and Ludwig Brne. The philosopher Hermann Cohen wrote in the early twentieth century and an essay entitled sibling Jewishness. For him, Germany is the new Israel of the Jews. German philosophy is to achieve the ideal of morality as the Jewish religion as: there is so much to the philosopher, a confluence between the two thoughts . Similarly, Jewish historians such as Heinrich Graetz publish scholarly works, create journals as they seek to reconcile loyalty to Judaism with loyalty to the German nation . But in his private life, his behavior, the Jewish elite guard specifically Jewish elements .
The reaction against the German Jews Zionism is quite representative of this view. The Jewish community in Munich, alerted to the forthcoming of a Zionist Congress in 1897 , wrote to Herzl : "We do not want to miss inform you that there is, from the Jews of our city, any sympathy for the movement that you lead and we believe that holding a congress in Munich in Bavaria is a danger to our brethren. " When in June 1897 , the first Zionist newspaper in German, Die Welt, is created, two German rabbis react thus: "As long as the Zionists wrote in Hebrew, they were not dangerous, and now they write in German It must be fought ... How to fight because people on one side of a Jewish national dream and the other complained of the Austrian Government which requires a baptismal certificate of a candidate for the post of secretary in Bucovina ! . Emancipated German Jews and German culture drenched feel therefore primarily German citizens. Before 1933 , no more than 2000 German Jews in Palestine .
The emancipation and integration of German Jews did not result in total fusion with the rest of the population. Indeed, even integrated, Jews face the rise of anti-Semitism of Germany Wilhelm II , more and more nationalistic. Jewish intellectuals attribute to stupidity and ignorance, and think they can fight for a historic speech scientist.
In the smaller categories, attachment to traditional culture remains strong, but acculturation is running . In the early twentieth century, many Jews fleeing Russian pogroms took refuge in Germany. There are around 80 000 in 1919. Poor, speaking Yiddish, not German, Ostjuden are a new Jewish proletariat, not well integrated into German society and object of contempt even some German Jews. They reactivated with anti-Semitic image of the Wandering Jew.
The philosopher Hannah Arendt has two figures of the German Jew of the time: the sequel to "come", and rich businessmen seeking conformist respectability (Bleichrder Gerson, the banker of Bismarck , Albert Ballin, head of the powerful shipping , Walter Rathenau and others) and "rogue" excluded and persecuted who revolt against bourgeois society as Heinrich Heine and Rosa Luxemburg . At the turn of the twentieth century, Jews from across Europe are particularly involved in socialist movements. In 1918 and 1919 , Rosa Luxemburg, Leo Jogiches and Paul Levi play a vital role in revolutions in Berlin. Kurt Eisner , Gustav Landauer , Ernst Toller and Eugen Levine are at the forefront in Munich .
The New Anti-Semitism
If Jews feel themselves fully German, they are perceived by some of their countrymen as a foreign body in the nation. They became citizens of the Reich, not members of the German Volk. In addition, anti-Semitism became a cultural code for the definition of German identity problem because of national myths became embedded in the modern and liberal values as in France. The completion of German unity under the aegis of the Prussian militarism as a corollary of the cult German ancestral and aristocratic. This comes in contrast with modernity and particularly with the modern Jewish . The equation "Jews = cosmopolitanism" becomes a permanent feature of anti-Semitism. The Jew is identified with the mobility of money and finance, cosmopolitanism and abstract universalism, international law and urban culture "mixed." The German, however, is presented as rooted in the earth, creating wealth through work and not because of financial transactions. It has a culture expressing a national genius . Heinrich von Treitschke , one of the most respected intellectuals of Bismarckian Germany, illustrates the "reluctance" vis--vis the German Jews. Strong supporter of the emancipation of the Jews, he doubts the ability of Jews to blend into the German nation and refuses to Germany in an era of German-Jewish cultural mix in an article published in the November Preussische Jahrbcher 1879. This article has triggered a fierce controversy that began at the University of Berlin around 1880. Theodor Mommsen, Treitschke colleague at the University of Berlin, believes that liberal principles and the rule of law are above the principles of the German nation " .
In the mid-nineteenth century sets up the modern form of rejection that is not religious or socio-economic order but pseudo-scientific. The pseudo-scientific antisemitism established hierarchies between races, idealizes the Aryan and makes Semite an afflicted being visible signs of inferiority. These arguments are very present in France ( Paul Broca , Joseph Gobineau ) and the United Kingdom ( Herbert Spencer and Francis Galton ). In Germany, they are exposed by Ernst Haeckel. The racist anti-Semitism finds advocates in Germany .
