Trudy Gold
Germany and Jewish Identity 1750’s – 1933, Part 5

Trudy Gold - Germany and Jewish Identity 1750’s-1933, Part 5

- So, Trudy, let me have a look. It’s now four minutes past the hour. I’m going to hand over to you.

• Okay, thank you very much, Wendy. And welcome, everybody. And this is the fifth session on German Jewish identity. I think it’s so important that we spend time on this. And I also want to, Wendy sent out a lovely New Year message from all of us, and I want to echo this. It’s been an incredible year, and, of course, you’ve all made it into an incredible year. So thank you very, very much. And let me go back to the subject now. Now, the last character I talked about was Julius Reuter. Can we have him on the screen, if you don’t mind, Judy? Yes. What an extraordinary character. And I talked about him last time, so I’m not going to talk about him again, except I want to give you a notion of him and modernity. This is a memo he sent to all his correspondents in 1883.

He said this, “News,” he’s explaining to all his staff, and remember, he’s got these telegraph agencies all over Europe. He’s even got this connection with America now. And if you recall what would happen, he had a telegraph agency at Cork, and the ships from America would actually throw overboard the canisters of news for his agents to pick it up before the ships landed. And this is what he wrote. This is the memo, this is what news to be transmitted of, “Fire, explosions, floods, railway accidents, destructive storms, earthquakes, shipwrecks, accidents to war vessels and to mail steamers, street riots of a grave character, disturbances rising from strikes, duels between and suicides of person of note, social or political murders of a sensational or atrocious nature. It is requested,” and this is so much of a journalist speaking, “It is requested that the bare facts be first telegraphed with the utmost promptitude, and as soon as possible, a descriptive account proportional to the gravity of the incident.”

And I guess that was written in 1883. And I think newspaper editors have followed that right up to the present day. So, of course, I could have chosen so many other characters, and I have decided to include the Israel Department Store. Could we just see a picture of Wilfrid Israel? And the reason I’m including him is because he’s a hero. He’s a hero in so many, many ways, and particularly as we’re coming up to the New Year, and we do need heroes. I wanted to talk about his life. His family, on his father’s side, they were German Jews. They had created the Israel Department Store. Again, this wonderful epic of modernity. And his background is absolutely extraordinary. I mean, he was a lord of the earth. His mother was English, his father was German, both Jewish. They mixed in the highest echelons of society. He was schooled in Berlin and in Switzerland. And following World War I, he went on travels. He went on travels to the East. He took a special interest in the art of the region. He was a great art collector. He was passionate about helping his people. And he actually helped with the creation of the Habima Theatre in Palestine. He mixed not only with the very wealthy.

He mixed with governments. He was a man that everybody wanted to be around. And he was an incredible art collector. In fact, his collection today is at a kibbutz in Israel. He mixed with the aristocrats. He mixed with government and he was the kind of man everyone wanted to be around. But there was another side to him. Let me just give you an extraordinary idea of his kind of relationships. In 1931 in Berlin, when he’d been in India, he’d met up both with Gandhi and with a very close friend of his, V.A. Sundaram. And Sundaram came to visit him in Berlin and he took him to meet Albert Einstein. And the notion was that there would be real contact between Gandhi and Einstein. That never came off. But, as you know, Gandhi was very, very pro-Jewish and it had a lot to do with the personality of Wilfrid Israel. Now, of course, the Nazis come to power in 1933. And Wilfrid Israel, he has British citizenship. He could have just left, but he wasn’t like that. He had the most incredible moral conscience. And from the early days of the Nazis, he made it his business to help his people.

Now, for example, a third of his employees were Jewish. He gave them two years’ salary so that they could leave Germany. Obviously you needed money to get out. Never forget that the Nazis were quite prepared to let Jews go, but you needed entry visas. How do you get them? Money was a great leveller. And so a third of his employees, we’re talking about hundreds of people, were paid for two years to allow them to reestablish themselves in other places. He also had the strength, he worked with a man called Frank Foley, another hero. Frank Foley was a Brit. He was at the passport office in Berlin, and he was actually working for military intelligence. He saved thousands of Jews. He and Wilfrid Israel worked together. What Wilfrid Israel did was this. Of course, a lot of Nazis, their wives loved to shop in Israel’s Department Store. It’s one of the greatest in Berlin. And none of the Nazis ever had to pay bills.

So yes, he was bribing people, but he and Foley would actually get people out of concentration camps. After 1937, his business was Aryanized. He’s forced to leave Germany, but he comes back. He comes back to actually organise the Kindertransport. What happens is, he’d already saved about 8,000 young men from concentration camps. He’d lobbied the British government and he managed to persuade the British government to take in 8,000 of these people into transit camps. He also worked with a man called Hubert Pollock. He was a statistician at the Jewish Community in Berlin. And the three of them, Pollock, Israel and Frank Foley saved thousands and thousands of Jews. And later on, Pollock went on to work for the Mossad.

And he also worked for the honouring of Foley by Yad Vashem. There were righteous people and Frank Foley was definitely one of them. He worked very closely with the Anglo-Jewish leadership as far as the Kindertransport was concerned. You all know, of course, that what happened was that the night, the terrible night of Kristallnacht, the 9th of November, 1938, the smashing of the glass, when synagogues were set on fire, business ransacked, it was really the end of the Jewish community in Germany. That’s when the writing was totally on the wall. After that, everybody wanted to get out. And what he did was, he was the man who actually got the impetus going with the Quakers to persuade the British government to allow the 10,000 children in. When war breaks out, he works to help German Jews interned as enemy aliens in Britain.

