German Antisemitism After WWI: Scapegoating and Jewish Life

Introduction: Jewish Germans After WWI

In World War I, more than 12,000 Jews lost their lives fighting for Germany (Flannery, 43). They were a large part of the culture there and had intermingled with German society as much as they were permitted to. However, despite their deep involvement in so much of what was taking place in the country, they were never truly accepted. After WWI, Germany's official position on Jews changed dramatically. Much of that shift occurred because German leaders did not want to accept any blame for the problems that had caused them to lose the war. Because they wanted to appear in a favorable light to the public and were unwilling to admit past mistakes, they looked for scapegoats. One of the main targets of that scapegoating was the Jewish community in Germany. Even though many Jews had fought bravely in the war and a significant number had died defending Germany, they were portrayed as traitors so that the German government could improve its standing with the people (Anti-Semitism).

By making the Jews appear traitorous, the government could offer an explanation for why it lost the war. At that time in history, fact-checking information was far more difficult than it is today, so ordinary people had little recourse but to believe what they were told. Those who doubted the official narrative generally stayed quiet, not wanting to find themselves on the wrong side of the government. That caution could have serious consequences, and as the Nazis began to rise to power, the pressures on what people could say — and how much loyalty they were required to demonstrate — grew even more intense (Anti-Semitism). Traitors were not dealt with kindly, and the German government had shown that even innocent people could be labeled as such, and that the majority of the public would believe it. That left those trying to defend themselves with very little ground on which to stand.

Because so many negative stereotypes surrounding Jews in Germany already existed, the masses generally believed the government's claim that Jews had betrayed the country and caused Germany to lose the war (Newyk, 28). The government told the people that these alleged traitors were working for foreign interests and had access to information that could be used against Germany (Anti-Semitism). That framing made every Jewish person a suspect, regardless of what their neighbors had previously thought of them. Jews who had once moved freely among their fellow Germans suddenly felt unsafe doing so, and anti-Semitic sentiment grew far stronger than it had been before the war. This is not to say that conditions had been ideal before the war — Jews were still being marginalized by much of German society — but there is a meaningful difference between marginalization and being actively mistrusted as an enemy of the state based on fabricated accusations.

Scapegoating and the Stab-in-the-Back Myth

The deliberate spread of misinformation by the German government reinforced feelings that many people already harbored about Jews, but it also shaped the opinions of those who had not yet formed a view. Some of these people were drawn toward mistrust of Jews out of genuine concern that Jewish citizens were attempting to harm Germany by providing foreign governments and militaries with sensitive information (Anti-Semitism). Even with no evidence supporting this claim — and with evidence pointing in the opposite direction — the German government managed to convince the majority of non-Jewish Germans that Jews were dangerous and unworthy of equal standing. Once that perception was established, it became far easier to continue mistreating and marginalizing Jewish people, because most Germans had been led to believe there was a justification for doing so.

There was a great deal of anger and despair in Germany during this period as well. The country was held responsible for starting the war, and because Germany lost a conflict it had allegedly started, it was required to pay reparations to the victorious nations (Flannery, 74). Political life was thrown into turmoil, and the radical right found ways to exploit that instability — primarily by blaming the Jews. The government was relatively subtle about this, at least initially. It was not credible to simply declare that all of Germany's problems were the fault of Jewish people. The German population would not have accepted that claim without some foundation. However, preexisting tensions could be amplified in ways that would lead the German public to turn against Jews more organically. The government needed only to steer the masses in the desired direction; rumors spread quickly on their own, and the proverbial ball was already rolling.

Before long, Jewish people in Germany were seen as the cause of virtually every significant problem the country faced. That perception enabled the rise of Nazi Germany and the persecution and eventual annihilation of millions of Jewish people (Hitler, 128). Even before that culmination, there was widespread discussion of how the Jews could be "stopped" — despite the fact that they had done nothing wrong. Once the German government had convinced the people that Jews were the problem, reversing that belief was neither realistic nor desired. An effective scapegoat for nearly any difficulty the German people would encounter had been constructed, and it had been constructed so seamlessly that the public did not recognize the narrative as false. Meanwhile, Jewish people found themselves unable to defend against accusations that bore no relationship to reality.

Communism, Revolution, and Jewish Suspicion

There was more to the shift in the treatment of Jews than accusations of wartime treason alone. The Bolshevik Revolution also played a significant role in shaping how Germans viewed Jewish people (Anti-Semitism). While the Revolution occurred in Russia and led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, experiments with communism closer to home — in Hungary and Bavaria — alarmed populations across Europe and even in America. Because some leaders of those short-lived revolutionary regimes were of Jewish descent, Germany promoted the idea that Jewish people were "naturally attracted" to communistic ideals (Smith, 58). This was false, but it was a claim that Germany seized upon when constructing the image of what Jews were "capable of" and what they might be plotting within their communities. It does not take much to convince people that a particular group is dangerous, especially when a degree of suspicion already exists.

Even simple ideas, carefully planted, are often enough to turn neighbors and friends against one another. Jews were already perceived as "different," and those differences were impossible to entirely dismiss. When Germany lost the war, it became easy to blame the Jews and to connect their perceived differences to communism, adding fuel to an already smoldering fire. While not every non-Jewish German embraced these ideas, a significant number came to believe that Jewish people could not be trusted and were intent on transforming Germany into a communist state. All evidence pointed in the opposite direction, yet the German government successfully convinced many of its citizens that Jewish people were conspirators working against the nation (Falk, 29).

Works Cited

Anti-Semitism in History: World War 1. United States Holocaust Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 2014. Print. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007166

Elon, Amos. The Pity of It All: A History of Jews in Germany, 1743–1933. New York, 2002. Print.

Falk, Avner. Anti-Semitism: The History and Psychoanalysis of Contemporary Hatred. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2008. Print.

Flannery, Edward H. The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism. NY: Paulist Press, 2004. Print.

Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. New York: Trans. B. M. Mooyaart, 1993. Print.

Hertz, Deborah. How Jews Became Germans: The History of Conversion and Assimilation in Berlin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Print.

Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Berlin: Eher Verlag, 1933. Print.

Kaplan, Marion A. Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618–1945. Oxford, 2005. Print.

Newyk, Donald. The Jews in Weimar Republic. Louisiana State University Press, 1980. Print. Republished in 2001 with new materials.

Smith, Helmut Walser. The Butcher's Tale: Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. Print.