Trudy Gold
German Jews and WWI

Trudy Gold - German Jews and WWI

- Good evening, everyone, from a grey London. And this evening I’m going to be looking at German Jewry and World War I. Now, if you consider it, this is really the first war that Jews fought as citizens from the countries in which they lived. So basically, German Jews fighting for Germany in the Habsburg Empire, Jews in Hungary, Jews in Prague, Jews in in Austria, fighting in the Habsburg armies. In Russia, tragically, they were conscripted into the army. in England, in Britain, they fought for Brits. The revolutionaries were all against it. the Zionists were in a very interesting position, because when war broke out, the Zionist headquarters were actually in Berlin, and they had to move. And basically, the Zionists in the main kept out of it, but one or two German Jews even came back from Palestine to fight for Germany. And this was going to be the patriotic war, the war to end all wars. And as we’ve often discussed, World War I, if you want to understand the 20th century, and the horror that’s going to engulf Europe, you really have to understand World War I. Now, in Germany, there are, in 1914, there were about 600,000 Jews. A hundred thousand of them are going to fight in the German army, and the majority of them volunteer before conscription. 12,000 are going to die in battle, 35,000 are going to be awarded the Iron Cross first and second class. So it was an incredible war effort. And the middle and upper class Jews, they volunteered for service way before conscription. They wanted to prove they were really German. And the Deutsche RAG, which was the, it was the organ of the centralised, it’s the central organisation.

It was the largest Jewish organisation, and it announced that Germany was defending its culture. I’m quoting here, “Against Russian malice, French thirst for revenge, English deviousness, and Serbian lust for murder.” And it called on all its members to serve the Fatherland beyond the call of duty. It says this: “Hasten to volunteer for service. All you men and women must dedicate yourself to the Fatherland through every kind of service.” Eugene Fuchs, who was chairman of the organisation, he proclaimed himself German to his very bones. There were 40,000 members of the central organisation. And the Allgemeine Zeitung was proud that the youngest volunteer was a 14-year-old Jewish boy from East Prussia. This was a poem in the Jewish newspaper. “First in battle and first to win Was neither Jew nor Christian, no liberal nyunkele or a Democrat whose fire was caught by a German soldier.” And in, can we see the first slide, if you don’t mind, Lauren, Ludwig Fulda. On the 4th of October, 1914, Ludwig Fulda, who was the son of an old, established Jewish family in Frankfurt, solicited the support of the majority of prominent thinkers in the arts and the scientists. And he published what is known as “The Manifesto of the 93.” I’m going to give you a little bit of his background. He was a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts. He was part of the intellectual life of Germany. Later on in Weimar, he was the first president of the PEN Society of Germany. Of course, later on, he was absolutely at the centre of the milieu of intellectualism in Germany. He was removed from all positions by the Nazis. And when I read a bit of the petition to you, you’re going to really get the agony. He was denied entry into America, and he committed suicide in 1939.

He was a playwright, he was a poet. And I should mention that PEN had been founded as an association of writers in 1921, worldwide writers. Now, amongst the people who signed the petition of 93, people like Paul Ehrlich, he was the Jew, the scientist, who had come up with Salvarsan, the cure for syphilis. And in fact, the Catholic press went crazy about this, because they said, “How can this man, this outsider, disrupt the normal course of things?” Hermann Fischer, who also won the Nobel Prize, Fritz Haber, who we’ve talked about, Max Liebermann, the grand old artist of Germany, one of Germany’s greatest artists, who Patrick’s going to talk about. Max Reinhardt, who I’ve often mentioned to you, the great theatre director. Richard Willstatter. And the petition of 93 is going to be translated into 14 languages. And I’m just going to read you the beginning, because this is actually how the German intellectuals, not the communists, because the communists were always against the war. This is what the intellectuals thought. “As representatives of German science and art, we hereby protest to the civilised world, against the lies and calumnies which our enemies are endeavouring to stain the honour of Germany in her hard struggle for existence, in a struggle that has been forced on her. Germany did her utmost to prevent this war. Often enough during the 26 years of his reign, Wilhelm II has shown himself to be the upholder of peace, and often enough has this fact been acknowledged by our opponents.

Nay, even the Kaiser, whom they now dare call an a Attila, has been ridiculed by them for years, because of his steadfast endeavours to maintain universal peace, All we can do is to proclaim to the world that our enemies are giving false witness against us. You, who know us, who with us have protected the most holy possessions of man, we call on to you.” And they go on to say, “We are defending the great German culture against aggression.” And as I said, it was signed by 93 of the leading intellectuals in Germany. Now, there were certain people who refused to sign it, and one of those people was actually Albert Einstein. From the very beginning, and of course I spoke about him the other day, from the very beginning, he said, “This war is a kind of insanity.” And there were others who said that, particularly as the war progressed, but at the beginning, it’s fascinating how so many of the great intellectuals, both Jewish and non-Jewish, signed Fulda’s petition. Of course, you can’t foretell the future. This man saw himself as a poet and writer of the German language. He was in love with Bildung, he was in love with the culture of Goethe and Schiller, and this is what they believed they were fighting for. And all you have to do is look at the effort of Fritz Haber, the man who actually brought poison gas to the war, because he was fighting for his Fatherland. Can we go on, please? I’m going to look at some of the characters. Martin Buber. Martin Buba, the great philosopher, of course we’ll be dealing with him later on in the course. “Never has the concept of Volk become such a reality amongst Jews too.” Can we go on please? The great Stefan Zweig. Stefan Zweig, from Vienna, of course, fighting on the side of the Germans. Stefan Zweig, what did he say?

