Misplaced Pages

#504495

160-558: The opposite of the Reichsdeutsche is, then, depending on context and historical period, Volksdeutsche , Auslandsdeutsche (however, usually meaning German citizens living abroad), or a more specific term denoting the area of settlement, such as Baltic Germans or Volga Germans ( Wolgadeutsche ). The key problem with the terms reichsdeutsch , volksdeutsch , deutschstämmig (of German descent, as to citizenship or ethnicity), and related ones

320-590: A Baltic German is able to avenge her family's deaths, but commits suicide after, unable to live with meaning in the Soviet Union. Flüchtlinge depicted the sufferings of Volga German refugees in Manchuria, and how a heroic blond leader saved them; it was the first movie to win the state prize. Frisians in Peril depicted the suffering of a village of Volga Germans in the Soviet Union; it also depicted

480-602: A 1938 memorandum of the German Reich Chancellery . That document defined Volksdeutsche as "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship". After 1945, the Nazi citizenship laws of 1935 ( Reichsbürgergesetz  [ de ] ) - and the associated regulations that referred to the National Socialist concepts of blood and race in connection with

640-668: A German 'race' or 'Volk', to refer to foreign nationals of some German ethnicity living in countries newly occupied by Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Prior to World War II , more than 10 million ethnic Germans lived in Central and Eastern Europe. They constituted an important minority far into Russia . Because of widespread assimilation some people whom the Nazis called Volksdeutsche could no longer speak German and in fact were culturally regionalized as Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Czechs, Slovaks, etc. In 1931, prior to its rise to power,

800-501: A German, belong to a society that was under French leadership. German Jews supported German colonial ambitions in Africa and Eastern Europe, out of the desire to increase German power and to rescue Eastern European Jews from Tsarist rule. The eastern advance became important for German Jews because it combined German military superiority with rescuing Eastern Jews from Russian brutality; Russian antisemitism and pogroms had only worsened as

960-557: A German-Jewish newspaper reported that all the young Jewish males in the Franconian towns of Hagenbach , Ottingen , and Warnbach had emigrated or were about to emigrate. The United States was the primary destination for emigrating German Jews. The Revolutions of 1848 swung the pendulum back towards freedom for the Jews. A noted reform rabbi of that time was Leopold Zunz , a contemporary and friend of Heinrich Heine . In 1871, with

1120-619: A better social status. The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle organised large-scale looting of property and redistributed goods to the Volksdeutsche. They were given apartments, workshops, farms, furniture, and clothing confiscated from Jews and Poles. In turn, hundreds of thousands of the Volksdeutsche joined the German forces, either willingly or under compulsion. During World War II , the Polish citizens of German ancestry that identified with

1280-519: A consequence of the fictitious confessions extracted under torture from the Jews of Trent , the populace of many cities, especially of Regensburg, fell upon the Jews and massacred them. The end of the 15th century, which brought a new epoch for the Christian world , brought no relief to the Jews. Jews in Germany remained the victims of a religious hatred that ascribed to them all possible evils. When

1440-524: A few men came forward to promote their cause, foremost among them being Gabriel Riesser (d. 1863), a Jewish lawyer from Hamburg , who demanded full civic equality for his people. He won over public opinion to such an extent that this equality was granted in Prussia on 6 April 1848, in Hanover and Nassau on 5 September and on 12 December, respectively, and also in his home state of Hamburg , then home to

1600-474: A key role in keeping the Jewish communities in tune with the changing society that was evoked by the Jews being emancipated. Jewish women were the catalyst of modernization within the Jewish community. The years 1870–1918 marked the shift in the women's role in society. Their job in the past had been housekeeping and raising children. Now, however, they began to contribute to the home financially. Jewish mothers were

1760-718: A large and well-organized Jewish community in these regions dates from 321 CE and refers to Cologne on the Rhine . It indicates that the legal status of the Jews there was the same as elsewhere in the Roman Empire . They enjoyed some civil liberties, but were restricted regarding the dissemination of their culture, the keeping of non-Jewish slaves, and the holding of office under the government. Jews were otherwise free to follow any occupation open to indigenous Germans and were engaged in agriculture, trade, industry, and gradually money-lending. These conditions at first continued in

SECTION 10

#1732772524505

1920-480: A matter of fact unwilling or unable to exercise it, such as citizens of East Germany ( DDR-Bürger ) and East Berlin, or of the Saar Protectorate . Volksdeutsche In Nazi German terminology, Volksdeutsche ( German pronunciation: [ˈfɔlksˌdɔʏtʃə] ) were "people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship." The term

2080-788: A new generation of Jews. He maintained a leading role in the German Haskalah , is one of the founding editors of Ha-Me/assef . Euchel was exposed to European languages and culture while living in Prussian centers: Berlin and Koenigsberg. His interests turned towards promoting the educational interests of the Enlightenment with other Jews. Moses Mendelssohn as another enlightenment thinker was the first Jew to bring secular culture to those living an Orthodox Jewish life. He valued reason and felt that anyone could arrive logically at religious truths while arguing that what makes Judaism unique

2240-523: A number of incidents have occurred in recent years. Jewish migration from Roman Italy is considered the most likely source of the first Jews on German territory. There were Jews in Rome as early as 139 BCE. While the date of the first settlement of Jews in the regions which the Romans called Germania Superior , Germania Inferior , and Magna Germania is not known, the first authentic document relating to

2400-433: A registration certificate, known as a Matrikel , proving he was in a "respectable" trade or profession. A Matrikel , which could cost up to 1,000 florins, was usually restricted to firstborn sons. As a result, most Jewish men were unable to legally marry. Throughout Germany, Jews were heavily taxed, and were sometimes discriminated against by gentile craftsmen. As a result, many German Jews began to emigrate. The emigration

2560-504: A result, Jews and " Mischlinge " officially became second-class citizens. After World War II and the establishment of the West German Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, the analogous terms Bundesdeutsche (i.e., Federal Germans) and Bundesbürger (i.e., Federal citizens) were colloquially used to distinguish de facto citizens from people entitled to German citizenship, but as

2720-476: A result, many German Jews began to emigrate. From the time of Moses Mendelssohn until the 20th century, the community gradually achieved emancipation , and then prospered. In January 1933, some 522,000 Jews lived in Germany. After the Nazis took power and implemented their antisemitic ideology and policies, the Jewish community was increasingly persecuted. About 60% (numbering around 304,000) emigrated during

2880-573: A second round of colonisation with the goal of Germanisation after 1832. Prussia passed laws to encourage Germanisation of the Prussian Partition including the provinces of Posen and West Prussia in the late 19th century. The Prussian Settlement Commission relocated 154,000 colonists, including locals. The reconstitution of Poland following the Treaty of Versailles (1919) made ethnic German minorities of some Prussian provinces of

3040-535: A silk factory, after beginning his publications of philosophical essays in German. Mendelssohn conceived of God as a perfect Being and had faith in "God's wisdom, righteousness, mercy, and goodness." He argued, "the world results from a creative act through which the divine will seeks to realize the highest good," and accepted the existence of miracles and revelation as long as belief in God did not depend on them. He also believed that revelation could not contradict reason. Like

3200-509: A spurt of growth was fueled by immigration from the former Soviet Union , so that at the turn of the 21st century, Germany had the only growing Jewish community in Europe, and the majority of German Jews were Russian -speaking. By 2018, the Jewish population of Germany had leveled off at 116,000, not including non-Jewish members of households; the total estimated enlarged population of Jews living in Germany, including non-Jewish household members,

