“The Jewish-German bourgeoisie would be very happy to be German nationalists, to belong to the new Germany. It is absolutely not opposed to a nationalist Germany,” declares Dr. Rosie Graefenberg, former wife of Franz Ullstein, one of the Ullstein brothers, whose newspapers and publishing enterprises have been one of the principal targets of the Nazi anti-Jewish attacks. Intellectual German-Jewry, according to Dr. Graefenberg feels that it belongs only in Germany, and that anti-Semitism is not a necessary component of German nationalism. As the daughter of a Jewish banker of Mannheim, and a journalist of wide experience, with friendships in the literary and political circles of Aryan Germany, Dr. Graefenberg feels herself a spokesman for German-Jewish intellectuals, especially for that section of it which is fearful of exciting Nazi reprisals. She has just arrived from Germany, but hastens to insist that she is not an envoy for any group or government.
“I want only to help the German-Jews by doing whatever is in my power to do to correct the terrible misunderstanding that has arisen,” she earnestly asserts. She feels that the plan to boycott German goods is a great mistake. “It is Mr. Untermyer and Rabbi Wise, who, with all good intentions, are doing us great harm. Do they not understand that by striking at German commerce they are striking directly at German-Jewish commerce as well?”
FEARS GERMAN REPRISAL
Continued pressure from without can only stimulate reprisal in Germany, she feels, and cause a great deal of suffering among the German Jews. Jews, as a separate group, were rapidly disappearing in Germany, she points out, due to the increasing high percentage of mixed marriages, and the low birth rate among racially pure Jews.
“The Jews of Germany have a very weak sense of race. We no longer feel ourselves separate as Jews, and now we cannot be Germans. For instance, here I have been to see the Chassidic play, ‘Yoshe Kalb.’ I thought it was splendid theatre, but I felt not the slightest vibration of racial response. They were better off, those Chassidim, perhaps, with their ecstatic belief, but we have not that belief—we are much more German nationalists.”
American Jews, Dr. Graefenberg insists, do not understand how completely the German Jews desire to be German, and through this misunderstanding are prolonging the difficulties that have arisen through a clever man’s exploitation of anti-Semitism as a political instrument. “I have been to America several times. Nowhere have I seen such upper-class anti-Semitism as exists here. In Chicago, the most influential Jews live in social isolation as in a ghetto. In Germany, Jews of the intellectual class were admitted everywhere socially; we felt ourselves German.”
HER FRIENDS ARYANS
Her high school and university friends were pure Aryans, she says, and “Aryan” is a word used frequently by Dr. Graefenberg. Some, who were her classmates at the University of Heidelberg, are high officials in the Nazi administration. Many of her journalist friends are members of the Nazi party. “During the growth of the party, and when it first came into power, it was felt that the old Jewish families would not be molested, that they would be permitted to join in the creation of a new Germany when the party was in full power.
“The anti-Semitism was chiefly directed against the Eastern Jews who had come into Germany after the war. It was, in fact, hoped that the anti-Jewish feeling would be drawn off into an anti-Marxist campaign.” It was only the foreign atrocity propaganda, which followed the heated writings of Lion Feuchtwanger, that precipitated the violent anti-Jewish campaign, Dr. Graefenberg feels. “Feuchtwanger is not the proper spokesman of German Jews at this moment. He was out of the country, he did not know what was going on.”
Hitler, according to Dr. Graefenberg, is not at all the madman that he is here proclaimed. “You must understand that he is a very clever man, very clever.” His use of anti-Semitism as a red herring to draw the attention of the masses from more important issues she describes as “a stroke of genius, from the propaganda point of view, for the immediate situation, but perhaps not so useful in the long run.”
“A QUIET REVOLUTION”
But what will become of Germany, and the Jews in Germany, is now her greatest concern. Destined before to a gradual, natural, and painless absorption, the Jews now seem to be faced with painful extinction. “The youth, especially, has no way to turn, absolutely none.” Emigration is a vague and difficult escape. Intermarriage is no longer possible. The only hope, she feels, is in the lessening of persecution which will follow the abandonment of outside pressure.
She minimizes the tales of beatings and persecutions of Jews.
“Do not mistake me; I am not here in escape or exile. This visit was planned before the trouble broke out. I shall certainly return to Germany. Why, the German Jews of my generation were always with Aryans. After the war, the problems of German life were so absorbing that we forgot all about being Jews. We were so concerned with German reconstruction. The great tragedy of our generation now is that the government pretends no Jew can be a German, while our generation forgot how to be Jews.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
