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After World War I, German Jews continued to view themselves as part of German society. Jews, such as Albert Ballin and Walter Rathenau, sought to demonstrate their love of the fatherland. Ballin founded the Hamburg-Amerika Line, a major shipping company with international ties. In addition to his activities as a businessman, he was an economic advisor to the Kaiser. In 1918 he committed suicide in despair over Germany’s defeat in World War I. |
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Photo: Albert Ballin |
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Poster: Hamburg-Amerika Line Poster |
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Rathenau took over his father’s position as president of AEG. During World War I, he helped organize army supply lines and took part in the peace negotiations at Versailles. In the Weimar Republic, he was the Minister for Reconstruction and the Foreign Minister (1921-22). In 1922 an antisemite assassinated him. While he consistently showed his loyalty to the fatherland, he expressed his skepticism about how well Jews were accepted in German society,"In the youth of every German Jew there is a painful moment he will remember throughout his life; the moment he first becomes fully aware that he has entered the world as a second-class citizen, and that no amount of hard work and nothing he achieves can ever rescue him from the situation." |
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Photo: Walter Rathenau |
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"Stab in the Back" Allegations |
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At the end of World War 1 in November 1918, the German generals surrendered rather than experience defeat on the battlefield. Immediately, the myth was circulated that Germany was “stabbed in the back” by internal enemies—Jews, Communists, Socialists. Even though Jews had served loyally in the German army, antisemitic feelings in Germany were heightened by the “stab in the back” allegations. In the popular mentality, Jews were equated with Bolsheviks and were to be feared as a major threat to the survival of Germany. |
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Photo: Herbert and Otto Frank, Jews in the German Army 1916. From Anne Frank Center USA. |
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Photos: (Left) Barbara Rosenberg, currently living in Columbia, South Carolina, is shown with her father's picture. (Right) Barbara Rosenberg's father, Simon Werthamer, born July 25, 1885, was a Jew from Berlin who fought in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I and later was murdered at Auschwitz. The photos are used by permission.
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Antisemitic Atmosphere in the Inter-War YearsGerman and Austrian Jewish youth who were growing up in the inter-war period recall that there were incidents of antisemitism. Nevertheless, they went on with their normal routines and did not dwell on the dangers of anti-Jewish sentiment. Catherine Norris, an American photographer, who has traced the history of her grandparents and parents during the 1920s and early 1930s in an area near Dachau, Germany, points out that there were vacations and family gatherings and little thought of the political landscape of the Weimar Republic. When Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, the situation for Jews in Germany altered rapidly. In addition to antisemitic decrees and the creation of concentration camps for political prisoners, Jewish youth attending public schools encountered harassment from teachers and students. These youth also recall how their German friends suddenly turned against them for being Jewish. After 1938, when Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss, the same process of non-Jewish neighbor turning against Jewish neighbor took place in Austria at a much more rapid pace than it had in Germany earlier in the 1930s. The antisemitic atmosphere in the Reich during the inter-war years had become so pronounced that in many cases Jewish parents decided to send their children to England on the Kindertransport. Jewish parents decided to send their children to England on the Kindertransport with the hope that if the parents did not survive, at least their children would. The era of emancipation in which Jews felt assimilated within German society had ended. Jews no longer had equal political and civil rights with non-Jewish citizens. |
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