3360-709: A vague sense. With the 1871 unification of Germany under Prussian leadership, the concept of the German people first acquired a legal-political meaning, which they have retained until now. However, the German Empire as a "Lesser German" answer to the German Question , did not encompass more than two thirds of the German Sprachraum (language area). For someone who considered themselves German but living abroad, e.g., in multi-ethnic Austria-Hungary , reichsdeutsch meant any German who

SECTION 20

#1732772524505

3520-562: A way that their right to observe religious laws is granted, while also recognizing the needs for respect, and multiplicity of religions. He campaigned for emancipation and instructed Jews to form bonds with the gentile governments, attempting to improve the relationship between Jews and Christians while arguing for tolerance and humanity. He became the symbol of the Jewish Enlightenment, the Haskalah. Early 19th century In

3680-546: A well-organized system of Jewish charity for needy Talmud students. Mendelssohn read this book and found proof of the existence of God – his first meeting with a sample of European letters. This was only the beginning to Mendelssohn's inquiries about the knowledge of life. Mendelssohn learned many new languages, and with his whole education consisting of Talmud lessons, he thought in Hebrew and translated for himself every new piece of work he met into this language. The divide between

3840-508: Is its divine revelation of a code of law. Mendelssohn's commitment to Judaism leads to tensions even with some of those who subscribed to Enlightenment philosophy. Faithful Christians who were less opposed to his rationalistic ideas than to his adherence to Judaism found it difficult to accept this Juif de Berlin. In most of Western Europe, the Haskalah ended with large numbers of Jews assimilating. Many Jews stopped adhering to Jewish law, and

4000-595: Is passed on from parent to child ( jus sanguinis ) whatever their ethnicity is. With naturalisation of aliens as German citizens, however, their eventual German ethnicity formed or still forms an advantage under certain circumstances (see Aussiedler ). In Nazi Germany , the Reichsbürgergesetz of 1935, part of the Nuremberg Laws established the legal status of Reichsbürger , i.e. German citizens "of German or congeneric blood". As

4160-1070: Is seduced and abandoned by a Czech, and such a relationship leads to her drowning herself. Before and during World War II , some ethnic Germans gathered around local Nazi organizations (sponsored financially by the German Foreign Office ), actively supported the Nazis in countries such as Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia. During the social and economic tensions of the Great Depression , some had begun to feel aggrieved with their minority status. They participated in espionage, sabotage and other Fifth column means in their countries of origin, trained and commanded by Abwehr . In November 1938 Nazi Germany organized German paramilitary units made out German minority members in Polish Pomerania that were to engage in diversion, sabotage as well as political murder and ethnic cleansing upon German invasion of Poland. Reich intelligence

4320-403: Is that the usage of the words often depends on context, i.e. who uses them where and when. There are, in that sense, no general legal or "right" definitions, although during the 20th century, all terms acquired legal — yet also changing — definitions. The reason for the differentiation is that there has been a historical shift in the meaning of what belonging to a nation means. Until

4480-468: Is the nominalised plural of volksdeutsch , with Volksdeutsche denoting a singular female, and Volksdeutscher , a singular male. The words Volk and völkisch conveyed the meanings of "folk". Ethnic Germans living outside Germany shed their identity as Auslandsdeutsche (Germans abroad), and morphed into the Volksdeutsche in a process of self-radicalisation. This process gave

4640-772: The Allies . Particularly in Polish Pomerania and Polish Silesia, many of the people who were forced to sign the Volksliste played crucial roles in the anti-Nazi underground, which was noted in a memo to the Polish Government in Exile which stated "In Wielkopolska there's bitter hatred of the Volksdeutsche while in Silesia and Polish Pomerania it's the opposite, the secret organization depends in large measure on

4800-593: The Black Death (1346–53) led to mass slaughter of German Jews, while others fled in large numbers to Poland . The Jewish communities of the cities of Mainz , Speyer and Worms became the center of Jewish life during medieval times. "This was a golden age as area bishops protected the Jews, resulting in increased trade and prosperity." The First Crusade began an era of persecution of Jews in Germany. Entire communities, like those of Trier , Worms, Mainz and Cologne , were slaughtered. The Hussite Wars became

4960-564: The Black Death swept over Europe in 1348–49, some Christian communities accused Jews of poisoning wells . Compared to the south and west of the Holy Roman Empire, the persecutions appear to have brought less drastic effects in the eastern parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Nonetheless, in the Erfurt Massacre of 1349 , the members of the entire Jewish community were murdered or expelled from the city, due to superstitions about

Reichsdeutsche - Misplaced Pages Continue

5120-944: The Free City of Frankfurt , only 12 Jewish couples were allowed to marry each year, and the 400,000 florins the city's Jewish community had paid in 1811 for its emancipation was forfeited. After the Rhineland reverted to Prussian control, Jews lost the rights Napoleon had granted them, were banned from certain professions, and the few who had been appointed to public office before the Napoleonic Wars were dismissed. Throughout numerous German states, Jews had their rights to work, settle, and marry restricted. Without special letters of protection, Jews were banned from many different professions, and often had to resort to jobs considered unrespectable, such as peddling or cattle dealing, to survive. A Jewish man who wanted to marry had to purchase

5280-538: The General Government there were 120,000 Volksdeutsche. Volksdeutsche of Polish ethnic origins were treated by the Poles with special contempt. Because of actions by some Volksdeutsche and particularly the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany , after the end of the war, the Polish authorities tried many Volksdeutsche for high treason. In the postwar period, many other ethnic Germans were expelled to

5440-402: The German Empire citizens of the Polish nation state . Ethnic German inhabitants of provinces of the dissolved Austro-Hungarian Empire , such as Bukovina Germans , Danube Swabians , Sudeten Germans and Transylvanian Saxons , became citizens of newly established Slavic or Magyar nation-states and of Romania. Tensions between the new administration and the ethnic German minority arose in

5600-763: The German Quarter in Moscow (which also included Dutch, British and other western or northern European settlers whom the Russians came to indiscriminately refer to as "Germans"). They were only gradually allowed in other cities, so as to prevent the spread of alien ideas to the general population. In his youth, Peter the Great spent much time in the 'German' quarter. When he became Tsar, he brought more German experts (and other foreigners) into Russia, and particularly into government service, in his attempts to westernise

5760-572: The Hebrew prayers and the Bible in the original text. Halakhic studies began to flourish about 1000. At that time, Rav Gershom ben Judah was teaching at Metz and Mainz, gathering about him pupils from far and near. He is described in Jewish historiography as a model of wisdom, humility, and piety, and became known to succeeding generations as the "Light of the Exile ". In highlighting his role in

5920-594: The Napoleonic era and its aftermath, citizenship was established as a new franchise generally applying to all former subjects of the monarchs. Prussia conferred citizenship on the Prussian Jews in 1812, though this by no means resulted in full equality with other citizens. Jewish emancipation did not eliminate all forms of discrimination against Jews, who often remained barred from holding official state positions. The German federal edicts of 1815 merely held out

6080-747: The Polish Corridor . The Austrian Germans also found themselves not allowed to join Germany as German Austria was strictly forbidden to join Germany as well as the name "German Austria" was forbidden so the name was changed back to just "Austria" and the First Austrian Republic was created in 1919. During the Nazi years, the German Nazis used the term "Volksdeutsche", by which they meant racially German since they believed in