From mid- 1870 , Europe was shaken by a severe economic crisis, the Great Depression. Economic hardship feed a Semitism and anti-liberal nationalism. In all areas of social and political life, liberal-minded retreats. The old anti-Semitism based on religious prejudice and economic is still alive but it is reinforced by modern anti-Semitism based on pseudo-scientific. It has given the multitude of anti-Semitic movements of the era called Berliner Bewegung. They are partly manipulated by Bismarck who saw them as allies against the rise of political liberalism. Wilhelm Marr , a German journalist, wrote a pamphlet in 1879 : The Victory of Judaism over the siblings considered a non-denominational perspective. There is for the first time the term "antisemitism". He claims that the Jews belong to an inferior race. The new anti-Semitism accuses the Jews to infuse his "foreign substance". It attacks the Jew, not because of his religion but as a "race." He denounces a society "Jew-ridden", an "annihilation of the Germans" This new concept, anti-Semitism, a rapid success. It channels the aggressiveness of a discontented minority long discriminated against. It is combined with the rise of nationalism. Indeed, the Germans were seduced by the imperialist conqueror and authoritarianism of the Wilhelmine era, when Jews remain faithful to the ideals of liberal and democratic turn of the century .
On 25 April 1881 , the anti-Semitic petition signed by 250,000 people calling for the Chancellor of the German Empire, Bismarck, the withdrawal of the measures of emancipation of the Jews and the prohibition of any new immigration . Modern anti-Semitism as a leader Adolf Stcker , a pastor at the imperial court preacher, who founded the Christian Social Workers' Party . His program denounced the domination of the Jewish press and finance. He made the Jews responsible for Germany's misfortunes. The leagues are increasing anti-Semitic pamphlets and propagating them. In 1893 , sixteen members belonging to the Antisemitische Volkspartei founded by Otto Bockel are elected Reichstag. Their program calls for the exclusion of Jews from the civil service and teaching. The Pan-German German discourse is similar . In response to this virulent anti-Semitism, the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbrger jdischen Glaubens, The Association of German citizens of Jewish faith, was founded in 1893 to defend the interests of German Jews. Only the Socialist Party SPD deputies has Jews in his ranks, which earned him the hostility of anti-Semitic . The economic recovery in late 1890 marked a reflux of antisemitism.
The army is an institution where anti-Semitism grew. It is very diffcult for a Jew to make a brilliant career. In 1907 , about 33,607 officers account that the German army, there are only 16 Jews who are all in the Bavarian army. The Einjhrig-Freiwillige Military schools are welcoming young Germans who have received higher education. After a year of military service, alumni become reserve officers. Yet none of the 30,000 Jews who built this school from 1880 is now a reserve officer. The Prussian army is the most discriminant .
Jews in World War I
In 1914 , the Central Union and the Association of German Jews call their members "to devote all their energies to their homeland beyond this imposed duty." Even the Zionist Union for Germany is a patriotic speech . 10 000 Jews are voluntary in 1914. Ludwig Frank, member of the Reichstag, was an early commitment. He died in the first fight at the Battle of Luneville. A German Jewish poet, Ernst Lissauer, even composing a song of hatred against England for which he received a decoration of William II. In all, more than one hundred thousand Jews fought for Germany during the First World War including 77 000 on different fronts. 12 000 die in battle . 19 000 officers are promoted, but none is generally contrary to what is happening in Austria-Hungary. 30 000 receive decorations. After the war, veterans gather in the Jewish Reichsbund Jdischer Frontsoldaten chaired by Leo Lwenstein.
From 1915 , anti-Semitism is growing among new officers. Jewish soldiers are routinely humiliated and treated as cowards. When it becomes clear that the war will last long, the rumor spread that the fault must lie with the Jewish arms dealers who have not earned enough for their taste - in fact, "the war profiteers are looking rather are rather looking for next big bosses of the German armaments industry and metallurgy. " The Jews also go for items that get stashed in the back in the administration of the army. In 1916 , the War Minister of the State of Prussia ordered the census of Jews (the Judenzhlung ) to the front to see if their percentage is the same as non-Jews from their total number in the population . This census sow confusion among the soldiers, especially since the department refuses to publish the results as requested by the Jewish organizations, and has resulted in the development of anti-Semitism among them. If the results indicate that Jews are often willing to stand in the front line, they are simply recorded. The Jews suffered increasingly defamation and segregation from their brothers in arms. When the war turns into a national disaster, the German extreme right is an indictment of the predominance of Jews in the economy and politics as an explanation of the defeat . This is the myth of the "stab in the back" , an alliance against Germany and Bolshevik Jews and Jewish capitalists .
