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During World War I, almost 100,000 German Jews proudly served in military uniform as soldiers, sailors, airmen and administrators. But far from a better public opinion of Germany’s Jewish citizens, after Germany’s crushing loss there was instead a subsequent rise in anti-Semitic narratives.
Among the common myths circulated at the time were assertions — based on real-life examples — that Jews were war profiteering at home. On top of that, it was rumored that Jews were “war shirking” — a term used to describe avoiding military responsibilities at the front lines.
The potent mix of prejudices and stereotypes quickly led a battered post-WWI German people to pin all their troubles on a ready-made scapegoat: the Jews.
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“If we want to clearly understand how the Nazis came to power, we need to see it was the events of WWI that were fundamental to their rise,” says British historian Tim Grady, whose latest book is “A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War.”
Tim Grady, author of ‘A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War.’ (Courtesy)
“The legacies that come out of WWI — such as total war and a culture of destruction — are extremely important,” says Grady. “These remain after 1919, into the Weimar Republic, which never really becomes a proper postwar society. And so the Nazis build and develop out of this defeat and legacy.”
Therefore, while the wartime experience of German Jews “was almost the same as other Germans,” says Grady, the instability and chaos that resulted from some prominent Jews’ legacies were eventually exploited by the National Socialists as the party made its bid for power.
Through the figure of Adolf Hitler, the Nazi party became what Grady calls “the personification of WWI.”
“They are the party that will avenge Germany’s defeat,” says Grady, “and part of their legacy of WWI involves targeting Jews.”
Adolf Hitler, far right, with his war comrades of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry 16th Regiment, in 1914. (Bundesarchiv bild)
WWI, when Jews were leaders in German society
Grady believes there is an understandable inclination to approach the history of Jewish life in Germany from the perspective of what he calls a “vanishing point” — whether it’s 1933, 1938 or 1941. However, the historian says it’s important to trace the WWI culture that Jews, as well as other Germans, helped to define.
One crucial step toward scapegoating the Jews is the “stab in the back” myth, which originated in 1917 in the wake of German parliament’s peace resolution that sought to quickly end WWI. Major-General Hans von Seeckt complained that the “home [front] has stabbed [Germany] in the back.”
“For the Nazis, the ‘stab-in-the-back theory’ is the crucial legacy of WWI,” says Grady.
The myth really began to gain momentum, however, when Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff testified to the National Assembly in the new Weimar Republic in 1919.
“They suggest that someone has stabbed Germany in the back,” the historian explains. “And while they don’t identify anybody in particular, they certainly hint that some Jews could have been responsible for this.”
General Paul von Hindenburg, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and General Erich Ludendorff in German headquarters, January 1917. (Public domain)
This mythology gained even more traction in the Weimar Republic throughout the 1920s. Grady’s book recalls how in April 1924 an infamous image appeared on the cover of the front page of a German magazine called Süddeutsche Monatshefte, which had a Jewish editor, Paul Nikolaus Cossmann.
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