He advised the refugee department at the Foreign Office. He also had a friendship with Adam von Trott, of course, that German officer who wanted early on to resist Hitler and finally died in the July plot of 1944. He, on his mother’s side, he was from a rabbinic family. He’s actually immortalised in Christopher Isherwood’s “Goodbye to Berlin,” in his character, Bernhard Landauer. He had friendships with many of the great Jewish figures of the day, not just the British government, not just the wealthy. He was very close to Martin Buber. He was very close to Einstein. And he was very close to Chaim Weizmann. Also Herbert Samuel. Herbert Samuel was very useful, of course, in working in the rescue missions. This is a quote from Brenda Bailey, who was a leading Quaker. “After Kristallnacht, leadership was shown by the Jewish businessman, Wilfrid Israel, who contacted the Council for German Jewry in London, informing them that extraordinary measures must now be taken at least to save the children.” He’s described in the Foreign Office records, “the chief representative of German Jewry.”

And what’s extraordinary about him is he had no worry for his own personal safety. He actually went back to make sure, none of the leaders of Anglo-Jewry would actually do it, he himself went back to Berlin to bring out the last transports. And he had three collaborators over there. And I want to mention them, because these people all deserve honour: Epstein, Hirsch and Kaminski. They were German Jews. They chose to stay to the end. And tragically they all perished in the camps. Now, he also was a great sponsor of Youth Aliyah, and he was actually on a mission to rescue Jewish children in Vichy. On the 26th of March, 1943, he travels to Lisbon. He’s only 44 years old. He travels to Lisbon because Lisbon, Portugal and Spain, remember, are neutral, and he’s trying to give out transit visas. He’s trying to ease everyone’s passage. And then in June, he took a plane back. That plane, that very, very interesting plane, who was on it? Leslie Howard, of course, the famous Jewish actor also involved in all sorts of work, British intelligence characters, business people. It was shot down by the Nazis and we are not quite sure why. Which of the characters were they trying to get at? Was it Israel?

There was an agent who looked a little bit like Churchill. Did they think Churchill was on board? We’ll never know the real story, but it’s really the stuff of legends. And this is the letter that Einstein wrote to Israel’s mother. “A deep desire prompts me to write to you. Never in my life have I come into contact with a being so noble, so strong, and as selfless as he was. In very truth, he was a living work of art.” Remember, it was art he adored. He collected the art of the Near East. He collected the art of the Far East. He was an aesthetic man. Look at his face, look at the way he dresses. He was immaculate. He was also gay. And I think that probably it’s the gayness that gave him, and the Jewishness, that gave him his double alienation. And in a way, these are the people who are best. They can see it. They can see what’s going on. And what a hero. And this is what Einstein goes on to say. And that’s why I really thought we should include him as we come up to Rosh Hashanah. “In these times of mass misfortune, which so few are able to stand up to, one feels the presence of the ‘chosen one’ as a liberator from despair for mankind.” Because while people like him walk through the earth, then there’s always a chance for all of us. I think this is the point. We need heroes.

All sorts of different heroes. Moral heroes, political heroes, we need those kind of characters who go outside themselves. And I thought that just before Yom Tov, and I had a note from a student about this, and I have looked at him before when I looked at rescuers, but I thought, particularly as it’s this time of the year, we should give him his honour. Anyway, as I said, there’s a museum in Israel which stores his art collection. And there was a film called “The Essential Link,” by the way, that came out in 2016. So that is Wilfrid Israel. Now, let’s keep his picture there while I just give you a little bit more background as to what’s going on in Berlin as we trundle up to the last decade before the First World War. Berlin was a divided city. Germany was a divided nation. By 1900 industrial workers made up 60% of the population. The German Social Democratic movement, which had of course had been started by Lassalle, had 170,000 members. You had a situation where you, in a way, the real problem in German society was that even when Bismarck, taking Disraeli’s advice, began to issue all sorts of poor reforms, the ruling classes were against him. This is von Treitschke. Remember, professors in Europe are worshipped . Von Treitschke, the Professor of History at the University of Berlin, the man who coined the phrase, “The Jews are our misfortune.”

This is what he said: “The poor should remain so. Higher values were never intended for the masses.” And against that, this sort of conservatism that those who have must rule, the growth of the satirical Berlin cabaret, in those small smoke-filled rooms, quite often in those flats set up for the workers, brilliant satire. And remember, Berlin, by the time that Kaiser Wilhelm is on the throne, it is a wildly prosperous city for the rich and terrible for the poor. And the divisions, this is what Fritz Stern had to say, the brilliant Fritz Stern, “Precisely at the moment of Germany’s modernization, the anachronistic economically declining elements of a modern society were exalted.” Now, according to Stern, and many other historians, the problem, yes, you have the liberalism, you have the dream, you have the “kultur”, but what you also have is the rise of the volkisch beliefs by those who are trapped and frightened by the changes of modernity.

