Epilogue

THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT might have intended to eliminate Jewish life in Germany, and it succeeded in depriving of their German lives the individuals who illustrated the (im)possibilities of Jews being engaged on and with the German Right in this book. Yet it did not succeed in ending their lives altogether. The majority of the German Jews appearing on these pages managed to survive the Holocaust, through emigration, hiding, or perseverance in the concentration camp system. After the Holocaust they gave testimony, archived their records, and collected those of others. Without their efforts this book on German Jewish conservatives would not exist; and though it ends with their emigration—all but one never returned to Germany for any lengthy period of time—their individual stories were not over. By briefly recounting their lives after 1938, I want to conclude by paying them my respects....

Struggle, 1924–1929

This chapter describes the twin pulls felt by the German Right between 1924 and 1929: pragmatic adjustment and ideological purity. Which path the Right and its projects would ultimately take would necessarily impact questions of Jewish inclusion in right-wing circles. But Jews were by no means only bystanders in this process. Instead they actively participated in renegotiating the Right’s political positions in the Weimar Republic. Through renewed attempts at agricultural settlements, in the defense of Germandom in the East, at shared commemorations of the fallen of the Great War, or in party politics, conservative German Jews were active, though increasingly curtailed by antisemitism, in trying to devise new notions of national belonging and community that could be in direct contrast to the republican ideals of Weimar.

Turmoil, 1918–1924

This chapter describes the ways in which right-wing Jews, whether they described themselves as “royalist,” “nationally minded” (nationalgesinnt), or “conservative,” attempted to make sense of the political and social changes around them following Germany’s defeat in the First World War and amid revolution at home. None of them were mere bystanders but active participants in their environment. The extent to which they could remain integrated into the Right in the years between 1918/1919 and 1924, on what terms, and in which parts of it, reflects the wider development of social and political circles they moved in, and thus the development of the wider Right, in the first five years of the Weimar Republic. It traces the rise of new concepts of belonging, namely the community of the trenches and the people’s community.

War, 1914–1918

This chapter deals primarily with the experience of German Jewish conservatives and nationalists in the military during the First World War. It looks at Jewish soldiers as active participants in the German military, rather than as objects of the military’s actions. It focuses on frontline soldiers and the particular and peculiar position of military rabbis on the German Eastern Front. It proposes that the war, not least in the East, held great promise for German Jews. The chapter’s main argument is that, particularly in the East, Jewish Soldiers viewed themselves as active participants and contributors to the war until the very end. It thus adds to the growing focus on the way German Jews shaped the German war effort, notwithstanding the increasing antisemitism they experienced.

Conclusion

The conclusion retraces the major developments within the German Right since the 1871 and the space of German Jews within it. In particular, it describes the fate of the three projects of the Right in which German Jewish conservatives were involved: Germandom in the East, agricultural settlement, and the commemoration of the community of the trenches as a possible basis for a future German state. Though the Great War and the revolution also gave a basis, not least, for the community of the trenches, all of these projects came under strain following the establishment of the republic. The people rather than the state, race rather than soil or language, came markers of German identity on the Right and increasingly excluded Jews. The conclusion also traces developments after 1935, the analytical endpoint of the book.

Descent, 1929–1935

In the last years of the Weimar Republic, beginning with the onset of recession in 1929, right-leaning German Jews faced an existential question: where would they fit into this reconfigured political space? For those Jews whose political identity placed them on the Right, the decline of the DVP and DNVP was of critical importance. They perceived class—or, more precisely, the working class model of Marxism—to be a threat on the order of antisemitism. The question for them was whether there would be room for German Jews in a Right that hailed a Volk based on racial descent. The chapter describes the attempts of German Jews on the Right to define and defend their place in the German Volk, or in other instances their turning away from their previous right-wing allegiances and toward alternative categories of belonging.

Belonging, 1871–1914

This chapter covers the period of the Second German Empire from 1871 until 1914. It describes the evolution of efforts to advance agricultural settlement and Germandom in the East and Jewish participation in these endeavors. It also investigates the reasons for German Jews’ attraction to state service. It traces how issues that were not initially linked to the causes of particular political parties or strong ideological leanings tended to move right over time, with or without Jewish participation. Hence, not all of the characters introduced here, who will feature throughout the book, could be fully situated or would have thought of themselves as on the Right before 1914. Considering the complexities of liberal and conservative political positions during the Empire, this is not necessarily something specific to them as Jews. This chapter elucidates these ambiguities.

Introduction

The introduction to Between Heimat and Hatred: Jews and the Right in Germany, 1871 and 1935 outlines the major themes of the book. The book studies German Jews involved in ventures that were from the beginning, or became increasingly, of the Right. Jewish agricultural settlement, Jews’ participation in the so-called Defense of Germandom in the East, their place in military and veteran circles and finally right-of-center politics form the core of this book. The book investigates the inherent tension in the involvement in such ventures between sincere dedication to them and the apologetic defense against antisemitic stereotypes of rootlessness, intellectualism or cosmopolitanism. It asks at which point even a defensive commitment became no longer tenable. The introduction also provides an overview of the individual chapters and the sources used.