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West German Jewry: Guilt, Power and Pluralism

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Abstract

The essay will address the history of West German Jewry using the concept of guilt as its guiding theme. Jews in West Germany had a bad conscience on account of living in the “land of the murderers.” This bad conscience not only distinguished them from other Jewish communities, it also explains much of what characterized West German Jewry from 1945 to 1989: its particular economic structure; its especially close ties to Israel; its preoccupation with democratization; its power arrangements; and its communal life. The essay will address these issues, and trace a development that led from a close-knit, ideologically homogeneous group to one that became ever more pluralistic in the 1970s and 1980s.
Anthony D. Kauders
16
West German Jewry: Guilt, Power, and Pluralism
by Anthony D. Kauders
Abstract
The essay will address the history of West German Jewry using the concept of guilt as
its guiding theme. Jews in West Germany had a bad conscience on account of living in
the “land of the murderers.” This bad conscience not only distinguished them from
other Jewish communities, it also explains much of what characterized West German
Jewry from 1945 to 1989: its particular economic structure; its especially close ties to
Israel; its preoccupation with democratization; its power arrangements; and its
communal life. The essay will address these issues, and trace a development that led
from a close-knit, ideologically homogeneous group to one that became ever more
pluralistic in the 1970s and 1980s.
A plain but urgent question stands at the beginning of any history of
West German Jewry: how could Jews have continued living in the “land
of the murderers”? Many answers have been proffered, all of which are
equally true: some Jews had survived on account of their Gentile
partners or could only imagine life within German language and culture;
others had established small businesses or had fled anti-Semitic
pogroms in Poland; yet others were too weak, too old, or too sick to
emigrate to Palestine/Israel. If it was sheer chance that had left Jews as
survivors in postwar Germany, it was personal convenience that caused
many to flout immediate relocation. But whatever the motive, West
Germany’s Jews resided in a country cursed among Jews everywhere.
Their individual histories did not count in a post-Holocaust world that
demanded a new Jewish consensus not only with regard to Israel, but
also with respect to Germany.
West Germany’s Jews were well aware of this consensus. They could not
opt for pluralism at a time when the Federal Republic itself was neither
pluralistic nor welcoming of Jewish “dissidents.” Indeed, Jews in
Augsburg, Hamburg, or Cologne did not wish to be treated like
“dissidents” in the first place. They had internalized the widespread view
that Israel was the new Jewish homeland, and they had to find ways to
combine this emotional and intellectual truth with the reality of their
physical presence in Augsburg, Hamburg, or Cologne. The Jewish
predicament in West Germany therefore demanded considerable work.
First, Jews were forced to confront feelings of guilt for living in the
wrong country. Second, they had to face Jews in Israel and elsewhere
who reminded them of this violation. Third, they were compelled to deal
emotionally with their precarious condition. Fourth, they felt obliged to
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develop justifications that would assuage their own guilt, mollify their
Jewish critics, and command intellectual respectability at home and
abroad. All this had to be done alongside the daily chores of life in a
largely inhospitable land.
This essay will address the history of West German Jewry using the
concept of guilt as its guiding theme. Many Jews suffered from a bad
conscience because they had decided to remain in the “blood-soaked”
country. This bad conscience not only distinguished West German Jewry
from other Jewish communities, it also explains much of what
characterized Jewish history in the Federal Republic from 1949 to 1989:
its particular economic structure; its especially close ties to Israel; its
preoccupation with democratization; its power arrangements and
communal life. The theme of guilt will allow us to trace a development
that led from a close-knit, ideologically homogeneous group to one that
became more pluralistic in the 1970s and 1980s. With the immigration
of Jews from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s the question of guilt
no longer proved imperative to the course of German-Jewish history. It
is here that our story ends.
Money’s Charm
Today it is hard to imagine the pressure exerted on Jews in Germany
after 1945. Relatives in the United States, politicians in Israel,
commentators throughout the Jewish world all regarded a Jewish
presence on German soil as inexplicable at best and profane at worst.
Hannah Arendt’s comment to Gertrud Jaspers, the Jewish wife of the
famous Heidelberg philosopher, was a restrained example of this
ubiquitous approach to Jewish life in post-Holocaust Germany: “How
one actually can bear to live there as a Jew, in an environment that
doesn’t even deem it necessary to talk about ‘our problem,’ and that
today means our dead, is beyond me.”1 Less restrained voiced abounded,
ranging from members of the Knesset calling for a boycott of
Germany’s Jewish community to the publisher Gershom Schocken
calling on the Jewish state to dissociate itself from Germany’s Jews.2
What is more, these and other critics blamed the refusal to emigrate on
the “cash nexus.” Eliahu Livneh, the Israeli Consul in Munich, reported
to the Israeli foreign office in November 1949 that Jewish concerns in
Germany centered on “money and profit,” and that Jewish existence in
the country was based on “insensitivity and the credit balance.”3 The
1 Hannah Arendt/Karl Jaspers, Briefwechsel 1926-1969, edited by Lotte Köhler and Hans
Sahner (Munich: Piper, 1993), 77. Letter written on 30 May 1946.
2 Tamara Anthony, Ins Land der Väter oder der Täter? Israel und die Juden in Deutschland nach
der Schoah (Berlin: Metropol, 2004), 94, 96.
3 Anthony, Im Land der Väter, 154. See also Meron Mendel, “The Policy for the Past in
West Germany and Israel: The Case of Jewish Remigration,” in: Leo Baeck Year Book
2004: 129.
Anthony D. Kauders
18
head of the Jewish Agency in Munich, one Amos, voiced similar
concerns in August 1950. Addressing Livneh, he summarized his
impressions as follows: “The moral degeneracy that has been spreading
among the Jews of Germany, especially among its businesspeople, makes
its necessary to dissociate the Zionist movement and its institutions
from the Jewish community in Germany, as we are not in the position to
guarantee a continuation of an honorable Jewish existence” in the
country.4 One year later, the New York-based newspaper Aufbau
maintained that a swift emigration of Germany’s “opportunistic” Jews
would be in the best interest of Germans and Jews alike.5
Most of these commentaries appeared at a time when Wiedergutmachung
(restitution) was still heavily contested—and few Jews were actually
benefiting from generous compensation payments. Indeed, in the early
1950s many Jews in West Germany barely made a living and relied on
welfare from both Jewish and German institutions. Toward the end of
the decade, however, the situation changed. Many of the 12,000 to
15,000 Jews who remigrated to Germany did so for economic reasons.6
Again, motives varied, but numerous Jews either hoped that the process
of Wiedergutmachung would be expedited if they lived in the Federal
Republic; that finding a job would be easier in Munich or Berlin than in
Haifa or Tel Aviv particularly at a time when Germany’s economy
was in full swing; or that restitution of property and businesses
demanded one’s presence in the country. The decision of the Bonn
parliament to grant financial help to remigrants in the order of 6000
Marks per person led to a further wave of immigration in 1956.7
Yet what was unusual about Jewish economic life in the Federal
Republic was not what Zionist critics regularly insinuated: that Jews in
Germany were bad Jews because they only had money on their mind.
4 Anthony, Im Land der Väter, 170.
5 Ibid., 102, footnote 173. The extent to which this opinion took hold of the
imagination was remarkable. As late as 1998 the co-founder of Germany’s Central
Council of Jews (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland), Norbert Wollheim, repeated the
same story in an interview with the well-known German-Jewish journalist Richard
Chaim Schneider. Showing no compunctions, he asserted that many Jews had remained
in the Federal Republic because of “Egypt’s pots of meat,” which they “enjoyed.”
