Germany (Vilna Archives) Collection

The history of Jews in Germany (in brief outline, with some references to Austria-Hungary)

Medieval Hebrew sources referred to the German lands in the Rhine region with the Biblical term "Ashkenaz." In early medieval times, Jewish merchants coming from France and northern Italy settled along major rivers and trading routes. The oldest continuous Jewish settlements are documented in the 10th century at Mainz, Speyer, and Worms, along the Rhine River, as well as Regensburg, on the Danube. In the 11th century communities were established in Cologne, Trier, Bamberg, Würzburg, and Erfurt, as well as Prague; at the end of the 12th century, in Vienna; and in the 13th century, in Breslau (Wrocław, Poland), Frankfurt am Main, and Munich.

The early Jewish communities in Mainz, Speyer and Worms became great centers of Jewish learning. Gershom ben Judah (dubbed 'Light of the Exile') presided over a yeshiva in Mainz at the end of the 10th century. The first synagogue was built at Worms in 1034. The Jewish population in the German lands was approximately 5,000 to 10,000 at the end of the 10th century, and 20,000 to 25,000 just before the First Crusade (1096).

The Yiddish language emerged as a vernacular language of Jews in the middle Rhine region in the 9th to 10th century; by the 13th century it had developed its own literature. Written in Hebrew characters, it originated as a fusion of medieval spoken German (Middle High German) and Biblical and rabbinical Hebrew, with some elements of Romance languages. When Yiddish-speaking communities later migrated into Eastern Europe, the language incorporated Slavic elements. A western variant of Yiddish was the predominant language of Jews in the German lands until the late 18th century.

The Holy Roman Empire; the Habsburgs

Following the fragmenting of the Carolingian empire, the German lands eventually came under the political umbrella of the Holy Roman Empire (laying claim to the tradition of the ancient Roman Empire), a loose confederation of large and small states (kingdoms, duchies, principalities, free imperial cities), headed by an emperor who was elected by the most powerful member rulers, termed prince-electors. Generally encompassing what would be present-day Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, and other regions, extending to parts of Poland and northern Italy, the Holy Roman Empire existed from the 10th century until its dissolution in 1806.

From the mid 15th century on, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was dominated by the house of Habsburg (the Austrian branch until 1740, then Habsburg-Lorraine), whose territories included Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia, as well as Hungary (the latter outside the boundaries of the empire). In the era of the Reformation, the Habsburgs remained Catholic, while many of the German states became Protestant. In 1804, in the face of Napoleon's ascendancy, Emperor Franz II founded the Austrian Empire (1804-1867), based on his own dominions. In 1867, under a compromise agreement (Ausgleich) that gave the kingdom of Hungary greater autonomy, the empire became known as Austria-Hungary (1867-1918), or the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Jewish life in the medieval and early modern periods

The Jewish population in the Holy Roman Empire, including Switzerland and the Low Countries, was an estimated 100,000 in the year 1300, and 80,000 in 1490, in both instances less than 1% of the general population (around 12 million).

Until the early 19th century, Jewish communities and individuals settled in the German lands by obtaining special permission, in the form of a charter, or a writ/letter of protection (Schutzbrief), which specified commercial privileges, religious rights, and such, in exchange for the payment of special taxes and fees. Such 'protected' status was at first secured directly from the Holy Roman Emperor; later the emperor, for political and economic reasons, often transferred this function to the free imperial cities and territorial princes. Often Jewish settlement was welcomed in order to foster economic activity.

Jewish communities acted as a fiscal corporation vis-à-vis the authorities, to ensure the payment of taxes and fees, and internally exercised a form of self-government according to Jewish law and customs. The community typically had an elected council, or executive body, responsible for both the secular and religious structuring of Jewish life, and employed a rabbi or teacher to provide spiritual leadership. Distinctive communal institutions included the synagogue, cemetery, mikveh (ritual bath), shochet (ritual slaughterer), cheder (elementary school for boys focused on Torah and Talmud study), and chevra kadisha (burial society).

In medieval times Jews were rarely permitted to own land, and were barred from the guilds that controlled the handicrafts and trades. They therefore often made their living as merchants, moneylenders, pawnbrokers, or peddlers. Many were also engaged in small businesses or trades, such as tailoring, baking, the butcher trade, or cattle or horse dealing. Some were physicians.