The Weimar Republic and the Jews
Integration
Under the Weimar Republic , all citizens are equal now , no further use is prohibited for Jews and Judaism is recognized in the same way that Protestantism and Catholicism. It is even a Jewish Prussian Hugo Preuss , who wrote the Constitution of the young Republic. This explains why its opponents call Judenrepublik . Jews play an important role in politics, mostly left, SPD as to KPD where they occupy a decisive position . However, the conservative elites continue to control the army, administration and justice . The avant-garde culture is largely run by Jewish intellectuals. Eric Weil and Paul Hindemith distinguished themselves in music. The scenes of Max Reinhardt , the historical novels of Lion Feuchtwanger , the symphonies of Gustav Mahler with great success throughout the bourgeoisie and the German middle class. The Frankfurter Zeitung and the Vossische Berliner Tageblatt are major newspapers, whose editors are Jews . Jewish scientists continue to shine: Otto Fritz Meyerhof received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1922.
The Jewish population groups in major cities. Berlin hosts in 1925 a third of the German Jewish population, or 175,000 Jews. Munich has nearly 100,000, or nearly 5% of the population of the city . It should also include Frankfurt, Leipzig, Hamburg. German Jews continue their social advancement. In Berlin, for example, 1 January 1933 , more than half of the 3400 lawyers of the city are of Jewish origin. Some, like Erich Frei, are renowned throughout the country.
More than 100,000 Jews Prussian Pomerellia or Posen annexed by Poland, emigrated to Germany. Their social conditions are far more miserable than their co-religionists of the Weimar Republic. They are the subject of the traditional contempt for the Jew, Ostjude "dirty, filthy, ragged." They are rejected by the German population, including Jews assimilated. They make Berlin a major center of Yiddish culture . In the territory of Germany's Treaty of Versailles , the Jews are 564 000 in 1925 but they are more than 500,000 in 1933 . The total assimilation of part of German Jews explains these numbers. In 1925 , nearly 30% of German Jews have a non-Jewish spouse. In 1927 , for every 100 marriages, 39 were with non-Jews . Franz Rosenzweig wrote in l923, shortly after the publication of his theological work The Star of Redemption: "I think my return to Judaism (Verjudung ) has made me a better, not worse a German ... And I think that one day the star will be recognized and appreciated properly understood as a gift to the German mind to his Jewish enclave . In libraries of German Jews, one finds that time Schiller , Kant , Goethe with the works of Orthodox Rabbis of the master of Franz Rosenzweig , Anton Nehemia Nobel . Under the Weimar Republic, the community organization is very decentralized. Each community can levy a tax on all people born in Judaism unless they have publicly renounced their Judaism. There are also some states in regional organizations such as Bavaria. The Prussian organization includes more than 70% of German Jews. In 1932, Leo Baeck's president is negotiating a "concordat" with Prussia .
Faced with rising anti-Semitism, the German Jews refrain from any verbal attack. They prefer to show the beneficial contribution of Jews to Germany. Some refuse to manifest, as Jews, along with Social Democrats and Communists . However, the virulence of anti-Semitism leads some Jews to question their Jewish character. And the writer Arnold Zweig , first nationalist and hawkish, then committed to the Zionist Jewish renewal and becomes . The great Jewish thinkers emerge: Franz Rosenzweig , Martin Buber , Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem . The mid-nineteenth century to 1933 , publications of German Jewish intellectuals are impressive in their importance. The philosopher Franz Rosenzweig published in 1920 The Star of Redemption. He explains his journey inside the Christian agnosticime the temptation to finally return to his Jewish roots .
A antisemitism increasingly virulent
Throughout the Weimar Republic , anti-Semitism is strong. The young republic can not fight against the rise of aggressive nationalism fueled by the rejection of the Versailles Diktat. At its inception, it has more than 100 associations and anti-Semitic nationalists. The most important alliances is antisemitic Deutschvlkischer Schutz-und Trutzbund (DSTB), the League of German attack and defense, created in 1919 . Speakers sometimes very famous call to expel the Jews from Germany. They are described as beings pests, vermin, parasites . The DSTB will even call to murder Jews. The assassination in 1922 of Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau , who played a key role for the return of Germany in the international diplomacy, is a manifestation of anti-Semitism. But a million people come to pay tribute at his funeral Rathenau . His killers were pardoned in 1930 and fully pardoned by the Nazis in 1933. Upon death, the Nazis built their tomb triumphant, adorned with steel helmets of the First World War.
