Dying for the Fatherland : the remembrance of the fallen German-Jewish soldiers of the First World War, 1914-1978

Abstract

During the First World War some 100,000 German Jews fought for Germany, of whom almost 12,000 died. This thesis examines changes in the commemoration of the Jewish soldiers killed in the conflict from the time of the war until the late 1970s. By focusing on both Jewish and non-Jewish remembrance of the war dead, moreover, it uses the commemorative process as a means to consider changing Jewish / non-Jewish relations across this broad period.

In contrast to much of the existing historiography, this thesis argues that in many areas close relations between Jews and non-Jews persisted even after the turmoil of the First World War. Although anti-Semitism increased, remembrance activity for the war dead involved all sections of German society. It was only in the mid 1920s that a significant change in this relationship occurred. As veterans’ associations began to consolidate their support, the position of German Jews in the commemorative process was considerably weakened. Crucially, though, the German-Jewish veterans were never fully excluded from the wider remembrance of the war. Even during the Third Reich, some recognition of Jewish wartime sacrifice for Germany remained.

Remembrance activity for the Jewish fallen after 1945 reveals many continuities with the interwar period. A significant number of Jewish veterans continued to remember the war dead either from abroad or in the reformed German-Jewish communities, while West Germany’s nascent memorial culture, which rested on interwar practices, continued to include the Jewish fallen. The inclusion of the Jewish war dead prompted a small number of West Germans to engage with the Nazis’ crimes through the commemoration of the Jewish soldiers. However, as the victims of the First World War and the Holocaust became increasingly entangled, the existing remembrance of the Jewish war dead changed. By the late 1970s, the German-Jewish soldiers had come to represent the brutality of the Nazis’ crimes.

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