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Fighting a Lost Battle: The Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten and the Rise of National Socialism
Ist Teil von
German history, 2010-03, Vol.28 (1), p.1-20
Ort / Verlag
Oxford University Press
Erscheinungsjahr
2010
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
Oxford Journals 2020 Humanities
Beschreibungen/Notizen
Historical writing has long condemned the German-Jewish war veterans’ association, the Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten (RjF), for its apparently naïve and even traitorous response to National Socialism. This article, however, argues that the RjF's actions need to be understood in the light of the confusing mixed signals that shaped the first years of National Socialist rule. The RjF, as a conservative association of war veterans, was particularly prone to misreading these developments. Remembrance activities for the war dead during the Weimar Republic had brought it into contact with other ex-servicemen's associations. After 1933, these relations, though much reduced, persisted, and this offered the RjF a glimmer of hope that it would have some influence on wider policy decisions. This mistaken belief was reinforced when the regime introduced new benefits and medals for all of Germany's war veterans. At the same time that the RjF's members were facing increasing persecution in their everyday lives, then, they were also being honoured for their war service. In suggesting that the RjF's actions were shaped by this paradoxical mixture of acceptance and exclusion, the article argues for a more inclusive history of German Jewry that is not based on an ‘ideal’ response to National Socialism, but instead embraces both conservative and liberal Jewish associations.