Der Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus: Zum Verhältnis von Protestantismus und Judentum im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik (review)

Abstract

Der Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus: Zum Verhaltnis von Protestantismus und Judentum im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik, by Auguste Zeis-Horbach. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2008. 462 pp. euro44. The book under review is a dissertation, handed in at faculty of theology at University of Leipzig. Its author, Auguste Zeis-Horbach, working currently as parish pastor and spiritual advisor in hospitals, claims at outset of her investigation that her main objective is to make a contribution to determine relationship between Protestantism and Jewt y in German Empire and in Republic of Weimar (p. U) by analyzing history of Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus (VAA, Association in Defense against Antisemitism), founded in 1893. This organization assembled numerous more or less renowned Protestant intellectuals, politicians (like Heinrich Rickert and Friedrich Naumann), and clergymen but also Catholics and German Jews (pp. 63-66), though in far lesser numbers. Unlike other related topics, this subject hitherto has been largely neglected (a fact, by way, which Zeis-Horbach fails to point out clearly enough [pp. 21-28], perhaps for reasons of false modesty). This could be because sources are difficult to trace. In particular, archive of VAA is regarded as lost, except for personal papers of former civil servant and later politician Georg Gothein, chairman from 1909 until nearly voluntarily self-dissolution of VAA in July 1933, and the search for other sources is arduous, as author stresses (p. 29; cf. p. 113). Zeis-Horbach tried to make best out of this bad situation by exploring an impressive amount of material in many archives and even a vast amount of published sources, first of all official organ of VAA, Mitteilungen (Notes, Information) which in 1925 received catchier (p. 33) title Abwehrblatter (Sheets of Defense). Hence, by and large, Zeis-Horbach succeeds in closing above-stated research deficit in a quite convincing and extensive manner. She not only gives a rather broad account of evolution of VAA, illustrating it also by means of a case study, which she calls - somewhat exaggeratedly - a regional paradigm (p. 13), but she also explores values and of its members in general, who belonged basically to a milieu of left-wing liberal German citizens, so-called cultural-protestants (Kulturprotestanten, p. 15), as well as of numerous Protestant theologians in particular. Above all, she argues convincingly that many Jews didn't feel represented by VAA, which led to decision to found, as early as 1893, Centralverein deutscher Staatsburger judischen Glaubens (Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith, pp. 132-134). This situation was caused by two fundamental problems, which were, first, a lack of broad public effect, a consequence not least because of an aversion to cut rent methods of political mobilization; and second, certain inconsistencies among members of VAA concerning attitudes against Jews as Jews. …