Jews in Germany before the Holocaust

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• different academic approaches to Jewish history and culture
• the relationship between Jews and non-Jews in Germany
• the transformation of Jewish life during the long 19th and early 20th centuries

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• evaluate different scholarly approaches to the study of Jewish life in Germany
• show a critical understanding of the nature of minority-majority relations
• make connections between political, social, and cultural developments and the formation of identities
• analyze primary and secondary sources in the framework of Jewish history and culture
• integrate textual analysis with secondary research

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• produce coherent and well-argued written work
• work confidently with library, archival and virtual sources as appropriate

We will discuss the relationship between German history and Jewish history and ask how both can be integrated. We learn about the Jewish enlightenment, the Haskalah, and follow the path to emancipation and the Jewish responses to modernity. We study the emerging dilemmas of Jewish identity in imperial Germany and World War I, the Jewish response to the radicalisation of Anti-Semitism, and the short-lived but intense hopes connected to the Weimar Republic. During the module the following questions will be addressed:

Did Jews consider themselves primarily Jewish or German?

How were they perceived by others?

What was their relationship with non-Jewish Germans, as individuals and communities?

In answering these questions you will engage with a wide range of primary sources including documents, testimonies, literature, and films. You will also debate the diverging scholarly approaches to this history, which since 1945 has often been read through the lens of the Holocaust.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

Short introductory lectures which may include some group work/participation

Seminars focusing on the detailed reading and analysis of primary sources – these could be texts, images or objects

Learning activities include:

In depth analysis of primary sources

Preparatory reading and individual study

Individual participation in seminars, group work and short presentations on seminar themes

Discussion in seminars will help you to develop your ideas on a topic, to analyse a range of source material and to articulate a critical argument.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Werner Bergmann (2002). Exclusionary Violence: Antisemitic Riots in Modern German History.

Michael A. Meyer et al (eds.) (1996-2000). German-Jewish History in Modern Times.

Steven E. Aschheim (1982). Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800-1923.

Mordechai Breuer (1992). Modernity Within Tradition: The Social History of Orthodox Jewry in Imperial Germany.

Peter Pulzer (1992). Jews and the German State: The Political History of a Minority, 1848-1933.

Michael Brenner, Vicki Caron and Uri R. Kaufman (eds.) (2003). Jewish Emancipation Reconsidered: The French and German Models.

Shulamit Volkov (2006). Germans, Jews, and Antisemites: Trials in Emancipation.

Paul Mendes-Flohr (1999). German Jews: A Dual Identity.

Helmut Walser Smith (ed.) (2001). Protestants, Catholics and Jews in Germany, 1800-1914.

Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz (eds.) (1995). The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History.

Neil Gregor, Nils Roemer, Mark Roseman (eds.) (2006). German History from the Margins.

Jacob Katz (1978). Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation, 1770-1870.

David Sorkin (1987). The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780-1840.

Amos Elon (2004). The Pity of It All: A Portrait of Jews in Germany 1743-1933.

Marion Kaplan (1991). The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany.

Jehuda Reinharz and Walter Schatzberg (eds.) (1985). The Jewish Response to German Culture: From the Enlightenment to the Second World War.

Rainer Liedtke and David Rechter (eds.) (2003). Towards Normality? Acculturation and Modern German Jewry.

Till van Rahden (2008). Jews and other Germans: Civil Society, Religious Diversity, and Urban Politics in Breslau, 1860-1925.

Sander Gilman and J. Zipes (eds.) (1997). Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture.

Michael Brenner (1991). The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany.

Ritchie Robertson (ed.) (1999). The German-Jewish Dialogue.

George Mosse (1985). German Jews beyond Judaism.

Werner E. Mosse (1987). Jews in the German Economy: The German-Jewish-Economic Elite, 1820-1935.

Nils H. Roemer (2005). Jewish Scholarship and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Germany: Between History and Faith.

Peter Pulzer (1988). The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria.

Michael Brenner and Derek J. Penslar (eds.) (1998). In Search of Jewish Community: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918-1933.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External