“Wonderful to be living at such a moment.” Stefan Zweig, who came from a very wealthy background, he was a cosmopolitan, he saw himself as part of the great tradition of German culture. If you haven’t read his “World of Yesterday,” it’s an unbelievable treat for you. He wrote novellas, many of you will know them. “Letter from an Unknown Woman” was made into a film by Max Ophuls, “Marie Antoinette” was made into a film in Hollywood starring Norma Shearer. He wrote biographies, he wrote travel logs. He was a journalist at the Noue Freie Presse, he was a friend of Herzl, Herzl was the older man when he joined the paper. He was a friend of Schnitzler’s, he was part of young Vienna. His tragedy, of course, is that when the Nazis came to power, he was in Austria, but nevertheless, he was scared, so he came to England, and he was placed on Hitler’s little Black Book when war broke out. What was the Black Book? The Black Book was the name of emigre, it listed all the emigres the Nazis were going to destroy if they crossed the Channel. So he went first to Bath, and then he finished up in Petropolis in South America, where, in February 1942, he and his second wife, who was 25 years younger than him, they committed suicide, because the day after he completed “The World of Yesterday,” because his world was finished now. But look what he wrote, “Wonderful to be living at such a moment.” Can we go on please? Hermann Cohen, probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the 19th century. “The God of love is sure to grant Germany a heroic victory over her wicked enemies.” And he even offered to travel to America to convince the American Jews that Germany was a model for the world. Let’s go on, please.

This is really a gallery of the famous and the intellectuals. This is the intellectual tradition that is going to finally be destroyed. 1881 to 1960, Victor Klemperer. The great diarist, he’d actually converted to Protestantism and then reverted back again to Judaism. He was, of course, a professor, and this is what he wrote. “We Germans are better than the other nations. Freer in thought, pure in feeling, juster in action: we Germans are a truly chosen people.” And he believed that German superiority in the world of couture, culture, would lead to superiority in war. Even in 1942, he wrote, “I am German, and I’m still waiting for the Germans to come back.” He became a significant figure in East Germany after the war. Can you go on please, Lauren? Fritz Haber, who I’ve spent a lot of time on. Fritz Haber, the man who created the Haber-Bosch process that fed half the world, but also created poison gas. He places himself at the disposal of the war ministry, and his wife committed suicide. How much it was to do with his gassing attacks? Straight after her death, he went off to the Russian front, and he was a captain in the German army, he had his whole division. When Hitler came to power, he’d converted, so he wasn’t yet dismissed. Because of course, when Hitler came to power, he was head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, he brought Einstein in. And of course, Hitler threw all the Jews out of any kind of position in the Career Civil Service Act. But because Hindenburg was still president, and only when Hindenburg died were converted, if you’d fought in the German army, you were not attacked until after Hindenburg’s death. But he was put in the position where he had, in the end, to expel his Jewish students, his Jewish colleagues. And in the end, the only person who would take him in was Chaim Weizmann in Rehovot.

But on the way there he died of a heart attack. And it’s interesting, because it was Einstein who said to him, “Why did you hold the blonde beast so close?” What does it mean to be a German Jew? And to these characters, the insecurity, they thought they gave everything to Germany. Can we go on please? Walther Rathenau, who I also spoke about. Walther Rathenau, one of the most important industrialists in the world. Also a poet, a writer. He actually put his services at the disposal of the Germans, and he worked on the war economy with them, but later on he saw what would happen. “The war will be murderous and ruin the country for generations.” Later on, of course, he enters the Weimar government. He was one of the wealthiest capitalists in the world, but he was a friend of the workers. He had a horror of his Jewish origins, because he fell in love with a pure Prussian type. But nevertheless, he never converted. And his story is such a strange, sad story. He was a man who was so in advance of so many others. He was a European, he wanted the Pan-European power after the war. He was an internationalist, and at the same time, a loyal German. He was born a Jew, but he wanted to be part of the officer class. He was a strange, complicated character. And he was finally assassinated. When he was foreign minister under Weimar, he was assassinated, believe it or not, as an Elder of Zion, a subject I looked at last night. Walther Rathenau was actually assassinated as one of the Elders of Zion. And I’ll be talking more about this next week, when I look at Munich as Hitler City, and the crazy organisations that were involved there.

But in the end, he was the man who had to make peace with Soviet Russia. Economic peace, I mean, and he pays for it with his life. Can we go on, please? Albert Einstein. “The war is total madness.” Can we go on, please? Ernst Toller. Now Ernst Toller, who later leads a revolution in Munich, a poet, a writer, an incredibly interesting man, I’m going to spend a lot of time on him on Tuesday. And this is what he’s saying, tongue-in-cheek to other Jews. “This should compensate the the stigma of your ancestry.” On being awarded the Iron Cross. When Jews get the Iron Cross, this compensates them, at last, you can be really loyal Germans. Can we go on, please? Hugo Gutmann, fascinating man. He was actually the captain to Adolf Hitler in the war. And again, I’ll be talking far more about Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler, of course, although he was Austrian, he had come to Munich in 1913, and he joined the German army, and he was a runner. And other people didn’t think that he should be awarded the Iron Cross, but Gutmann did, And it was the Jew, Gutmann, who actually pinned it on his chest. Okay, thank you. Can we go on please? Hugo Bergman. Hugo Bergman was actually a Zionist, but look how he put it. “At last, Russia will be punished for Kishiniev, Gomel, and Siberia. Now, let’s go on. Let’s have a look now at Germany at the end of the war, because, as you know, it was over. But before that, I should say, by the end of 1916, the largely Jewish liberal press, remember the two largest publishing houses in Germany were controlled by Jewish families. And a growing number of deputies were in favour of negotiated peace, but they had no influence over the military establishment. And most of the Jewish intellectuals also changed their mind.

This is Edward Bernstein. He came from a religious background. He was a socialist. He said, "Jewish patriotism should be cosmopolitan and appeal to Jews throughout Europe to campaign for peace.” And you can imagine how that went down. Also, as the war teetered on, and the horror became more and more evident, people coming back from the front who were blinded, who had lost limbs, the horror and horror of trench warfare. There was a search for a scapegoat. And in fact, members of the high command put it around that Jews were war profiteers, And also the war was dragging on because Ballin, the great shipbuilder, and Gatineau hadn’t made enough profit. As a result of that, there was actually an inquiry through the German Parliament. “Are Jews actually avoiding conscription?” They weren’t, in fact, they were overrepresented. But the point was, a scapegoat was being looked for. This is Ferdinand Avenarius. He was a lyric poet. His father had been a friend of Heine. He wasn’t Jewish. He owned one of the largest German cultural magazines, and he warned a Jewish friend, “Jews don’t realise rage is boiling deeply within the people.” Now, it’s the reality of the war that changed everything. There were 500,000 German dead. There were the war wounded. Can you imagine how many widows that meant?

