A love gone sour

The Pity of It All: A Portrait of Jews in Germany 1743-1933
by Amos Elon
403pp, Allen Lane, £25

Amos Elon, an Israeli historian born in Europe, has written a beautifully balanced history of a tragic, one-sided love affair. As he says: "Before Hitler rose to power, other Europeans often feared, admired, envied and ridiculed the Germans; only Jews seemed actually to have loved them". No other group of European Jews tried so hard to become a part of their host country.

Elon begins his main narrative with the arrival of Moses Mendelssohn in Berlin in 1743, at the age of 14. He was not the first, since Jews had never been totally expelled from Germany, but the reign of Frederick the Great, considered an icon of the enlightenment (though he never overcame his personal antipathy to Jews), made Prussia's capital a promising goal for ethnic minorities. Mendelssohn was the first Jew to rise to prominence in the main stream of German culture, a philosopher who became the most revered figure of the German enlightenment and the inspiration behind Gotthold Lessing's famous play Nathan the Wise. He also encouraged Jews to assimilate. Although he remained an observant Jew, he urged Jews to adopt the customs of the land in which they lived and, most importantly, advocated the use of high German as a secular, day-to-day language, believing that without fluency in German they would remain foreigners for ever.

The 18th century was a promising time for German Jewry, particularly in Prussia. In 1779 an anonymous author remarked on the high level of civilisation among Jews in Berlin, and the fact that they socialised with Christians. Wealthier Jews now gave their children a German education, with an emphasis on German Kultur as well as language. Bildung, the refinement of the self in keeping with enlightenment ideals, would make them true Germans. Cultured Jewish women were now running salons where Germans and Jews, men and women, could mix freely. They were famous and popular, even if the hospitality was not returned by wealthy non-Jews. (Shortly after getting himself baptised in a vain attempt to earn a living, Heinrich Heine wrote with bitter irony: "I am becoming a proper Christian. I sponge off rich Jews.")

By the late 18th century there were a large number of conversions. In Berlin, it was claimed, half the Jewish community converted, including four of Moses Mendelssohn's six children. For the most part, non-practising Jews became non-practising Christians, and the motives were pragmatic: too many positions were not open to Jews.

The status of German Jews changed radically, if only temporarily, with Napoleon's defeat of Prussia in 1806. In most of Germany Jews were finally emancipated and granted full political rights. In Düsseldorf, Heine saw the hereditary ruler lose his crown and his father don the uniform of the local civil guard. Not since the middle ages, apparently, had a Jew held such an office, and he celebrated the event by treating his fellow officers to a barrel of wine. Frederick William III of Prussia dragged his feet, but was finally persuaded by liberal civil servants to approve an edict of emancipation that annulled most of the existing restrictive laws, at least in theory.

Most of these gains were reversed with the defeat of Napoleon. Enlightenment and reason gave way to romanticism and irrational, blind nationalism. The new nationalism was linked to Christianity, and claimed a mystical union between tribe and state which, by definition, excluded Jews. The philosopher JG Fichte gave voice to the new anti-semitism and defined nations in organic terms, as born of a common "mystical experience of the soul". Dwindling support for Jewish emancipation was reflected in the emergence in Berlin of the new Christian German Dining Club, which excluded women, Frenchmen and Jews, including converts. The members included almost the entire non-Jewish intellectual elite, and they gloried in the abuse of Jews. Kleist, Brentano and Carl von Clausewitz were among the members, as well as the future husband of Rahel Levin, who presided over Berlin's most famous Jewish salon. If the philosophy sounds familiar enough to those who had the misfortune to live through the Third Reich, at least Germany's 20th-century intellectuals for the most part distanced themselves from it.

The risings of 1848 brought new hope to all liberals, including Jews, whose situation made them natural liberals within the political spectrum. But the optimism was short-lived. "The Germans will forever be / Respectful of Authority", wrote Heine. The fragmentation of Germany was also a hindrance to political change, and Jews now pinned their hopes on unification, which did indeed lead to formal - if not actual - emancipation in 1867.

But by now the old dislike of Jews had turned to envy and fear. They had become too wealthy, seemed to dominate every business and profession from which they were not excluded. They were blamed for the stock market crash of 1873, and for every disaster that was to overtake Germany in the years that followed.

Elon has written an excellent, well-rounded and unprejudiced account of a fascinating and heart-rending subject. In no other European country have Jews given so much, not only as entrepreneurs but in the arts and sciences. No other of group of Jews has shown so much love for the country it regarded as home, and reaped such a bitter harvest.

Eva Figes's Tales of Innocence and Experience: An Exploration will be published next year by Bloomsbury.

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