Jews in Leipzig - The University of Texas at Austin

their word. In the interwar period, Leipzig had an extremely active and popular Zionist
movement, with youth activities, sports, a vibrant women’s wing, and an increasingly
prominent and respectable role in Jewish public life in the city. Zionism, in its varied
forms, provided many Jews in Leipzig with a rhetorical home, and the numbers attracted
to it only grew over time. But of course, there was another approach to questions of
Jewish identity in Germany.
The first local meeting of the anti-Zionist Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger
jüdischen Glaubens (the Central Organization of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith,
the CV) was held in Leipzig 14 years earlier, at the Centraltheater in the downtown
Thomasring. The initial Vorstand was comprised of three businessmen, two lawyers, and
a Rabbi. By 1917, the Reform Gemeinderabbiner Dr. Felix Goldmann was involved in
the leadership of the local CV, writing letters to the police on their behalf. The CV, as in
other cities, pursued an assimilationist program, including talks on “Die Jüdische
Internationale” (a debunking session) in 1926, and “Der Jude als deutscher Staatsbürger
und Kulturbürger” [The Jew as a citizen of the German state and culture] in 1928. The
latter meeting was broken up by a contingent of 150 NSDAP men, who were then
confronted outside by the center-left Reichsbanner paramilitary. The ensuing disturbance
was broken up by the police who filed the report on the meeting. 61
What divided the camps was obvious: a fundamental disagreement over the nature
of Jewishness and nationality. The opposing groups represented a basic division, and
played out that division, in ways familiar to most students of the period. There were
public relation campaigns, affiliations with political parties, public events, and a serious
61 StAL PP-V 5007 “Akten des Polizei der Stadt Leipzig, betreffend den Zentralverein [sic] deutscher
Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens Orstgr. Leipzig, 1911-40”. Unpaginated.
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