On Being a German Jew in the ‘Golden Years’

Abstract

Abstract Although the preponderance of his life was spent in England, FA Mann’s German birth and education and Jewish background are determinative features of his biography, if only because racial persecution in Germany was the immediate catalyst for his emigration to England. ‘German Jews’ and ‘Jews in Germany’ are topics that have dramatically changed since the time when Mann grew up and lived—i.e. in pre-Holocaust, pre-Cold War Germany. Mann was born during a period often referred to as the ‘Golden Years’ of German Jewry, when the emancipation of Jews in German society had reached a point of unprecedented equality, and Mann’s home state was among the more advanced. In hindsight, this period only lasted two or three generations (i.e. between 1871 and 1933). But the achievements of these generations were substantial and the subsequent downfall was equally unprecedented. This chapter explores Mann’s biography as a German Jew, reflecting on what being Jewish and German meant in Mann’s day and what it means in ours.