Chapter 3. Germany: 1933-1938
[3.2. New Jewish organizations in NS Germany since April
1933]
[13 April 1933: Foundation of
the Central Committee for Help and Reconstruction (Zentral-Ausschuss
für Hilfe und Aufbau ZA) - foundation of a Reichsvertretung (RV)
Jüdischer Landesverbände under Judge Wolff and Rabbi Leo Baeck]
Largely because of the work of Max Warburg and Ludwig Tietz, on April
13, 1933, the so-called Zentral-Ausschuss
für Hilfe und Aufbau [ZA] (Central Committee for Help and
Reconstruction) was formed. In this, Jonah B. Wise played a
significant role. ZA was an umbrella organization that included
welfare, educational, emigration, and vocational training organizations
that had existed in Germany prior to the events of 1933. Officially, ZA
was founded by the provincial organization of the Jewish communities
(Landesverbände), which had in their turn created a Reichsvertretung [RV] Jüdischer
Landesverbände
(All-German Association of Jewish Provincial Community Organizations),
headed by Judge Wolff and Rabbi Leo Baeck. This first Reichsvertretung
(RV) did not last very long, however, German Jewry being influenced
more by its major political division into liberal and Zionist wings
than it was by the organization of Jewish communities.
[Berlin Jewish Community under
Heinrich Stahl]
In Berlin the head of the community was a very forceful individual by
the name of Heinrich Stahl. Stahl wanted RV to be under his own
influence, but this proved to be impossible because the major political
organizations opposed such a solution. Tietz and Warburg, who had
founded ZA, were themselves nonpolitical and, being in sympathy with
both the liberal and Zionist wings, thought of themselves as the
natural mediators between the two. Tietz went (p.109)
to see Dr. Weizmann in London, and Warburg's connections with JDC
through his brother had helped to forge a link with the American Jewish
organization. ZA became a success, with Karl Melchior and Tietz at its
head.
But the first attempts to set up an RV failed almost immediately.
[Summer 1933-17 Sep 1933:
Definite Foundation of Jewish All-German Association (Reichsvertretung
(RV) in Essen]
During the summer of 1933 new attempts were made to create an overall
political organization of German Jewry. These attempts centered in the
community of Essen in western Germany. The initiators were local
leaders like Dr. Georg Hirschland and Rabbi Dr. Hugo Hahn. They
organized a meeting attended by the leading non-Zionist personalities
in Germany and convinced them to set up a countrywide organization
which also would be called the Reichsvertretung.
It was Max Warburg who persuaded Dr. Baeck to assume leadership of the
proposed organization, and it was he who convinced Director Stahl to
desist from his attempts to create a separatist organization led by the
Berlin community, and instead to accept a leading position in the new
RV. At last, on September 17, 1933, the new Reichsvertretung came into
being, with Dr. Baeck as president, Dr. Otto Hirsch as vice-chairman,
and with liberal and Zionist representatives taking a share in the work
of the executive committee (Präsidialausschuss).
An immediate connection was established between the new RV and ZA.
Baeck was both the president of RV and chairman of ZA. The intelligent
and popular Dr. Hirsch, whose experience as a high government official
in the south German state of Württemberg helped him to master the
difficult work of ZA, was the administrative chairman of RV. Other
individuals occupying central positions in RV also occupied parallel
positions in ZA. In this way, RV could appear vis-à-vis the Jewish
communities as the dispenser of foreign funds and as the organization
to which the individual and the community had to turn for practical
purposes.
(End note 12: See
-- K.Y. Ball-Kaduri: The National Representation of Jews in Germany;
In: Yad Vashem Studies; Jerusalem 1958, 2:159 ff.;
-- Max Grunewald: The Beginning of the Reichsvertretung; In: Leo Baeck
Yearbook; London 1956, 1:57 ff.
-- See also Leo Baeck's reminiscences in the same volume).
[Dr. Werner Senator returns from
Palestine to Nazi Germany to participate ZA work - emigration of the
Jewish youth]
One of the central figures in German Jewry, Dr. Werner Senator, a
representative of the non-Zionist groups on the Jewish Agency who had
emigrated to Palestine, returned to Germany in order to participate in
the work of ZA. In a memorandum submitted to (p.110)
JDC in August, Senator demanded that German Jewry try to establish a
dialogue with the new Nazi authorities. This should lead to a kind of
concordat, like the arrangements between the Roman curia and European
states, an idea which was by no means new in German Jewry, and which
had almost come to fruition before the rise of Hitler to power. Such a
concordat should provide for the right of the Jews to leave Germany, as
well as for the rights of those who would remain in the country. Such a
dialogue, Senator thought, was still possible, though the results might
be painful for the Jews.
In general, however, Senator agreed to the policy that was by then
evolving on the part of the foreign organization toward the German
Jewish problem. He emphasized the central position of Palestine in the
creation of a new Jewish society where the truly constructive forces of
German Jewish youth would go, but he also stressed the necessity for
providing havens for such youths in other countries. At the same time,
he demanded the defense of German Jewish economic and social positions
in the new state to the very last. The negotiations that he proposed
with the German authorities should take place on an honorable basis.
The implication was that the Jews should reorganize as a national group
and that only on that basis would the Nazis deal with them.
While Senator's proposals were not accepted in toto, his way for
thinking was by no means unique, both among German Jews and their
supporters outside.
(End note 13: Werner Senator, 8/15/33 [15 August 1933]: Bemerkungen
zu einem wirtschaftlichen Verhandlungsprogramm der deutschen Juden,
14-47)
[Joint has to accept that the
Jewish youth should emigrate]
JDC was inclined to support such an action. Rosen, who visited Germany
in June 1933, wrote to Kahn that the aimlessness of German Jewry's
endeavors frightened him. Outside pressure might produce some results,
he said, but there was no possibility of a real improvement "unless
some understanding is arrived at with the government from within."
(End note 14: Dr. Joseph A. Rosen to Kahn, June 1933, Executive
Committee meetings)
[Tasks for the Joint: Prepare
young Jews for
emigration - schooling of discriminated Jewish children - support
cultural and religious institutions]
It was in this atmosphere of hope and illusion that JDC started its
great rescue work for German Jewry. Its aim, after the first few months
of confusion, seemed to be fairly clear: it had to help in emigration,
and it had to provide training facilities for those German Jewish
youths who
left Germany and also for those who would have to stay in the country
and adjust to the new anti-Semitic laws that (p.111)
the Nazis were in the process of enacting. Aside from that, there
loomed the problem of providing schooling for Jewish children if they
were forced out of the general schools. Also, it was essential to
support cultural and religious institutions in the hope that these
might fortify the sinking morale of German Jewry.