Rathenau is not the only victim of Jewish personality attacks. Maximilian Harden , Max Warburg, Oscar Cohn is also the target of acts of terrorism . But the assassination of Rathenau marks the end of DSTB. It is prohibited in most German states.
The ruin of the middle class and small farmers by the hyperinflation of 1922 fueling discontent. It is easy to point fingers nationalist "Republic Jew-ridden." Summer 1922 sees increasing desecration of Jewish cemeteries and inscriptions on synagogues.
From 1920 , the Burschenschaften , the student corporations decide not to admit or Jewish members of Jewish descent and punish members who marry a Jewess. The cartel associations of Catholic students take the same decision .
Jews are banned from all organizations vlkisch without exception. In 1929 , the German National People's Party now refuses Jewish membership. Jews were also expelled from the Association of Veterans of Steel Helmet, Stahlhelm .
The anti-Semitic publications are legion. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were published in 1920 in Germany and were an immediate success. 120 000 copies are sold within a year. The book has certainly contributed greatly to the spread of the Nazi madness under the liberal democratic Weimar Republic . Back in Germany, after seven years in Switzerland , Albert Einstein said: "I believe German Jewry owes its survival to anti-Semitism . "
Nazi Germany
In January 1933 , 80% of Jews in Germany have German nationality. The others are usually of Polish origin.
The implementation of anti-Semitic policies of Hitler in the thirties
Discrimination and persecution
Hitler's goal is to create a living space where Jews were absent. The policy of persecution carried out in the thirties is to make them leave Germany. An estimated 37,000 Jews left Germany between February and June 1933. Upon arrival to power of Hitler , assaults against Jews are orchestrated by the Nazis, mainly SA. By 10, Gring in a speech suggesting that those who would attack Jews would enjoy relative impunity. Therefore, the SA starts to molest some Jews and confiscate their property. On March 1 in Mannheim , the SA Jewish shops are closed . The Gauleiter Julius Streicher organize a vast anti-Semitic campaign under the pretext of defending against "Jewish violence." On 1 April 1933 , the SA Jewish stores before posting. They set up signs 're encouraging them to not buy from Jews. The Jewish doctors and lawyers face the same intimidation. The same evening, the Nazis marched in protest against "acts of the Jews." As the population was unreceptive to boycott anti-Jewish, the operation is quickly stopped . On 7 April 1933 , the "Law for the restoration of the civil service" excludes Jews and officials "politically unreliable" by the public. Can not remain in the public service of the Reich, Lnder and municipalities that those who were already civil servants prior to 1914, those who fought during the First World War , orphans of war. The rest are dismissed or retired with pension, if they worked at least ten years in public service . That same month two other laws limit the number of Jewish students in German schools and universities and the "Jewish activity" in the medical and legal professions. All lawyers of Jewish descent must apply for readmission to the bar. Only lawyers admitted before 1914 or who had fought during the First World War continue to exercise his right . About 10 885 Jewish lawyers, 2009 are permitted to continue their work primarily as veterans.
From September 1933 until 1937, the Nazis encourage the departure of German Jews to Palestine ( Haavara Agreement ) .
In 1935, under the leadership of Goebbels and Julius Streicher , the "spontaneous demonstrations" were organized against the Jews. They lead to the publication of the Nuremberg laws depriving Jews of their civil rights and prohibit them from marrying or having sexual intercourse with persons of "German or related blood." The application of these provisions requires a definition of the Jew is considered as one who has at least three Jewish grandparents, and one that has only two Jewish grandparents but belongs to the Jewish religious community or is married to a Jewish. This evidence was also a religious confession of the inability of the Nazis to achieve a racial definition of Jews. However, many Germans no longer engaged in Judaism for years or who had never belonged to a synagogue, find themselves excluded from society, even people of Jewish grandparents converted to Christianity, which are defined as Jewish . The same year Hitler forbids Jewish names appear on the memorials of the First World War .
Harassment is eroded when the Berlin Olympics in 1936 but resumed with a vengeance from 1938 : looting, arrests of "Jewish criminals" are increasing in the summer of 1938 . The government is forcing Jews to register their properties and makes the aryanisation economic activities, that is to say the dismissal of Jewish personnel and transfer of business owned by Jews to non-Jews. Prices are set by the Nazis, the Jewish industrialists are forced to sell their goods at prices below their real value, which allows a minority of companies "Aryan" to get rich. Jewish doctors are no longer allowed to treat non-Jews .