And who are they? The small shopkeepers, the clerks, minor civil servants, teachers, craftsmen, farmers. People who are left behind. Look, we can look at the world around us today, can’t we? Look, history doesn’t always repeat itself, but people do. We have a pandemic. We have social and economic unrest. We look for scapegoats. So basically you have this maelstrom in Germany of two opposing forces. And it led to the rise of all sorts of strange right-wing groups. It was fired, of course, by social Darwinism. The notion of the division of the races. And the Jew is the perfect scapegoat. And a Jew, according to this volkisch kind of thought, is defined by blood. It doesn’t matter whether you convert or not, in the end it’s about blood. Now let me just finish this little bit on, again, on Nietzsche. I read you some of it, but I think it’s important to read the whole of this paragraph. This is from “Human, All To Human.” “The whole problem of the Jew exists only in nation states. For here their higher intelligence and higher energy, their accumulated capital of spirit and will, gathered from generation to generation through a long schooling in suffering must become so preponderant as to arouse mass envy and hatred.

There was a growing tendency to lead Jews to the sacrificial slaughter as scapegoats of reasonable misfortune.” Now this is Nietzsche. Isn’t it interesting, because he already sees the notion, as the Jew, as scapegoat, and he picks out the very brutal notion that envy, you see, and he says this in his other writings. The world had pushed Jews into banking. The world had pushed Jews into money-lending, artificial occupation patterns, and then blamed them for being good at it. So now he goes on to say that it is the Jews who are actually saving, that have saved German culture. He talks about the Jewish freethinkers, the Jewish scholars. I’ve already mentioned how the Jews dominated the press, the liberal and left-wing press, so many of the modern writers. But for those who hated modernity, the Jew is the enemy. And also let’s talk about the universities. The universities in the German-speaking lands, and I’m going to include Vienna in this, they went through an incredible period of growth.

Physics, maths, all the sciences, social sciences, philosophy, history. Many, many Jews were involved in the liberal arts and in the sciences, but, and this is another quote from Fritz Stern, “The universities could never resolve the great conflict, ‘Geist und Macht,’ spirit and brute force. What is the truth of Germany?” And of course the other point is the prestige of the German universities gave these professors an almost God-like position and the will to obey. And also remember that the elite despised, the elite in Berlin, the wealthy elite, the wealthy aristocratic elite, despised the Jews as parvenus. So, but, having said all of that, there had even been a blood libel in Xanten in 1891, and Adolf Stoecker, who was the Protestant chaplain to the Kaiser’s court, he set up a petition for the withdrawal of Jewish emancipation. 260,000 people signed it. But nevertheless, it didn’t happen.

And gradually, if you were a Jew in Berlin in say 1910, you believed it was getting better. After all, it was also the Germany of the Enlightenment. The Xanten trial had failed. Stoecker was quiet. And yes, there were representatives in the Reichstag who screamed out against the Jews. But there were Jews in the Reichstag. And there were liberals. And this almost optimism that if we behave in a certain way, all will be well. And then, of course, you have World War I. And Jews on every side fought in that war. Anglo Jews fought for Britain. German Jews fought for Germany. In the Hapsburg Empire, Jews fought for Austria, they fought for Hungary. In Russia, they were conscripted in. And in France, they fought for France.

So, ironically, this is where Jews are fighting as citizens. Now, in Germany, the middle and upper class Jews, they joined up as volunteers even before conscription. They had to prove that they were really German. And the Deutsches Reich, which was the main organisation of German Jews, they actually said, “Germany is defending its culture,” and I’m quoting, “Against Russian malice, French thirst for revenge,” remember 1871, “English deviousness, and Serbian lust for murder.” And it called on all its members, “Beyond the call of duty to fight for the Fatherland. Hasten to volunteer for service. All you men and women must dedicate yourself to the Fatherland through every kind of service.” Eugen Fuchs, who was chairman of the organisation, the Centralverein, he proclaims himself, “I am German to my bones.” And the Jewish newspaper, well, the main Jewish newspaper, was proud when they found out that the youngest volunteer was a 14-year-old Jewish boy from East Prussia.

They also celebrated when a Jewish soldier called Fischer was said to have captured the first flag of the French. It was actually not true, so the paper corrects itself with a little ditty. “First in battle and first to win was neither Jew or Christian, no liberal Junker or a Democrat, the flag was caught by a German soldier.” This is an important letter from one of the soldiers. This is Julius Holtz, written on his 20th birthday. “I will fight like a man, as a good German of the Jewish faith, for the honour of my country.” He fell in battle. I shouldn’t play the game of history, but I think we should know. 24 years later, on the eve of her deportation, his 81-year-old mother asked to be spared because of her son. And the reply was, “Your application to be released from labour service is declined.” Many Jews, of course, were glad to fight the Russians. Can we see the first picture of Samuel Bergmann? This is Hugo Bergmann. He was a great Zionist leader. He of course finished up in Palestine and in Israel, and he was terribly, he was actually a member of the Israeli government. He wrote, “At last, Russia will be punished for Kishinev, Gomel, and Siberia. The Jews at last can prove they are Germans.”

And let’s have a look at the Jewish poet Ernst Toller. Of course, he was a fascinating man. He was a very important poet. He later took part in the Munich Revolution. And this is what he wrote though, “This should compensate the stigma of your ancestry on being awarded the Iron Cross.” Thousands of them became officers. Can we see the next slide, please, Judy? Ah, this is an interesting slide. You see the officer sitting? And you see the man with arrow, with the red round him? Well, that of course is Adolf Hitler. This is Hugo Gutmann. Hugo Gutmann had worked in a furniture store in Berlin, a middle class Jew. He was a lieutenant. He went against the orders, against the wishes of his superiors. He went to great lengths to secure an Iron Cross for Hitler, because Hitler was a messenger, and he believed that he deserved the Iron Cross. And the divisional commander didn’t think he did.