And revolution breaks out in Germany, I think this is very important to establish. What happens is, of course, revolution breaks out in Russia. Just to consolidate this, the czarist regime was corrupt and rotten to the core. And to make matters worse, the incredibly inept Nicholas II put himself in charge of the army. Russian soldiers didn’t even have boots. The situation, there was starvation in the Capitol. It all explodes into revolution. And in March of 1917, there is a revolution led by Kerensky, who is a liberal lawyer, but he is a Democrat, and he’s a patriot, and he keeps Germany in the war. Now, obviously, the Germans want the war to be over. So what then happens is a man called Parvis, that was his code name, I’ll talk more about him next week. Parvis was a Jew. He was a communist. He’d already put forward a paper for the German high command. He was an extraordinary man. He was a wheeler dealer, he knew everybody. That if they were prepared to send revolutionaries into Russia, communist revolutionaries, they could actually take over the state. And that is how, in a sealed train, 30 revolutionaries, including Lenin, of the 30, 20 were born Jews. They were sent back into Russia. Trotsky came over from Switzerland, and these 11 people who were in the, the sort of commiter, they took power, six of them were born Jewish. And they did exactly what the Germans wanted, because to the communists, “Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.” So what happens is, the Jewish Commissar for Foreign Affairs and the man who created the Red Army, Trotsky, aka Lev Davidovich Bronstein, and his aid Joffe, signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which pulls Germany out of the war. Civil war breaks out all over Eastern Europe.

In the Ukraine, for example, there were pogroms that killed nearly 100,000 Jews. They were being attacked by the White Army because, once the Red Army takes control, is created and takes control, the Whites, they were military officers, they were aristocrats, anyone who believed in conserving the monarchy. Plus there were amicus groups, Petliura in the Ukraine, the whole of Eastern Europe was aflame. It meant that thousands of Jews are going to flee into Germany, by the way, about 100,000 were going to flee into Germany. But it also meant it was total anarchy. As the German army retreated, it took a lot of these White officers back with them into Germany. And with them in their knapsacks, they brought their anti-Semitism and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Why? Because even though, and I can say this until I’m absolutely purple, even though any of these communist leaders who were of Jewish birth, they completely negated their Jewish birth, but that wasn’t the point. They were seen by the enemy as Jews, and as far as the conservatives were concerned, the revolution was a completely Jewish affair. So as a result of that, you have a situation where Jews are seen as communists. And not only that, revolution is going to spread throughout Germany. There is going to be revolution in Berlin led by a Jewess called Rosa Luxemburg. There’s going to be three revolutions in Bavaria, in its capital, Munich. And they are all going to be led by people of Jewish birth. in Hungary, its Bela Kun, in Vienna it’s Arbour. So this was never the majority Jewish response, but it’s going to be very, very important.

And later on, an awful lot of people who joined the SS, who were violently anti-communist, they said they did so because of Jewish communism. Now, the situation for the Jews at the end of the war, Ludwig III of Bavaria, he refused to appoint the great Richard Wilstatter, one of the greatest scientists in the world, to professorship at the University of Munich. He was pushed into it by his ministers. And he said, “This is the last time I agree to the appointment of a Jew.” It’s exacerbated, of course, by the involvement of Jews in revolutionary movements. And also of course, Ludwig III is going to lose his throne to these various revolutionaries. Now, so what happens in Germany? The revolutionaries are all put down, and what is elected is a broad left government. Can we see the next slide, if you don’t mind? Okay. The Allies did not, in the end, the tragedy of Versailles is that the allies, although the Americans were against it, unfortunately, Wilson wasn’t well enough to see it all through. President Wilson didn’t want there to be a very punitive treaty. But it was particularly the French and the Belgians, they wanted revenge. And consequently, Germany lost so much at the Treaty of Versailles. Now, William is going to be doing this with you in a lot of detail. Suffice to say that Germany lost a lot of its territory, it lost a lot of its industrial heartland, it had to pay a huge indemnity in gold, the army was to be restricted, they could build no more planes, they could build no more ships. So the proud German military, and remember, there was no big battle to defeat the German army. And in fact, some British army officers have said that, basically, you’ve been stabbed in the back.

When the Kaiser abdicated, he said, “I have been destroyed by whom? I’ve been destroyed by the communists, the Freemasons, and the Jews.” In the end, Germany goes to the polls in January 1919 for the first ever democratic elections in Germany’s history. Hugo Preuss, also a Jew, born in Berlin. He, a brilliant lawyer. He studied at the University of Berlin under Heidelberg, he studied law and government. He had an academic career. He was a prolific writer. He was the man who wrote the Weimar constitution. He was part of the great intellectual centre of Berlin, He was a relative, his wife Else was a relative of Max Liebermann. He’d been a member of parliament. He created what was seen as the most democratic charter in Europe at the time. The Weimar Republic, universal suffrage, men and women, a broad left government. The broad left itself colluded for the destruction of the communist revolutions. Rosa Luxemburg and Carl Liebknecht were destroyed. They were murdered. And in Munich, where there’d been three revolutions, they are put down by the Freikorps. The Weimar government was established in Weimar, not in Berlin, because the capitol was too unsafe. And consequently, the Weimar Republic, it started off in a very bad way. Why? Because even though they’d had a democratic election, they hoped that and look, when in January, that’s when it all starts, the German marks needed to buy one ounce of gold. That’s when they had hopes that Versailles would be lenient. It was not a negotiated treaty, it was a dictated treaty. So just imagine all these people coming back from the front, there hasn’t been a decisive battle, there’s anarchy all over Eastern Europe, there’s a fear of communism, and that all the countries are going to go down like ninepins, because that was Trotsky’s fear, that’s Trotsky’s dream of perpetual revolution.