In cities Jews were sometimes restricted to a specific area, known as the Jewish quarter, or ghetto. Pursuant to the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), Jews were required to distinguish themselves from Christians in their dress, typically with a certain style of hat or veil; in the 15th century ordinances requiring the wearing of a yellow circular badge were enacted in many German cities, the first in Augsburg, in 1434.

The High Middle Ages marked the beginning of anti-Jewish violence and expulsions throughout the German lands. Religious anti-Semitism was rooted in a popular view holding the Jews collectively responsible for the death of Christ. The first horrific events occurred in 1096, during the First Crusade, when Christian hordes threatened Jews with conversion or death. Some 5,000 Jews were killed, or committed suicide to avoid conversion, decimating the major Jewish communities in the Rhineland and Bohemia. Later, anti-Jewish attacks included 'blood libels,' and accusations of 'host desecration.' In 1348 to 1350, during the Black Death, Jews were accused of poisoning the wells; some 300 Jewish communities in the German lands were either massacred or driven out. From the Reformation era on, Martin Luther's hostile attitudes toward Jews in his late writings further encouraged anti-Jewish attitudes and violence.

From the 14th to the 16th century, due to persecution and expulsions in the German lands, the center of gravity of Ashkenazic Jewry shifted significantly eastward toward Poland and Lithuania (including present-day Belarus and Ukraine). Yet Jews remained scattered in smaller localities in the German lands, and communities gradually reestablished themselves from the late 16th century on.

With the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) concluding the Thirty Years' War, the rulers within the Holy Roman Empire achieved greater autonomy and evolved as absolutist regimes, based on a mercantilist system of economy. From the late 16th to the late 18th century a small class of 'court Jews' (Hofjuden) played important roles in the service of local rulers, acting as financial and commercial agents. Though their positions remained precarious, court Jews achieved great wealth and status, and could sometimes exercise their influence to assist other Jews.

The acceleration of industry and the growth of a money-based economy led to greater economic differentiation within the Jewish population. By the mid 18th century a small portion of Jews in the German lands (estimated at 7% to 20%) were propertied and well off, while the great majority lived at the poorest levels of society, subsisting by petty trade and begging.

18th century: Growth of Prussia; Partitions of Poland; Acculturation

The Hohenzollerns, the prince-electors of Brandenburg, founded the kingdom of Prussia in 1701, based on the duchy of Prussia (later East Prussia), with its capital at Königsberg (Kaliningrad, Russia), an area outside of the Holy Roman Empire that they originally held as a fiefdom of the Polish crown. Another eastern area, Silesia, originally part of medieval Poland and later the Bohemian crown lands, was seized by Prussia in 1742, during the War of the Austrian Succession.

Through the partitions of Poland (i.e. the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), in 1772, 1793, and 1795, both Prussia and Habsburg Austria (in addition to Russia) incorporated areas that included large populations of Jews. Austria acquired Galicia, including the cities of Lemberg (Lviv), Tarnau (Tarnów), Tarnopol (Ternopil), Brody, and Kolomea (Kolomyia). In 1775, Austria also annexed the Bukovina region (previously under the Ottoman Empire), which included Czernowitz (Cernauti, Romania). Prussia acquired what became the provinces of West Prussia, including Danzig (Gdańsk), Kulm (Chełmno), and Thorn (Toruń); and Posen, including Posen (Poznań) and Bromberg (Bydgoszcz). (Posen province initially was a subdivision of South Prussia, the majority of which was ceded to Russia in 1807.)

In the late 18th century German Jews began to engage in a cultural reorientation. The philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (d. 1786), who arrived in Berlin from his native Dessau in 1743, was an influential figure in this era. Grounded in Talmudic and rabbinic learning, he acquired great secular learning as well, and participated in the earliest phase of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. Encouraging his fellow Jews to learn German, he published a German translation of the Torah (Pentateuch) rendered in Hebrew characters. In his writings, and by his life example, he anticipated the greater integration of Jews in the wider German culture, a trend that accelerated in subsequent generations.

The first modern Jewish free school, in which boys learned secular as well as religious subjects, was established in Berlin in 1778, and others soon followed, including schools for girls. One of the largest free schools was the Philanthropin, in Frankfurt am Main (school for boys founded 1804, and for girls, 1810), which remained in existence until 1942.