Nobert Wollheim, ‘Wir haben Stellung bezogen,’ in: Richard Chaim Schneider, Wir sind
da! Die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland von 1945 bis heute (Munich: Ullstein, 2000), 119.
6 On the question of remigration, see especially Irmela von der Lühe, Axel Schildt, and
Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (eds.), “Auch in Deutschland waren wir nicht wirklich zu
Hause.” Jüdische Remigration nach 1945 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008).
7 Tobias Winstel, “Über die Bedeutung der Wiedergutmachung im Leben der jüdischen
NS-Verfolgten. Erfahrungsgeschichtliche Annährungen,” in: Hans Günter Hockerts
and Christiane Kuller (eds.), Nach der Verfolgung. Wiedergutmachung nationalsozialistischen
Unrechts in Deutschland? (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), 199-227; idem., ‘Healed
Biographies?’ Jewish Remigration and Indemnification for National Socialist
Injustice,” in: Leo Baeck Year Book 2004: 137-152; Harry Maor, Über den Wiederaufbau der
jüdischen Gemeinden in Deutschland seit 1945 (unpublished dissertation Mainz, 1961), 48.
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On the contrary, Jews in West Germany believed they were being good
Jews because they had very little else on their mind other than making
money. Put differently, focusing on money allowed many Jews to claim
that they did not have emotional, let alone sentimental ties to the
country, that, aside from money, nothing at all attached them to their
temporary abode.
The abstract nature of money allowed Jews, if they so wished, to leave
the country as quickly as possible. In the first decades after the Shoah,
few Jews had the intention to stay in Germany permanently. Many
preferred to rent rather than to buy real estate, many favored work in
import-export businesses over jobs in the civil service sector. Stores that
could be sold swiftly and professions that could be pursued elsewhere
were more in line with “Jewish” objectives than occupations that
possibly precluded emigration.8 “Liquid” money, numerous Jews
believed, would enable them to be in control of their destiny. Owing to
their bad conscience, then, many Jews in the Federal Republic sought to
avoid occupations and life-styles that would have entailed a long-term
commitment to Germany. As the sociologist Y. Michal Bodemann has
explained, “the preference for job qualifications that were relatively
transferable, that is, not bound to the land or language” indicated that,
initially at least, most Jews saw their future elsewhere.9 In some extreme
instances, the pursuit of money was indicative of how certain Jews—in
this case men who worked in Frankfurt’s real estate sector in the early
1970s—paid little heed to the concerns of society at large precisely
because they did not intend to become part of that society in the
foreseeable future.10
Absolute Loyalty: Israel
In the immediate postwar period, Palestine/Israel became the real or
idealized home for many thousands of Jews from war-torn Europe.
When the State of Israel gained independence in May 1948, most Jews in
Germany had to ask themselves with ever greater urgency what reasons
might still exist to postpone a move that seemed all but inevitable—the
emigration to the “Holy Land.” Whatever reasons they could muster in
defense of their decision to stay, most Jews were united in their
conviction that Germany offered neither an emotional Heimat nor a
sense of security. As a result, Israel came to figure as a primary source
of identity, or, in the words of Dan Diner, as an Identitätsersatz.11
8 Y. Michael Bodemann, A Jewish Family in Germany Today. An Intimate Portrait (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2005), 8.
9 Y. Michael Bodemann, In den Wogen der Erinnerung. Jüdische Existenz in Deutschland
(Munich: DTV, 2002), 128.
10 This episode is discussed in Anthony D. Kauders, Unmögliche Heimat. Eine deutsch-
jüdische Geschichte der Bundesrepublik (Munich: DVA, 2007), 79-88.
11 Dan Diner, Negative Symbiose—Deutsche und Juden nach Auschwitz, in: Micha Brumlik,
Anthony D. Kauders
20
West Germany’s Jews made every effort to prove that this emotional
attachment was genuine. In countless letters, articles, and public talks,
Jewish representatives detailed the importance of Israel for the Jews of
Germany. What is more, Jewish officials repeatedly claimed that they
themselves were needed in the Federal Republic as mediators between
Germans and Israelis. Karl Marx, editor-in-chief and owner of the
Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland, belonged to the most
vocal advocates of this stance. In October 1951 he claimed that the Jews’
role in Germany should be that of an “outpost” (Vorposten), or, “of a
mediator between the Germans (…) and the Jews of the world,
particularly in Israel.”12 Similar thoughts emanated from Leopold
Goldschmidt, executive member of the Jewish community in Frankfurt
and leading official in the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation
(Gesellschaft für christlich-jüdische Zusammenarbeit). In May 1952 he
submitted that the Jews in Germany could figure as the quintessential
mediators, combining as they did a religious, historical, and “racial”
attachment to all Jews on the one hand, and a civil bond with the West
German state on the other.13
Karl Marx not only owned the main Jewish newspaper in the country, he
also headed the Zionist Organization in Germany (ZOD). In this
capacity, too, Marx was adamant that West Germany’s Jews be treated as
equals rather than pariahs in the Jewish world. In 1957 he sent a
combative letter to Jewish community institutions and organizations
throughout the Federal Republic, claiming that “the entire Jewish
community in Germany, with only a few exceptions” had demonstrated
its loyalty to Israel and continued to be willing “to do everything for
Israel.” These exertions, however, had been to no avail in international
Zionist circles. The Zionist World Organization in particular had refused
to admit the ZOD to membership in its association, thereby signaling
that it was not ready to take German Zionism seriously. After countless
futile appeals to the contrary, Marx announced that he would have to
refuse all publications by Zionist organizations in the Allgemeine
Wochenzeitung, including ads and petitions coming from the Keren
Kayemeth L’Israel (Jewish National Fund), Keren Hayessod (United
Israel Appeal), and Youth Aliyah.14 Zionist organizations were thus
banned from publishing in Germany’s principal Jewish periodical. That
being not enough, Karl Marx reacted to further slights by canceling his
membership in the Keren Hayessod in 1957 and stepping down from
Doron Kiesel und Cilly Kugelmann und Julius Schoeps (eds.), Jüdisches Leben in
Deutschland seit 1945 (Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1988), 243.
12 Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland (AWJD), 5.10.1951 “Jom Kippur
Tag der Versöhnung—Tag der Besinnung,” 1.
13 Ibid., 16.5.1952 “Jüdische Aufgaben in Deutschland,” 1.
14 ZA (Zentralarchiv zur Erforschung der Juden in Deutschland) B. 1./7., 581,
9.8.1957.
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his chairmanship of the ZOD in 1959.15
These may have been somewhat rash reactions to Israeli indifference and
hostility, but they illustrate how much trouble even vocal advocates of
West German Zionism had in dealing with rebuffs, all the more so when
these snubs coincided with the extraordinary efforts on the part of West
Germany’s Jews to support the State of Israel. It would not have taken
these rather unpleasant experiences to force Marx and others to engage
in yet further pro-Israeli activities, this time on the financial front.
When the economic situation of West Germany’s Jewish communities
improved in the 1960s, financial assistance to Israel followed as a matter
of course. Even without outside pressure, Jews in the Federal Republic
helped the young state, not least because Israel was suffering from
severe economic turmoil during this period.