6240-725: The Polish Government in Exile , advised Poles to sign up to the Volksliste in order to avoid atrocities and mass murder that happened in other parts of the country. In occupied Poland, Volksdeutscher enjoyed privileges and were subject to conscription, or draft, into the German army . In occupied Pomerania , the Gauleiter of the Danzig-West Prussia region Albert Forster ordered a list of people considered of German ethnicity to be made in 1941. Due to insignificant voluntary registrations by February 1942, Forster made signing

6400-1051: The Potsdam Agreement from 1945 to 1948 towards the end and after the war. Those who became ethnic Germans, by registering in the Deutsche Volksliste and Reichsdeutsche, retained German citizenship during the years of Allied military occupation. Citizenship was further retained after the establishment of East Germany and West Germany in 1949, and later in the reunified Germany. In 1953 the Federal Republic of Germany – by its Federal Expellee Law – naturalised many more East European nationals of German ethnicity, who were neither German citizens nor had enrolled in any 'Volksliste', but had been stranded as refugees in West Germany and fled or were expelled due to their German or alleged German ethnicity. An estimated 12 million people fled or were expelled from

6560-540: The Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 28, 1941, and from the beginning of 1942 those Soviet Germans who were deemed suitable for hard work (men aged from 15 to 55 and women from 16 to 45) were mobilised for forced labour into Working columns where they lived in a prison-like environment, and sometimes, together with regular inmates, were put in prison camps. Hundreds of thousands died or became incapacitated due to

Reichsdeutsche - Misplaced Pages Continue

6720-517: The Volksdeutsche " (the memo referred to those of Category III, not I and II). In the turmoil of the postwar years, the Communist government did not consider this sufficient mitigation. It prosecuted many double-agent Volksdeutsche and sentenced some to death. The secret protocols of Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact created domestic problems for Hitler. Supporting the Soviet invasion became one of

6880-466: The Volksliste mandatory and empowered local authorities to use force and threats to implement the decree. Consequently, the number of signatories rose to almost a million, or about 55% of the 1944 population. The special case of Polish Pomerania , where terror against civilians was particularly intense, and where, unlike in rest of occupied Poland, signing of the list was mandatory for many people,

7040-500: The 18th century, some Jews and their families (such as Daniel Itzig in Berlin) gained equal status with their Christian fellow city dwellers, but had a different status from noblemen, Huguenots, or serfs. They often did not enjoy the right to freedom of movement across territorial or even municipal boundaries, let alone the same status in any new place as in their previous location. With the abolition of differences in legal status during

7200-649: The Becker brothers became an integral part of the Nazi Holocaust machine. In September 1939 in German occupied Poland , an armed ethnic German militia called Selbstschutz (Self-Defence) was created. It organised the mass murder of Polish elites in Operation Tannenberg . At the beginning of 1940, the Selbstschutz organization was disbanded, and its members transferred to various units of

7360-640: The Black Death. Many persecutions were clearly favoured by a royal throne crisis and the Wittelsbach - Luxembourg dualism, therefore recent German research proposed the term “Thronkrisenverfolgungen” (throne crisis persecutions). Royal policy and public ambivalence towards Jews helped the persecuted Jews fleeing to the East from the German-speaking lands to form the foundations of what would become

7520-568: The Conference of Potsdam considered the "transfer" of "German populations" from Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary an effort to be undertaken (see article 12 of the Potsdam Agreement ), although they asked a halt because of the inflicted burden for the Allies to feed and house the destitute expellees and to share that burden among the Allies. France, which was not represented in Potsdam, rejected

7680-422: The German colony of Shonfeld, Romas were burned in farms. During the winter of 1941/1942, German Selbstschutz units participated in the shooting, together with Ukrainian People's Militia and Romanian gendarmes , of some 18,000 Jews . In the camp of Bogdanovka , tens of thousands of Jews were subject to mass shootings, barn burnings and killing by hand grenades. Heinrich Himmler was sufficiently impressed by

7840-654: The German humanist, who was the first one in Germany to include the Hebrew language among the humanities. His opinion, though strongly opposed by the Dominicans and their followers, finally prevailed when the humanistic Pope Leo X permitted the Talmud to be printed in Italy. Though reading German books was forbidden in the 1700s by Jewish inspectors who had a measure of police power in Germany, Moses Mendelson found his first German book, an edition of Protestant theology , at

8000-512: The German or Berlin Haskalah offered many effects to the challenges of German society. As early as the 1740s, many German Jews and some individual Polish and Lithuanian Jews had a desire for secular education . The German-Jewish Enlightenment of the late 18th century, the Haskalah , marks the political, social, and intellectual transition of European Jewry to modernity. Some of the elite members of Jewish society knew European languages. Absolutist governments in Germany, Austria, and Russia deprived

8160-446: The Germans that, with the government change, they could close down their Baltic consulates by September 1. The Soviet annexations in Romania caused further strain. While Germany had given the Soviets Bessarabia in the secret protocols, it had not given them North Bukovina . Germany wanted guarantees of the safety of property of ethnic Germans, security for the 125,000 Volksdeutsche in Bessarabia and North Bukovina, and reassurance that

SECTION 50

#1732772524505

8320-438: The Great (reigned 1740–1786) settled around 300,000 colonists in the eastern provinces of Prussia, acquired in the First Partition of Poland of 1772, with the intention of replacing the Polish nobility. He treated the Poles with contempt and likened the "slovenly Polish trash" in newly occupied West Prussia to Iroquois , the historic Native American confederacy based in what is now the state of New York. Prussia encouraged

8480-562: The Hamburg pamphleteer Wilhelm Marr introduced the term 'antisemitism' into the political vocabulary by founding the Antisemitic League . Antisemites of the völkisch movement were the first to describe themselves as such, because they viewed Jews as part of a Semitic race that could never be properly assimilated into German society. Such was the ferocity of the anti-Jewish feeling of the völkisch movement that by 1900, antisemitic had entered German to describe anyone who had anti-Jewish feelings. However, despite massive protests and petitions,

8640-509: The Holy Roman Empire, its inhabitants were subject to varying estate regulations. In different ways from one territory of the empire to another, these regulations classified inhabitants into different groups, such as dynasts, members of the court entourage, other aristocrats , city dwellers ( burghers ), Jews, Huguenots (in Prussia a special estate until 1810), free peasants , serfs , peddlers and Gypsies , with different privileges and burdens attached to each classification. Legal inequality

8800-410: The Hussites made peace with the Church, the Pope sent the Franciscan friar John of Capistrano to win the renegades back into the fold and inspire them with loathing for heresy and unbelief; 41 martyrs were burned in Wrocław alone, and all Jews were forever banished from Silesia. The Franciscan friar Bernardine of Feltre brought a similar fate upon the communities in southern and western Germany. As

8960-409: The Jewish community was the cultivation of Jewish literature and associations created with teachers, rabbis, and leaders of congregations. Another vital part of the reorganization of the Jewish-German community was the heavy involvement of Jewish women in the community and their new tendencies to assimilate their families into a different lifestyle. Jewish women were contradicting their view points in

9120-523: The Jewish community's leadership of its authority and many Jews became 'Court Jews' . Using their connections with Jewish businessmen to serve as military contractors, managers of mints, founders of new industries and providers to the court of precious stones and clothing, they gave economic assistance to the local rulers. Court Jews were protected by the rulers and acted as did everyone else in society in their speech, manners, and awareness of European literature and ideas. Isaac Euchel , for example, represented

9280-436: The Jewish lifestyle inside their homes. During the history of the German Empire, there were various divisions within the German Jewish community over its future; in religious terms, Orthodox Jews sought to keep to Jewish religious tradition, while liberal Jews sought to "modernise" their communities by shifting from liturgical traditions to organ music and German-language prayers. Many immigrants travelled through Germany on

