Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith

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Flyer of the C.-V. against anti-Semitic propaganda, around 1925
Berlin memorial plaque for the C.-V. at the house at Pariser Strasse 44

The Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (also: Zentral-Verein, Central Verein, CV, CV, C.-V. ) was founded on March 26, 1893 in Berlin . He represented the majority of assimilated bourgeois-liberal Jews in Germany , advocated their civil rights and social equality and tried to reconcile Judaism and Germanness .

history

The main impetus for founding the Centralverein was the book by Raphael Löwenfeld , published in 1893 : Protective Jews or Citizens. From a Jewish citizen . The attempt to establish an association for organized self-help, however, goes back to earlier efforts and referred to several edicts on the emancipation of Jews in the 19th century.

After an initial 1,420, the association already had over 60,000 members in 1926. The Centralverein was the most important organization among the numerous Jewish clubs and associations that formed in response to the growing anti-Semitism in the German Empire . In 1929 the Centralverein was the umbrella organization for a total of 31 regional associations with around 500 local groups; in 1938 it was banned.

The Central Association saw its main task in the enforcement of civil rights already achieved and the defense against attacks on the civil and social equality of the Jews . The commitment to the German nation was in the foreground. The members saw themselves primarily as citizens of the German Reich with their own religion . The CV emphasized the German ethnicity and assumed that a synthesis of Germanness and Judaism was possible. The Centralverein was critical of the Zionist view that there is a Jewish nation with its own history, culture and future. The emerging national-Jewish movement and the striving for a Jewish state opposed the efforts of the Centralverein, which repeatedly emphasized the loyalty of German Jews to Germany in public. Through educational work, he tried to spread knowledge about Judaism and to strengthen Jewish self-confidence. A well-known member of the Central Association was Hannah Arendt's grandfather , Max Arendt in Königsberg .

Through its legal protection work, which has been the focus of activity since the association was founded, the CV tried to achieve general social equality for the Jewish population group in Germany and specifically to fight for the restoration of individually violated rights. The CV already had its own legal protection office in Berlin before 1900, where consultation hours were set up for members. In the last years of the Weimar Republic , the association was particularly active in protecting civil rights against the anti-Semitic boycott .

The title of the CV organ in the German Reich was programmatic. From 1922 the Centralverein published the weekly CV newspaper in the Rudolf Mosse publishing house . With memoranda, publications and discussions, the board of the association tried to draw the attention of President Paul von Hindenburg and representatives of German business to the danger of anti-Semitism. The Berlin-based Philo-Verlag , along with Schocken, was the most influential pre-war Jewish publisher also belonged to the Centralverein .

In 1928 the Wilhelmstrasse office was set up, which documented the activities of the National Socialists and carried out anti-fascist education until 1933, in which Alfred Wiener played a leading role. After the "seizure of power" by the National Socialists , the Central Association initially continued its work. In a statement on Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor, the long-time association director Ludwig Holländer issued the “watchword: wait quietly”.

After the boycott of Jews on April 1, 1933 and the enactment of the law to restore the civil service of April 7, 1933, the Central Association participated in the establishment of the Central Committee for Help and Development . These were the first signs of the Reich Representation of German Jews , founded in September 1933 , in which both the Zionist ZVfD and the liberal CV as well as other, smaller Jewish organizations and associations, as well as the influential Berlin Jewish community came together.

The Nuremberg Laws of September 15, 1935 abolished the term “citizen” and replaced it with the terms “Reich Citizen” or “Reich Citizen”. As a result of an amendment to the statutes passed at an extraordinary general meeting on October 21, 1935, the CV provisionally called itself the Central Association of Jews in Germany . After the CV director Ludwig Holländer died on February 11, 1936 and the long-time chairman Julius Brodnitz on June 17, 1936, Ernst Herzfeld from Essen became the last chairman of the association. In order to make the Centralverein's work more geared towards Jewish emigration clear to the outside world, Herzfeld decided to rename the association again in August 1936. The CV was now called Jüdischer Central-Verein e. V. , other terms should no longer be used from now on. On the occasion of the November pogroms in 1938 , the association was banned on November 10, 1938, and the CV newspaper had to stop its publication.