Zionist organizations did not only rely on the goodwill of potential
donors. Instead, they instructed agents to collect funds from
communities and individual community members. These agents were
not at all averse to comparing the sum totals raised during the
campaigns, lauding those who had given beyond the “call of duty” and
castigating others whose contributions fell short of expectations.16
Facing their watchful eye, West Germany’s Jewish leaders felt obliged to
praise the accomplishments vis-à-vis the Jewish state more than ever.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in
Deutschland) therefore drew up league tables to prove how much its Jews
had contributed to the Zionist cause. In August 1967, some two months
after the Six-Day-War, General Secretary Hendrik van Dam informed his
then assistant Werner Nachmann that West Germany’s Jews stood all
the way on top, inasmuch as one tallied total donations per community
member. According to his calculations (which are difficult to verify),
Jews in the Federal Republic contributed $ 250 per head, as against $30
for the United States. Van Dam did not fail to add that despite its “great
(…) wealth,” British Jewry had only approximated the US figures.17
What is more, van Dam could not help to report these findings to an
envoy of the Israeli embassy in Bonn, claiming that the results for West
Germany were quite excellent indeed and unsurpassed by any other
community in the world. He went on to say that all this had been
achieved despite the financial burden brought about by East European
15 Ibid., letter of 19.8.1957. These developments were not mentioned in the 1965
Yearbook of the Keren Hayessod. Evidently Marx had become a member again or he
had never left the organization. Karl Marx, “Israel und Wir,” in: Mendel Karger-Karin
(ed.), Israel und Wir. Keren-Hajessod-Jahrbuch der dischen Gemeinschaft in Deutschland
1955/1965 (Frankfurt am Main, 1966), 97-99 and ibid., Marx to Dr. Rosenthal and H.
Alroy, general secretary of the ZOD, 26.6.1959.
16 ZA B. 1/2., 51, Mendel K. to “Magbit-Askanim, Gemeindevertreter und Magbit-
Komitees in Deutschland,” 3.3.1967, 3.
17 ZA B. 1/7., 466, van Dam to Nachmann, 1.8.1967.
Anthony D. Kauders
22
Jewish immigration to West Germany.18
Whoever composes league tables in the fashion of van Dam hopes to
show that specific norms have been met. In this case, the addressee was
not only the Jewish public abroad or Zionist representatives in Berlin,
Munich, and Frankfurt; the addressee was also one’s own conscience. In
fact, certain community officials did not stop here: so as to placate their
feelings of guilt, they were willing to intimidate and even shame
members of the community whose behaviour appeared to threaten the
reputation of West Germany’s Jewish community and, by extension, that
of its élites.
Pressure was exerted in two ways. During the first stage, functionaries
and Zionist activists either appealed to the “Jewish conscience” or
focused on individual community members, exhorting them to
contribute to the cause and that usually meant donating what the
collectors judged appropriate. These attempts were usually confined to
general pleas or one-on-one encounters, allowing the process of
soliciting and pledging money to remain anonymous. The second stage
followed from the first whenever community members refused to
submit to the pressure. In such cases, officials informed the Jewish
public of this intolerable behaviour and called on community members
to ostracize the offender(s).
In Dortmund, the committee organizing the “Hilfe-für Israel Aktion”
(Help for Israel Action) asked all community members to consider
whether they had participated in the endeavor by pledging money and, if
so, whether the donation was fitting given the needs of the Israeli
people and the financial capacity of the individual benefactor. Since the
committee was neither able to assess the “real possibilities of each
person” nor willing to “sanction stubborn sinners,” it suggested that all
members deal with the issue in a conscientious manner.19
We can discern a similar approach, namely individual arm-twisting as
against collective shaming, in a letter to community members whose
financial resolve had allegedly left something to be desired — in the eyes
of Zionist activists, that is. Henry O. of the Keren Hayessod censured
their miserliness and wrote: “Some time ago you donated 2500 Marks
(the sums varied according to the addressee, A.K.), which in no way
corresponds to your economic means and lies well below the sum paid
by people of much more humble backgrounds. The committee regards
the sum of 2500 Marks as absolutely inadequate and inappropriate.
Therefore I have been authorized (…) to refund the sum and transfer it
to your account.”20
When these measures failed to do the trick, community officials decided
18 Ibid., van Dam to A. Iden, 25.8.1967.
19 ZA B. 1/2., 170, Komitee “Hilfe für Israel,” Kultusgemeinde Groß-Dortmund,
3.8.1967, “Liebes Mitglied (...)”.
20 ZA B. 1/7. 466, Henry O. to Oskar F., 11.12.1967.
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to put the screws on the “transgressors,” hoping that shame might work
better than guilt. On 19 June 1967, the Solidarity Fund for Israel
published a statement demanding that representatives of Jewish
communities and institutions in West Germany whose involvement had
been insufficient be prohibited from holding an “honorary office in the
Jewish community in Germany.”21 The Frankfurt community board was
equally dismissive of these “black sheep,” comparing their “treacherous”
behaviour to that of “aiding and abetting murder.”22
Collective shaming reached its apogee in the spring and autumn of 1969,
when the Jewish communities of Munich and Frankfurt, in consultation
with the Keren Hayessod, passed the following resolution: “All donors
to the Solidarity Fund should 1. not accept any invitation to social events
(organized) by persons who did not participate in the Solidarity Action
of 1968 and who thus abandoned the Jewish people and the State of Israel in times
of need, 2. not request these people’s company, 3. not attend gatherings to
which these persons have been invited. 4. This resolution also pertains
to social functions (…) taking place in Israel and abroad.”23
Concern for Israel’s wellbeing was crucial here. Even so, some Jews in
the Federal Republic constructed communities of shame in order to
demonstrate their unequivocal allegiance to the Jewish state. These Jews
were concerned about their standing in the Jewish world, as well as that
of the West German Jewish community as a whole. Their feelings of
guilt for living in the “wrong” country ran deep, so deep, in fact, that
they were ready to isolate members of the community whose
comportment had supposedly threatened their own status. Shaming
others, then, promised to appease one’s own bad conscience. Most
Israelis, however, were quite oblivious to these disputes and remained
hostile to the idea of Jewish life in Germany.
Guardians of West German Democracy
The refusal to commit oneself economically to a land that one did not
and could not love came naturally to most Jews in the first decades after
the Holocaust; the enthusiastic support for Israel was also to be
expected. Inasmuch as both skepticism toward Germany and the
commitment to Israel were perceived to be the only possible answers to
the question of Jewish existence on German soil, they did not require
great intellectual feats to be related to the outside world. But Jewish
representatives also wished to show that, beyond helping Israel and
championing its cause vis-à-vis German officials, there was a further
raison d’être for Jews in the Federal Republic: to oversee West
21 Ibid., I.E. Lichtigfeld to all communities in Germany , 21.6.1967.
22 Ibid., “Vorstand der Gemeinde Frankfurt, Betr. Solidaritätsfonds für Israel, An alle
Mitglieder,” 24.6.1967.
23 ZA B. 1/2., 52, “Solidaritätsfonds für Israel,” Frankfurt am Main, 28.3.1969 and
“Solidaritätsfonds für Israel,” Munich, September 1969, emphasis in the original.
