Felix the Cat
12-17-2005, 04:55 AM
A German-Jewish renaissance (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/658647.html)
Six decades after the end of Nazism, Jews are again putting down roots in Germany. This new sense of home is indicated not by theoretical declarations, but by material facts. Money makes the world go round - in Germany like everywhere else.
The postwar careers of Jewish bankers are marking the return of German Jews to the center of German society. The foremost figure here is Bernd Knobloch, 54, who for three years now has been CEO of Eurohypo, Germany's largest mortgage bank. His colleague Nicholas Teller is a member of the executive board at Commerzbank.
Jewish bankers have an exalted tradition in Germany, exemplified but by no means restricted to the Rothschild family. From their home city of Frankfurt am Main, the Rothschilds established a leading position in banking across Europe. Equally well-known in Europe is Gerson Bleichröder (1822-1893), the banker who was among the closest advisers to Otto von Bismarck, who founded the modern German Empire in 1871 and who was its chancellor for nearly 20 years.
Until 1933, half of Germany's private banks were in Jewish hands. One of the first anti-Semitic measures implemented by the Nazi regime was to expropriate the Jewish banking houses as part of its campaign of "Aryanization." Only after this were the Jews gradually stripped of their rights, ending in genocide.
Following the destruction of the Nazi Reich in 1945, small Jewish communities timidly established themselves in German cities. Before the Nazis came to power, Germany was home to more than half a million Jews. After Hitler, only 5 percent remained, just 25,000 people. The Jews were ashamed to live in the country of their families' murderers. And so it was five years before the Hebrew community dared, in 1950, to found a national umbrella organization. Its name was a psychological admission: "Central Council of Jews in Germany." The German Jews who had formerly been proud of their German homeland - although the non-Jewish majority never accepted them as German - had become an anxious community of Jews in Germany.
As a result, the Jews in Germany felt they were passing through. "We are sitting on packed suitcases," was the way they usually described themselves. Germany's Jews claimed to be Zionists. Sooner or later, they wanted to make aliya. From a Zionist point of view, however, they were merely going through the motions. They wanted to emigrate to Israel, they dreamed of it, but they fulfilled aliya only after they died - arranging to be buried as "good Jews" in Eretz ha kodesh (Holy Land).
These Jews did stay in Germany - they lived here, got married here (two-thirds of them to non-Jewish partners), and worked here. But the fear of a resurgence of anti-Semitism had gnawed its way deep into their souls. This was also reflected in their professional lives. Most of them worked independently in commerce and in the service sector. Careers in the civil service or senior management, requiring a long-term outlook, were deliberately avoided. In this way, Germany's Jews were able to live in accord with their fear - that if hostility to Jews were to flare up again, they would turn their backs on the country quickly, this time for good. The German government's commitment to take responsibility for the genocide, to close ties with Israel, and payment of reparations did little to calm their fears.
A turning point in attitudes among Germany's Jews came 15 years ago. In 1990, the Soviet Union collapsed and Germany was reunified. Since then, more than 100,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union immigrated to Germany. To the Jews already in Germany, this influx was indirect proof of their own secure position - and to non-Jewish society at large, it demonstrated the Jews' renewed acceptance of Germany.
This change shows in the careers of Bernd Knobloch and Nicholas Teller. Initially, Knobloch became an independent businessman, like his father. But at the end of the 1980s, Deutsche Bank wooed the capable manager, not caring in the slightest that he was a practicing Jew and an active Cohen. Knobloch abandoned his independent status and became a successful banker. He was soon promoted to the top of the dynamic Eurohypo bank, whose outstanding success culminated in a merger with Commerzbank, forming Germany's second-largest financial institution.
Nicholas Teller, on the other hand, pursued his career at Commerzbank. An English-born Jew, he had never felt any qualms about working for a German financial institution, single-mindedly working his way onto the executive board.
Above all, older German Jews are traumatized by the Holocaust. But younger generations are coming increasingly to trust their German homeland. The careers of the bankers Knobloch and Teller are symbolic of the German-Jewish renaissance. In a parallel development, a generation of Jewish publicists, writers, and journalists has grown up in Germany and become part of the country's intellectual life.