And it was Gutmann who finally convinced him that he did deserve it. And it was Gutmann who pinned the Iron Cross, second class, on Hitler’s coat. Isn’t that an extraordinary irony of history? He survived, he left Germany. Evidently, he was one of the few Jews that Hitler was prepared to let go. He was warned by the SS, he made it to America. Now what about the Zionists? There was never a large Zionist organisation in Germany. They were still a small minority. And at the conference eight weeks before the war, they had reaffirmed their conviction that they were aliens in Germany and that Jews were really a nationality. You know, often I quote Elias Canetti: “There are no people more difficult to understand than the Jews.”

And you see what’s happening. They’re absolutely caught at the cross currents. “We are loyal Germans, we are fighting for Germany.” Now, let’s have a look at Siegfried Moses, please. Siegfried Moses, he was a Zionist leader. He was head of the Zionists in Danzig. He called on his fellow Zionists, “To stand before our Kaiser in his crusade for peace.” He of course later on finished up in Israel and was very, very important over there. But you see, this is the fervour of war. Now let’s, but there’s another man. Can we see the next, yeah, Haim Arlosoroff. Haim Arlosoroff, absolutely fascinating character. The second longest street in Tel Aviv. And of course I’ve mentioned him before in another context, and no doubt we’ll be talking about him quite a lot in the future. He came from Eastern Europe to Berlin. He was an absolutely brilliant chap. By the time he is 23, he has a professorship at the University of Berlin.

But he has other dreams. He never felt that he was really German. This is a letter he wrote to his professor when he was 18 years old. “I am a Jew and I feel strong and proud of my Jewishness. I feel it in my bones that I am different from the German. And it would never occur to me to deny this. I feel how much of the orient is ingrained in me, how much in my soul is a product of an inner rift due to rootlessness, an unknown to the racial German. On the other hand, I recognise in myself many other things which Germans think are their sole property. My soul yearns for the unique ancient Hebrew culture. But I also like German culture. And perhaps I’m also too afraid to admit how great my love is for it.” It’s a fascinating one, isn’t it? Wherever you are born, how do you, can you reconcile both? Can you love your Jewish culture? Can you love the culture of the land in which you live? Is there a conflict? “Moreover, sometimes it appears to me that we, the young Jews who understand what national culture is and what it means to be the bearer of such a culture, realise more than many Germans how deep are the treasures found in German culture. Yet, Goethe and Schiller never really touched my heart closely.

They fill me with awe and wonder. I get excited by them as by a powerful and magnificent natural phenomenon which reveals itself to men in all its sublime glory, but I cannot live in them and for them.” And of course he turns down his position at the university and goes to Palestine. Very active in the Mandate. A brilliant, sophisticated, clever man, he becomes Ben-Gurion’s number two. He negotiates the Haavara agreement with the Nazis to bring as many Jews as possible to Germany and allowing them to take some of their goods in. This was a time when, never forget, between ‘33 and '41, Hitler wanted a Reich. He was prepared to let the Jews out. And Arlosoroff was the man sent by Ben-Gurion to negotiate with the monsters. And I really do advise you to read biography of Arlosoroff. When he was in Germany, he had a girlfriend called Magda Quandt. And later on she made a marriage to a man called Joseph Goebbels. Now, even some German Jews came back, who were living in Palestine, came back to fight. And I’m going to show you the next picture, please.

This is Kurt Blumenfeld, an extraordinary man. He was General Secretary of the World Zionist Organisation in 1924 to 1935. He said, “German kultur will cure the world of all its ills.” You probably know of him not just for his own work, but he was one of the closest friends of Hannah Arendt. So he was a very important philosopher and thinker. Now, I’m bringing these people to your attention, some of you will know a lot about them, others not, and we will later on in the course be actually talking about their works, but today I’m looking at identity and Germany. Two weeks after the war began, the German foreign office, officially in charge of Jewish affairs, it’s interesting, foreign office in charge of Jewish affairs. He writes to his superiors, “The entire Zionist organisation has been won over to our cause. In strict discipline, they can be compared to the Jesuits.” And don’t forget, as the Germans invaded the Pale, they think they’re fighting Russia. The Pale of Settlement is the area to the west of Russia: Poland, Lithuania, Lavia, Ukraine. It’s the centre of Jewish settlement.

And ironically, as the German army under the Kaiser move in, they liberate the Jews, which is going to set a very dangerous precedent. Whereas the Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, what is happening? 500,000 Jews, old men, women and children are being frog marched into the Russian interior. Over a hundred thousand of them die of cold and suffering and starvation. Why? Because he didn’t trust that the Jews to the west would be loyal. And of course it’s the Germans who liberate them. And now we come on to another man called Ludwig Fulda. Now, can we see the next slide, please, Judy?

Yeah, this is Ludwig Fulda. His dates are 1862 to 1939. He was a son, he was a writer, he was a poet. He was a real intellectual. All these characters were brilliant young men. It’s interesting, where are the women? Well, the problem is, it’s not where are the women. There are a few women, but still, rights of women, they haven’t yet found their place in the world. So I’m not picking men, I’m just telling it as it is. Anyway, he came from Frankfurt and he was so passionate about the Germans and the war. He set out a manifesto. It’s called “The Manifesto of the 93.” It was written on the 4th of October, 1914. And can we see it please, Judy? And I’d like to thank Judy so much for all the work she’s done on this particular presentation. This is from the German intellectuals to the intellectuals of Europe. And let me just read it with you. “As representatives of German science and art, we hereby protest to the civilised world against the lies which our enemies are endeavouring to taint the honour of Germany in her struggle for existence, in a struggle that has been forced on her. It is not true that Germany is guilty of having caused this war. Neither the people, the government, nor the Kaiser, wanted this war and did her utmost to prevent it.”