They have these huge indemnities to pay, the French can exploit much of the natural resources, and they lose their colonies, the war guilt clause, you’re not fit to have colonies. So they are humiliated. And to make matters worse, you’ve got to see a Germany where there is very little help for the poor, the dispossessed. And yet at the same time, we’re going to have an incredible period of culture. Weimar culture is going to be one of the greatest in the world, but it’s going to be a culture that’s going to be considered by many, decadent. And it’s going to also be seen as Jewish. But just have a look, because what happens to the power of, look what happens to inflation. Just look, just look at those figures. As, who said, “It’s the economy, stupid?” When there is economic instability, when people can’t afford to feed themselves, particularly after a humiliating war, add to that the pandemic, and you have catastrophe. I’m sure many of you have seen pictures of people pushing a whole wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread. And you might have seen that very famous bit of footage when the wheelbarrow is stolen. Money becomes useless. And as a result of this, political extremism comes to the fore. And what happens is, you have the rise of the right and the rise of the left. And the Weimar Republic, Hugo Preuss outlawed private armies. Germany is divided up into 16 separate lender. And the central government never really had the power over all the other lender, particularly in Munich, In Bavaria, which, after the collapse of the three revolutions, which I’m going to talk about on Tuesday, you had the most right wing state in Germany.

So it never really had the power to implement the kind of measures, because they couldn’t have a big standing army. So what happens is you have the rise of extremism on the left, and the rise of extremism on the right, you have hyperinflation. And between 1919 and 1923, there are 376 political assassinations. This is total instability. Can we go on with the next slide, please? This is an article in the British Daily Express. And of course all these events are publicised widely. “A Berlin couple who were about to celebrate their golden wedding received an official letter, advising that the mayor, in accordance with Prussian custom, would call and present them with a donation of money. The next morning, the mayor, accompanied by several aldermen in picturesque robes, arrived at the elderly couple’s home. They solemnly handed over in the name of the Prussian state, one trillion marks or one halfpenny. Can we, so can we go on please? Okay. Patrick is going to give this to you in depth, but I need to talk about it so that you understand, from a historical point of view, the whole story of Weimar. And this, of course, is by the brilliant Otto Dix. I used, at one stage, I was teaching a course face-to-face for those who couldn’t hear, okay? And I learned how to use imagery so much more.” And this really is a wonderful description of Weimar. Have a look at the picture, have a look at the middle sequence of the triptych. It’s a club. You see a woman who is cross-dressing, or is she a man? You see jazz, which was considered decadent. This is a decadent jazz club, progressive culture. David Pima is going to be talking about Weill and Brecht, and the cabaret scene in Germany. Have a look at the other side of the triptych. Here you see a man who’s come back from the war without legs, and he is being harangued by a couple of prostitutes.

You see prostitutes on the other end. So many women were forced to sell their bodies, because they couldn’t afford to feed their families. This is what happened in Weimar, Germany, against the most… The film industry, for example, was one of the most exciting in the world. Can we go on, please? Can we see the next slide? Look, I want you to think about a society where there is no censorship. In America you had the Hays censorship. “Metropolis,” Fritz Lang, the brilliant Fritz Lang, who later on went to have a career in Hollywood. He created the first German talkie called “M,” which stars Peter Lorre, you will know Peter Lorre, of course, from “Casablanca.” He was the star of Weimar cinema, he was a Hungarian Jew. Now, “M” is the story of what? It is the story of a paedophile. The paedophile is given a voice. “Metropolis,” if you haven’t seen it, it prophesied the future. It’s the story of the machine age. “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” starring Conrad Veidt, who later on, he was a lovely, he was a wonderful man, Conrad Veidt, he was a very liberal German, married to a Jew, And in 1933 he left Germany for London, and, unfortunately, then went on to Hollywood. This liberal, who did so much to help people, not only that, but he managed to save his family’s, his wife’s Jewish family. He gave all his money when he worked in England, he gave all the money he made to war orphans in London. Plus, when he went to Hollywood, though, he spent most of his time playing Nazis, as did so many of these characters. But “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is about what? It’s about madness. There were no bars. There were films on homosexuality, cross-dressing, transvestism.

I want you to think, drug addiction, and what did this do to people? Now imagine that you are a conservative character, you have a wife and two children. What kind of cinema will they see? What kind of books will they read? What kind of world is being created for them? It’s a world of decadence. It’s not the world you want. Now for some people, if you think of Christopher Isherwood, who, of course, wrote "Goodbye to Berlin,” which later became “Cabaret,” it was a wonderful time. And also, it was an incredible opportunity for foreign investment capital. So on one level, if you love excitement in art, in music, Schoenberg. Just think about the kind of music that was there. Just think about the kind of art. Think also about the kind of architecture, Bauhaus. Just think about all the great modernist thinkers. Think about all the philosophers, the writers, they are there in Weimar, and they are there in Vienna, and they are being incredibly creative. But an awful lot of people want security. They want safety. And what about the actual role of the Jews? Well, this is where it gets very, very interesting. And because, I’m going to actually look with you now at the war of the Jews. Before that, I’m just going to give you William Shirer’s quote on Weimar, “The most liberal and democratic document of its kind the 20th century has ever seen, full of ingenious and admirable devices, which seem to guarantee the working of an almost flawless democracy.” Now, the problem was with the Weimar Republic, it was PR, proportional representation. And by 1930, there were 28 political parties, okay. But in the Weimar government, Jews are finally equal, not only in theory, but practise.

Judaism was put on the same footing as all other religions, and secularism is spreading and spreading and spreading. Between 1919 and 1924, there were six Jews as cabinet ministers. From now on, all the German universities opened their faculties to Jews, and men and women, but women as well, of talent and drive, could overcome all the ancient barriers of class, religion, ethnicity. We are creating this wonderful new world. But the problem was, most of this golden age of culture was created by people of Jewish origin. This is a quote by Fritz Stern. “It was the crucible for every innovation in film, theatre, painting, poetry, science, let’s not neglect science, education, city planning. When I looked at Berlin, I looked a lot at the creation of garden cities. It’s the same thing. The town planners. We are going to create this wonderful new society, in music, architecture, photography, radio, and journalism. That was Berlin, that was Weimar.” That was the place to be if you were in the least bit creative, but the problem was, of course the majority of Jews were not involved in this. But of those who were creating this incredible ferment, many of them were of Jewish birth.“ And in the sciences, in particular, particularly in the new sciences that were breaking barriers, something like 90% of the professors of physics in German universities were of Jewish birth.