From this time on German Jews gradually abandoned the Yiddish language in favor of German, as they developed more acculturated lifestyles. They advocated for full civil rights, or emancipation, and increasingly lived in urban centers, where they participated in the general intellectual and cultural life. These changes contributed to a decline of communal and rabbinical authority. In contrast, Jews in Eastern Europe tended to retain Yiddish as their primary vernacular language, and a closer connection to traditional ways of life, even as they modernized.

19th century: Napoleonic era; German liberalism; Struggle for civil rights; Developments within Judaism

Napoleon's military victories led to the end of the Holy Roman Empire, when Emperor Franz II abdicated in 1806. Prussia fell under French occupation later the same year. Laws enacted under Napoleonic rule granted Jews full civil rights, allowing them to be admitted to professions and government jobs previously closed to them. But these gains were short-lived; in the restoration period following the Congress of Vienna (1815), emancipation edicts were either repealed outright, or circumvented in practice.

Under Napoleon, the over 300 German states in the old empire had been consolidated into 39 in the Confederation of the Rhine (1806-1813), a configuration that persisted, with some revision, in the German Confederation (1815-1866). The Napoleonic era, as well as the Romantic movement in philosophy and the arts, spurred a rise in German nationalism. At the same time there was a resurgence of anti-Semitism, including the 'Hep-Hep' riots of 1819.

In the mid 19th century German Jews often identified politically with the German liberal movement seeking a constitutional monarchy, civil rights, and a unified Germany; some, such as Gabriel Riesser (d. 1863), were active as political representatives. The statement of basic rights adopted by the revolutionary Frankfurt parliament in 1848-1849 included a proviso that civil rights should not depend upon, nor be restricted by religious belief. Following the failure of the revolutionary movement, the impact of the proposed liberalization measures varied from state to state.

Jewish cultural developments in the 19th century included the founding of the movement known as Wissenschaft des Judentums (Science of Judaism), by Leopold Zunz (d. 1886), and others, which promoted the scholarly study of Judaism and Jewish culture. Changes in synagogue services in many congregations included such innovations as German-language prayers, organ music, choir singing, and rules of decorum. Congregations began to call for university-educated rabbis. The first modern Jewish theological seminary in Germany opened in Breslau in 1854, under the leadership of Zacharias Frankel (d. 1875). New religious directions included the founding of Reform Judaism by Rabbi Abraham Geiger (d. 1874), and others, and the emergence of modern orthodoxy, especially under the leadership of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (d. 1888), who served the 'secessionist' orthodox community of Frankfurt am Main.

Founding of the German Empire (1871); Demographic and economic developments; Anti-Semitism

The unification of Germany finally came about as a result of the Prussian military victories in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. With the founding of the German Empire, in 1871, full civil rights were finally granted to Jews uniformly throughout the German states. Nevertheless, they continued to be discriminated against and, unless they converted, had limited opportunities for higher level civil service appointments, and were excluded from the officer corps of the German army. Educated young Jews gravitated to the free professions of medicine, law, and journalism.

In 1871 there were 512,000 Jews in Germany, comprising 1.2% of the population. In a reversal of the economic pyramid of the 18th century, approximately 60% were in the middle and upper income brackets. Jews tended to identify with German educational and cultural ideals (Bildung) and middle-class values. By the end of the 19th century German Jews on the average achieved higher educational levels, were better represented in the free professions, and, if engaged in commerce and trade, were more often self-employed than their non-Jewish counterparts.

German Jews migrated to cities at a faster rate than the general population, with Berlin being a favored destination, especially for Jews of the eastern Prussian provinces. The Jewish population of Berlin grew six-fold between 1837 and 1871, increasing from 6,000 to 36,000, so that Jews made up over 4% of the city's population in 1871. In 1885 about 33% of Jews lived in cities of over 100,000 inhabitants, and in 1910 fully 60% lived in cities that size, compared to only 21% of the general population. By 1914 almost 30% of all German Jews lived in Berlin.

In the late 19th century, Germany experienced an intensive industrial boom, with rapid development of the coal and steel industries, and an extended economic depression beginning in 1873. This period of modernization saw the rise of a new form of anti-Jewish prejudice based on racial theories, with the term "anti-Semitism" coming into popular usage from 1879 on. Intellectuals such as historian Heinrich Treitschke (d. 1896) contributed to establishing anti-Semitic views as mainstream.