Anthony D. Kauders
24
Germany’s democratization. This argument transpired over the course
of many years, and its genesis owed much to the continued accusations
from Israel and the rest of the Jewish world.24
In the late summer of 1951, an intriguing piece appeared in the
Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland, West Germany’s main
Jewish newspaper. Penned by Hendrik van Dam, General Secretary of
the Central Council, the article addressed the thorny issue of Jewish
existence in the Federal Republic, and it did so in a way that would
exemplify much subsequent thinking on the matter. The Jewish official
was not one to revel in Geschichtsphilosophie. He avoided the question of
whether Jews should abandon the country for good, dismissing
comparisons with Spain’s Jewish community after the expulsion of 1492
as unnecessarily speculative. Instead, van Dam focused on the 30,000
Jews still living in the Federal Republic, whose role, he avowed, would be
moral in spirit: “the criterion for the will of the Germans to renounce its
anti-Jewish tendencies.”25
For van Dam and most other Jews, foreswearing antisemitism was
coterminous with democracy. In the post-war years, it had become a
habit of West Germany’s Jews to establish a causal connection between
democracy and restitution, between the return to a Rechtsstaat and the
remembrance of genocide, and between the newly created order and
minority rights.26 But that was not all. For in attempting to ensure that
democratization go hand in hand with the struggle against prejudice,
West Germany’s Jewish representatives were changing themselves.
Indeed, in the process of engaging with Germany’s Nazi past and post-
Nazi present, many of them came to identify with a role that proved too
compelling to be discarded, namely that of guarantor of West German
democracy.
Let us return to Karl Marx. Writing in April 1953, he opined that the
Allgemeine had realized earlier than many others “that the thesis of
collective guilt” was untenable and indefensible, massive critique from
“large groups abroad, particularly in Israel” notwithstanding.27 Two
weeks later, Marx contended that Germany had done everything in its
power to make amends, adding that, on the subject of collective guilt, it
was the “duty of every cultivated Jew” to counter all those “extreme
groups” who were in the business of using methods that had already led
to much suffering among the Jews themselves.28 Marx was not alone.
24 For this development see chapter 4 in Kauders, Unmögliche Heimat.
25 AWJD, “Periode der Normalisierung,” Hendrik van Dam, 29 July 1951, 1.
26 This point is argued in Anthony D. Kauders, Democratization and the Jews, Munich
1945-1965 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2004).
27 AWJD, “Rückblick auf sieben Jahre. Kleine Reminisenz zum Beginn eines neues
Jahrgangs,” 1.
28 AWJD, “Gedanken zum 5. Jahrestag,” 24 April 1953. His comments touched on
incidents that had taken place in Israel, where the violinist Jascha Heifetz had been
assaulted for his decision to perform the music of German composers. On further
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Hendrik van Dam, among others, denounced the “ideological observers
of the German situation,” for whom the “state of barbarism” was
endemic in this “part of the world” and who abhorred “any kind of
development” that would “contradict this prognosis.” van Dam
concluded his ruminations with the assertion that the Jewish community
in Germany had every right in the world to exist, dismissing Israeli press
statements that had suggested that only a “colony of diplomats” and a
few “loners” seeking restitution or commercial contacts ought to be
found in the country.29
In all of these cases, misrecognition of the Jewish predicament in
Germany led prominent Jews to reflect on the actual state of German-
Jewish relations. That state had changed to such an extent that endorsing
West German democracy was becoming feasible. This did not mean that
Jews now looked upon the country through rose-tinted glasses. Rather, it
meant that Jews were increasingly being forced to evaluate the Federal
Republic and its citizens in response to the unrelenting critique from
abroad. And this in turn produced results that had not necessarily been
anticipated.
Let me briefly illustrate this point. From the outset, Jewish
representatives in Germany backed General John McCloy’s famous
declaration of 1949 that Jews had to be accepted as equal citizens in
order for any people to stand the acid test of democracy.30 For them,
liberal democratic values implied an effort to allude to the symbolic link
between human rights, memory of violations thereof (the Holocaust),
and a healthy democracy.31 But where this approach initially only related
to how Germans were supposed to act, it would later also designate the
rationale for Jewish existence. In other words, where many Jews as far back
as the 19th century had understood the relationship between their well-
interventions by Marx, see AWJD, “Die unsichtbare Front,” 21 August 1953;
“Hoffnungsvoll ins neue Jahr,” 4 September 1953; and “Der besiegte Pessimismus,” 18
September 1953.
29 AWJD, “Das Recht zum Dasein: Zur Selbstbehauptung der jüdischen Gemeinden in
Deutschland,” 25 September 1953, 1. See also “Um die Existenz der jüdischen
Gemeinden: Von der Bremer Tagung des Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland,” 9
October 1953, 1; “Gegen Beschlüsse am grünen Tisch: Offener Brief der jüdischen
Gemeinde Hamburg zum Thema Juden in Deutschland,” 17 August 1951, 5; and
“Verständnislose Einmischung: Ausländische jüdische Zeitung ‘berät’ Juden in
Deutschland,” E.G.L., 13 March 1953, 3. On the “positive fact” of Jewish existence in
Germany, see also Frankfurter Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, “Geleitwort,” April 1955, 1 and
“1945-1955: Frankfurter Tagebuch,” May 1955, 1.
30 Josef Foschepoth, Im Schatten der Vergangenheit: Die Anfänge der Gesellschaften für
Christlich-Jüdische Zusammenarbeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Rupprecht, 1993), 82; Y.
Michal Bodemann, “Staat und Ethnizität: Der Aufbau der jüdischen Gemeinden im
Kalten Krieg,” in: Brumlik, Kiesel, Kugelmann, Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland seit 1945,
49-69.
31 Kauders, Democratization, 6.
Anthony D. Kauders
26
being and the success of liberal democracy,32 after 1945 prominent Jews
combined this position with one that established a connection between
their very identity and the success of West German democracy.
Initially, this connection was remarked upon only sporadically we
have already encountered van Dam’s hope that a Jewish presence would
force Germans to disown antisemitism. Subsequently, however, this idea
gained in popularity. On the occasion of the Momenta Judaica exhibition
in Cologne in March 1964, for instance, van Dam recalled the
resentment that the Jewish world had expressed toward Germany’s Jews,
despite the fact that these same Jews had helped create the Federal
Republic, not least by ensuring that democracy would thrive in the
country.33 Heinz Galinski, head of West Berlin’s Jewish community, was
even more explicit. Writing in the aftermath of the World Jewish
Congress meeting in August 1966, his words could hardly conceal the
frustration that came with the incessant compulsion to legitimize his
very existence: “The opponents of a dialogue between Jews and non-
Jews in Germany,” Galinski began, “should from time to time consider
that the political development in Germany — democracy or dictatorship
is a decision that is also not without significance for them.” On a
more personal note, Galinski mentioned how people “in different Jewish
communities and institutions” had seen it as their duty to assist
Germany in “taking the democratic path and sticking to it.” He then
continued along similar lines, reminding those “who have nearly written
us off” that “we Jews are engaged in pioneering work that is neither
opportunistic nor demanding of gratitude, but is subordinate to the goal
of human understanding (Menschlichkeit).”34
Galinski’s words bespoke a self-understanding that was gaining ground
during this period. Increasingly, Jewish public figures in the Federal
Republic associated their own place in society as well as that of the larger
Jewish community with the success of West Germany’s democracy.
While showing growing appreciation of the country’s transformation,
Galinski and others arrogated to themselves the role of assisting this
32 For the German-Jewish predilection for liberalism in the 19th and 20th centuries
and the German-Jewish propensity to vote for liberal democratic parties before Hitler,
see Peter Pulzer, Jews and the German State: The Political History of a Minority, 1848-1933
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002); Martin Liepach, Das Wahlverhalten der
jüdischen Bevölkerung: Zur politischen Orientierung der Juden in der Weimarer Republik
(Tübingen: Mohr, 1996); and Anthony D. Kauders, “Weimar Jewry.”