But let’s look at the actual role of the Jew. Remember there’s 100,000 of them have fled into Germany from the anarchy and chaos of Eastern Europe. In the main, they were Yiddish speaking, they were far more religious traditional. They brought with them some of their socialist ideas. They were Bundists, they created their own schteiblich. Walter Rathenau said of them, "They are the a Asiatic hordes on the Brandenburg sands.” But let’s have a look at the actual economic role of the Jews. Here you see Bahaus architecture. Wonderful, isn’t it? Should we go on and look a little more? There you see musical life, there you see Schaumburg, cabaret, UFA, which was the German film industry, was the most creative in the world at the time. So leave it there while I talk a little bit. Yes, that, that’s Albert Einstein, the cynical Albert Einstein. “Looking at the Jews at Leisure tends to give me little pleasure, but when I turn to others, I turn my view, I feel glad I am a Jew.” Einstein, of course, was, this man, he’d won the Nobel Prize, he was the most famous scientist in the world. And yet when he lectured at the University of Berlin, the right wing would come in and barrack him. He once turned to a carnation in his lapel and he said, “I’m a bit like a flower, some people think it’s wonderful, other people feel that it stinks.” And he was well aware of it all. But 90% of the physicists in Germany were of Jewish birth. And on one level there was the intellectual ferment. Imagine a soiree, say for example, in an Erich Mendelsohn house, designed by Erich Mendelsohn, Einstein, quite lightly, playing the violin. I’ve been told by someone who knew him, ‘cause that’s been my joy, teaching in Hampstead from the 70s, I met all sorts of incredible people, that he actually didn’t play very, very well.

But you can imagine the musical soirees, the intellectual ferment, it must have been incredible. But let’s look at, as it was, the Tacheles. Three quarters of German Jews, and remember there’s about 600,000 of them, they are way under 1% of the population. Three quarters were in trade, commerce, banking, or profession. 61% of them were self-employed. Whether you ran a store, or whether you had a barrow on a market, Jews tended to prefer self-employment. 40% of the textile firms were owned by Jews, 60% of retail and clothing business. We already looked at the Jews still under the Kaiser, the large department stores, of course, 80% of them were from Jewish families, 25% of the wholesalers of agricultural produce. So these are Jews going into the countryside, and not necessarily getting enough money for the peasantry, 60% of the retail grocers, and of course, you know, all the department stores, Tiedtke’s, KaDeWe, Jandorf, Der Tann, Israel department stores. Later on, of course, Israel is going to become a great hero. He is, Widfrid Israel is of course, the man who got so many Jews out of Germany. And 'cause he was, he was an Anglo German. And not only that, he later went down in the same plane as Leslie Howard, shot down by the Germans. Chacon, Salamander, and Lisa, the shoe chains, the furniture stores, of course the private banks, the Mendelssohn, the Bliche Road, the Schlesinger, the Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank. They were created by Jewish families. Industrialists, people like Rathenau, people like Bollin.

Also in journalism, something like 60% of the liberal left-wing journalists were Jewish. Art dealers. There aren’t that many Jewish practitioners. There’s Max Liebermann, but most of the modern art dealers are Jewish, because, you know, they’re outside. I mean, I’ve had long talks with Patrick about this. They’re outside the patent. That’s the point. They’re not rooted. That was the criticism of them. And of course, Max Reinhardt controlled the majority of the theatres in Berlin and in Vienna. So you have been absolutely at the pinnacle. But what business are they really in? They’re in the business of buying and selling, and knowing what the public wants. Why were so many of the film directors Jewish? They’re in what I call the usual professions. The smell, knowing what people want, the smell of how you do retail. So you have them all the, so where they’re not, this isn’t about power. We’re going to see “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is going to spread like wildfire in Germany, but the reality was that the Jews themselves, they acted as individuals. Many of them had converted. By 1927, conversion was running at 45%. What does that actually tell us? So what you have is a situation where Jews are very visible. On the other point, of course, 50% of the lawyers and 50% of the doctors in Berlin were Jewish. 22% of the doctors throughout the whole of Germany, 17% of the lawyers. So you have a situation where it’s visible prominence, rather more than power. Where’s power? Power is with the German aristocracy. Even though the Kaiser’s gone, it’s still the old aristocracy. It’s with the army. The German army elected its own officers.

There were very few Jews in the German army. Also, there’s not that many Jews in heavy industry, apart from Ballin and Ajay. But what you get is a sense that the Jews would’ve been so visible, particularly in the big cities, because Jews, the majority of Jews are urban. That goes back through our history. And so it’s likely that the store you went to, that the doctor you saw, or the shoe chain you bought at, they were Jewish. And also, you have the poor Jews of Eastern Europe at a time when more and more Germans are feeling very, very poor. Because you can imagine what those inflation figures did. It led, of course, to the complete crash in the mark. And that is when Adolf Hitler goes for push, comes out of, and don’t worry, I’m going to talk about this next time, he comes out of prison and he decides to do it through the ballot box. This totally undemocratic man, one of the horrors of Nazism, and this should be a lesson to every one of us. Hitler came to power through the ballot box. He didn’t do very well at first, because the misery, soup kitchens in Berlin, suicides, horror, the absolute poverty, political assassination, the pandemic. But it comes to an end because of the Dawes Plan, America stabilises Germany. And between '24 and '29, you have a kind of golden period when extremism, both to the extreme left and the extreme right, lessens. But in 1929, Wall Street crashes, and then it all comes back again. And of course the Jew is the only visible minority that is not Christian. I think it’s important to remember we are in a time before the great movements of peoples, so the only non-Christian minority of any number were Jews. So that put the Jews in a very vulnerable position. And the question we have to ask ourselves is, does every society need a scapegoat?