In 1893 a group of German Jews founded the Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (Central association of German citizens of Jewish faith), which sought to unite Jews and counter anti-Semitism. The Centralverein, or CV, grew to 60,000 members by 1926. It published a monthly newspaper, Im Deutschen Reich (In the German Empire), from 1895 to 1922, and then a weekly newspaper, the CV-Zeitung, from 1922 to 1938. The latter was perceived as a successor to the long-running German-Jewish newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums (1837-1922).

East European Jews in Germany; Zionism

In the period from 1881 until the First World War the number of East European Jews residing in the German Empire rose significantly. Fleeing persecution and economic hardship, Jews from Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (mainly Galicia, but also Bohemia, Moravia, and Bukovina) migrated into Germany, often on their way to overseas destinations, but sometimes remaining in Germany for longer periods. The number of Jews of foreign nationality, and their percentage of the Jewish population in Germany, rose from some 22,000 (2.7%) in 1880 to 79,000 (12.8%) in 1910. The total Jewish population in Germany reached a peak in 1910, at 615,000 (just under 1% of the general population). Among the German-Jewish organizations that assisted East European Jews was the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden (Relief association of German Jews), founded 1901.

Against the background of the desperate economic and political circumstances of East European Jews, and the rise of anti-Semitism in the West, the modern Zionist movement took shape under the leadership of Theodor Herzl (d. 1904), a Viennese journalist and playwright. The World Zionist Organization (WZO) held its first congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897. It built upon earlier scattered Jewish associations promoting settlement in Palestine ("Hovevei Zion," or lovers of Zion), including one founded by Max I. Bodenheimer and David Wolffsohn in Cologne, in 1893. From 1897 to 1914 the WZO newspaper Die Welt (The World) was headquartered variously in Vienna, Cologne, and Berlin. The newspaper of the German Zionist organization, Jüdische Rundschau (Jewish Review), appeared from 1902 to 1938.

Many of the acculturated Jews of Germany and Austria-Hungary who embraced Zionism (a small minority of the Jewish population) did so in a spirit of solidarity with East European Jews, rather than in terms of a personal preparation for emigration to Palestine. The movement also provided a framework for exploring and reviving Jewish cultural identity.

The First World War (1914–1918) and its aftermath

Like their compatriots, German Jews generally responded to the outbreak of the First World War with expressions of patriotism. A unified national spirit seemed to prevail in Germany. Yet, as the war dragged on, rumors that Jews were shirking their patriotic duty led to a German government census of Jewish servicemen (Judenzählung), in November 1916; the results, which disproved the claims, were never made public. Of some 550,000 German-Jewish citizens in 1914, approximately 100,000 (18%) served in the German military during the war; 12,000 were killed in battle. In Austria-Hungary, 320,000 Jews served, with 40,000 killed.

The defeat of Germany and its allies (the Central Powers) led to the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II, in November 1918. During an interlude of revolutionary turmoil in Germany in 1918-1919, notable public figures included the German-Jewish socialists Kurt Eisner and Rosa Luxemburg, and anarchist Gustav Landauer (all three victims of political assassinations in 1919).

The Treaty of Versailles (1919) held Germany and its allies responsible for the war, and imposed high monetary reparations. In the peace settlement Germany ceded Alsace-Lorraine to France (it had been annexed by Germany in 1871); and most of West Prussia and Posen, and parts of Silesia, to newly independent Poland.

The Treaty of St. Germain (1919) settled the breakup of Austria-Hungary. The province of Galicia went to Poland, and Bukovina to Romania. Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia became part of the new state of Czechoslovakia, where approximately 354,000 Jews lived as of 1921, making up 2.6% of the population. In the remaining Austrian lands, the Republic of Austria was established. In 1918 approximately 300,000 Jews lived in Austria, in 33 communities; the majority lived in Vienna, where they numbered 200,000 in 1919.

The Weimar Republic (1919–1933)

In August 1919 the national assembly meeting in Weimar adopted a constitution establishing a new government, Germany's first representative democracy, commonly known as the Weimar Republic. The constitution provided for universal suffrage (including women, who also were for the first time eligible for political office), and an elected president with considerable executive powers, who could act by decree in times of emergency.