On 7 November 1938 , Ernst vom Rath , adviser to the German Embassy in Paris , was assassinated by a young Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan , who wanted to protest against the fate of the German Jews. On the evening of November 9 , Goebbels Nazi activists threw into the streets to avenge the death of vom Rath. The SA, the SS and Hitler Youth loot synagogues and local Jewish organizations in Germany, stores and property of Jews. Nearly a hundred people are killed during the Kristallnacht. One hundred synagogues were burned and shops looted 7500. 35 000 Jews are arrested, deported to concentration camps , Dachau , Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen , and mostly released after a ransom was paid . After Kristallnacht, 120,000 Jews left the Reich .
All measurements taken from 1938 designed to cut all social ties and physical Jews with the German population, "many Germans living for over half a century on good terms with a Jewish population well integrated. " access to public schools and universities, cinemas, theaters and sports centers becomes forbidden to Jews. In many cities, areas identified as areas of "Aryan" does them more accessible . On 30 November 1938 , the Jewish lawyers who still had the right can no longer exercise. They can continue their activities as legal advice but only for Jewish clients . Jewish families, more and more precarious lose any right to relief on public assistance. Finally at the end of 1938, a directive will allocate priority to the Jews idle work sites or clearing . The new law on marriage has only one article on mixed marriages. the non-Jewish spouse can seek divorce on the basis of the Nuremberg Laws Divorces are few. He remains in the area of the Reich Protectorate 30 000 mixed couples at the end of 1939 .
On 28 December 1938, Gring decided in a directive to gather the Jews in buildings reserved. Only the mixed couples who do not raise their children in Judaism beyond the reunion. The gathering of Jews began from April 1939. Jews find themselves crammed into overcrowded apartments. The Jews lost the right to possess a driver's license. In January 1939 , the Jews have a birth name "non-Jewish" must add "Israel" and "Sara" to their name. A compulsory identity cards specifying their Jewish origin and, from October 1939, the letter J is affixed on their passports .
The response of German Jews against Nazi persecution
As Hitler came to power, the Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbrger jdischen Glaubens, the central association of German citizens of Jewish faith, assimilationist association, said that no one can deprive German Jews of their German homeland . In spring 1933, a first central association of Jews appears. Directed by Leo Baeck , it looks at first to discuss with the Nazis, protested against the boycott of Jewish shops and protested the loyalty of Jews to the German Fatherland . Certainly, the Jews expect to live through difficult times but they think they can adapt to their new conditions as they had done in the past . Faced with the deteriorating condition of the Jews, the central body of the Jews, the Reichsvereinigung, deals more and more vocational training and assistance to the needy. By 1938, all Jews from Germany should join. But the security police organization poses a dictatorial authority . This allows the Nazis to delegate to the administrative aspects of Jewish deportation to come. Their sides, the Jewish authorities believe that by showing their goodwill, they alleviate the suffering of the community .
In the 1930s , the goal is the total emigration of Jews from Germany . To this end, the Nazis are concerned to organize their departure, but the countries of Europe and the United States severely limit immigration. Between 1933 and 1939, more than half of the 500,000 Jews in Germany (or classified as such by the decree Lsen) leave the Reich which physicists Albert Einstein and Max Born , a biologist Otto Fritz Meyerhofle , composers Arnold Schoenberg , Kurt Weill and Paul Hindemith , conductor Otto Klemperer , philosophers Theodor Adorno , Hannah Arendt , Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin , the writers Dblin and Lion Feuchtwanger , architects Erich Mendelsohn and Marcel Breuer , the sociologist Norbert Elias. Paris then New York become the centers of the Judeo-German. 50 000 of them emigrated to Palestine under British mandate. In January 1939, the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration is based. It is headed by Reinhard Heydrich . Those who remain in Germany are often quite old. In 1939, 73.9% of Jews living in Germany (before annexation) are over 40 years. They were only 47.7% in 1933 .
Face exclusion from public life, Jewish organizations are set up to counteract social exclusion and help Jews who find themselves destitute. Associations of music, theater, art and sports to develop their Jewish activities. A Jewish education system is set up to compensate for the exclusion of Jews from the German education system. The conductor and director Kurt Singer in 1933 created the Cultural Federation of German Jews (Juden deutscher Kulturbund) to allow Jewish artists to continue to exercise their profession. But in 1935, the Nazis gather Jewish cultural associations into one organization, the Federation of Jewish cultural associations Reich (Reichsverband der jdischen Kulturbund) under the direct control of the Gestapo. The Aryans are no longer allowed to attend performances organized by Jews .