9440-424: The Jewish people throughout the generation. Napoleon I emancipated the Jews across Europe, but with Napoleon's fall in 1815, growing nationalism resulted in increasing repression. From August to October 1819, pogroms that came to be known as the Hep-Hep riots took place throughout Germany. Jewish property was destroyed in large number. During this time, many German states stripped Jews of their civil rights. In

9600-488: The Jewish unbelievers. This feeling, among both princes and people, was further stimulated by the attacks on the civic equality of the Jews. Beginning with the 10th century, Holy Week became more and more a period of antisemitic activities, yet the Saxon emperors did not treat the Jews badly, exacting from them merely the taxes levied upon all other merchants. Although the Jews in Germany were as ignorant as their contemporaries in secular studies, they could read and understand

9760-404: The Jews and the rest of society was caused by a lack of translation between these two languages, and Mendelssohn translated the Torah into German, bridging the gap between the two; this book allowed Jews to speak and write in German, preparing them for participation in German culture and secular science. In 1750, Mendelssohn began to serve as a teacher in the house of Isaac Bernhard, the owner of

SECTION 60

#1732772524505

9920-411: The Jews considered life without their religion not worth living; but they did not realize this clearly until the time of the Crusades, when they were often compelled to choose between life and faith. The Jewish communities of the cities of Speyer , Worms , and Mainz formed the league of cities which became the center of Jewish life during Medieval times. These are referred to as the ShUM cities, after

10080-408: The Jews in return for a certain sum paid to him. Emperor Wenceslaus declared that anyone helping Jews with the collection of their debts, in spite of this annulment, would be dealt with as a robber and peacebreaker, and be forced to make restitution. This decree, which is believed to have impaired the public availability of credit was also reported to have impoverished thousands of Jewish families near

10240-451: The Jews resulting in increased trade and prosperity." The First Crusade began an era of persecution of Jews in Germany, especially in the Rhineland . The communities of Trier , Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, were attacked. The Jewish community of Speyer was saved by the bishop, but 800 were slain in Worms . About 12,000 Jews are said to have perished in the Rhenish cities alone between May and July 1096. Alleged crimes, like desecration of

10400-459: The Jews secured the remunerative monopoly of money-lending . This decree caused a mixed reaction of people in general in the Carolingian Empire (including Germany) to the Jews: Jewish people were sought everywhere, as well as avoided. This ambivalence about Jews occurred because their capital was indispensable, while their business was viewed as disreputable. This curious combination of circumstances increased Jewish influence, and Jews went about

10560-565: The Jews were now invited, with the promise of full protection, to return to those districts and cities from which they had shortly before been expelled. However, as soon as Jewish people acquired some property, they were again plundered and driven away. These episodes thenceforth constituted a large portion of the medieval history of the German Jews. Emperor Wenceslaus was particularly skilled at transferring gold from wealthier Jews to his own coffers. He entered compacts with many cities, estates, and princes whereby he annulled all outstanding debts to

10720-415: The Jews. Charles IV , via the Golden Bull of 1356 , granted this privilege to the seven electors of the empire when the empire was reorganized in 1356. From this time onward, for reasons that also apparently concerned taxes, the Jews of Germany gradually passed in increasing numbers from the authority of the emperor to that of both the lesser sovereigns and the cities. For the sake of sorely needed revenue,

10880-417: The Nazi party established the Auslandsorganisation der NSDAP/AO (Foreign Organisation of the Nazi Party), whose task it was to disseminate Nazi propaganda among the ethnic German minorities viewed as Volksdeutsche in Nazi ideology. In 1936, the government set up the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Ethnic Germans' Liaison Office), commonly known as VoMi, under the jurisdiction of the SS as the liaison bureau. It

11040-399: The Nazi policies of genocide and ethnic cleansing , and profited from the expulsion and murder of their non-German neighbors throughout Eastern Europe. For example, in Ukraine the Volksdeutsche directly participated in the Holocaust and were involved in deportation of local farmers and their families; Volksdeutsche figures like Arthur Boss from Odessa ( Blobel 's right-hand man) or

11200-415: The Nazi regime the nucleus around which the new Volksgemeinschaft was established across the German borders. Volksdeutsche were further divided into "racial" groups—minorities within a state minority—based on special cultural, social, and historic criteria elaborated by the Nazis. According to the historian Doris Bergen , Adolf Hitler coined the definition of Volksdeutsche which appeared in

11360-403: The Nazi-conquered former Yugoslavia joined the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, the majority conscripted involuntarily as judged by the Nuremberg Trials . Yet "[a]fter the initial rush of Volksdeutsche to join, voluntary enlistments tapered off, and the new unit did not reach division size. Therefore, in August 1941, the SS discarded the voluntary approach, and after a favourable judgement from

11520-688: The Nazis. History of the Jews in Germany The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages ( circa 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community . The community survived under Charlemagne , but suffered during the Crusades . Accusations of well poisoning during

11680-568: The Night of Broken Glass ( Kristallnacht ), in which the storefronts of Jewish shops and offices were smashed and vandalized, and many synagogues were destroyed by fire. Only roughly 214,000 Jews were left in Germany proper (1937 borders) on the eve of World War II . Beginning in late 1941, the remaining community was subjected to systematic deportations to ghettos and, ultimately, to death camps in Eastern Europe . In May 1943, Germany

11840-656: The Polish nation faced the dilemma whether to register in the Deutsche Volksliste. Many families had lived in Poland for centuries and more-recent immigrants had arrived over 30 years before the war. They faced the choice of registering and being regarded as traitors by the Poles, or not signing and being treated by the Nazi occupation as traitors to the Germanic race . Polish Silesian Catholic Church authorities, led by bishop Stanisław Adamski and with agreement from

12000-612: The Reich. A significant proportion of them were in Eastern Europe – i.e., Poland , Ukraine , the Baltic states , and Romania , Hungary and Slovakia , where many were located in villages along the Danube and in Russia . The Nazi goal of expansion assigned the Volksdeutsche a special role in German plans, to bring them back to German citizenship and to elevate them to power over

12160-601: The Rhine into world-wide prominence. Their fame spread, rivaling that of other post- Diaspora cities such as Baghdad . Western European – Ashkenazic or Germanic – Judaism became centered in Mainz, breaking free of the Babylonian traditions. A Yeshiva was founded in the 10th century by Gershom ben Judah . Historian John Man describes Mainz as "the capital of European Jewry ", noting that Gershom ben Judah "was

12320-833: The SS court in Belgrade, imposed a mandatory military obligation on all Volksdeutsche in Serbia-Banat, the first of its kind for non-Reich Germans." In the former Yugoslavia a majority of ethnic Germans became members of the Schwäbisch-Deutscher Kulturbund (Swabian German Cultural Association), and reprisals on this group by Tito's partisans resulted in many immediate revenge killings in 1944 and incarceration of approximately 150,000 ethnic Germans in 1945. Most ethnic Germans fled or were expelled from European countries (Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary) under

12480-789: The SS, Gestapo and the German police. Throughout the invasion of Poland , some ethnic German minority groups assisted Nazi Germany in the war effort: they committed sabotage, diverted regular forces and committed numerous atrocities against civilian population. After Germany occupied western Poland, it established a central registration bureau, called the German People's List ( Deutsche Volksliste , DVL), whereby Poles of German ethnicity were registered as Volksdeutsche . The German occupants encouraged such registration, in many cases forcing it or subjecting Poles of German ethnicity to terror assaults if they refused. Those who joined this group were given benefits including better food, as well as