In 1925, there were approximately 564,000 Jews in Germany (0.9% of the total population). One third lived in Berlin, one third in other large cities, and the rest in hundreds of other localities, some of which did not have an organized Jewish community. Most Jews were middle class, making their living in commerce and transportation, or the free professions. In the 1920s interfaith marriages reached a high of some 20% of Jewish marriages.

Although the total Jewish population in Germany was in decline, the number of Jews of foreign nationality continued to grow during the Weimar period, reaching 100,000 in 1933, making up 20% of the Jewish population. Some notable East European Jewish scholars, scientists, and writers resided in Germany during this period, including historian Simon Dubnow (d. 1941). For a few years Berlin became a center of Yiddish and Hebrew publishing.

During the Weimar Republic there was a flourishing of Jewish communal, religious and cultural life. Jews also played a prominent role in the general culture, in journalism, literature and the arts, and as civil servants and politicians. The latter included Hugo Preuss (d. 1925), who drafted the Weimar constitution; and Walther Rathenau, who served as minister of reconstruction and then as foreign minister (until he was assassinated in 1922).

The Weimar period was marked by political and economic turmoil, including the hyperinflation of 1923. Popular resentment against the terms of the Treaty of Versailles included the right-wing 'back-stab legend' (Dolchstosslegende), which held that German military victories during the war had been sabotaged by unpatriotic elements at home. Anti-Semitic right-wing propaganda identified Jews both with the dangers of revolutionary 'bolshevism' and with the Weimar Republic as a whole. Beginning as the German Workers' Party, Adolf Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP; later commonly called 'Nazi' party) was founded in Munich in 1920. It was mainly active in Bavaria until its putsch attempt in Munich in 1923; and up to 1928 received no more than 3% of the vote in national parliamentary elections.

The severe effects in Germany of the worldwide economic depression of 1929 to 1930 contributed to dissatisfaction with Weimar democracy and the rise of extremist groups. The Nazi party received 18% of the parliamentary vote in 1930, and 37.3% in July 1932. In the last free election, in November 1932, the party's share of the vote declined to 33.1%. Hitler came to power as the result of negotiations within the coalition government; once President Paul von Hindenburg appointed him as chancellor on 30 January 1933, he moved quickly to consolidate the power of the NSDAP and suppress opposition.

1933–1938: Jewish life under National Socialism; Emigration

After the Reichstag fire on 27 February 1933 the German government suspended civil liberties under an emergency decree and conducted sweeping arrests of Communists. The first concentration camp was erected at Dachau in March 1933.

A boycott of Jewish businesses was organized on 1 April 1933, officially as a defensive measure against anti-Nazi propaganda abroad. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed the same month, brought the dismissal of Jewish ('non-Aryan') civil servants, except for those who had held their positions since before 1914, or were veterans of the World War. The civil service encompassed government officials, judges, teachers, and university professors, as well as employees of state-run cultural institutions, including actors, musicians, conductors, theater directors, and writers. Another Nazi racial law limited Jewish admissions to schools and universities. The Nuremberg Laws (1935) further defined racial categories; banned any remaining Jewish participation in government and civil service; forbade marriages and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews; and deprived German Jews of citizenship.

In the face of increasing persecution, and their isolation from German society, German Jews created new forms of Jewish communal and cultural life. An umbrella group, the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden (Reich representation of German Jews), encompassing most Jewish communities and organizations, was formed in September 1933, with Rabbi Leo Baeck as president. The Reichsvertretung represented German Jews in dealings with the government, as well as overseas organizations; coordinated Jewish educational systems; organized economic and charitable assistance; and supported emigration efforts. In June 1939, it was folded into the new Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich association of Jews in Germany), which was more directly under the control of the Nazi regime and included de facto all persons defined as Jewish under Nazi law.

The Jüdische Kulturbund (Jewish cultural alliance), founded in Berlin in July 1933 on the initiative of Kurt Singer (d. 1944), and others, sponsored a theater, an orchestra, an opera company, and other cultural activities. The Kulturbund expanded to localities throughout Germany, growing to a membership of 70,000 in 1935; it existed until 1941.