Some Jews involved in the German Resistance to Nazism , especially in socialist or communist groups. The group of Herbert and Marianne Baum, which brings together young Jewish Marxists, was dismantled in 1942 following a failed assassination attempt. Most of its members were executed or deported to death camps .
German Jews during the Holocaust
The plight of Jews in Germany
It is more than 200,000 Jews in Germany at the beginning of the Second World War . The government imposed a curfew and the prohibition of certain urban areas. Jews receive food rations smaller than those of non-Jews, and they can not buy certain foods. The Jews therefore form a mass of miserable, isolated from the rest of the population. Slots during which they are entitled to shop are also limited. Jews must also provide the police with their radios, electrical appliances, bicycles and cars. In 1941 , 30,000 Jews were employed in armaments factories. Many businesses, from interest or compassion, trying to keep the Jews as long as possible in their jobs. After nightfall, the forced laborers join huts or buildings reserved. During the summer of 1941, Jewish schools are closed by the authorities . In September 1941 the Nazis prohibited Jews from using public transport. All Jews over age six are forced to wear the yellow star. Decrees strict confined area of residence in certain districts of cities in Germany .
During the summer of 1940 , the Jews of Alsace , the Mosel and Luxembourg are expelled to the West. In October 1940, gauleiters Buerckel Wagner and decided to expel Jews from 7500 Baden and the Palatinate to France. They were interned by the French administration in the camp of Gurs in the Pyrenees. On 18 September 1940 , Hitler decided to deport Jews to the east of Germany. Three to four thousand Jews, mostly elderly citizens, rather, commit suicide then. Nearly 10,000 Jews go underground. Systematic deportations of Jews from Germany are really starting at the end of September 1941. The Jews form columns up to the embarkation stations under the eyes of the Germans . Between October and December 1941, nearly 50,000 Jews were deported to ghettos in Lodz , Warsaw , Minsk , Kaunas and Riga. In 1943 , it remains formally 50,000 Jews working in German factories. In February 1943, the authorities want to deport members of mixed couples. Women protest and the police are obliged to retreat.
The fate of mixed couples of Mischlinge ("Coloureds") poses a problem to Nazis. The Mtis of the second degree, that is to say having a Jewish grandparent, numbering 43,000, are similar to the Aryan term Wannsee Conference. The Mtis of the first degree with two Jewish grandparents, or 64,000 people, are they treated as "full Jews". Non-Jewish spouses of mixed marriages under great pressure to divorce, which allowed then to deport the Jewish spouse . The population shows a relative indifference to the fate of the Jews, few insults despite strong anti-Semitic propaganda, whose film The Jew Sss was the most famous example, but little solidarity . Those who hid Jews in Berlin had different behaviors: unscrupulous exploiters, compassionate Christians, selfless protectors. Catholic and Protestant authorities are only interested in the fate of Jewish converts, they seek to avoid deportation. Only a minority of Protestants took a stand for all Jews .
Jewish Resistance
Even during the war, German Jews try to resist. Zionist underground group Chug Chaluzi, the "Circle of pioneers, formed in spring 1943. It has about 40 members from the Zionist youth movements. Its leaders are Jizchak Schwersenz and Edith Wolff. The group initially sought to provide assistance to prisoners in concentration camps in the East and then attempts to flee abroad. Edith Wolff, who received a Protestant education, expressed by Jewish protest against Nazi racial politics and became a pacifist and Zionist. It provides ration cards for Jews hiding in Berlin and some help to flee. The group is also hiding a few people at risk at the beginning of the mass deportation of Jews in Berlin and also produces false papers. Edith Wolff pat eventually be adopted in 1944 by the Gestapo for having procured ration cards for Jews. She is sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence but survived the war .
The "Community for Peace and Renewal", Gemeinschaft fr Frieden und Aufbau, is a charity for persecuted founded by Werner Scharff. It unites scores of Jewish and Christian. Werner Scharff, who was deported in August 1943 in the Theresienstadt ghetto , manages to escape a month later and returned to Berlin. It survives in hiding. Through its extensive network of relationships, it provides false papers, money and hiding places for Jews. It also seeks to inform the German people the true character of the Nazi regime by printing leaflets. These are placed in mailboxes in Berlin and shipped to hundreds of people. Some manage to smuggle the Netherlands and France. In October 1944, the Gestapo dismantling the network and stops Werner Scharff. He was executed on 16 March 1945 in the camp of Sachsenhausen , just weeks before the camp was liberated. Almost all other group members were able to survive .