And of course, I’m just taking the bare bones of this. “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 to you to have faith in us and to believe we shall carry on this war to the end as a civilised nation to whom the legacy of a Goethe and a Beethoven and a Kant is just as sacred as our own hearts and homes. For this we pledge you our names and our honour.” Now, I’m just going to give you, 93 people signed it. I’m just going to give you a few of the people who signed it. I’m just going to name mainly Jews who signed it. Paul Ehrlich, who won the Nobel Prize in 1908. Hermann Fischer, Nobel Prize in chemistry 1902. Fritz Haber, Nobel Prize in chemistry. Max Liebermann, of course, was the great figure of art in Germany. Max Reinhardt, the greatest theatre director in Germany. He controlled 31 theatres in Berlin and Vienna. Richard Willstatter. It’s translated into 14 languages. It is really the paeon of the German intellectual class. Can we go on, please, Judy?

Martin Buber. The great Martin Buber. The great theologian who had such a fascinating life, who one of my colleagues will be dealing with later on in the course, because so many of these characters deserve their own sessions. He wrote this: “Never has the concept of volk become such a reality amongst Jews too.” Can we go on, please? The great Stefan Zweig, the man who wrote “All Our Yesterdays,” the man who was one of the most popular writers in the German speaking world, and an incredible hero, but a great liberal, but what did he write? “It’s wonderful to be living at such a moment.” He believed in the great love of Germany, and tragically he’s in Austria. But it’s the great love of the German language, of German culture. And by the way, if you haven’t read “The World of Yesterday,” you have missed a huge treat.

It is absolutely wonderful. What happened to him? He managed to escape to England. Tragically, he still believed that the Germans could cross the Channel. He had a house in Bath. He and his second wife, they went to South America where they committed suicide. So, a great man. He died because his world was finished, that wonderful world. You see, he believed in the German language of culture. And when he saw it destroyed, it was just too much to bear. He also was a great collector of autographs and memorabilia. he had Beethoven’s desk. Extraordinary man. Can we have the next slide?

Yeah. The fascinating Victor Klemperer. Now, his diaries of course are one of our great sources of information. He converted to Protestantism, then reverted back to Judaism. He was baptised again in 1912. He was a professor. This is what he wrote when war breaks out: “We Germans are better than the other nations, freer in thought, purer in feeling, juster in action. We Germans are a truly chosen people.” He very much believed that the superiority of German culture would lead to their moral superiority and of course their military superiority. Tragically, of course, he was married to a non-Jew and he did manage to survive, he did manage to survive the Nazis. They were completely dishonoured. And it’s all written in his diaries. I really do advise you to read it. And even in 1942, he wrote this: “I am German and I’m still waiting for the Germans to come back.” After the war he could never part from Germany. He became a significant cultural figure in East Germany. So, fascinating. Another character, Hermann Cohen. I don’t think I gave Judy a picture of him, but he was probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the 19th century. And yes, we will have a presentation on him.

And this is what he wrote: “The God of love is sure to grant Germany a heroic victory over her wicked enemies.” He actually offered to travel to America. This is Hermann Cohen, the great philosopher. He said, “I’m going to go to America to convince American Jewry that Germany is a model for the world.” Can we go on please, Judy? And here you have Fritz Haber. What can one say about Fritz Haber? He was a brilliant scientist. He was a chemist. And it started with him working on dyes. This is where all the chemical inventions begin, you know, synthetic dyes for fabric. And this is where it all begins in modernity. The Haber-Bosch process fed half the world, pesticides. He put himself completely at the disposal of the German army. I think he was given the rank of captain in the German army. He wins the Nobel Prize. What did he work on? He worked on poison gas. He even went to the front to make sure that the poison gas was being used properly. Both his wives committed suicide. He becomes more and more of a tragic figure. He also, his company, actually created Zyklon B as a pesticide.

He converted. And he was head of the most important scientific institute in Berlin, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. And it was he who brought Einstein to Berlin. He was a total German patriot. He believed passionately in Germany. In fact, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, something like 40% of the funds came from Jews. He was very close to Einstein. Although Einstein mocked him and said, “You hug the blonde beast much too close to you.” His story, you know, hubris, nemesis, catharsis. In 1933, he had to dismiss all his Jewish colleagues. He was not himself dismissed because he’d fought in the army. And if you had fought in the army, while Hindenburg was still President of Germany, he died in 1934, he insisted that Jews who had fought in the army were not subjected to the anti-Jewish laws. It was only after he died that it all really wrenched up for people like him. He was absolutely heartbroken. And can you imagine, he has to kick out his Jewish colleagues. And then he’s got to go. And Einstein mocked him.