Personalities

Chairperson

Other personalities

See also

literature

  • Avraham Barkai : “Defend yourself!” The Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (CV) 1893–1938. Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-49522-2 ( A publication by the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem ).
  • Avraham Barkai, Pavel Golubev: The defense against National Socialism by the Centralverein. In: Hamburg Key Documents on German-Jewish History, September 22, 2016. doi : 10.23691 / jgo: article-6.de.v1
  • Rebekka Denz, Tilmann Gempp-Friedrich (ed.): German-Jewish history in the mirror of the Centralverein . In: Medaon 13 (2019), 25 ( online ).
  • Evyatar Friesel: The Political and Ideological Development of the Centralverein before 1914. In: Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 31, 1986, ISSN  0075-8744 , pp. 121-146.
  • Regina Grundmann / Bernd J. Hartmann / Daniel Siemens (eds.): “What should become of us?” On the history of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith in National Socialist Germany ; Berlin: Metropol 2020. ISBN 978-3-86331-530-6 .
  • Deborah Hertz: How Jews became Germans. The world of Jewish converts from the 17th to the 19th centuries . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2010 (original title: How Jews became Germans , translated by Thomas Bertram), ISBN 978-3-593-39170-0 .
  • Johann Nicolai: “Be courageous and upright!” The end of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith 1933–1938. be.bra Wissenschaft, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-95410-072-9 .
  • Arnold Paucker : On the problem of a Jewish defense strategy in German society . In: Werner E. Mosse (Hrsg.): Jews in Wilhelminian Germany. 1890-1914. An anthology. 2nd Edition. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1998, ISBN 3-16-147074-5 ( series of scientific papers by the Leo Baeck Institute 33)
    • dsb .: The Berlin Jewish bourgeoisie in the "Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith" . In: Reinhard Rürup (ed.): Jewish history in Berlin. Essays and studies. Hentrich, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-89468-182-9 , pp. 215-225.
  • Jehuda Reinharz : Fatherland or Promised Land. The Dilemma of the German Jew 1893-1914 . University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI 1975, ISBN 0-472-76500-0 .
  • Paul Rieger : A quarter of a century in the struggle for the rights and the future of German Jews. A look back at the history of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith in the years 1893–1918. Publishing house of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, Berlin 1918
  • Ismar Schorsch : Jewish Reactions to Anti-Semitism 1870-1914. Columbia University Press et al. a., New York 1972, ISBN 0-231-03643-4 (Series: Columbia University Studies in Jewish History, Culture and Institutions, 3)
  • Annegret Stalder: The Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith. Organization, goals, problems of the Jewish Defense Association. GRIN, Munich 2013, ISBN 3-640-62868-3 (32 pages)
  • Inbal Steinitz: The struggle of Jewish lawyers against anti-Semitism. The criminal legal protection work of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith 1893–1933. Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-66-6 ( series of documents, texts, materials , 68), (also: Frankfurt am Main, Univ., Diss., 2006)
  • Jürgen Matthäus : Fight without allies. The Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith 1933–1938 . In: Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung , 8, 1999, pp. 248-277.

Web links

Commons : Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the history of Jewish associations: CV . In: Jewish address book for Greater Berlin , 1931, p. 33.
  2. ↑ 1923 over 200,000 members in 13 regional associations with 174 local groups. See Kurt Jagow : Politisches Shortwörterbuch (editorial participation, edited by Paul Herre ). Leipzig 1923, p. 1011.
  3. ↑ Cord Brügmann: Escape into the civil process. Anti-Semitic economic boycott before the civil courts of the Weimar Republic. (= Documents. Texts. Materials, vol. 72). Metropol, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-940938-22-0 .
  4. ^ CV newspaper (CVZ) of February 2, 1933.
  5. ↑ CVZ of September 20, 1933.
  6. ↑ CVZ, October 24, 1935, p. 2.
  7. ↑ CVZ, August 13, 1936.
  8. ↑ Jehuda Reinharz : Deutschtum and Judentum in the Ideology of the Centralverein Deutscher Staatsbürgerischen Jewish Faith 1893-1914 . In: Jewish Social Studies . 36 (1974), pp. 27f.
  9. ↑ Peter Schulze : Catzenstein, Leo . In: Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen : Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 84; books.google.de
  10. ↑ Michael Brocke , Julius Carlebach (editor) et al. : 2051 Braunschweiger, David, Dr. , in this: The Rabbis in the German Empire 1871-1945 , Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-44107-3 and ISBN 978-3-598-24874-0 , p. 101; Preview over google books