And the other question, please don’t forget that there was a great liberal tradition in Germany. It was the country of Goethe, and Schiller, and Bach and Beethoven. And how did many Jews deal with it? They can still go to the opera, they can still go to the great openings. And yes, they’re aware of the extremism, but it’s going to get better. Between 1924 and 1929, it did get better. Now for a lot of bourgeois Jews, they didn’t like the culture of Weimar very much, either. It was very much an on the edge culture. So let’s be careful here. But the point I’m making is that the Jews were visibly, they were very visibly prominent in Germany. And of course, something else for you to ponder on. When Hitler came to power and he gradually, economically, socially, and politically excluded the Jews from Germany, two-thirds of German Jews got out, and what they gave to Britain and America, and to Palestine, later Israel, and I believe also to South Africa, or what I believe also to Canada, it has never really been rivalled.

There was this you know, in a way, it’s this terrible end, and we know what happens. Richard Grunberger has written a brilliant book on the Jews of Germany. He said, “If it hadn’t ended so terribly, we would study it with the same awe that we studied the European, that we actually study the Renaissance. Because in every field they scaled the heights.” It was this fusion. What did Heine once say? “The two ethical people, the Jews and the Germans, will create a new Jerusalem in Germany.” But remember, he also said other things. But there was this feeling that together, the two could create this extraordinary country. And the tragedy was, in the end, that people, ordinary people across the board, decided to vote for a party that its core was completely non-democratic and completely racist. They did it for self-interest in the main. It makes this question, when we study this period of history, it’s a vehicle. We study it for the sake of study. We study it because we have to honour. But at the same time, we study it for the lessons, because of all the lessons that are there in history, the question is, how often do we repeat those lessons? So let me stop there, and have a look at questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: Were there any Jewish generals in the German military?

A: Not that I know of, but there were, not that I know of, Robert.

Q: This is Septon. Am I so naive to be that today, a hundred years since 1914, a Jew will try avoid killing another Jew?

A: No that deserves a, a much deeper answer than I can give on this one. The point was, before the first World War, Jews would not have been fighting in other armies. That’s the point. Because it’s only with emancipation that Jews would fight in armies. Okay, You could say in the Napoleonic army there were few, but there were so few Jews in France at the time, so basically, this is the first time where Jews would fight in the armies of the countries in which they came from. It wouldn’t have happened before then.

Margaret, Klemperer is going to be talked about by William in much detail.

Oh, this is from Rita. Victor Klemperer was the father of Werner Klemperer, who played Sergeant Schultz and the American TV Comedy “Hogan’s Heroes.” That’s interesting. Don’t forget also, that so many of these characters, their children and their grandchildren in Britain and America also completely enlivened the culture and the science. I mean, Britain, most English historians will tell you, cultural historians, will tell you that England was a total backwater before the Germans and the Austrians came. Look, if you think, England’s the country I know most about, it’s the Edinburgh Festival.

The Amadeus Quartet. I mean, Anita created the English Chamber Orchestra. I mean, it’s extraordinary. And when I was first started teaching in Hampstead, all these incredible people who came to the centre with their huge knowledge.

Q: Why did they come to classes?

A: They wanted a pattern, but I was so lucky that they taught me, and their connections with each other, and the languages they spoke, it was absolutely extraordinary.

Toller, he committed suicide in America, but I’ll be talking about him next week, Leo.

“The irony is that Jews have often helped the other, but then stabbed in the back by the other.” Yes, Marilyn, but on the other hand, we still have to go on being altruistic, and you don’t stop just because some other people are rotten, do you? And not everyone is rotten. I think we’ve got to be careful here, because there were some incredible non-Jews as well. You know, the Mann brothers, who weren’t Jewish, they got out, and Thomas Mann actually wrote, “We should have had the courage to stay and fight it.” But how do you fight terror? Once Hitler had taken control, one of his first acts was to set up a concentration camp in Dachau. That wasn’t for Jews, that was for anyone who spoke out against the regime. It was about terror. And let’s face it, are you going to risk your children’s lives to save another? It’s a very complicated story.

Q: “I don’t quite understand, Was the Iron Cross awarded for being a German soldier?”

A: It was awarded for more than that. It wasn’t for participation. Your grandfather must have done something very brave, Susan. You were only awarded the Iron Cross first or second class for bravery in action, so you have a grandfather to be proud of. And can you imagine how they’d given everything to Germany, and then after the death of Hindenburg. 'Cause as I said, Hindenburg who was president, he was 81 years old when he became president of Germany. He died in 1934, and then Hitler combined presidency with chancellorship. Up until then, Hindenburg insisted that anyone who’d fought in the German army would not be thrown up. One of Hitler’s first acts was the Career Civil Service Act, which threw the Jews out of the sciences, out of education, et cetera. And that’s why so many German scientists were dismissed. And you know, then you can get into that other extraordinary argument. If they’d stayed in Germany, if the Jews had stayed behind in Europe, what would’ve happened? Los Alamos, 90% of those who participated were, in fact, people of European Jewish birth. Very few of them saw themselves as Jews.

Q: “Did German Orthodox Jews volunteer for service in World War I?”

A: It’s a good question, Shelly. depends what you mean by Orthodox. Reform Judaism was by far the majority religion of German Jews. And it had very little to do with religion. It was to prove they were part of German society. They wouldn’t have volunteered, I don’t think, the Ultra-Orthodox. I have to check that for you.

Q: “What lessons must I learn from the history of German Jewry?”

A: I’m not, I wasn’t just saying German Jewry, Monty. I’m saying history. How we deal with extremism, how we deal with economic horror. Why do we always have to find a scapegoat? Why do we always have to hate? That seems to be one of the lessons we have to learn. Why don’t we actually look at the root causes?

Q: “How many Jews served in the German military?”

A: 100,000, Robert. No, as far as, I don’t know, I know there were Jewish officers in the World War I, I don’t know about German generals or admirals, but I can find out for you.

“My grandfather, Rudolph Rothchild, was in the trenches of World War I, received the Iron Cross. He survived the war and escaped the Nazis in 1938, because his army buddy, who was then chief police in their little town, advised the family to leave. Rudolph said, no, I’m a good German, I got the Iron Cross. However, his wife Frida disagreed. They left for the USA, leaving their life behind, but they survived.