12640-579: The Soviet Union and non-German-speaking Central Europe, many of them being 'Volksdeutsche'. Most left the Soviet -occupied territories of Central and Eastern Europe; they comprised the largest migration of any European people in modern history. The then three Allies had agreed to the expulsions during negotiations in the midst of war. The western powers hoped to avoid ethnic Germans being an issue again in Central and Eastern Europe. The three Allies at

12800-521: The Soviets had argued. The agreement covered protected migration to Germany within two and a half months of Volksdeutsche, and similar migration to the Soviet Union of ethnic Russians, Baltic and "White Russian" "nationals" from German-held territories. In many cases, the resulting population transfers resulted in resettlement of Volksdeutsche on land previously held by ethnic Poles or Jews in now German-occupied territories. The agreement formally defined

12960-580: The Volksbund fled from the region. They were called 'Svabo' by their Serbian, Hungarian, Croatian, and Romanian neighbors. Most of the Danube Swabians who were not members in the so-called Volksbund were expelled to Allied-occupied Germany and Allied-occupied Austria in 1946-1948, following the Potsdam Agreement . After Romania acquired parts of Soviet Ukraine, the Germans there came under

13120-713: The Volksdeutsche communities and the work of the Selbstschutz to order that these methods be copied in Ukraine. In the former Yugoslavia, the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen was formed with about 50,000 ethnic Germans from the Banat region of Serbia . It was conspicuous in its operations against the Yugoslav Partisans and civilian population. About 100,000 ethnic Germans from

13280-539: The Volksdeutsche, while the Soviets requested 50 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ for their property claims in German-occupied territories. The two nations reached general agreement on German shipments of 10.5-cm flak cannons, gold, machinery and other items. On 10 January 1941, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement to settle all of the open disputes which

13440-592: The Waffen-SS, they would be forced into conscription in any case. According to head of recruitment for the Waffen SS, Gottlob Berger , no one in Germany or elsewhere cared for what happened with the ethnic Germans anyway, making forced recruitment easy to force upon ethnic German communities. Among the indigenous populations in the Nazi-occupied lands, Volksdeutsche became a term of ignominy. During

13600-483: The authority of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle , which deployed SS personnel to several settlements. They eventually contained German mayors, farms, schools and ethnic German paramilitary groups functioning as police called Selbstschutz ("Self-protection"). German colonists and Selbstschutz forces engaged in extensive acts of ethnic cleansing , massacring Jewish and Roma populations. In

13760-752: The border between Germany and the Soviet Union areas between the Igorka River and the Baltic Sea . After the Russian Revolution of 1917 , the government granted the Volga Germans an autonomous republic. Joseph Stalin abolished the Volga German ASSR after Operation Barbarossa , the German invasion of the USSR. Most of Soviet Germans in the USSR were deported to Siberia , Kazakhstan , and Central Asia by Decree of

13920-557: The claim to receive identity papers and passports) derived from one's citizenship of one of the States of the German Empire . The citizens of some German states comprised also autochthonous or immigrant ethnic minorities of other than German ethnicity, which is why citizens of the German Empire always also comprised people of other ethnicity than the German (e.g. Danish, French, Frisian, Polish, Romani, Sorbian etc.). German citizenship

14080-535: The claims of the Baltic Germans to be German — for the Germans from the Reich, to be German meant to be a German citizen, while for the Baltic Germans, it meant cultural-historical belonging. It was however not until the German nationality law ( Reichs- und Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz ) of 1913 finally established the citizenship of the German Reich, whereas earlier political rights (including

14240-510: The close of the 14th century. The 15th century did not bring any amelioration. What happened in the time of the Crusades happened again. The war upon the Hussites became the signal for renewed persecution of Jews. The Jews of Austria, Bohemia , Moravia , and Silesia passed through all the terrors of death, forced baptism , or voluntary self-immolation for the sake of their faith. When

14400-409: The concept of volksdeutsch - were rescinded in Germany. For Adolf Hitler and the other ethnic Germans of his time, the term " Volksdeutsche " also carried overtones of blood and race not captured in the common English translation "ethnic Germans". According to German estimates in the 1930s, about 30 million Volksdeutsche and Auslandsdeutsche (German citizens residing abroad) lived outside

14560-431: The conservative movement in modern Judaism who accepted the modern spirit of liberalism . Samson Raphael Hirsch defended traditional customs, denying the modern "spirit". Neither of these beliefs was followed by the faithful Jews. Zecharias Frankel created a moderate reform movement in assurance with German communities. Public worships were reorganized, reduction of medieval additions to the prayer, congregational singing

14720-522: The country freely, settling also in the eastern portions ( Old Saxony and Duchy of Thuringia ). Aside from Cologne , the earliest communities were established in Mainz, Worms , Speyer , Regensburg , and Aachen . The status of the German Jews remained unchanged under Charlemagne's successor, Louis the Pious . Jews were unrestricted in their commerce; however, they paid somewhat higher taxes into

14880-489: The decision of the Three of Potsdam and did not absorb expellees in its zone of occupation. The three Allies had to accept the reality on the ground, since expulsions of Volksdeutsche and Central and Eastern European nationals of German or alleged German ethnicity who never had enrolled as Volksdeutsche, were going on already. Local authorities forced most of the remaining ethnic Germans to leave between 1945 and 1950. Remnants of

15040-431: The deists, Mendelssohn claimed that reason could discover the reality of God, divine providence, and immortality of the soul . He was the first to speak out against the use of excommunication as a religious threat. At the height of his career, in 1769, Mendelssohn was publicly challenged by a Christian apologist , a Zurich pastor named John Lavater , to defend the superiority of Judaism over Christianity. From then on, he

15200-533: The doctor and author of Ma'aseh Tuviyyah , Tobias b. Moses Cohn , appreciated the secular culture. The most important feature during this time was the German Aufklärung , which was able to boast of native figures who competed with the finest Western European writers, scholars, and intellectuals. Aside from the externalities of language and dress, the Jews internalized the cultural and intellectual norms of German society. The movement, becoming known as

15360-705: The early 19th century, a demonym such as "German" — apart from the theodiscus vernacular  — was not too meaningful, although at least since the German Campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, the concept certainly existed. If anything, it was more seen as a cultural concept. The idea of a Kulturnation , as advocated by philosophers like Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) and Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), includes German first language , religion (in different forms), and already sometimes German origin, descent or race in

15520-515: The early years of the Second World War (i.e., before the US entered the war), a small number of Americans of German origin returned to Germany; generally they were immigrants or children of immigrants, rather than descendants of migrations more distant in time. Some of these enlisted and fought in the German army. Ethnic Germans throughout Europe benefited financially during World War II from

15680-654: The east." War fervour was as common amongst Jewish communities as it was amongst ethnic Germans ones. The main Jewish organisation in Germany, the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, declared unconditional support for the war and when 5 August was declared by the Kaiser to be a day of patriotic prayer, synagogues across Germany surged with visitors and filled with patriotic prayers and nationalistic speeches. While going to war brought

15840-476: The emperor one kreutzer out of every florins of their property in addition to the taxes they were already paying to both the state and municipal authorities. The emperors of the House of Luxembourg devised other means of taxation. They turned their prerogatives in regard to the Jews to further account by selling at a high price to the princes and free towns of the empire the valuable privilege of taxing and fining