Six decades after the end of Nazism, Jews are again putting down roots in Germany. This new sense of home is indicated not by theoretical declarations, but by material facts. Money makes the world go round - in Germany like everywhere else.
The postwar careers of Jewish bankers are marking the return of German Jews to the center of German society. The foremost figure here is Bernd Knobloch, 54, who for three years now has been CEO of Eurohypo, Germany's largest mortgage bank. His colleague Nicholas Teller is a member of the executive board at Commerzbank.
Jewish bankers have an exalted tradition in Germany, exemplified but by no means restricted to the Rothschild family. From their home city of Frankfurt am Main, the Rothschilds established a leading position in banking across Europe. Equally well-known in Europe is Gerson Bleichröder (1822-1893), the banker who was among the closest advisers to Otto von Bismarck, who founded the modern German Empire in 1871 and who was its chancellor for nearly 20 years.
Until 1933, half of Germany's private banks were in Jewish hands. One of the first anti-Semitic measures implemented by the Nazi regime was to expropriate the Jewish banking houses as part of its campaign of "Aryanization." Only after this were the Jews gradually stripped of their rights, ending in genocide.
Following the destruction of the Nazi Reich in 1945, small Jewish communities timidly established themselves in German cities. Before the Nazis came to power, Germany was home to more than half a million Jews. After Hitler, only 5 percent remained, just 25,000 people. The Jews were ashamed to live in the country of their families' murderers. And so it was five years before the Hebrew community dared, in 1950, to found a national umbrella organization. Its name was a psychological admission: "Central Council of Jews in Germany." The German Jews who had formerly been proud of their German homeland - although the non-Jewish majority never accepted them as German - had become an anxious community of Jews in Germany.
As a result, the Jews in Germany felt they were passing through. "We are sitting on packed suitcases," was the way they usually described themselves. Germany's Jews claimed to be Zionists. Sooner or later, they wanted to make aliya. From a Zionist point of view, however, they were merely going through the motions. They wanted to emigrate to Israel, they dreamed of it, but they fulfilled aliya only after they died - arranging to be buried as "good Jews" in Eretz ha kodesh (Holy Land).
These Jews did stay in Germany - they lived here, got married here (two-thirds of them to non-Jewish partners), and worked here. But the fear of a resurgence of anti-Semitism had gnawed its way deep into their souls. This was also reflected in their professional lives. Most of them worked independently in commerce and in the service sector. Careers in the civil service or senior management, requiring a long-term outlook, were deliberately avoided. In this way, Germany's Jews were able to live in accord with their fear - that if hostility to Jews were to flare up again, they would turn their backs on the country quickly, this time for good. The German government's commitment to take responsibility for the genocide, to close ties with Israel, and payment of reparations did little to calm their fears.
A turning point in attitudes among Germany's Jews came 15 years ago. In 1990, the Soviet Union collapsed and Germany was reunified. Since then, more than 100,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union immigrated to Germany. To the Jews already in Germany, this influx was indirect proof of their own secure position - and to non-Jewish society at large, it demonstrated the Jews' renewed acceptance of Germany.
This change shows in the careers of Bernd Knobloch and Nicholas Teller. Initially, Knobloch became an independent businessman, like his father. But at the end of the 1980s, Deutsche Bank wooed the capable manager, not caring in the slightest that he was a practicing Jew and an active Cohen. Knobloch abandoned his independent status and became a successful banker. He was soon promoted to the top of the dynamic Eurohypo bank, whose outstanding success culminated in a merger with Commerzbank, forming Germany's second-largest financial institution.
Nicholas Teller, on the other hand, pursued his career at Commerzbank. An English-born Jew, he had never felt any qualms about working for a German financial institution, single-mindedly working his way onto the executive board.
Above all, older German Jews are traumatized by the Holocaust. But younger generations are coming increasingly to trust their German homeland. The careers of the bankers Knobloch and Teller are symbolic of the German-Jewish renaissance. In a parallel development, a generation of Jewish publicists, writers, and journalists has grown up in Germany and become part of the country's intellectual life.