Herbert and Marianne Baum, communist activists, founded in 1938-1939 a resistance group composed of young Jewish relatives of communism. Among their activities, one can note the distribution of leaflets antifascist, the burning of an exhibition organized anti-Berlin. In 1942, twenty of them were executed. Herbert Baum commits suicide in prison. The others died in concentration camp .
The deportation and the Holocaust
It seems that the decision to exterminate the Jews was not made by Hitler at a time. In May 1941, Hitler ordered the elimination of Soviet Jews at the time of Operation Barbarossa. The decision of a full wind was certainly taken in September 1941 because it was from then that the Nazis began to round up and deport Jews from Europe. In October 1941, 20,000 Jews from the Reich arrived in the ghetto of Lodz, 5000 Vienna, Berlin 4200, 2000, Cologne, Frankfurt 1100, 1000, Hamburg, 1000 Dusseldorf and 500 of Luxembourg . The German authorities also plan to send 25,000 near Riga and another 25,000 in Minsk and Kaunas . But instead of preparing a camp, the SS chief in Riga, Fredrich Jeckeln , gathers his forces and kills almost all the Jews of the city. The ghetto is then divided into two parts, one for the thousands of Latvian Jews survived, the other became a "German section" special, created when German Jews were separated from local Jews. They arrive in dwellings destroyed. During the winter, they suffer from cold, epidemics which causes a high mortality . At Kaunas, 5000 Jews of the Reich were murdered between 25 and 29 November 1941 . Some Jews deported from the German Reich in the ghettos of the Baltic States and Belarus, are killed shortly after their arrival by the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units).
The Wannsee Conference , on 20 January 1942 , has been a meeting of "development" technique . German Jews, present in the ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw , are then sent to the Polish Jews in the extermination camps of Chelmno , to Treblinka and Auschwitz . Most German Jews were murdered during the destruction of these ghettos. In 1942 and 1943, the Jews remaining in Germany were deported directly to the extermination camps, mainly Auschwitz-Birkenau. To Terezin (Theresienstadt) interned Jews are elderly or famous in Germany, Austria, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia before being interned eastward in other ghettos in Poland and the Baltic States or in camps extermination of occupied Poland .
In early 1943, it officially remains that 15,000 Jews in Germany. Almost all Jews deported from Germany have been murdered. Several thousand Jews remained hidden in Germany. In all, about 170,000 German Jews perished during the Holocaust.
The Jews since 1945
Judeo-German culture on European soil has been completely destroyed by Nazism. But it turns lasting American culture after the installation of many Jews in the United States. The scientific rule of the great American universities after World War II owed much to all these exiles from Germany or Central Europe.
Rebuilding the community
After the war, many Jews, mainly Polish, returning to the scene of the Holocaust find traces of hypothetical survivors. The antisemitism important challenge they face in Poland pushes back on the road to the west. They aim to reach Palestine or the United States. But they can not get visas to these two destinations, crammed into the American occupation zone. Between 1945 and 1948 , 270,000 Jews settled in Germany, mostly in camps for displaced persons. They are supported by major American Jewish organizations. Some of these refugees eventually leave the camps to live in town. They settled in Germany , enjoying rapid economic environment conducive to reconstruction. On 19 July 1950 , the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the new ruling organization of the Jewish community is created. It brings together representatives of Jewish organizations of former occupation zones as well as representatives of Jewish camps "displaced persons" . From the mid-1950s, German Jews who had emigrated to Palestine return to their countries of origin because they could not adapt to living in Israel. They are criticized by American Jewish organizations for whom it is immoral for Jews to live in the land of the executioners . Historian Eugen Kogon responds to calls to withdraw from Germany, saying: "Their attitude is perfectly understandable mark the final triumph of Hitler . "
In the 1960s, the Jewish community has 20,000 members residing primarily in Germany reported in West Berlin , Munich, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf , Hamburg and Cologne. The number of Jews unreported is impossible to assess . In German universities, where research on language and Yiddish culture took place before 1934, studies resumed around 1960. They are oriented towards the whole Germanic linguistics and the history and focused on the Western Yiddish. The main center is the University of Trier in 1971 . Chancellor Adenauer acknowledges the responsibility of Germany and signed with Israel a series of agreements which brings the new State financial assistance and moral importance. It develops gradually, under pressure from Western organizations and deported from the United States, scaffolding legal compensation. But former Nazis were rapidly bleached due to Cold War.
Some Jews remained in the Soviet zone of occupation , others fervent communist, even returning to assist in "building socialism". The surviving Jews were recognized as "victims of fascism" and helped but the GDR excludes all liability in respect of the Holocaust. It became one of the fiercest enemies of the State of Israel. It supports the Arab states or movements by providing senior civilian or military or facilitate their training in military camps of instruction in the GDR . It even provides copies to Arab nationalist anti-Semitic film Jew Suess , as part of its anti-Zionist .