16000-557: The empire. He also brought in German engineers to supervise the construction of the new city of Saint Petersburg . Catherine the Great , herself ethnically German, invited Germanic farmers to immigrate and settle in Russian lands along the Volga River . She guaranteed them the right to retain their language, religion and culture. Also in other areas with an ethnic German minority people of other than German descent assimilated with

16160-567: The enemy was Russia also gave an additional reason for German Jews to support the war; Tsarist Russia was regarded as the oppressor in the eyes of German Jews for its pogroms and for many German Jews, the war against Russia would become a sort of holy war . While there was partially a desire for vengeance, for many Jews ensuring Russia's Jewish population was saved from a life of servitude was equally important – one German-Jewish publication stated "We are fighting to protect our holy fatherland, to rescue European culture and to liberate our brothers in

16320-573: The established Church, threatened in its spiritual power in Germany and elsewhere, prepared for its conflict with the culture of the German Renaissance , one of its most convenient points of attack was rabbinic literature . At this time, as once before in France, Jewish converts spread false reports in regard to the Talmud , but an advocate of the book arose in the person of Johann Reuchlin ,

16480-614: The ethnic German community survive in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. A significant ethnic German community has continued in Siebenbürgen ( Transylvania ) in Romania and in Oberschlesien ( Upper Silesia ) but most of it migrated to West Germany throughout the 1980s. There are also remnant German populations near Mukachevo in western Ukraine. The term Volksdeutsche is generally avoided today due to its usage by

16640-726: The ethnic German culture and formed then a part of the minority. Examples are people of Baltic and Scandinavian descent, who assimilated into the minority of the Baltic Germans . Jews of Posen province , Galicia , Bukovina and Bohemia , with their Yiddish culture derived in part from their German heritage, often mingled into the ethnic German culture, thus forming part of the various ethnic German minorities. But anti-Semitic Nazis later rejected Jewish ethnic Germans and all Jewish German citizens as 'racially' German. Ethnic Germans were also sent in organised colonisation attempts aiming at Germanisation of conquered Polish areas. Frederick

16800-405: The fighting. Many German Jews supported the war out of patriotism; like many Germans, they viewed Germany's actions as defensive in nature and even left-liberal Jews believed Germany was responding to the actions of other countries, particularly Russia. For many Jews it was never a question as to whether or not they would stand behind Germany, it was simply a given that they would. The fact that

16960-415: The film Heimkehr drew on such putative events as the rescue of Volksdeutsche by the arrival of German tanks. Heimkehr' s introduction explicitly states that hundreds of thousands of Poles of German ethnicity suffered as the characters in the film did. Menschen im Sturm reprised Heimkehr' s effort to justify the invasion of Slavonia , using many of the same atrocities. In The Red Terror ,

17120-417: The first letters of the Hebrew names: Shin for Speyer ( Shpira ), Waw for Worms ( Varmaisa ) and Mem for Mainz ( Magentza ). The Takkanot Shum ( Hebrew : תקנות שו"ם "Enactments of ShUM") were a set of decrees formulated and agreed upon over a period of decades by their Jewish community leaders. The official website for the city of Mainz states: One of the most glorious epochs in Mainz's long history

17280-415: The first six years of the Nazi dictatorship . In 1933, persecution of the Jews became an official Nazi policy. In 1935 and 1936, the pace of antisemitic persecution increased. In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them from participating in education, politics, higher education and industry. On 10 November 1938, the state police and Nazi paramilitary forces orchestrated

17440-522: The first to bring copies of the Talmud to Western Europe" and that his directives "helped Jews adapt to European practices." Gershom's school attracted Jews from all over Europe, including the famous biblical scholar Rashi ; and "in the mid-14th century, it had the largest Jewish community in Europe: some 6,000." "In essence," states the City of Mainz web site, "this was a golden age as area bishops protected

17600-635: The harsh conditions. A significant portion of Volksdeutsche in Hungary joined the SS , which was a pattern repeated also in Romania (with 54,000 locals serving in the SS by the end of 1943). The majority of 200,000 Volksdeutsche from the area of Danube who served with the SS were from Hungary. As early as 1942, some 18,000 Hungarian Germans joined the SS. they have been called Danube Swabians . After World War II, approximately 185,000 Volksdeutsche in

17760-591: The host, ritual murder, poisoning of wells, and treason, brought hundreds to the stake and drove thousands into exile. Jews were alleged to have caused the inroads of the Mongols , though they suffered equally with the Christians. Jews suffered intense persecution during the Rintfleisch massacres of 1298. In 1336 Jews from Alsace were subjected to massacres by the outlaws of Arnold von Uissigheim . When

17920-622: The largest Jewish community in all of Europe. The legal and civic status of the Jews underwent a transformation under the Holy Roman Empire . Jewish people found a certain degree of protection with the Holy Roman Emperor , who claimed the right of possession and protection of all the Jews of the empire. A justification for this claim was that the Holy Roman Emperor was the successor of the emperor Titus , who

18080-463: The late 18th century, a youthful enthusiasm for new ideals of religious equality began to take hold in the western world. Austrian Emperor Joseph II was foremost in espousing these new ideals. As early as 1782, he issued the Patent of Toleration for the Jews of Lower Austria , thereby establishing civic equality for his Jewish subjects. Before 1806, when general citizenship was largely nonexistent in

18240-638: The locally dominant Christian denomination ( Calvinism , Roman Catholicism , or Lutheranism ). City dwellers of other denominations or religions and those who lacked the necessary wealth to qualify as citizens were considered to be mere inhabitants who lacked political rights, and were sometimes subject to revocable residence permits. Most Jews then living in those parts of Germany that allowed them to settle were automatically defined as mere indigenous inhabitants, depending on permits that were typically less generous than those granted to gentile indigenous inhabitants ( Einwohner , as opposed to Bürger , or citizen). In

18400-434: The military, the diplomatic service, judiciary or senior bureaucracy was very small. Some historians believe that with emancipation the Jewish people lost their roots in their culture and began only using German culture. However, other historians including Marion A. Kaplan, argue that it was the opposite and Jewish women were the initiators of balancing both Jewish and German culture during Imperial Germany. Jewish women played

18560-500: The most ideologically difficult aspects of the countries' relationship. The secret protocols caused Hitler to hurriedly evacuate ethnic German families, who had lived in the Baltic countries for centuries and now classified as Volksdeutsche, while officially condoning the invasions. When the three Baltic countries, not knowing about the secret protocols, sent letters protesting the Soviet invasions to Berlin, Ribbentrop returned them. In August 1940, Soviet Foreign minister Molotov told

18720-537: The murder of a young woman for an affair with a Russian—in accordance with Nazi principle of Rassenschande —as an ancient German custom. Sexual contact between what the Nazis viewed as different 'races' followed by remorse and guilt was also featured in Die goldene Stadt , where the Sudeten German heroine faces not persecution but the allure of the big city; when she succumbs, in defiance of blood and soil , she

18880-658: The native populations in those areas. The Nazis detailed such goals in Generalplan Ost . In some areas, such as in Poland, Nazi authorities compiled specific lists and registered people as ethnic Germans in the " Deutsche Volksliste ". In the sixteenth century Vasili III invited small numbers of craftsmen, traders and professionals to settle in Russia from areas that would later become Germany so that Muscovy could exploit their skills. These settlers (many of whom intended to stay only temporarily) were generally confined to

19040-556: The neighborhood, sporting events, and other activities that would mold them into becoming more like their other German peers. For mothers to assimilate into German culture, they took pleasure in reading newspapers and magazines that focused on the fashion styles, as well as other trends that were up and coming for the time and that the Protestant, bourgeois Germans were exhibiting. Similar to this, German-Jewish mothers also urged their children to partake in music lessons, mainly because it

