Most of Germany’s Jews considered themselves Germans who happened to be of Jewish faith or descent. But even those who had been honored with the Iron Cross were eventually murdered by the Nazis. In Jews and Germans, Guenter Lewy, political science professor at University of Massachusetts-Amherst (and a refugee from Nazi Germany), summarizes a long, troubled yet fruitful history. Antisemitism was always a factor, sometimes internalized as Jewish self-loathing and found among the country’s Communists as well as Nazis. Lewy repeatedly shows that dreams of assimilation were delusional. After Hitler came to power, few Jews left during the first years, convinced that persecution was a passing phase.
“I believe we must be wary of hindsight,” Lewy writes. “The systematic campaign of annihilation of the Jews that lay ahead was inconceivable,” he continues. Shockingly, some Jews actively cooperated with the Nazis, telling the world that the “atrocity stories” in foreign media were exaggerated.
