The Association of German National Jews (, VnJ) was a

German Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...

organization which was formed during the early years of the rule of the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

and during the early years of the rule of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, that eventually came out in support of

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

. The organization primarily attracted members from the

anticommunist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism, communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global ...

middle class, small business owners, self-employed professionals such as physicians and lawyers, national conservatives, and

nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

World War I veterans, many of whom believed that Nazi antisemitism was only a rhetorical tool used to "stir up the masses."The ''Verband nationaldeutscher Juden'' 1921–1933
by Carl J. Rheins in the '' Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook'', Volume 25, Issue 1, p. 243-268. In 1935, the organization was outlawed, and its founder and leader Max Naumann was briefly imprisoned by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

at the Columbia concentration camp, but was released after only a few weeks; he died of cancer on May 18, 1939. Another, smaller group of Jews for Hitler was the German Vanguard.

History, goals, outcome

The Association of German National Jews was founded in 1921 by Max Naumann, who was its chairman until 1926, and, again, from 1933 to 1935, when the association was forcibly dissolved.Sarah Ann Gordon, ''Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Question"'', p. 47 The association was close to the national conservative and monarchist

German National People's Party The German National People's Party (, DNVP) was a national-conservative and German monarchy, monarchist political party in Germany during the Weimar Republic. Before the rise of the Nazi Party, it was the major nationalist party in Weimar German ...

which, however, refused affiliation to the association. The goal of the association was the total assimilation of Jews into the German

Volksgemeinschaft ''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community", Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community" ...

, self-eradication of Jewish identity, and the expulsion from Germany of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.Robert S. Wistrich, ''Who's Who in Nazi Germany'' (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982), p. 177. Naumann was especially opposed to Zionists,

Marxists Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, and ...

and Eastern European Jews ('' Ostjuden''). He considered the former threats to Jewish integration, and carriers of a "racist" ideology serving British imperial purposes. He saw the latter as "racially" and spiritually "inferior". The agitation carried out by the VnJ against the ''Ostjuden'' was particularly welcomed by the Nazis to point out the supposedly great dangers of Eastern Jewish immigration to Germany. The association's official organ was the monthly , edited by Max Naumann. The magazine had a circulation of 6,000 in 1927. Among the activities of the association was the fight against the international anti-Nazi boycott of German products. It also issued a manifesto that claimed that the Jews were being "fairly treated". In 1934, the association made the following statement:

We have always held the well-being of the German people and the fatherland, to which we feel inextricably linked, above our own well-being. Thus, we greeted the results of January 1933, even though it has brought hardship for us personally.

A reason why some German Jews supported Hitler was that they thought that his anti-Semitism was only for "stirring up the masses". Also, they adhered to a kind of respectability politics that led many non-Jews in the German Reich to congratulate the VnJ with the phrase, ''"If only all Jews were like you."'' The seemingly ironic fact that a Jewish association advocated loyalty to the Nazi program gave rise to a contemporary joke about Naumann and his followers ending their meeting by giving the Nazi salute and shouting "Down With Us!". Despite the extreme nationalism of Naumann and his colleagues, the Nazi regime did not accept them. The Association of German National Jews was declared illegal and dissolved on 18 November 1935. Naumann was arrested by the

the same day, and imprisoned at the Columbia concentration camp. He was released after a few weeks, and died of cancer in May 1939. Most other members and their families were murdered in

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

History, goals, outcome

See also

References

Further reading