33 AWJD, “Zweitausend Jahre Juden in Deutschland. Auch die Nachkriegsgeschichte
zählt,” 20 March 1964, 1.
34 Ibid., “Ein Nachwort zum Kongress,” 19 August 1966. van Dam reiterated this
point at about the same time: “It is logical that the existence of a Jewish community in
Germany after 1945 represents a historical factor that is of considerable significance to
the development of democratic institutions.” Abraham Melzer (ed.), Deutsche und
Juden—ein unlösbares Problem. Reden zum jüdischen Weltkongreß 1966 (Düsseldorf,
1966), 55.
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27
process by offering special expertise. This Jewish know-how was a gift
and I would argue for three main reasons. First, it implied Jewish
willingness to be interested in Germany’s future, despite the heinous
crimes of the past. Second, it suggested that Jews would benefit the
country by demonstrating that change was indeed occurring. Third, it
meant that the Federal Republic, in its dealings with other countries,
could point to Jewish involvement in the affairs of the state. But West
Germany’s Jews were also receiving something in return. Both vis-à-vis
Israel and the wider Jewish world, van Dam, Marx, and Galinski could
point to their significance in upholding German democracy. This self-
declared function boosted their own self-confidence, claiming as they
now could to play a “pioneering” rather than an “obdurate” part in post-
war Jewish history.
This interpretation reached its climax in the speeches and writings of
Werner Nachmann, the Central Council’s controversial chairman from
1969 to 1988. In numerous remarks, Nachmann elucidated the need to
strengthen relations between Germans and Jews, so much so that some
of his statements came very close to fusing the interests of both sides. A
good case in point is his interview with the Allgemeine of December 1975.
Asked to comment on why he had been invited to join Foreign Minister
Hans-Dietrich Genscher to Israel, the Zentralrat official surmised that it
owed much to the way in which the Jewish community had enabled
West Germany to “return to the family of free nations.” That not being
enough, Nachmann put forward the rather contorted but revealing
observation that the “Jewish community in Germany evinces much
attractiveness, both as citizens of the Federal Republic with its
government and with the Federal government regarding the efforts to
act on behalf of Israel.” The activity of the Central Council, he
concluded, “proved that the Federal Republic is today one of the most
democratic countries on earth.”35
Nachmann was seconded one year later, when his Secretary-General,
Alexander Ginsburg (1973-1988), recounted the Central Council’s recent
trip to Israel. Unusually and naively optimistic about Israeli perceptions
of West Germany, Ginsburg claimed that many Israelis had “appreciated
the achievements of democratic society in post-war Germany” and
acknowledged how much the Jewish communities had “contributed to
the conditions” for democracy in the state. Accordingly, the words
“Germania tov” (Germany is good, actually: Germania tova), which
Ginsburg claimed could be “heard everywhere,” summed up the
35 AWJD, “Werner Nachmann: Die jüdische Gemeinschaft der Bundesrepublik wirkt
an der Friedensarbeit der Bundesrepublik mit,” 12 December 1975, 2. At the general
meeting of the Zentralrat in February 1976, Nachmann reported on a meeting with
Defense Minister Julius Leber. It was essential, he declared, that the Jewish community
ensure that the young soldiers be educated as “democratic citizens.” AWJD,
“Unveränderte Grundsätze und Aufgaben,” 13 February 1976, 1-2.
Anthony D. Kauders
28
“prevailing opinion” within Israeli society.36 These lines, it will be
appreciated, addressed two audiences. Ginsburg was certainly appealing
to his Jewish readers, for whom Israeli sentiment toward Germany’s
Jews remained a source of continuous apprehension. Every little sign of
hope, then, would help. Equally significant, however, was the overture to
the non-Jewish public: the Jews had endorsed West Germany’s
democratization, made the state more respectable in the eyes of Israel’s
Jewish population, and provided the Federal Republic with ever-
important credibility.
But it was left to the chairman of the Zentralrat to adopt a maximalist
position. On the 25th anniversary of the consecration of Düsseldorf’s
synagogue in 1983, Nachmann spoke on the subject of “Jewish
responsibility in the Federal Republic.” In his speech, the chairman
recapitulated most of his previous programmatic statements, though this
time around the “exchange of gifts” in the shape German-Jewish
relations was particularly evident, even if the language remained as stilted
as ever: “Unfortunately it is today rarely noted that through the
foundation of the new Jewish community so soon after the end of the
Hitler tyranny the political trust of the free world in the young Federal
Republic was strengthened and this state…. was very quickly accepted
into the family of nations. This was also a prerequisite for the economic
boom that brought this country prosperity. We have contributed to this
development. We showed responsibility also toward this state, whose
citizens we have again become. We are respected as a religious
community and enjoy the same guaranteed rights as the Christian
churches. We cultivate regular contacts with state institutions. We are in
touch regularly with the representatives of the political parties, unions,
and industry. We talk openly with the churches. We take part in public
life.” Toward the end of this section of his speech, he returned to the
theme with which he had begun: “Of course it also belongs to our duty
and to our responsibility to represent to the outside world the image of
this Federal Republic that corresponds with the facts and does justice to
the efforts of the politicians in charge. We can and wish to acknowledge
that they have consolidated, through their politics, democracy and
thereby the freedom of each individual citizen.”37
36 Ibid., ‘Diese Reise war notwendig, sie war gut’: Gespräch mit Alexander Ginsburg
über den Israelbesuch des Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland,Friedrich Uttitz, 3
December 1976, 1-2.
37 AWJD, “Jüdische Verantwortung,” Werner Nachmann, 1-2. See also “Versäumnisse
nachholen: Werner Nachmann sprach in der Stuttgarter Theodor-Heuss-Kaserne,”
24.2.1978, 1, 2, 3; “Bekenntnis zum Miteinander: Die zentrale Veranstaltung zum 9.
November,” 17 November 1978, Hermann Levy, 1, 3; “Das Erreichte absichern und
ausbauen. Botschaft des Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland zum Jahre 5740,” 21
September 1979, 1; “Hitlers langer Schatten: Drei Thesen zu 1933,” Werner
Nachmann, 14 January 1983, 1-2; “Juden—Bürger der Bundesrepublik,” Werner
Nachmann, 10 February 1984, 1-2; and “Das jüdische Erbe in Deutschland,” Werner
FOCUS
29
Now, it could be very plausibly argued that Nachmann was an extreme
case, whose actions many Jews in West Germany disowned and
especially so when it became known, shortly after his death in 1988, that
he had embezzled restitution monies in the order of 29.4 million marks
so as to save his various firms from bankruptcy.38 None the less,
Nachmann as a representative of Jewry in the Federal Republic belonged to
a tradition of leaders who had imbibed the belief of Jewish importance
for West German democratization. What is more, those younger Jews
who dissociated themselves from Nachmann, Galinski, or Ginsburg
appropriated the democratic ideal in their discussions of Israel and the
wider world. A classic example of this assumption can be found in the
first editorial of Babylon, the Jewish journal put out by Susan Heenen-
Wolff, Getrud Koch, Cilly Kugelmann, and Martin Löw-Beer. Although
adamant that the publication would transcend the traditional concerns of
the West German Jewish leadership, the editors embraced a core
understanding of the latter in their emphasis on universalistic morals:
“Not so much as representatives of a religious/social/ethnic minority do
we want to make ourselves be heard, but as universalistically oriented
intellectuals that want reflectively to go beyond the particularly of origins
(Herkunftspartikularität) without wanting to deny it.”39
Power and Pluralism
In fact, there had been calls for change well before Nachmann’s death.
