Jews in Leipzig - The University of Texas at Austin

y the mid-1960s, Jews were again useful to the regime as “positive” support, offering
affirmation of the regime’s claims to moral superiority over the west. In every form of
the German state in the 20 th century, political leaders engaged in rhetorical strategies and
concrete actions regarding Jews that were central for their self-representation and self-
definition.
But, as was indicated earlier, this study argues for Jewish agency under the GDR,
and this brings us to the central argument of this dissertation. One way to study Jewish
life in the 20 th century is to consider the varying freedom of Jews to define themselves
and their relationship to the larger German nation, and this level of freedom changes in
ways that reflect the comings and goings of various versions of the German state. During
the Weimar period, Jewish life in Leipzig was a virtually non-stop debate, a free market
of ideas and contention among Jews. The big questions were all on the table: Am I
Jewish or German? Is there a contradiction between the two? Is Zionism the answer?
How important is it that I was born in Germany or not? Whether I am Orthodox or
Reform? Jewish life during the Republic was defined by contention among and between
Jews, and a more or less free agency among them to define their place in German life.
The debates of the Weimar period came to an abrupt end beginning in 1933. The
Nazi regime quickly and forcefully took all choice out of the hands of Jews. Whether
they were Zionist or assimilationist, Reform or Orthodox, religious or secular soon
became quite irrelevant. The Nazi had their own ideas about the Jews, their own
definitions, and imposed them in the most brutal possible way. Questions for Jews no
longer concerned now-fanciful ideals like nationality and identity, but mere survival, and
many in Leipzig did not survive.
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