Greg Caplan

Wicked Sons, German Heros: Jewish Soldiers, Veterans, and Memories of World War I in Germany Greg Caplan

This study traces the journey of the solider in German-Jewish history from wicked son to German hero and back again. In traditional Jewish life, military service represented assimilation to the surrounding culture and rejection of the Jewish community. German-Jewish institutions did not embrace military masculinity until the birth of Zionism in the late 1800s. Jewish soldiers in the First World War believed their heroics in battle would at long last complete the integration of Jews into German society. After the war, the National Association of Jewish Combat Veterans (Reichsbund juedischer Frontsoldate, or RjF) organized combat patrols to defend their religious community against antisemitic attacks, and organized German Jewry welcomed the RjF's campaign to instill military masculinity in the younger generation. The RjF denounced Zionist and leftist Jews in the last years of the Weimar Republic, however, and then sought and received exemptions for veterans from antisemitic legislation in the first years of the Third Reich. In the eyes of many contemporaries, the leaders of the RjF became the wicked sons of German Jewry.