Reich Association of Jewish Frontline Soldiers

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Memorial of the Reichsbund in the Jewish cemetery in Cologne-Bocklemünd
A leaflet issued in 1920 by the Reich Association of Jewish Front Soldiers in response to the allegations of a lack of patriotism

The Reichsbundischer Frontsoldaten (RjF) was an association of Jewish German soldiers who fought in World War I. From 1933 the RjF exposed itself primarily as a non-Zionist part of Jewish sports in Nazi Germany .

history

The Reichsbund was founded in February 1919 on the initiative of Leo Löwenstein . Its aim was to ward off anti-Semitism in Germany, citing the fact that around 85,000 German Jews fought in World War I , of which around 12,000 were killed.

“The RJF sees the basis of its work in a complete commitment to the German homeland. He has no goal and no striving outside of this German homeland and is strongly opposed to any endeavor that wants to bring us German Jews to this German homeland in a foreign position. "

The RjF quickly grew to more than 30,000 members, and the number rose to about 55,000 at times. This made it the organization with the largest number of members in German Jewry in the Weimar Republic . Almost half of the surviving Jewish fighters at the front became members of the approximately 500 local groups. Affiliated with the RjF were a Jewish sports association “Schild”, the war victims department and a settlement agency. From 1921 to 1938, the association newspaper “Der Schild” appeared. The first establishment of the RjF sports groups “Schild” leads back to the RjF's self-protection plans from the summer of 1923. The reason was the pogrom-like, almost exclusively against Jews, Scheunenviertel riots of November 1923. After the police could not control the riots that lasted for days, the Reichsbund formed its own armed patrols, which had the task of protecting their fellow believers until the police intervened.

In addition to a commemorative book The Jewish Fallen of the German Army, the German Navy and the German Schutztruppen 1914–1918 with the names of the 12,000 fallen Jews, the RjF published a new edition of the book Jüdische Flieger im World War by Felix Aaron Theilhaber in 1924 , with the aircraft on the title of the fighter pilot Fritz Beckhardt , which was decorated with a swastika .

In contrast to the Zionists , the RjF aimed for the majority of the Jews to be assimilated into German society. This goal was to be promoted, among other things, by providing Jews with training in professions that had been barred for them for centuries, especially in agriculture, but also in handicrafts. With increasing pressure on the Jews after the takeover of the NSDAP then something in common with the Zionists found in this Objective: The training provided by Zionist circles within the Hachshara were conducted relieved after leaving Germany, the establishment of new existences in the emigration countries.

In 1936 the RjF was banned from any political activity and in 1938 the Reichsbund was completely dissolved.

Association of Jewish Soldiers

Representatives of the Association of Jewish Soldiers with students on an educational project.

The "Association of Jewish Soldiers (RjF) eV", founded on November 8, 2006 by Jewish Bundeswehr soldiers in Gerolstein / Eifel, differs from the RjF in particular in its rejection of an anti-Zionist, assimilatory course due to its historical experience. Instead, the integration of Jewish citizens into the Bundeswehr parliamentary army is welcomed as an expression of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious democracy. In addition to the task of “preserving the memory of the Jewish soldiers who served in the armies of the German states, the army of the German Empire and the Weimar Republic , who fought for and for Germany in the wars of the 19th century and especially in the First World War Let live ”, the Association of Jewish Soldiers also represents the interests of Jewish Bundeswehr soldiers, including the defense against anti-Semitic efforts inside and outside the armed forces. For this purpose, educational projects, research projects and memorial events are carried out. The results of the work are published in the association newspaper "Der Schild", which is published irregularly, or by the authors in their own name. With the rarely awarded Bernhard Weiß Medal , the association honors services to the fight against anti-Semitism, to the Jewish soldiers and to maintaining the memory of the Jewish fallen and the Jewish front-line soldiers who perished in the resistance and in the Holocaust .

Honoring the fallen Jewish soldiers and the victims of the Shoa 2010

The Association of Jewish Soldiers estimates, based on its own membership numbers (2008: 19, 2013: 40), that more and more Jews see the Bundeswehr as an interesting employer. This development is mainly due to the fact that the young generation of immigrants from the former Soviet republics see themselves less in the role of victims than as descendants of victors in the war against National Socialist Germany . The Federal Ministry of Defense and the Social Science Institute of the Bundeswehr also estimate that around 300 Jews were serving in the Bundeswehr in April 2019 , most of them contingent immigrants from Eastern Europe.

literature

  • Michael Berger : Iron Cross and Star of David. The history of Jewish soldiers in German armies . trafo verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89626-476-1 .
  • Michael Berger: Iron Cross - Double Eagle - Star of David. Jews in German and Austro-Hungarian armies. The military service of Jewish soldiers through two centuries. trafo verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-89626-962-1 .
  • Michael Berger, Gideon Roemer-Hillebrecht: Jews and the military in Germany: between integration, assimilation, exclusion and annihilation . Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8329-4471-1 .
  • Michael Berger, Gideon Roemer-Hillebrecht: Jewish soldiers - Jewish resistance in Germany and France . Schöningh Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-77177-3 .
  • Ulrich Dunker: The Reich Association of Jewish Front-Line Soldiers 1919–1938. History of a Jewish Defense Association . Droste, Düsseldorf 1977, ISBN 3-7700-0479-5 .
  • Hans-Christian Kokalj: “The struggle for memory”. Jewish front fighters of the First World War and their resistance against right-wing populist propaganda in the Weimar Republic. In: Tobias Arand (Ed.): The “Urkatastrophe” as a memory. Historical culture of the First World War . Münster 2006, ISBN 3-934064-67-1 , pp. 81-98.
  • The shield, magazine of the Reich Association of Jewish Front Soldiers. Berlin 1921–1938 ( online ).
  • The shield. ed. from the Association of Jewish Soldiers (RjF) by the chairman, Berlin (since 2007), ISSN  1865-6595 .

Web links