Reich representation of the German Jews

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The Reich Representation of the German Jews ( Hebrew נְצִיגוּת הַיַּהֲדוּת בְּגֶרְמַנְיָה Ntsīgūth haJahadūth beGermanjah , Representation of Jews in Germany), based in Berlin , was founded on September 17, 1933 . It was supposed to represent the interests of the Jews in Germany .

history

The establishment of the Reich Representation of German Jews was a reaction to the social and legal exclusion and persecution of the Jewish population by anti-Semites, National Socialists and the Reich government and an act of Jewish self-help. For this purpose, a large number of Jewish organizations, associations and committees came together to form umbrella organizations that initially existed side by side.

One of the first umbrella organizations was the Central Committee for Help and Development , founded on April 13, 1933 , headed by Secretary General Ludwig Tietz .

Its members, chaired by Leo Baeck , were:

The Central Committee remained formally independent of the Reich Representation until 1935 . His most important fields of work were welfare, economic aid , redeployment , the school system and the preparation and organization of emigration. “In addition, the committee coordinated the aid payments from Jewish organizations from abroad such as the American Joint Distribution Committee or the Central British Fund . In 1935 the Central Committee was incorporated into the 'Reich Representation of German Jews'. "

Behind the Reich Representation , founded on September 17, 1933, were largely the same organizations as behind the Central Committee . The Agudath Israel and a few other groups of Orthodox Jews , the members of the Association of National German Jews and a splinter group of Zionist revisionists did not join the association, but the Reich Association of Jewish Front Soldiers did .

Leo Baeck was also elected President of the Reich Representation, and Otto Hirsch became its executive chairman . There was no fundamental difference to the work areas of the central committee until the merger of the two organizations. There were three main areas of work:

  • Education
    • School work
    • Teacher training
    • Rabbi training
    • Adult education
    • Cultural alliances
  • Professional redeployment and training (since 1933 under the direction of Martin Gerson )
    • Professional redeployment
    • Initial training
  • Hike
    • Migration to Palestine
    • Emigration to other countries
    • Re-emigration

In addition, “the Reich Representation emphasized its task as the overall representation of German Jewry vis-à-vis the Nazi government on political issues. It was precisely this claim to representation that brought criticism and resistance from individual Jewish groups to the Reich Representation: The Association of German National Jews rejected the Reich Representation because Zionists were involved in it; As the largest Jewish community in Germany, the Berlin congregation neither wanted to hand over areas of work to the Reich Representation nor accept its claim to leadership; Orthodox groups were skeptical of the establishment of a secular authority as the supreme leadership of German Jews, which was reinforced by the fact that Leo Baeck was headed by a liberal rabbi; the State Zionist Organization finally rejected the concept of 'help and construction' and instead demanded the dissolution of the Jewish community through emigration. "

When the Nuremberg Race Laws were enacted in 1935, the association had to rename itself to the Reich Representation of Jews in Germany .

In 1938 the Reich Representation became the Reich Association of Jews in Germany , in which all members of Jewish communities in the old Reich were obliged to pay contributions. The Reichsverband took on a number of administrative tasks; because as a result of the massive emigration, many communities were no longer in a position to maintain and manage orphaned properties and to carry out their traditional tasks.

In February 1939, the organization under the name Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Association of Jews in Germany) made a brief interlude as the last independent interest group for Jews. In order to be able to finance the support of the impoverished members, it levied a graduated property tax of up to ten percent on the emigrants.

The nationalization of the former Reichsvereinigung

A little later, in July 1939, this previously independent Jewish interest group was converted by the Nazi authorities into a quasi-state compulsory administration, while retaining the name Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Association of Jews in Germany ), with the partial continuation of the former Jewish welfare and the organization of the Jewish School system and until its gradual dissolution in 1943 only had to carry out the instructions of the Nazi Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) . On June 16, 1943, the RSHA ordered the closure of all offices and arrested their managers and leading employees. Almost all of them were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto concentration camp .

