Review: A History of Jews in Germany since 1945 - The Jewish Chronicle

A Jewish presence in Germany after 1945 seemed anomalous and unimaginable. Most German Jews who had found refuge abroad since 1933 could not contemplate returning. In 1948, the World Jewish Congress declared "the determination of the Jewish people never again to settle on the bloodstained soil of Germany". The herem (excommunication) seemed to spell finis to the 1,000-year history of German Jewry.

Yet, today, Germany boasts the third-largest Jewish community in Europe, with sturdy institutions, rebuilt synagogues and communal centres, and strong government support. Jewish culture life is buoyant. Antisemitism is at a low ebb. German Jewry now finds an accepted place both in Germany society and among world Jewry.

How has this dramatic transformation come about? How substantial is it? What is the relationship between this restored community and the granduer of German Jewry of yore? These are some of the questions that this book tackles.

Ther are really four distinct sets of Jews in Germany today. The first, and smallest, consists of descendants of pre-1933 Germany Jews. A few had survived the war in hiding or in "privileged"marriages to non-Jews. Others returned from prison camps or from exile in places such as Shanghai, notwithstanding the taboo on resettlement. A second group comprises descendants of "displaced persons" from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, who fled to the American occupation zone of Germany between 1945 and 1949. Then there were Russian Jews who arrived in West Germany from the 1970s onwards. Finally, there are many ex-Israelis, many of whom have immigrated in recent years. As a result of all this, Germany Jewry today is not very German, at any rate in the sense that it is largely composed of immigrants or their offspring.

It is also not very Jewish, at any rate in a religious sense. A survey of Russian Jews in Germany in 1996 asked: "What does being Jewish mean to you?" Only two per cent of the respondents checked the box for "religious affiliation". Of the estimated 200,000 Jews (according to an expansive definition) in the country today, barely half are formal community members. Michael Brenner reports that the approximately 20,000 Israelis who live in Berlin, "are developing their own culture and only rarely belong to the official Jewish community".

This book provides a well-informed survey of developments in the four occupation zones in the late 1940s, in East and West Germany between 1949 and 1990, and in the reunited Federal Republic in recent years. The approach is realistic and by no means merely celebratory.

Due attention is paid to the internal conflicts. Scandals are not glossed over: for example, balanced accounts are given of the disturbing cases of Philipp Auerbach and Werner Nachmann, communal big shots who embezzled vast sums of restitution funds.

But the book is too long, mainly because of tiresome repetitions. And, in spite of its length, there are lacunae. The sociology of Germany Jewry, its occupational patterns and social mobility are treated in vague, general terms. We learn little about women: it is symptomatic that most of the photographs are of men.

On the surface, German Jewry today appears prosperous and self-confident. But the armed guards and barriers outside schools, synagogues and other Jewish institutions tell their own tale. An underlying sense of insecurity and abnormality subsists.

Meanwhile, the survival of the community depends heavily on immigration: even more than elsewhere in Europe, the Jews of Germany are disproprotionately elderly, and deaths far exceed births. German Jews no longer live with their bags packed but they remain sojourners in a haunted land.

Bernard Wasserstein is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Chcicago. He lives in Amsterdam.