David, can you just imagine the agony of it all for these people? They had given everything to Germany. They thought they were German. I’ll tell you a story. I had a close friend called Felix Shaff, and he actually was a Polish Jew, but his mother had been born in Vienna. His great-grandfather had been the rabbi of . on one side, it was religious, but his mother came from a cultured Viennese family. In the war, he’d come to England because there was a numerous classes the Jagiellonian, so he couldn’t do his doctorate there, so he came to LSE. You know, and Polish antisemitism. Anyway, so he was in England when war broke out. His mother was hidden by a righteous Gentile, but then someone betrayed her, and because later on she was saved, and after the war he found her, and she told this story. Evidently she was holed in the Gestapo headquarters, very, very erudite German. And she started in pure German, discussing Goethe with him. And he said, "This woman can’t be a Jew.” And what his mother said to him, the irony was, that in Poland it would be only a Jew who would know Goethe. Anita tells me that the night before her parents were taken away, they were deported, they were studying, they were actually studying. So there are so, you know, they were in love with the German enlightenment. Look what Klemperer said. “I’m waiting for the other Germany to come back.” So it’s a tragic story. When do you believe the country you’ve given everything to, throws you out?

This is Joan. Hi, Joan. “My mother, who was a child, had to return home every day for more money to pay for the milk she was sent to buy. My father’s father printed his own money to pay his employees. I assume there was an equivalent of a company store, as we call it in the US.” So yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, these stories, it’s so sad.

Q: “How did the average German bourgeois, patriotic Jew, not the intellectuals, feel about the defeat of Germany?”

A: They were sad. They were sad as Germans. Look, the Zionist party in Germany was quite small. Next week I’m going to be talking about Clymer Lazaroff, who turned down a professorship at the University of Berlin to go to Palestine. But I think something like 10% of German Jewry by 1933, had any sort of affiliation to Zionism. Ironically, between '33 and '36, a huge number of German Jews are going to go to Palestine, and they’re going to change the nature of the settlement in Palestine. They’re going to make it into a sophisticated country. Think of the Palestine Orchestra, think of what happened when all the German Jewish theatre directors, so many of them finished up in Palestine, Habima was already there. Think about the coffee houses they opened, just as in Shanghai, the open city, the Viennese who who escaped there opened up Viennese coffee houses in Shanghai. They brought their culture with them. I can remember in London, the Viennese and and German coffee houses from when I was quite young, going, and also to the Cosmo restaurant.

Ah, Rita has found “Metropolis.” Thank you very much.

Ah, Dina, could everyone help? “A few week lectures ago it was mentioned an excellent documentary about Germany.” No, it’s not a documentary, it’s a drama-documentary. It’s “The Fall of Eagles,” and it’s brilliant. It was a BBC, I think 1980s. All the best British actors are in it, and it’s the collapse of the Czarist Empire, the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, and the collapse of the German Empire. And it focuses on the leaders, on the Kaiser, on the Habsburg monarchy, and on the Russian czars. So it’s brilliant. It’s faction, but it’s brilliant. It is “The Fall of Eagles.” I never have to say anything on this series, that’s why I love you all, somebody else tells, yes, it is “The Fall of Eagles.”

Q: “Is there a book that covers this period, both politically and culturally, that is readable and well written?”

A: Okay, Peter, you get a wonderful background in Fritz Stern’s “Einstein’s German World.” There’s a very good book by Niewyk called “Weimar, Germany.” Once the website is up, we will all be putting together, we’ll be putting together reading lists. If you want to read about this period though, Vienna, the best book is “The World of Yesterday” by Stefan Zweig. That’s such a readable book. Amos Elon, “The Pity of It All” is brilliant, Peter. And you know, on I’m trying to think, I think if you made a stab at those, that’s a really, really good start. And both Fritz Stern, who was also a brilliant journalist, so he knows how to write books, he’s also a scholar, and of course, Amos Elon’s book is brilliant.

Michael Meyer, “The Origins of the Modern Jew” is another good book. Yes, yes, yes, Victor Klemperer’s diaries, which have been made into plays.

Pamela, “Third Reich, protected for a while, his non-Jewish wife, he survived the bombing of Dresden, His diaries are one of the best books you can read on how a whole nation changed from one day to hate Jews. It should be read in every school in Germany, and other countries. He was also related to the Great conductor Otto Klemperer.” Yes, Pamela. And I think Patrick is going to be dealing with it. Yeah, Klemperer was an incredible individual. And please don’t forget, there were so many good Germans, too. We’ve got to be careful.

“I think wasn’t Jew Suss’s message, If you are a Jew, don’t show off. ” One of my closest friends, whose parents got out of Germany in 1939, he wasn’t born until '47. He once took his mother to the Royal Opera House, and she saw so many of the people she knew, Jews, and she said, have we, you know, sitting in the best seats, and she said, “Haven’t we learned anything?” He always told me that story. But on the other hand, why shouldn’t we go to the opera? Why shouldn’t we work hard, and earn the money to sit where we want in opera house? You know, the day must come when we are treated just as ordinary folk. The rich, the poor, the good, the bad, the ugly. You know? Come on.

Q: “How was it that people could afford to go to the opera when everything costs so much? Wouldn’t they just be striving to get the basics?

A: Look, there’s always a percentage of people who have money. Foreign investors, who knows where the money comes from? Look, if I’m living in London, where the price of everything is skyrocketing, inflation’s gone up 10%, my daughter is a restaurant critic, one of her jobs, she’s a restaurant critic, and sometimes she takes me to some of the best restaurants in London. They’re full. The theatres are full. There’s always going to be a percentage of people. And also, I know people who are not wealthy, but they spend their money on opera tickets, so they don’t sit in the best seat. They spend their money on concerts because that’s their life’s blood.

"Klempmerer played the Nazi Kommandant Col. Klink, not Sergeant Schultz, in "Hogan’s Heroes.”’ Thank you.

Q: “Are there any data dealing with British US Jewish soldiers or ex German Jews fighting against World War I Jewish soldiers?