But Weizmann, who was, remember, also a chemist, a very important scientific figure, he invited Haber to come to his institute in Rehovot, the Sieff Institute, later renamed the Weizmann Institute. And he was on a train to Switzerland to then go to Palestine when he had a heart attack and died. Or maybe it was a broken heart. He gave it all, and what he did. Einstein wouldn’t talk to him for a long time because of the poison gas. Another incredibly complicated figure, can we see now? Yeah, Walther Rathenau, close to Haber, close to Einstein. His father was one of the most important industrialists in Germany, had AEG. He was an artist, he was a writer, he was a collector of art. He was the Renaissance man. Rathenau had it all. He had a brilliant brain for economics, philosophy. One of the richest men in Europe. Very patrician. He had a real problem with his Jewishness. He didn’t convert, but he wrote a terrible pamphlet when he was a young man called “Hero Israel,” where he said to Jews, “Stop aping the Gentiles. You are like dachshunds dressed up as greyhounds. You cloak your women in silks and satins. Why don’t you realise that they are beautiful?” He hated the ostentation. He loved the Prussian officer class, he was probably gay. But the point about him, he was also an incredibly torn man. And he did say, remember, he is a brilliant economist.

He was against the war, he said, “Because the war will be ruinous for Germany. It will ruin the country, and it will ruin the country for generations.” As I said, he’s close to Haber and Einstein. The three of them were kind of, their lives were very interlinked. And on August the 12th, he actually takes over the German economy. And for the first eight months, he’s really in charge of reorganising the economy. He does plan. He actually plans the first modern European economy, this brilliant, brilliant man. After the war, he becomes foreign minister in Weimar and he negotiates the treaty with the Russians. He mixed with kings, he mixed with princes. He was finally assassinated Midsummer’s Eve, 1922, by a bunch of right-wing Nazis, well, not Nazis, they later affiliated to the Nazis’ party, a very strange, sinister little group called the Thule Society. They assassinated him as one of the Elders of Zion. There was, and again, it shows you the great division in Germany, which we’ll be talking about later on in the year. But the point about Rathenau, the loyal, loyal German, he found his Jewishness distasteful. He fell in love with that, what is it? It’s almost an illusion, isn’t it? The dream.

And ironically, it is characters like Haber, like Rathenau, like Tucholsky, like Szweig, like Buber, they’re the ones who are pushing German culture. And yet, for somebody like Rathenau, his Jewishness was such a problem, but he never converted. Now Einstein, Einstein, let’s see his face. The Time “Man of the Century.” I suppose we all have heroes. And Einstein is certainly one of mine. Look, I’m no scientist, I don’t understand what he did. But I do know that as a human being, he was one of the most wonderful people who walked the world. Yes, he was vain. Yes, he was a womaniser. But my goodness, he had a moral conscience and he had a great sense of humanity. And he said, “The war is madness.”

He found it totally incomprehensible. He refused to sign the petition. He thought they had gone completely crazy. And of course, Einstein’s story in many ways is the story of the 20th century. I’ve talked about him in the past, and we will be talking about him when we comes to his time in America. But, you know, even today, he is the symbol of brain, isn’t he? Albert Einstein, the man from Ulm, who was good at maths and physics, but not good at anything else at school. An incredible, I think, an incredible role model for men. And I’m talking now about his morality. It’s not a conventional morality with Einstein, but a kind of belief in humanity. He said, “It’s not that I’m cleverer than most people, it’s just that I don’t give up.” He believed passionately in knowledge. And he said, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, then you yourself don’t understand it.” And he was a proud Jew, complicated, but a proud Jew.

He would go on fundraising jaunts with Chaim Weizmann, they were very close. He went to America to try and raise money for the Hebrew University, which was one of his dreams. He gave the first address at the site of the Hebrew University, the first lecture. And I want to do a session on the Hebrew U because they had the greatest alumni that I think has ever assembled for, I mean, the greatest board. I mean, Freud was on it, Einstein was on it, Ahad Ha'am was on it, Buber was on it. Think about today, and thinking about all universities today, and think about that particular time. Anyway, can we go on? There were other people who spoke out against it. Theodor Wolff, by the way. I’ll come on to him in a minute. But let’s keep Kurt Tucholsky on. Theodor Wolff, in one of the leading Berlin newspapers, he wrote, “I found it incomprehensible that Germany’s top thinkers were ready to guarantee that German soldiers were incapable of performing shameful acts.” Now Tucholsky, very important journalist and satirist. He wrote many political reviews. He published over 2000 essays.

One of the most important journalists and writers in Germany. He volunteered in 1914, but later he wrote, “The war is a worldwide latrine filled with blood, barbed wire and hate songs.” By the end of 1916, as evidence comes through of what it was really like, I mean, I don’t have to tell you, you’ve all read, you’ve seen the film, the footage, the war that was to be over by Christmas, what an evil, evil war. It destroyed, it destroyed all the dreams of liberalism, I think. And the Jewish press, remember, the liberal press is mainly written by Jews. It’s not the Jewish press, it’s the liberal press, but most of the journalists are Jewish. And also a number of liberal deputies, including Jews, they begin to want a negotiated peace. But nobody’s got any influence with the military establishment. And most Jewish intellectuals begin to change their mind. Now let’s have a look at, can we please now look at Eduard Bernstein? Yeah, he’s an interesting character. He came from a religious background, but turns out he completely repudiates everything. He becomes part of the Marxist world. He is completely anti-war. I should say that the Jewish communists, people like Rosa Luxemburg, the characters who are going to take over Munich, they are completely against the war.

