Association of German National Jews

The Association of German National Jews (Template:Lang-de, abbreviated VnJ) was a small assimilationist and nationalist organization of German Jews active during the Weimar Republic and the early years of Nazi Germany. Founded by Max Naumann in 1921, the association sought total assimilation of Jews into the German Volksgemeinschaft and promoted loyalty to the German state, even after the rise of Adolf Hitler. Despite its efforts to present itself as loyal to the regime, the organization was banned in 1935, and its founder was imprisoned by the Gestapo.

Origins and founding

The Association of German National Jews was established in March 1921 by Max Naumann, a Berlin lawyer and decorated World War I veteran who had served as a captain in the Bavarian Army and received the Iron Cross (1st and 2nd Class).^[1]

The VnJ’s founding statutes declared that its purpose was to represent “Germans of Jewish descent, who, while openly acknowledging their descent, feel so completely rooted in German culture and Wesen that they could not but think and feel as Germans.”^[2]

The association’s headquarters were based in Berlin, and membership never exceeded a few thousand. Contemporary estimates range from 3,000 to 10,000 members.^[3]

Ideology and objectives

Assimilation and nationalism

The VnJ promoted total Jewish assimilation into German society. It rejected Zionism, Marxism, and liberal cosmopolitanism, emphasizing absolute loyalty to the German nation-state.^[4] Naumann believed that Jews should cease to exist as a distinct national or cultural entity and instead define themselves solely as German citizens.^[5]

Opposition to Zionism and Ostjuden

The VnJ was fiercely anti-Zionist, viewing Zionism as disloyal to Germany and as a movement serving foreign (especially British) imperialist interests.^[6] The association also campaigned against Eastern European Jewish immigrants (Ostjuden), whom it regarded as “racially” and culturally inferior.^[7] Naumann and his followers claimed that Eastern Jews endangered Jewish assimilation and reinforced antisemitic stereotypes.^[8]

The Nazi Party and its press exploited VnJ statements on Ostjuden as evidence of alleged dangers of Eastern Jewish immigration, occasionally citing VnJ publications to bolster their propaganda.^[9]

Relationship with nationalist politics

Although the VnJ shared ideological affinities with the German National People's Party (DNVP) and other national-conservative movements, those parties refused to affiliate formally with it.^[7]

By the early 1930s, Naumann argued that Jews should accommodate themselves to the emerging Nazi order. In a 1934 manifesto, the association wrote:

"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."

^[10]

Despite these declarations of loyalty, the Nazi regime dismissed the VnJ’s overtures and regarded the organization with contempt.^[11]

Activities and publications

The association’s monthly journal, Der nationaldeutsche Jude, served as its official publication. It began circulation in 1921 under Naumann’s editorship and reached about 6,000 subscribers by 1927 and possibly 15,000 by 1934.^[12]

Articles in the journal attacked Zionism, Marxism, and liberal Jews while portraying the VnJ as the only loyal and patriotic Jewish voice. Prominent contributors included Naumann, Felix Rachfahl, Alfred Peyser, and Georg Siegmann.^[9]

The association also opposed the Jewish boycott of German goods and publicly urged foreign Jews not to participate, arguing that German Jews were being "fairly treated" by the Nazi state.^[7]

Decline and dissolution

The Nazi regime never accepted the Association of German National Jews as a legitimate intermediary. Following the passage of the Nuremberg Laws, the VnJ was declared illegal and dissolved on 18 November 1935. On that same day, Naumann was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned at the Columbia concentration camp, but he was released several weeks later.^[13] He died of cancer on 18 May 1939.^[13]

Most of the VnJ’s former members and their families were persecuted and murdered during the Holocaust.^[14]

Legacy and interpretation

Although numerically small, the VnJ has been widely discussed by historians as an extreme case of assimilationism and internalized antisemitism. Scholars such as Carl Rheins and Matthias Hambrock describe it as an example of how sections of the German-Jewish bourgeoisie internalized nationalist rhetoric in hopes of social acceptance.^[9][7]

Historians such as Lionel Gossman argue that the VnJ’s self-effacing ideology reveals the psychological pressures experienced by Jews attempting to reconcile patriotism with exclusion and persecution.^[15] Others have compared the association’s attitudes to later theories of respectability politics and internalized oppression.^[16]

See also

• German Vanguard
• Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten
• Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany
• Jewish assimilation
• Cultural assimilation
• Respectability politics
• Self-hating Jew
• Ostjuden
• Haavara Agreement