The 1970s and 1980s, it can be argued, were an intellectual turning point
in West German Jewish history precisely because of the growing
importance of second-generation critics like Dan Diner and Micha
Brumlik. To be sure, these young Jews were not alone in their calls for
renewal. As early as 1970 van Dam had noted the need for change, given
that West Germany’s Jews were becoming ever more part of Christian
mainstream society. The incessant talk of living on “packed suitcases,”
he noted, could no longer be sustained after more than twenty years of
uninterrupted Jewish existence on German soil.40 And in light of the fact
that approximately two-thirds of Jews married non-Jews between 1973
and 1981, references to “packed suitcases” seemed rather reckless
indeed.41
But it was the generational conflict emerging in this period that set the
tone for future debate. Like their Gentile counterparts, Jewish youths
Nachmann, 23 March 1984, 1-2.
38 Erica Burgauer, Zwischen Erinnerung und Verdrängung—Juden in Deutschland nach 1945
(Reinbek: Rowohlt 1993), 132-135; Michael Brenner, Nach dem Holocaust: Juden in
Deutschland 1945-1950 (Munich: C. H. Beck 1995), 194-195.
39 Babylon. Beiträge zur jüdischen Gegenwart, editorial, 1/1986, 7.
40 ZA, B.1/7., 250, Jahresbericht 1969-1970.
41 ZA, B. 1/7., 332, Dr. Navè Levinson, Standesamtliche Ehenschließungen von Juden
1973-1981 nach den Statistischen Jahrbüchern der Bundesrepublik 1975-1983.
Anthony D. Kauders
30
sought to pluralize society and its institutions.42 Unlike many of their
Gentile peers, early conflicts with the establishment were not meant to
threaten the (Jewish) status quo: young Jews did not demand new leaders
and did challenge the role of Israel within community life. Prominent
representatives such as Munich’s Hans Lamm or Düsseldorf’s Paul
Spiegel confirmed that most Jewish students, during this early phase,
neither questioned Zionism as an integral part of Jewish education nor
disowned the Jewish community in Germany as a whole.43 Nevertheless,
Jewish officials did concede that something had to be done against the
general indifference among younger Jews, who often showed little or no
enthusiasm for the goings-on in synagogues and community centers.44
In the early 1970s we therefore have a situation in which young Jews
expected the leadership to take seriously the concerns of a more liberal
and critical generation, and in which older representatives wished to
stave off the slow demise of community institutions whose very
existence was under threat. Yet the interests of the one group (renewal)
did not necessarily coincide with those of the other (survival).
The latter often reacted bureaucratically. Late in 1970 the Central
Council set up a special committee for youth questions, whose aim it
was to discuss current problems and whose (young) members were to
meet regularly. The first such gathering took place in December 1971,45
with further ones to follow. Although the committee discussed sensitive
issues such as intermarriage or Zionism with much openness and
dedication, the communication with both rabbis and officials proved
difficult, to say the least.46 Having set up the group, the Central Council
had obviously hoped to be left in peace, and there is little evidence to
suggest that Nachmann and his colleagues took seriously the discussions
they had initiated in the first place.47 From 1977 onward, Youth and
42 Gabriele Metzler, “Am Ende aller Krisen? Politisches Denken und Handeln in der
Bundesrepublik der sechziger Jahre,” in: Historische Zeitschrift, 275 (2002): 103.
43 AWJD, 16.10.1969 “Das innerjüdische Gespräch. Vorschlag zur Aktivierung des
Gemeindelebens,” 1; ZA, B. 1/7., 13, “Bericht über den Kongreß der jüdischen Jugend
in Berlin, Paul Spiegel,” 12.2.1970.
44 AWJD, 14.2.1969 “Umwelt nicht unbedingt freundlich.” Ratsversammlung des
Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland,” 5; 14.4.1970 “Wir brauchen Jugend,” 1; and
ZA, B. 1/7., 417. Cantor Gerstel in a letter to Paul Spiegel 31.5.1970.
45 For initiatives on a local level, see Kauders, Unmögliche Heimat, 188-191. ZA, B. 1/7.,
113 “Zusammenfassender Bericht des Seminars in Sobernheim vom 23.-26.12.1971.”
46 ZA B. 1/7., 391 Letter of Nomi Barlev, Daniela Thau, David Wasserstein
(Initiativgruppe für Jugendfragen beim Zentralrat) to Herrn Lewy, 23.1.1972 and
Daniela Thau, Ruwen Isser, Michael Bock (IGJZ) to “Mitglieder des Direktoriums zur
Kenntnisnahme,” 13.2.1974, “Zusammenfassender Bericht über das Seminar
Sobernheim vom 21.-27.12.1973.”
47 ZA, B. 1/7., 391 Ben Klar, Ben Prinz, Michael Bock to the Zentralrat, 18.6.1974;
ZA, B. 1/7., 391 Michael Bock, Ruwen Isser, Ben Klar, Benno Reicher, and Ralf Spier
“Ist die jüdische Jugend aus dem Dornröschenschlaf erwacht? IGJZ—gestern—
heute—morgen,” no date.
FOCUS
31
Culture Conferences (Jugend und Kulturtage) replaced the committee
meetings. Again, while there is no extant material detailing the rationale
behind this initiative, the subsequent dialogue between the Zentralrat and
the conference participants indicates that the former was more
interested in addressing the various issues pro forma than in adopting
recommendations springing from the conference proceedings.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in the ongoing debate on
intermarriage. Whereas most members of the younger generation
advocated an accommodating stance allowing non-Halakhic children
to join communities, integrating Gentile partners wherever possible,
accepting the reality of mixed marriages as a fact of life —,48 the Central
Council under Nachmann moved in the opposite direction. In Frankfurt
am Main, for example, a New Jewish List (Neue Jüdische Liste) took part
in the community elections of 1986. Micha Brumlik and Susann Jael
Heenen-Wolff, among others, not only spoke in favor of greater
transparency and more democracy, they also demanded that non-
Halakhic children be accepted in the community as equal members and
that their mothers be taught Hebrew, Yiddish, and Jewish history.
Otherwise, the party activists maintained, the tiny Jewish community
would be unable to survive in the long run.49
Nachmann, however, did not appreciate such advice. From 1982 onward
he and his supporters repeatedly demanded that Jews married to
Gentiles be not admitted to leadership positions in communities,
especially when these positions touched on questions of religion and
education.50 Nachmann argued, without providing any evidence, that
offspring from such marriages rarely received a Jewish education; he
added that it was hardly impossible to find Jewish spouses in West
Germany. 51 In October 1984 the Directorate of the Zentralrat passed a
resolution advising Jewish communities throughout the country to only
send representatives to the Central Council who were married to Jews.52
Similar conflicts emerged with regard to Israel. A few examples must
suffice. In 1980, Dan Diner, Micha Brumlik und Cilly Kugelmann
founded the Frankfurt Jewish Group (Frankfurter Jüdische Gruppe); at
48 Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung (AJW), 12.10.1979 Die Jugendtagung in Hannover:
Forum jüdischer Aussprache. Probleme der Juden in Deutschland,” 2 and 2.12.1983
“Im Mittelpunkt Religion und Familie. Die 6. Jugend- und Kulturtagung des
Zentralrats in Stuttgart,” 1-2.