Additional Jewish elementary and high schools were set up within Jewish communities to accommodate Jewish students who had been expelled from public schools. Jewish institutions of adult education dating from the Weimar period renewed their activities. In 1934, Martin Buber (d. 1965) initiated the Mittelstelle für jüdische Erwachsenenbildung (Central office for Jewish adult education), which supported teacher training. The Jüdische Frauenbund (League of Jewish Women), founded in 1904, expanded its charitable and educational work to help maintain Jewish communal life, and grew to a membership of 50,000 in 1935.

In June 1933 there were approximately 500,000 Jews in Germany (by religion), making up 0.75% of the total population. From 1933 on, increasing numbers of German Jews sought to emigrate. Primarily two agencies of the Reichsvertretung offered emigration assistance: the Palestine Office (of the Jewish Agency for Palestine) and, for other destinations, the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden.

From 1933 to 1939 approximately 250,000 German Jews emigrated from Nazi Germany, the majority to the United States, Palestine (under British Mandate), or Great Britain; many also to South America, South Africa, or the Far East. Of the tens of thousands who early on emigrated to neighboring European countries, many later again fell victim to the Nazis during the Second World War. Jews emigrating had to pay heavy emigration taxes; were strictly limited in the amount of currency they could transfer abroad; and were forced to sell businesses and property at a drastic loss. Among other obstacles were the requirements of potential destination countries. During the period the British maintained limits on emigration to Palestine, and the United States continued to follow the country quota system, and affidavit requirements, instituted under the Immigration Act of 1924.

1938-1943: German annexations; Kristallnacht; Beginning of the Second World War; Deportations

On 12 March German troops occupied Austria, and Hitler declared its incorporation into Germany (Anschluss) the following day. The Jewish population at the time was approximately 182,000, or 2.7% of the total population; over 90% of Austrian Jews were living in Vienna. Violence, arrests, and seizures of property against Jews and political opponents began immediately, and within a period of a few months the new Nazi administration had enacted measures ensuring the economic and social exclusion of Jews on a par with that in Germany. Approximately two thirds of Austrian Jews emigrated between 1938 and 1941.

On 29 September 1938 Germany annexed the so-called 'Sudentenland,' the areas of Czechoslovakia inhabited primarily by German speakers.

Some 18,000 Polish Jews were precipitously expelled from Germany on 28 October 1938, among them the family of a young Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, who was living in Paris and subsequently shot and killed a German diplomat in Paris. Using the assassination as a pretext, the Nazi government orchestrated a wave of pogroms against Jews throughout Germany and the annexed territories, on the night of 9–10 November 1938, later known as Kristallnacht (The night of broken glass). These events, with indiscriminate arrests, destruction of Jewish property, and burning of synagogues, marked a new, more frightening stage in persecution, and greatly spurred emigration of Jews from Germany and Austria.

In March 1939 Germany occupied the remaining parts of Czechoslovakia; it governed the Czech portion as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, while Slovakia became an independent state allied with Germany. The May 1939 census showed 214,000 Jews in 'Greater Germany' (including Germany, Austria, Sudentenland). On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and two days later France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of the Second World War.

Some German Jews still managed to emigrate after 1939. In October 1941 approximately 164,000 Jews were left in Germany. In late 1941 the Nazi regime began deportations of Jews from Germany to ghettos and camps to the East, and eventually to extermination camps. The Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland was dissolved in 1943.

Postscript

An estimated 160,000 to 180,000 German Jews, and 50,000 Austrian Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Of Jews who had resided in Czechoslovakia in 1938, an estimated 263,000 were killed in the Holocaust. After the liberation of the concentration camps by the Allies in April to May 1945, there were some 15,000 German Jews in Germany who had survived concentration camps, had been in hiding, or had remained free because they were in marriages with non-Jews. From late 1945 through 1946 a large population of East European Jewish Holocaust survivors arrived in Germany and Austria, and resided in displaced persons camps administered by an agency of the United Nations, until they were able to emigrate to Israel, the United States, or other destinations.

A new umbrella organization of Jewish communities, the Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland), was established in 1950. As of the early 1960s the Jewish population included some 6,000 German Jews who had remained in Germany, and 2,000 Jews from other countries who had settled there.

References

Elon, Amos. The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933. New York: Henry Holt, 2002.

Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. Various articles, including "Germany," by Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, et al., vol. 7, pp. 518-546.

Gay, Ruth. The Jews of Germany: a historical portrait. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.

German-Jewish History in Modern Times. Ed. Michael Meyer and Michael Brenner. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996-1998. 4 vols.