19200-526: The only tool families had to linking Judaism with German culture . They felt it was their job to raise children that would fit in with bourgeois Germany. Women had to balance enforcing German traditions while also preserving Jewish traditions. Women were in charge of keeping kosher and the Sabbath; as well as, teaching their children German speech and dressing them in German clothing. Jewish women attempted to create an exterior presence of German while maintaining

19360-566: The patent of toleration. Some of the crown lands, such as Styria and Upper Austria , forbade any Jews to settle within their territory; in Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia many cities were closed to them. The Jews were also burdened with heavy taxes and imposts. In the German Kingdom of Prussia , the government materially modified the promises made in the disastrous year of 1813. The promised uniform regulation of Jewish affairs

19520-546: The pre-existing stereotype put on their children. In addition, Jewish mothers put a large emphasis on proper education for their children in hopes that this would help them grow up to be more respected by their communities and eventually lead to prosperous careers. While Jewish mothers worked tirelessly on ensuring the assimilation of their families, they also attempted to keep the familial aspect of Jewish traditions. They began to look at Shabbat and holidays as less of culturally Jewish days, but more as family reunions of sorts. What

19680-402: The prospect of full equality, but it was not genuinely implemented at that time, and even the promises which had been made were modified. However, such forms of discrimination were no longer the guiding principle for ordering society, but a violation of it. In Austria , many laws restricting the trade and traffic of Jewish subjects remained in force until the middle of the 19th century in spite of

19840-403: The purpose of infusing coherence into the loosely joined parts of his extensive empire, but was not by any means a blind tool of the canonical law . He employed Jews for diplomatic purposes, sending, for instance, a Jew as interpreter and guide with his embassy to Harun al-Rashid . Yet, even then, a gradual change occurred in the lives of the Jews. The Church forbade Christians to be usurers , so

20000-518: The religious development of Jews in the German lands, The Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906) draws a direct connection to the great spiritual fortitude later shown by the Jewish communities in the era of the Crusades: He first stimulated the German Jews to study the treasures of their religious literature. This continuous study of the Torah and the Talmud produced such a devotion to Judaism that

20160-578: The resulting political, economic, and social changes were overpowering. Many Jews felt a tension between Jewish tradition and the way they were now leading their lives – religiously – resulting in less tradition. As the insular religious society that reinforced such observance disintegrated, falling away from vigilant observance without deliberately breaking with Judaism was easy. Some tried to reconcile their religious heritage with their new social surroundings; they reformed traditional Judaism to meet their new needs and to express their spiritual desires. A movement

20320-407: The same in 1871. Historian Fritz Stern concludes that by 1900, what had emerged was a Jewish-German symbiosis, where German Jews had merged elements of German and Jewish culture into a unique new one. Marriages between Jews and non-Jews became somewhat common from the 19th century; for example, the wife of German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann was Jewish. However, opportunity for high appointments in

20480-643: The second-largest Jewish community in Germany. In Württemberg , equality was conceded on 3 December 1861; in Baden on 4 October 1862; in Holstein on 14 July 1863; and in Saxony on 3 December 1868. After the establishment of the North German Confederation by the law of 3 July 1869, all remaining statutory restrictions imposed on the followers of different religions were abolished; this decree

20640-554: The sense that they were modernizing, but they also tried to keep some traditions alive. German Jewish mothers were shifting the way they raised their children in ways such as moving their families out of Jewish neighborhoods, thus changing who Jewish children grew up around and conversed with, all in all shifting the dynamic of the then close-knit Jewish community. Additionally, Jewish mothers wished to integrate themselves and their families into German society in other ways. Because of their mothers, Jewish children participated in walks around

20800-483: The signal for renewed persecution of Jews. The end of the 15th century was a period of religious hatred that ascribed to Jews all possible evils. With Napoleon's fall in 1815 , growing nationalism resulted in increasing repression. From August to October 1819, pogroms that came to be known as the Hep-Hep riots took place throughout Germany. During this time, many German states stripped Jews of their civil rights. As

20960-516: The state treasury than did the non-Jews. A special officer, the Judenmeister , was appointed by the government to protect Jewish privileges. The later Carolingians , however, followed the demands of the Church more and more. The bishops continually argued at the synods for including and enforcing decrees of the canonical law , with the consequence that the majority Christian populace mistrusted

21120-566: The struggle for emancipation in Germany awakened some doubts about the future of Jews in Europe and eventually led to both immigrations to America and Zionism . In Russia, antisemitism ended the Haskalah . Some Jews responded to this antisemitism by campaigning for emancipation, while others joined revolutionary movements and assimilated, and some turned to Jewish nationalism in the form of the Zionist Hibbat Zion movement. Abraham Geiger and Samuel Holdheim were two founders of

21280-399: The subsequently established Germanic kingdoms under the Burgundians and Franks , for ecclesiasticism took root slowly. The Merovingian rulers who succeeded to the Burgundian empire were devoid of fanaticism and gave scant support to the efforts of the Church to restrict the civic and social status of the Jews. Charlemagne (800–814) readily made use of the Roman Catholic Church for

21440-636: The total. About 15,000 Jews converted to Christianity between 1871 and 1909. The typical attitude of German liberals towards Jews was that they were in Germany to stay and were capable of being assimilated; anthropologist and politician Rudolf Virchow summarised this position, saying "The Jews are simply here. You cannot strike them dead." This position, however, did not tolerate cultural differences between Jews and non-Jews, advocating instead eliminating this difference. A higher percentage of German Jews fought in World War I than of any other ethnic, religious or political minority in Germany; around 12,000 died in

21600-547: The train tracks carrying Romanian oil would be left alone. In October 1940, Germany and the Soviet Union negotiated about the Volksdeutsche in Soviet-occupied territories and their property. Instead of permitting full indemnification, the Soviets put restrictions on the wealth that the Volksdeutsche could take with them and limited the totals that the Soviets would apply to the Reich's clearing accounts. The parties discussed total compensation of between 200 million  ℛ︁ℳ︁ and 350 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ for

21760-452: The unification of Germany by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck , came their emancipation, but the growing mood of despair among assimilated Jews was reinforced by the antisemitic penetrations of politics. In the 1870s, antisemitism was fueled by the financial crisis and scandals; in the 1880s by the arrival of masses of Ostjuden , fleeing from Russian territories; by the 1890s it was a parliamentary presence, threatening anti-Jewish laws. In 1879

21920-422: The unsavoury prospect of fighting fellow Jews in Russia, France and Britain, for the majority of Jews this severing of ties with Jewish communities in the Entente was accepted part of their spiritual mobilisation for war. After all, the conflict also pitted German Catholics and Protestants against their fellow believers in the east and west. Indeed, for some Jews the fact that Jews were going to war with one another

22080-406: The völkisch movement failed to persuade the government to revoke Jewish emancipation, and in the 1912 Reichstag elections, the parties with völkisch-movement sympathies suffered a temporary defeat. Jews experienced a period of legal equality after 1848. Baden and Württemberg passed the legislation that gave the Jews complete equality before the law in 1861–64. The newly formed German Empire did

22240-461: The war dragged on. However, German Jews did not always feel a personal kinship with Russian Jews. Many were repelled by Eastern Jews, who dressed and behaved differently, as well as being much more religiously devout. Victor Klemperer, a German Jew working for military censors, stated "No, I did not belong to these people, even if one proved my blood relation to them a hundred times over...I belonged to Europe, to Germany, and I thanked my creator that I