Successor organizations after 1945

Today, among others, the Central Council of Jews in Germany , the Central Welfare Office for Jews in Germany and the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany represent the interests of Jews in the Federal Republic.

literature

  • Salomon Adler-Rudel : Jewish self-help under the Nazi regime 1933–1939. Mirror of the Reich Representation of the Jews in Germany. Tuebingen 1974
  • Raul Hilberg : The annihilation of the European Jews . Volume 1, Frankfurt 1990, ISBN 3-596-10611-7 , pp. 190f
  • Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): The Jews in Germany 1933–1945. Life under National Socialist rule. Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-33324-9 , pp. 49-74.
  • Max Grünewald : The beginning of the representation of the Reich, in: Robert Weltsch , Ed .: German Judaism, Rise and Crisis. Design, ideas, works. Fourteen monographs. Publication by the Leo Baeck Institute. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt , Stuttgart 1963, pp. 315 - 325 (first in English: The Beginning of the "Reichsvertretung" . Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook LBIY Jg. 1, 1956, No. 1, pp. 57 - 67. (Engl. Online for a fee readable, access via the institute))
  • Hans Gärtner: Problems of the Jewish School during the Hitler Years, with special consideration of the Theodor Herzl School in Berlin, ibid. Pp. 326 to 352.
  • Otto Dov Kulka (ed.): Documents on the history of the Reich representation of German Jews 1933-1939 , German Judaism under National Socialism, Volume 1 , Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 1997, ISBN 3-16-146413-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ So the Hebrew name of the Reich Representation on the foundation plaque in the 1937 opened Ludwig Tietz training workshop in Jagur . Cf. Friedrich Brodnitz , "Kampf um die Jewish Agency", in: On the opening of the Ludwig Tietz training workshop in Jagur , Reich Representation of Jews in Germany (ed.), Berlin: Max Lichtwitz, 1937, pp. 40–46, here photo between Pp. 40 and 41 , accessed on February 11, 2019.
  2. ↑ To distinguish between the Central Committee for Help and Development and the Reich Representation of German Jews, see: Axel Meier: The Reich Representation of Jews in Germany and Ulrike Schaper: Jüdische Selbsthilfe .
  3. ↑ As the federal leader of the German-Jewish Youth Community (DJJG), Tietz was elected chairman of the Reich Association of Jewish Youth Associations in 1927 and remained in this position until his death (cf. Georg Lubinski, "A life for young people", in: To the opening of the Ludwig Tietz training workshop in Jagur , Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland (ed.), Berlin: Max Lichtwitz, 1937, p. 37-40, here p. 37), in 1932 the CV elected him deputy chairman (Friedrich Brodnitz, “Kampf um die Jewish Agency ”, in: On the opening of the Ludwig Tietz training workshop in Jagur , Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland (ed.), Berlin: Max Lichtwitz, 1937, pp. 40–46, here p. 46).
  4. ↑ "In Prussia, two regional associations had formed, the› Prussian State Association of Jewish Communities ‹in 1922, which comprised around 70% of the Jews living in Prussia, and the Orthodox› Prussian State Association of Law-Abiding Synagogue Communities ‹in the same year." (Michael Demel : Broken normality. The state church law position of the Jewish communities in Germany. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2011, ISBN 978-3-16-150885-1 , p. 129).
  5. ↑ Ulrike Schaper: Jewish self-help . For the Central British Fund see: British Fund for German Jewry .
  6. ^ Josef Olbrich: History of adult education in Germany, Leske + Budrich, Opladen, 2001, ISBN 3-8100-3349-9 , p. 264.
  7. ↑ Axel Meier: The Reich Representation of the Jews in Germany
  8. ↑ Andrea Löw, Doris L Bergen, Anna Hájková: Everyday life in the Holocaust: Jewish life in the Greater German Reich 1941-1945 etc. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2013, p. 27.