Cultural Association of German Jews

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Berlin memorial plaque: Kurt Singer and the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden
Kurt Singer conducts Judas Maccabaeus with the orchestra of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden in the Berlin Philharmonic , Bernburger Strasse, on May 7th and 8th, 1934
Ilse Liebenthal's (1910–1992) membership card (1938–39).
Memorial plaque , Kommandantenstrasse 58, in Berlin-Kreuzberg

In National Socialist Germany, the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden (Kulturbund Deutscher Juden) was a self-help organization established by Jewish initiators for Jewish artists affected by the professional ban . The Kulturbund, which was tolerated until 1941, was used by the authorities to control and isolate Jewish artists.

history

The Kulturbund was founded in Berlin in July 1933 as a reaction to the dismissal of Jewish artists from state cultural establishments as a result of the law to restore the professional civil service . The initiators of the association, which was initially called the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden in 1933 , were the director Kurt Baumann and the neurologist, musicologist and former director of the Charlottenburg opera Kurt Singer . In the first few years, around 20,000 members joined the Berlin Kulturbund.

As a product of exclusion and a self-help organization, the Bund had nothing to do with the special “Jewish” desire for art that the National Socialists later ascribed to the Bund for propaganda purposes. The federal government, financed by membership fees, was primarily intended to provide unemployed artists with new employment opportunities. The original designation Kulturbund Deutscher Juden (Kulturbund Deutscher Juden) soon had to be given up, as a combination of the words “German” and “Jewish” was politically undesirable.

Cultural associations in numerous other cities followed the example of the Berlin founding. In 1935 there were more than 36 regional and local cultural associations with around 70,000 members. The individual federations were forced to join together in the Reich Association of Jewish Cultural Associations in Germany (RJK) by August 1935 . The RJK was subordinated to the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda . The federal events, which were subject to censorship and monitored by the Gestapo , had to be individually approved by the Reich cultural warden Hans Hinkel . In order to secure the activities of the cultural associations, the RJK also set up self-censorship. In July 1937, 120 independent organizations, including synagogues and cultural associations, were united under the umbrella of the RJK.

Events of the Kulturbund took place almost every day, especially in Berlin. From 1933 to 1935 the Berlin theater was their venue. The director of the first Berlin production on October 1, 1933, was played by Lessing's Nathan the Wise , Karl Löwenberg , the title role played by Kurt Katsch .

In 1935 the Berliner Kulturbund-Oper was founded under the direction of Kurt Singer. The Hamburger Kulturbund was also very active. The program of events included theater and opera performances, concerts, cabaret events, film screenings, lectures and exhibitions. In order to prevent any exchange between the Jewish and non-Jewish cultural worlds, non-Jews were not allowed to attend or participate in the events of the Kulturbund. In the context of its events, the Kulturbund was also allowed to perform works by authors and composers who were considered to be particularly “German” less and less frequently. This situation of an intellectual ghetto was controversially discussed within the Jewish public .

After the November pogroms in 1938 , most facilities were forced to close. Only the Berliner Kulturbund received permission from Joseph Goebbels to continue operating for propaganda reasons . The RJK was dissolved in 1939 and was replaced by the “Jüdische Kulturbund in Deutschland e. V. ”, who was responsible for and organized all Jewish cultural events. This meant that there were rarely any events outside of Berlin. The flight of many important Jewish artists contributed to the decline of the Kulturbund. On September 11, 1941, the Bund was dissolved by the Gestapo. Many of its members and functionaries, including the founder, Kurt Singer, were deported and murdered in the Holocaust .

literature

  • Academy of Arts (ed.): Fritz Wisten. Three lives for the theater. Stuttgart 1919–1933, Jüdischer Kulturbund, Berlin 1945–1962 (= sites in the history of Berlin, 45). Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-926175-69-9 .
  • Akademie der Künste (Ed.): Closed presentation. The Jewish Cultural Association in Germany 1933–1941. Series: German Past. Berlin 1992 (for the exhibition of the same name January to April 1992)
  • Moritz von Bredow: rebellious pianist. The life of Grete Sultan between Berlin and New York. Schott, Mainz 2012, ISBN 978-3-7957-0800-9 (biography. Many references to the Jüdischer Kulturbund or the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden as well as Berlin's musical life).
  • Herbert Freeden: Jewish Theater in Nazi Germany . Ullstein materials. Frankfurt / Berlin, Ullstein 1985. ISBN 3-548-35233-2 .
  • Eike Geisel , Henryk M. Broder : Premiere and Pogrom. The Jewish Cultural Association 1933–1942. Siedler, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-88680-343-0 .
  • Martin Goldsmith: The Indelible Symphony. Music and love in the shadow of the Third Reich - a German-Jewish story. Herder, Freiburg 2002, ISBN 3-451-27307-1 .
  • Barbara Müller-Wesemann: Theater as intellectual resistance. The Jewish Cultural Association in Hamburg 1934–1941. M und P - Verlag for Science and Research, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-476-45167-4 (Zugl .: Universität Hamburg , dissertation 1995).
  • Sylvia Rogge-Gau: The double root of existence. Julius Bab and the Jüdische Kulturbund Berlin (= Center for Antisemitism Research of the Technical University of Berlin. Series of Documents, Texts, Materials, 30). Metropol, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-932482-14-X (Zugl .: Technische Universität Berlin , dissertation 1998: Julius Bab and the Jüdische Kulturbund Berlin. ).
  • Rebecca Rovit: The Jewish Kulturbund Theater Company in Nazi Berlin. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City IA 2012, ISBN 978-1-60938-124-0 .
  • Rebecca Rovit: Cultural Association of German Jews. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 3: He-Lu. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02503-6 , pp. 444-448.
  • Stephan Stompor : Jewish music and theater life under the Nazi state . Edited by Andor Izsák , Susanne Borchers. Hanover: Europ. Center for Jewish Music, 2001
  • Gabriele Fritsch-Vivié : Against all odds. The Jewish Cultural Association 1933–1941. Facts, data, analysis, biographical notes and memories. Foreword by Jakob Hessing . Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-95565-005-6 .
  • City Museum Munich : The Shackled Muse. The puppet theater in the Jewish cultural association in Munich. Text Waldemar Bonard. Munich 1994 (exhibition April to October 1994, Puppet Theater Museum )

Web links

Commons : Kulturbund Deutscher Juden  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Rainer Sandvoss (Red.): Resistance 1933–1945. Berlin. Issue 5: Heinrich-Wilhelm Wörmann: Resistance in Charlottenburg. 2nd Edition. German Resistance Memorial Center , Berlin 1998, p. 238.
  2. ↑ Kulturbund Deutscher Juden: monthly sheets