22400-408: The way to other countries. By the outbreak of World War I, five million emigrants from Russia had passed through German territory. Around two million Jews passed through the eastern border of Germany between 1880 and 1914 with around 78,000 remaining in Germany. The Jewish population grew from 512,000 in 1871 to 615,000 in 1910, including 79,000 recent immigrants from Russia, just under one percent of

22560-406: The west and forced to leave everything. In post-war Poland, the word Volksdeutsche is regarded as an insult, synonymous with "traitor". In some cases, individuals consulted the Polish resistance first, before signing the Volksliste. There were Volksdeutsche who played important roles in intelligence activities of the Polish resistance, and were at times the primary source of information for

22720-423: Was a citizen of the German Reich , as opposed to someone living abroad (and usually without a German passport). Part of the identity of ethnic German minorities living abroad — a classic example are the Baltic Germans  — was to define themselves as German, using the pre-1871 concept. However, Reichsdeutsche visiting the Russian Baltic governorates in the late 19th century, for instance, resented

22880-428: Was a popular activity among other Germans. Another effort German-Jewish mothers put into assimilating their families was enforcing the importance of manners on their children. It was noted that non-Jewish Germans saw Jews as disrespectful and unable to grasp the concept of time and place. Because of this, Jewish mothers tried to raise their kids having even better manners than the Protestant children in an effort to combat

23040-440: Was actively recruiting ethnic Germans and the Nazi secret service " SicherheitsDienst " (SD) was forming them as early as October 1938 into armed unit that were to serve Nazi Germany. Historian Matthias Fiedler typified ethnic German collaborationists as former "nobodies" whose major occupation was the expropriation of Jewish property. Heinrich Himmler remarked that whatever objections ethnic Germans might have against serving in

23200-538: Was close to 225,000. By German law, denial of the Holocaust or that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust (§ 130 StGB) is a criminal act; violations can be punished with up to five years of prison. In 2006, on the occasion of the World Cup held in Germany, the then- Interior Minister of Germany Wolfgang Schäuble , urged vigilance against far-right extremism , saying: "We will not tolerate any form of extremism, xenophobia , or antisemitism." In spite of Germany's measures against these groups and antisemites,

23360-463: Was declared judenrein (clean of Jews; also judenfrei : free of Jews). By the end of the war, an estimated 160,000 to 180,000 German Jews had been killed by the Nazi regime and their collaborators. A total of about six million European Jews were murdered under the direction of the Nazis, in the genocide that later came to be known as the Holocaust . After the war, the Jewish community in Germany started to slowly grow again. Beginning around 1990,

23520-404: Was encouraged by German-Jewish newspapers. At first, most emigrants were young, single men from small towns and villages. A smaller number of single women also emigrated. Individual family members would emigrate alone, and then send for family members once they had earned enough money. Emigration eventually swelled, with some German Jewish communities losing up to 70% of their members. At one point,

23680-419: Was extended to all the states of the German empire after the events of 1870. During the General Enlightenment (the 1600s to late 1700s), many Jewish women began to frequently visit non-Jewish salons and to campaign for emancipation . In Western Europe and the German states, observance of Jewish law, Halacha , started to be neglected. In the 18th century, some traditional German scholars and leaders, such as

23840-446: Was formed with a set of religious beliefs, and practices that were considered expected and tradition. Reform Judaism was the first modern response to the Jew's emancipation, though reform Judaism differing in all countries caused stresses of autonomy on both the congregation and individual. Some of the reforms were in the practices: circumcisions were abandoned, rabbis wore vests after Protestant ministers, and instrumental accompaniment

24000-486: Was headed by SS-Obergruppenführer Werner Lorenz. According to the historian Valdis Lumans, Nazi propaganda used the existence of ethnic Germans who they called Volksdeutsche in foreign lands before and during the war, to help justify the aggression of Nazi Germany. The annexation of Poland was presented as necessary to protect the ethnic German minorities there. Massacres of ethnic Germans, such as Bloody Sunday , or alleged atrocities, were used in such propaganda, and

24160-402: Was introduced, and regular sermons required scientifically trained rabbis. Religious schools were enforced by the state due to a want for the addition of religious structure to secular education of Jewish children. Pulpit oratory started to thrive mainly due to German preachers, such as M. Sachs and M. Joel. Synagogal music was accepted with the help of Louis Lewandowski . Part of the evolution of

24320-474: Was involved in defending Judaism in print. In 1783, he published Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism . Speculating that no religious institution should use coercion and emphasized that Judaism does not coerce the mind through dogma, he argued that through reason, all people could discover religious philosophical truths, but what made Judaism unique was its revealed code of legal, ritual, and moral law. He said that Jews must live in civil society, but only in

24480-456: Was once viewed as a more religious event became more of a social gathering of relatives. The beginning of the Reform Movement in Judaism was emphasized by David Philipson , who was the rabbi at the largest Reform congregation. The increasing political centralization of the late 18th and early 19th centuries undermined the societal structure that perpetuated traditional Jewish life. Enlightenment ideas began to influence many intellectuals, and

24640-402: Was proof of the normality of German-Jewish life; they could no longer be considered a minority with transnational loyalties but loyal German citizens. German Jews often broke ties with Jews of other countries; the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a French organisation that was dedicated to protecting Jewish rights, saw a German Jewish member quit once the war started, declaring that he could not, as

24800-415: Was recognised by the Polish Underground State and other anti-Nazi resistance movements, which tried to explain the situation to other Poles in underground publications. The Deutsche Volksliste categorised non-Jewish Poles of German ethnicity into one of four categories: Volksdeutsche of statuses 1 and 2 in the Polish areas annexed by Germany numbered 1 million, and Nos. 3 and 4 numbered 1.7 million. In

24960-399: Was said to have acquired the Jews as his private property . The German emperors apparently claimed this right of possession more for the sake of taxing the Jews than of protecting them. A variety of such taxes existed. Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor , was a prolific creator of new taxes. In 1342, he instituted the "golden sacrificial penny" and decreed that every year all the Jews should pay

25120-468: Was the period from the beginning of the 900s and evidently much earlier. Following the barbaric Dark Ages , a relatively safe and enlightened Carolingian period brought peace and prosperity to Mainz and much of central–western Europe. For the next 400 years, Mainz attracted many Jews as trade flourished. The greatest Jewish teachers and rabbis flocked to the Rhine. Their teachings, dialogues, decisions, and influence propelled Mainz and neighboring towns along

25280-416: Was the principle. The concept of citizenship was mostly restricted to cities, especially Free Imperial Cities . No general franchise existed, which remained a privilege for the few, who had inherited the status or acquired it when they reached a certain level of taxed income or could afford the expense of the citizen's fee ( Bürgergeld ). Citizenship was often further restricted to city dwellers affiliated to

25440-424: Was time and again postponed. In the period between 1815 and 1847, no less than 21 territorial laws affecting Jews in the older eight provinces of the Prussian state were in effect, each having to be observed by part of the Jewish community. At that time, no official was authorized to speak in the name of all Prussian Jews, or Jewry in most of the other 41 German states , let alone for all German Jews. Nevertheless,

25600-411: Was used: pipe organs . In addition, the traditional Hebrew prayer book was replaced by German text, and reform synagogues began being called temples which were previously considered the Temple of Jerusalem. Reform communities composed of similar beliefs and Judaism changed at the same pace as the rest of society had. The Jewish people have adapted to religious beliefs and practices to the meet the needs of

#504495