Jews are sidelined. Jewish intellectuals were tried in Stalinist trials. In 1956 , there is no record that 1900 Jews in the GDR. In the mid-1980s, Jews in East Germany have the right to move almost freely in the West. The Great Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse, known for its golden dome is restored .
After the fall of the Berlin Wall , Lothar de Maiziere , the last Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Germany, allowing Soviet Jews to emigrate to East Germany. 100,000 Soviet Jews settled officially in Germany, perhaps more. the conditions offered to the Jews of Eastern Europe by Germany are very generous: it is enough to have a Jewish parent or be married to a Jew for the right to immigrate. Many Russians who could not go to Israel and can leave their country of origin. Some have conveniently rediscovered their Jewishness and . As in the late nineteenth century, the friction between old and new communities are important. Soviet Jews were not included, despite some successes in Berlin. The unemployment rate is very high among Jews of Eastern Europe. Their living conditions are deteriorating as the declining welfare . These undisciplined Russian Jews, plus the Ukrainian Jews and Central Asia , also exasperate the German population in the eastern Lnder. The result is a revival of anti-Semitism. The skinhead neo-Nazi practice of persistently anti-Semitism street without being able to consider it significant .
The German Jewry Today
Today, about 105,000 Jews living in Germany as members of Jewish communities. There would be between 40,000 and 80,000 Jews who are not members of communities. But the Jewish community that exists today has almost no relation of continuity with its pre-war . In 1999 , Hans Mayer wrote: "I am a teacher and a writer of German language. But I'm not, and I can never be a German . "
The largest Jewish communities are in Berlin with about 11,000 members, then to Munich (9000 2004) and Frankfurt-Main (7 000 in 2003) , . The Jewish communities of the former East Germany to Dresden and Leipzig may again develop active community life. At Leipzig 's Jewish community has grown from 40 members in 1989 to 1,200 members in 2007 . Today most members are migrants. Germany is the only country in Europe where the number of Jews increased, while it declined elsewhere . In universities the interest in Jewish culture and Yiddish in particular can not be denied. There are several chairs of history and Yiddish culture. Is prepared to establish a chair of interdisciplinary Jewish history and literature at Humboldt University in Berlin . The diversity of Yiddish culture, as expressed in literature, music, painting and theater, is still grown in the private initiatives and local, Berlin, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt. Days of Yiddish culture held in Berlin as part of a project of the Unesco. Participants come from all countries where there are still language and Yiddish culture .
The Central Council of Jews in Germany, which is headquartered in Berlin since 1999, coordinates the life of the various Jewish communities on German soil. It receives assistance from the state of three million euros per year to preserve and maintain the Germano-Jewish heritage, to preserve the memory of the Holocaust, to reorganize a Jewish community, and to facilitate its integration work and social policy. On 10 November 2006 , the synagogue in Munich was destroyed by the Nazis in 1938 reopened its doors. Its construction was funded by the city and state. The same year, the first rabbi trained in Germany since the closure of the last seminar in 1942 was ordered . Symbol of the revival of German Jewry, the largest synagogue in Germany reopened its doors on Friday 31 August 2007 in Berlin, after more than three years of restoration .
Due to its special historic responsibility , the state funds especially the Jewish community. It also manages the cemeteries of German Jewish communities disappeared. Among the tasks of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, it is thus naturally promoting tolerance and the fight against racism and antisemitism .
Commemorating the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht , November 9, 2008 in the synagogue on Rykestrasse , is an opportunity for German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched an appeal for "the legacy of the past be a lesson for future ". Chancellor denounced the "indifference to racism and antisemitism." For her, this is a first step that may undermine essential values. "Too few Germans had at the time the courage to protest against Nazi barbarism (...). This lesson of the past is today for Europe, but also for other regions, particularly Arab countries " .
References
- a , b , c , d , e , f , g , h and i Franois-Georges Dreyfus, " a href = "http://www.clio.fr/BIBLIOTHEQUE/les_juifs_en_allemagne.asp" class = "external text" rel = "nofollow"> "The Jews in Germany" "in See also
Bibliography
- Collective, Encyclopedia of Jewish history, Liana Levi, 1989
- Daniel Aberdam, Berlin between the wars, a Jewish-German symbiosis, Proceedings of the Symposium held at the University Stendhal, Grenoble, L'Harmattan, 2000 ( ISBN 2738495869 ), available on Google books Related articles
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