A: Not so much in the First World War. There’s far more on what happened in the Second World War, when German Jews who had come to Britain or America, were used by those armies. In fact, Helen Fry is the expert on that, and she’s going to be talking about it.

"In Russia, Jewish boys were kidnapped into the army.” That’s much earlier, Vivian. That’s actually the Kalapas, back in the reign of Nicholas I. What happened in the First World War, because the Russian authorities, the czar, did not think the Jews would be loyal as the Germans marched in, 500,000 German Jews, and beg your pardon, Russian Jews, men, old men, women and children, were frog marched into the Russian interior, and about 100,000 died of starvation and cold. The men have been drafted into the army, then. But the kidnappers goes back to the time of Nicholas I. Yes.

Ellen: “Back in the 1980s, I wrote original research paper on German Christians who saved Jews.” Yes! There were saviours, and we will be dealing with, we’ve already in the past dealt with quite a few rescuers, and we will all be dealing with them again. I’m fascinated by the psychology of rescuers. I want to bottle it. Most of them were people who were very strong minded. There’s no common denominator, though. Some are women, some are men, there’s no socioeconomic category, religious or non-religious. And what is the only thing is that they saved, but it does seem that they got angry. They had a strong moral conscience, and they tended to have come from happy backgrounds. Somebody loved them very much when they were kids. The great conductor, Otto Klemperer, was the father of Werner Klemperer, not Victor, as suggested.

“Please do not confuse reform with liberal, which was actually conservative. I believe that most German Jews fit into the category of liberal. Yes, I hope I said that, Joan. Yes, they were liberal. They were liberal, not conservative. That is too strong. Thank you, Joan.

Hello, Eva Clark. "My paternal grandfather, Louie Nathan, was given the Iron Cross first class, but then imprisoned in Theresienstadt, and most of his family were killed in Auschwitz.” Oh, Eva, What can you say? And Eva, those of you who don’t know, she’s given a presentation. She was actually born on the last day of the war. Eva, what can I say to you? This is such, such a sad, sad story. You know, there was a story of a woman, who, when she was given her, she was 81 when she was given her deportation order, and she wrote a letter to the German army saying, “My son, aged 18, died fighting for your country. Our country. And they still deported her.” Look, they even took Freud’s, his three sisters were in their eighties. They even killed them.

“So this is another list. When do we dehumanise the other?”

Well, this is from Josie, now this is interesting. And she’s complimenting, thank you. And she says, “These examined elements and disentangle so much that’s been stereotyped in this heated and controversial history, the maternal history of the last eight generations of our family. All the pieces were left in trunks. It’s contextualised.” Yeah. Look, any Jew, look, we are the wanderers, aren’t we? If you think about it, in 1939, there were 18 million Jews in the world, and over 9 million of them lived in Europe. Today the bulk of Jewry is now in Israel and America. Israel’s just overtaken America. So Jewish demography. But think, if you go back eight generations, I mean, I’m trying to find more out about my own family. And you know, it’s hybrid, it’s Prussia, It’s Portugal, it’s Spain, it’s Krakow, you know, how far back can you go? It’s fascinating if you’ve got the time to study your own family history, and I know, luckily, online we’ve got some very important genealogists. So just put up your questions, because I’m not really good enough to answer genealogical questions, but I know that we have Arlene and Saul on quite often who are.

Weimar, Barry, is just the town in Germany. Ironically, it was the place, it was Goethe’s birthplace.

This is Barbara. “Looking at aesthetically, Bauhaus values and creations seem like an antidote to the madness and chaos of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and similar art.“ Do you know, it’s very, very interesting what you are saying about that kind of story. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” I’ve got a great poster of it. Yeah, you know, in 1937, the most popular art exhibition in the history of Germany, Hitler, of course, saw himself as an artist. All this art was completely banned. All this cinema was completely banned, not just as Jewish but as decadent. And there was an exhibition of decadent art. And what they did was, they put up, say for example, a Picasso, and by the Picasso would be a picture of someone who was mentally ill. Just to show, all the time, you know, the degeneracy. And of course, in, I had a friend who was very involved in film, and he looked at so many of, you know, whenever people went to the cinema, there was the B picture, the A picture, and in the middle, the news. when Hitler came to power, if you look at the newsreels, they spent a lot of time looking at political issues like how the mentally and physically ill had to be destroyed. You can see it back from the 30s, it’s unbelievable.

Q: “How many Jews from Palestine went to fight during World War II?”

A: Rhonda, you’ll be pleased to know that in a couple of weeks, I’m going to be looking at ‘45 to '48, because we have to. When war broke, look, in 1939, two things happened. May 1939, the British issued the white paper on Palestine, where to appease the Arabs, they restrict Jewish immigration to 15,000 a year for five years. Whoever has the majority has the state. And this is when Hitler wanted a Jews could get out of Germany right up until 1941, and out of Austria. Remember that. Some Jews were even released from concentration camps, provided they had an exit visa. Ben-Gurion said. And then in 1939, the war breaks out. Ben-Gurion said, “We fight the white paper as if there is no Hitler, and we fight Hitler as if there are no white paper.” To put it in a nutshell, 50,000 Palestinian Jews volunteered for the British Army. The British wouldn’t let them in. They said, we’ve got to have parity with the Arabs. They were terrified that they were creating a fighting force that would one day go against them. They then began to use a few of them in expeditions, for example, in Iraq, where, and in Syria, I mean, Moshe Dayan lost his eye fighting for the British. The leader of the Irgun, David Raziel, died fighting for the British. Later on, they allowed a Jewish regiment to actually fight as a Jewish regiment of Palestinian Jews. That was later on. It’s a fascinating story.

Oh, this is from Jonathan. I love it. “Two German building a wall on a kibbutz in the '30s, the one threw the bricks and the other one caught them. Thank you. "The Long Way Home” is an excellent, informative video about '45 to '48. Yes, I know it Serena, it’s brilliant. Thank you.

Okay, I think that’s all the questions. Thank you very much, Lauren, for putting everything together, and bye-bye everyone. Look after yourselves, and I will see you all very soon.