49 ZA, B. 1/7., 263 Flyer “Neue Jüdische Liste,” September 1986.
50 ZA, B. 1/7., 339 “Vermerk über die Sitzung der Vorbereitungskommission der
Jugend - und Kulturtagung in Stuttgart,” 1.5.1983.
51 ZA, B. 1/7., 339 “Vermerk über die Sitzung der Vorbereitungskommission der
Jugend - und Kulturtagung in Stuttgart,” 1.5.1983 und ZA, B. 1/7., 256 “Rede vor
einem Landesverband” and AJW, 19.9.1986 “Planung für die Zukunft. Die
Ratsversammlung des Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland in Hannover,” 1-2.
52 ZA, B. 1/7., 836 “Protokoll der Sitzung des Zentralrats am 21.10.1984 in Frankfurt
am Main,” 3.
Anthony D. Kauders
32
about the same time, the Federation of Jewish Students published the
Munich-based journal Cheshbon. The need for a new beginning, Micha
Brumlik maintained, was evident in all walks of Jewish life. He added
that because the “Zionist experiment had failed,” “Torah, Talmud, and
Tanakh” would have to replace the undue fixation on the State of
Israel.53 Heschel Freudig, a member of the Cheshbon editorial board,
agreed with this assessment. Not only had Israel ceased to be as
important to Diaspora Jews as in the past, this erstwhile pre-occupation
had also blinded West Germany’s Jews to the fact that Israel’s
occupation of Gaza and the West Bank was undemocratic.54 Brumlik and
Freudig were no exceptions. At the preparatory seminar for the fifth
Youth and Culture Conference at Wiesbaden in December 1981, a
majority of the participants rejected the concept of unconditional love
for Israel (Ahavat Israel) as an unrealistic position to adopt in view of
recent developments. “Love makes you blind,” was how one woman
summarized her thoughts on the matter.55
The Lebanon War of 1982 occasioned a further radicalization of this
form of anti-Zionism. Diner hoped that the military victory of Israel
would not lead to a psychological defeat of the Palestinians, and called
on everyone to support the resistance of the PLO in the Occupied
Territories.56 Brumlik went one step further. He not only condemned
the Israeli army for its “pogrom-like actions,” he also compared the
massacres of Sabra and Shatila with the murder of tens of thousands of
Ukrainian Jews in Babi Yar.57
Astonishingly, the Central Council did not lose the upper hand, though
it was losing its purpose and appeal. In the first decades after the Shoah,
the Zentralrat had represented most Jews in West Germany. At the time,
men like van Dam and Galinski promoted the economic, political, and
legal interests of the Jewish community vis-à-vis various German
authorities and in so doing, fulfilled their function in an exemplary
manner. Matters looked rather different in 1984 or 1988, however. Now
the Central Council lacked specific objectives most community members
could unequivocally embrace. Now both young and old Jews increasingly
contemplated the future of community life in the country as opposed to
ensuring Wiedergutmachung or West German democratization. Now the
Central Council had a much more difficult time suppressing controversy;
determining the course a given controversy might take; or co-opting
53 Cheshbon, Spring1980, “Krise der jüdischen Identität?,” 7-11.
54 Cheshbon, Autumn 1980, “Die ‘Gefahr’ der Selbstkritik,” 7.
55 AJW, 4.12.1981 “Ahawat Israel—oder macht Liebe blind?,” 3, 5.
56 “‘Frieden für Galiläa’—Krieg den Galiläern,” in: links, Nr. 148/149, July/August
1982, 2.
57 Shila Khasani, “Minderheit in der Minderheit. Das politische Engagement der
linksorientierten Juden in der Frankfurter Jüdischen Gruppe,” in: Trumah. Juden in der
Bundesrepublik—Dokumentationen und Analysen, Band 14 (2005): 61-62.
FOCUS
33
inexperienced youth to do its work. That being the case, Nachmann and
others retained their authority even in this difficult and intellectually
challenging period, mainly for two reasons: first, the Jewish community
was too small in size to allow for formidable alternative factions or
serious counter-publics; and second, the most vocal and intellectually
commanding figures critical of the Zentralrat preferred to become
involved in German politics and/or pursue academic careers to
becoming immersed in the high politics of West German Jewry.
The Zentralrat held on to its power because of habit and the particular
make-up of West German Jewry. But this power was becoming hollow
as liberalism, individualism, and pluralism were taking hold of the Jewish
public. Gaining ground in many areas of life —marriage patterns,
sociability, consumption —, the new pluralist paradigm was equally
present in the ideological sphere, as the debate on the relationship with
Israel testifies. If the critique of Israel initially reflected the desire of the
second generation to emancipate itself from the first, the content of the
critique prefigured the road ahead: more and more Jews would ignore
Zentralrat pronouncements, indeed dissociate themselves from their
official representatives. The culmination of this trend can be seen today,
where the President of the Central Council, Charlotte Knobloch, resorts
to language strangely reminiscent of the 1970s and often removed from
the concerns of new immigrants and the third generation alike. Just as
guilt is no longer the guiding force in Jewish life most Jews are at
home in Germany —, so the Zentralrat has lost much of its raison d’être.
Pluralism, it can be argued, has bred a new generation of Jews whose
interests are too diverse to be embodied by members of a generation still
in the throes of a post-Holocaust world.
Anthony D. Kauders is lecturer in European History at the School of
History of the Keele University (UK). Recent publications include:
Democratization and the Jews. Munich 1945-1965 (Lincoln, Nebraska and
London: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, pp. 326); Unmögliche
Heimat: Eine deutsch-jüdische Geschichte der Bundesrepublik (Munich: Deutsche
Verlags-Anstalt (DVA), 2007, pp. 301).
http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/hi/staff/a_kauders.htm
How to quote this article:
Anthony D. Kauders, West German Jewry: Guilt, Power and Pluralism in
“Quest. Issues in Contemporary History. Journal of Fondazione
CDEC”, n. 1, 2010
URL http://www.quest-cdecjournal.it/focus.php?issue=1&id=213
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La UE ha sido el proyecto de prevención de conflictos más exitoso de todo el mundo. Si bien es cierto que la UE ha servido para evitar que el conflicto entre Francia y Alemania se mantuviera, las bases del proyecto europeo son mucho más amplias. Uno de los colectivos que más han aportado a la construcción europea son los judíos, a los que algunos autores les han calificado como los europeos más antiguos. Desde los años 60 vivimos una nueva ola de antisemitismo con unas características muy particulares y que hoy en día está afectando no solo a los europeos judíos sino también a la propia estabilidad del proyecto europeo.
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Die Wahlerfolge der rechts-autoritären AfD lenken die öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit wieder verstärkt auf die ostdeutschen Bundesländer: Wieso die hohen Zustimmungswerte für eine Partei, die vor allem mit Ressentiments Wahlkampf macht? Aus dem Blick gerät dabei oft, dass auch in den westdeutschen Bundesländern die Demokratie unter Druck steht. Im vorliegenden Band stellen die Autor*innen der seit 2002 unter Leitung von Oliver Decker und Elmar Brähler bundesweit durchgeführten Untersuchungsreihe die Ergebnisse der 12. Leipziger Autoritarismus Studie vor. Zahlreiche Facetten der politischen Einstellung werden dokumentiert, wobei insbesondere Antisemitismus, Sexismus und Antifeminismus, Demokratieverdrossenheit und die sozialen Bedingungen der Ressentiments analysiert werden.
