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.