They’re only a small number, but they are very prominent in the communist movement. And why? Because just think of the first line of “The Communist Manifesto.” “Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.” And he wrote this: “Jewish patriotism should be cosmopolitan and appeal to Jews throughout Europe to campaign for peace.” He recognised a separate Jewish entity. You see, even these Jews in the Communist Party, they understood the hostility, because although they dreamt of a world that was classless and a world that was, that divisions of religion, sex, wouldn’t matter, they understood. And he’s still calling on Jews as a group. The problem was, as Germany looked more and more for a scapegoat, what began to be circulated in the right-wing press that Jews are war profiteers. This was an article in a leading right-wing paper: “The war is dragging on because Ballin and Rathenau haven’t made enough profit.” Ballin, of course, a huge industrialist, as is Walther Rathenau.

He had worked for the government, but his father had left him one of the largest industrial complexes in Europe. And I’m going to finish with a quote from a non-Jewish intellectual, Ferdinand Avenarius. Can we have his? Now, he was an interesting man. He was a lyric poet. His father had been a friend of both Heine and Wagner. That’s an interesting path to walk. He founded one of the leading German cultural magazines, and he warned a Jewish friend: “Jews don’t realise rage is boiling deep within the people.” Now, by October 1916, 3000 Jews were dead, 7,000 decorated for bravery. Nevertheless, the war minister asked for a census of all Jews to determine whether they’re at the frontline. You know, the right-wing press was saying, “All Jews are war profiteers,” et cetera, et cetera. But the reality was 80% of them were actually in frontline duty, and that wasn’t made public. And of course it’s the reality of the war that’s going to change everything.

When the Armistice is finally drawn, there were 500,000 German dead, an incredible number of war wounded. Just think of artists you like, like Otto Dix. Look at his triptych, where you see the war, the men coming back limbless, blinded. There was no real help for them. 620,000 British and French soldiers had also died. And it also coincided with a pandemic. It coincided later on with Germany, the Kaiser abdicates, it coincides with the creation of the Weimar Republic. And this in itself was incredibly problematic. The new constitution of Weimar was probably the most liberal constitution in Europe, drafted by a brilliant Jewish jurist called Hugo Preuss. Ludwig III of Bavaria, by the way, he refused to appoint one of the greatest scientists of his age, Richard Willstatter, to a professorship at the University of Munich. He had such pressure put on him that he let it happen, but he said, “This is the last time I agree to an appointment of a Jew.” Look, so, at the end of the war, Jews in the Communist Party, they take power in Russia. It’s a Jew in Hungary. It’s Jews in Berlin, it’s Jews in Saxony, it’s Jews in Munich. It’s high prominence in liberal and left-wing movements everywhere. And are these people really German? There’s also the liberal Germany, because Weimar, as Weimar emerges, it’s fascinating, economically we’re going to see that Germany’s pushed into the dust.

But it becomes one of the most creative centres in Europe if you love modern art, modern music, complete freedom of sexuality. Look, think of German film. Anything went. I mean, professor Peimer showed some Fritz Lang. He showed “Metropolis.” But in “M,” the story of a child killer, a paedophile is given a voice. Can you imagine that happening in America with the censorship code? So the point is, if you were experimenting in the arts, it was amazing. But on the other hand, there was a huge amount of discontent. And tragically, the Jew was seen as the arbiter of change. It could have gone either way. I’m not for a minute suggesting that what was to happen was inevitable. But what I’m doing is looking at how Jews, this terrible dilemma of identity, that’s why I’ve been spending quite a lot of time with you on identity, because I think it’s important, and maybe it will help us ourselves individually work out who we really are. Anyway, thank you very much. And let me have a look at questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Oh, a lot of people wishing us all Happy New Year and congratulating Wendy on her new grandson. Yes, lots of mazel tov. Yes. This is so lovely of you all.

And people thanking us for the modern… The nice messages. Yes, yes, have you got any questions? Everyone is being so lovely, we really do have a community.

Q: “Did Reuters correspond the news in English or German?”

A: They had people everywhere in the end. So the English office would’ve been in English, the German, in German. People are saying so many, many nice things and it’s lovely. It’s interesting,

Francine said, “I wish I had known much of this when I was teaching European history.” It’s fascinating, Francine, is it? I always see Jewish history as inside out history. We’ll bring William back in October for general history. William is not allowed to teach in August. That’s his time off. And of course September is mainly the Yom Tovim, so we have a special programme for you then. Wilfrid Israel, you’re asking about lots.

“Yes,” Barbara says, “There’s a museum in Wilfrid’s name in his kibbutz. One of the founder members was a distant relative of mine. Yes, he’s a true hero, isn’t he?”

More and more blessings on you, Wendy, it’s lovely. Oh, I’ve lost this again. Oh, sorry, I’m so bad at technology. Lots of nice things. Yes, everyone wishing us Happy New Year. We will keep all of these for Wendy.

This is Adrian: “The Zionist leadership wanted the children to come to Palestine. The British refused, but allowed them into Britain.” Yes, it’s very, very complicated. My friend Anita, she said, “Yes, they might have saved the children, but they didn’t save the parents.” You know, we’ve got to be so careful about all of this, haven’t we?

Claire: “I didn’t know Leslie Howard was Jewish.” Yes, his father was Jewish. His name was Leslie Steiner. What is so amusing is he played the quintessential Englishman.

Yes, we have provided captions to photographs. I should say, I’m sure many of you realise I am technologically crackers and stupid. It is the wonderful Judy who does it for me. And when Judy is away, you get what you get. I am trying to learn. I have an eight-year-old giving me lessons.

Arlene Goldberg: “I’ve read… Because Churchill didn’t want the Germans to know the Enigma code was broken.” We are not sure, frankly. What terrible choices. Come here.