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Die sechziger Jahre gelten in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik als Zeit dynamischer Veränderungen. Diese betrafen soziale Konstellationen, gesellschaftliche Bewußtseinslagen, soziokulturelle Prozesse, aber auch politisches Denken und Handeln. Modernisierung und Demokratisierung der politischen Institutionen bildeten den Kern der Reformpolitik seit der großen Koalition. Gleichwohl läßt sich der politische Wandel, so signifikant er auch war, nicht nur als "Aufbruch" charakterisieren, sondern er markierte zugleich auch den Abschluß der "klassischen Moderne", deren zentrale Probleme und Krisen nun lösbar erschienen: Die Ziele gesellschaftlicher Integration, sozialer Sicherung sowie politischer Demokratisierung und Partizipation ließen sich im Verständnis der Reformer durch wissenschaftlich fundierte, rationale und vorausschauende politische Planung erreichen. In dieser Perspektive wurde indes übersehen, daß nicht mehr allein die Problemlagen der "klassischen Moderne" für den politischen Prozeß bestimmend waren, sondern auch jene, welche die "Moderne im Selbstbezug" erzeugte. Die Individualisierung und Pluralisierung von Leitbildern, Lebensentwürfen und Weltanschauungen, wie sie gegen Ende der sechziger Jahre deutlich erkennbar wurden, liefen dem Projekt einer geplanten Gesellschaftspolitik zuwider; "die Gesellschaft" ließ sich nicht nach bestimmten Maßgaben planen und steuern, sondern entwickelte Ansätze gesellschaftlicher Selbststeuerung. Die in den späten sechziger Jahren vorherrschende Vorstellung, am Ende aller Krisen angelangt zu sein, erwies sich als Illusion.
Umwelt nicht unbedingt freundlich Ratsversammlung des Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland Wir brauchen Jugend, " 1; and ZA, B. 1/7., 417. Cantor Gerstel in a letter to Paul Spiegel 31.5.1970. 45 For initiatives on a local level, see Kauders
  • B Za
AWJD, 16.10.1969 " Das innerjüdische Gespräch. Vorschlag zur Aktivierung des Gemeindelebens, " 1; ZA, B. 1/7., 13, " Bericht über den Kongreß der jüdischen Jugend in Berlin, Paul Spiegel, " 12.2.1970. 44 AWJD, 14.2.1969 " Umwelt nicht unbedingt freundlich. " Ratsversammlung des Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland, " 5; 14.4.1970 " Wir brauchen Jugend, " 1; and ZA, B. 1/7., 417. Cantor Gerstel in a letter to Paul Spiegel 31.5.1970. 45 For initiatives on a local level, see Kauders, Unmögliche Heimat, 188-191. ZA, B. 1/7., 113 " Zusammenfassender Bericht des Seminars in Sobernheim vom 23.-26.12.1971. " 46 ZA B. 1/7., 391 Letter of Nomi Barlev, Daniela Thau, David Wasserstein (Initiativgruppe für Jugendfragen beim Zentralrat) to Herrn Lewy, 23.1.1972 and Daniela Thau, Ruwen Isser, Michael Bock (IGJZ) to " Mitglieder des Direktoriums zur Kenntnisnahme, " 13.2.1974, " Zusammenfassender Bericht über das Seminar Sobernheim vom 21.-27.12.1973. " 47 ZA, B. 1/7., 391 Ben Klar, Ben Prinz, Michael Bock to the Zentralrat, 18.6.1974;
Ist die jüdische Jugend aus dem Dornröschenschlaf erwacht? IGJZ-gesternheute-morgen
  • Michael Bock
  • Ruwen Isser
  • Ben Klar
  • Benno Reicher
  • Ralf Spier
ZA, B. 1/7., 391 Michael Bock, Ruwen Isser, Ben Klar, Benno Reicher, and Ralf Spier "Ist die jüdische Jugend aus dem Dornröschenschlaf erwacht? IGJZ-gesternheute-morgen," no date.
Probleme der Juden in Deutschland 2 and 2.12 1-2. 49 ZA, B. 1/7., 263 Flyer Neue Jüdische Liste Vermerk über die Sitzung der Vorbereitungskommission der Jugend -und Kulturtagung in Stuttgart Vermerk über die Sitzung der Vorbereitungskommission der Jugend -und Kulturtagung in Stuttgart
  • Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung
Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung (AJW), 12.10.1979 " Die Jugendtagung in Hannover: Forum jüdischer Aussprache. Probleme der Juden in Deutschland, " 2 and 2.12.1983 " Im Mittelpunkt Religion und Familie. Die 6. Jugend-und Kulturtagung des Zentralrats in Stuttgart, " 1-2. 49 ZA, B. 1/7., 263 Flyer " Neue Jüdische Liste, " September 1986. 50 ZA, B. 1/7., 339 " Vermerk über die Sitzung der Vorbereitungskommission der Jugend -und Kulturtagung in Stuttgart, " 1.5.1983. 51 ZA, B. 1/7., 339 " Vermerk über die Sitzung der Vorbereitungskommission der Jugend -und Kulturtagung in Stuttgart, " 1.5.1983 und ZA, B. 1/7., 256 " Rede vor einem Landesverband " and AJW, 19.9.1986 " Planung für die Zukunft. Die Ratsversammlung des Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland in Hannover, " 1-2. 52 ZA, B. 1/7., 836 " Protokoll der Sitzung des Zentralrats am 21.10.1984 in Frankfurt am Main, " 3.
On the question of remigration, see especially Irmela von der Lühe
On the question of remigration, see especially Irmela von der Lühe, Axel Schildt, and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (eds.), "Auch in Deutschland waren wir nicht wirklich zu Hause." Jüdische Remigration nach 1945 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008).
Über den Wiederaufbau der jüdischen Gemeinden in Deutschland seit 1945 (unpublished dissertation Mainz, 1961), 48. interventions by Marx, see AWJD
  • Harry Maor
Harry Maor, Über den Wiederaufbau der jüdischen Gemeinden in Deutschland seit 1945 (unpublished dissertation Mainz, 1961), 48. interventions by Marx, see AWJD, "Die unsichtbare Front," 21 August 1953;
Gegen Beschlüsse am grünen Tisch: Offener Brief der jüdischen Gemeinde Hamburg zum Thema Juden in Deutschland
AWJD, "Das Recht zum Dasein: Zur Selbstbehauptung der jüdischen Gemeinden in Deutschland," 25 September 1953, 1. See also "Um die Existenz der jüdischen Gemeinden: Von der Bremer Tagung des Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland," 9 October 1953, 1; "Gegen Beschlüsse am grünen Tisch: Offener Brief der jüdischen Gemeinde Hamburg zum Thema Juden in Deutschland," 17 August 1951, 5; and "Verständnislose Einmischung: Ausländische jüdische Zeitung 'berät' Juden in Deutschland," E.G.L., 13 March 1953, 3. On the "positive fact" of Jewish existence in Germany, see also Frankfurter Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt, "Geleitwort," April 1955, 1 and "1945-1955: Frankfurter Tagebuch," May 1955, 1.
Staat und Ethnizität: Der Aufbau der jüdischen Gemeinden im Kalten Krieg
  • Michal Bodemann
Michal Bodemann, "Staat und Ethnizität: Der Aufbau der jüdischen Gemeinden im Kalten Krieg," in: Brumlik, Kiesel, Kugelmann, Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland seit 1945, 49-69.
Das innerjüdische Gespräch. Vorschlag zur Aktivierung des Gemeindelebens
AWJD, 16.10.1969 "Das innerjüdische Gespräch. Vorschlag zur Aktivierung des Gemeindelebens," 1;