• [Judy] Thanks, thanks, thanks.

Q: “Why did so many of the enlightened, brilliant Jews you spoke of convert from Judaism to Christianity?”

A: A few of them, I think, it was religious, but they wanted to be German and they wanted to be European.

Q: What did Heine say?

A: Come here, Jude! Judy’s with me now, I want you to come and say hello. They did it because it was the passport to European civilization, so they thought. What they didn’t understand was the rise of racism. Now, remember what Moses Hess said: “The Germans hate the Jews not because of their peculiar religion, but because of their peculiar noses.” “An interesting biography of Wilfrid Israel is by Naomi Shepherd.” Yes, yes, it came out in 2016.

More and more thank yous.

Q: “Do you ever see a time when Jews will have to war against other Jews as happened in the First World War?

A: Today, that seems impossible.”

From your mouth to God’s ears. Thank you, Jonathan. Please send that note to my children.

Martin: “Was wonderful to listen to Rabbi Balla, the German army’s first rabbi chaplain since the Holocaust speak on the RJCC last night. Crazy how history works.” Lots and lots of thanks.

Carol is saying that she thinks this is very important.

Q: Sorry, “What is the source of the photograph?”

A: Oh goodness, I’ve seen that photograph so, I dunno where the original is, but you will find it in practically every museum. I know it’s at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. I’m sure there’s a copy in the Wiener Library.

“I think it’s possible to enjoy two cultures, British and Jewish values, dual loyalty is possible.” Yeah. If you think it is, yes.

Q: “Why did Arlosoroff die so early?”

A: He was murdered. He was murdered in 1933 when he returned to Palestine. The question is, who murdered Haim Arlosoroff? Some of you will know, we don’t know who murdered Haim Arlosoroff. Or maybe we do. But it’s a huge question. Pose that around your table at Yom Tov, people, who murdered Arlosoroff?

This is from Esther, “Born and educated in Jerusalem. Remembering one of the first Habima plays, "Tevye the Milkman.” And I live in a Arlosoroff Street.“ Oh, that’s fascinating, Esther.

This is from Josie: "Hitler extracted taxes from Jews leaving on the value of every item they took with them as a pro for the man who assisted the employees so they might leave.” Yeah. Yeah. This is from Ina, “When Hitler invaded Russia, many of the Jews of the former Pale still remembered good cultured Germans.” Yes.

Q: “Did Einstein sign the manifesto?”

A: No, no, no, no, no, no, he thought they were insane.

Yes, Otto Klemperer was his cousin.

Oh, thank you, Vicky. Yes, he wrote that he wanted to go to Palestine, but yes, Adrian, a lot of these non-Jewish Jews mixed with other non-Jewish Jews. We’re going to have to do a session on non-Jewish Jews.

Edna saying, “Yes.” Wendy, more mazel tovs. We don’t know his name yet.

Yes, this is from Anthony, ah, another scientist. I love it when it’s explained. “Fritz Haber produced the nitrogen fixation process that allowed the German army to have uninterrupted supply of high explosive, without which they could not have entered World War I. I think that was his real contribution.” There’s a very good series called “Genius” about the life of, I think it’s on Netflix. It’s about the life of Albert Einstein. And of course Haber comes in it.

“Please don’t forget that Buber refused to sign the petition to the British to cancel the execution of members of the Irgun, yet demanded that Eichmann not be executed.” Michael, it’s so complicated, isn’t it? It’s so, so complicated. And I know what side you were on, and frankly, the more I teach this, well, I’m not going to go any further.

Yes, AEG, didn’t I say AEG? Einstein died in, yes of course he did. Sorry, wrong date. This is from Jackie wishing us all a Happy New Year.

This is from Josie. “As the US benefited from Jewish immigration, so did Turkey, to which it was negotiating 190 Jewish scientists could emigrate from Germany. Einstein played a part in arranging this.” Thank you.

Q: “The beliefs in German superiority. How far are these unique to Germany rather than other countries in their own right?”

A: That is a very, very interesting question. I am not going to give you a superficial answer. I’ll think about that and next time I’m on, I’ll bring that up.

“I think there was some scandal about Einstein institutionalising his son.” Yes, one of his sons was a schizophrenic. Look, everybody, you know, there is no such thing as the man without shadows. He was a terrible husband as well. Lots and lots and lots…

“Tucholsky was brilliant, I’ve read much of his work.” Yes.

Q: Wasn’t there some story about Rathenau?

Yes, yes, of course. I could spend a whole lecture on all of these characters. I’m just introducing. Some of you, I did teach about a year ago about Rathenau. Remember, we’ve been on for a year and a half. And so what I’m trying to do, for those of you who’ve not long joined us, I’m trying to introduce some of these without boring the rest of you, so it’s complicated.

Thank you, Marcel. Anna, thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Barrington Black: “I seem to recall a film about Reuters. Edward G played the part.” Oh, that’s interesting, I didn’t know that. Something’s pulling my thread in my brain. If you can think of the name of it, I’d love to see it.

Eric Kastner, can’t answer that. Da, da, da.

Yes, Wendy, he was a very, very interesting man. Oi, anyway, thank you all very much. I wish you all shana tova and keep safe and we’ll be back, well, we will be back at half past seven when wonderful Dennis is going to be, yes, he’s going to be dealing with Tchaikovsky. Wonderful. Take care everyone, bye!

• [Judy] Thank you everybody, bye-bye.

• Thank you.