The Evolution of German-Jewish Intermarriage Laws and Practices in Germany to 1900 Christopher W

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The Evolution of German-Jewish Intermarriage Laws and Practices in Germany to 1900

Christopher W. Griffin

A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2005

The members of the Committee approve the Thesis of Christopher Griffin defended on April 27, 2005.

______Nathan Stoltzfus Professor Directing Thesis

______Michael Creswell Committee Member

______Suzanne Sinke Committee Member

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Though there are undoubtedly far too many people who contributed to the completion of this thesis to be thanked properly within the confines of this page, I would like to take this opportunity to extend special statements of appreciation and acknowledgement to those most responsible. My acknowledgements begin, of course, with my major professor, Nathan Stoltzfus. Without his insights, critiques, and encouragement, this project would never have got off the ground. The other members of my thesis committee, Suzanne Sinke and Michael Creswell, provided excellent critiques and overwhelming patience throughout the project. During my graduate studies, I have had the great pleasure of working under Max Friedman as a researcher and grader. The lessons he has taught me, both as a scholar and a mentor, have proven to be some of the most valuable parts of my graduate education. I will bare a debt to all of them for any future successes. The department of History at the Florida State University has attracted an excellent group of graduate students in the last few years. Without their unwavering friendship, devotion to improvement, and willingness to put up with me, I would never have survived graduate school. Rachael Cherry has been the best friend I have ever known. Her desire to succeed has rivaled my own and she pushes me to be better than I am. Amy Carney has often served as the sounding board for my ideas. Bouncing ideas off of each other (sometimes literally) and poking holes through each other’s arguments have made the writing of this thesis much more fun then it should have been and certainly more rewarding. Finally, to my wife and my daughter, thank you for providing the motivation to make myself worthy of you. You are the treasures of my life.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES………….……………………….……………………….v ABSTRACT…….…………………………………………………………...vi

INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………...1

CHAPTER ONE: INTERMARRIAGE IN GERMANY TO 1848.………….9

I. Jews in the Roman Empire ..…………………………………………………………….10 II. Jews in Medieval Europe .……….……………………………………………………….16 III. Social Changes in the Early Modern Period ..…………………………………………...21 IV. Intermarriage As Part of the Religious Struggle Over Civil Marriage ..…………………..24 Conclusion .…………………………………………………………………………………31

CHAPTER TWO: THE FORMATION OF GERMAN INTERMARRIAGE LAWS…………………………………………………………....32

I. Jewish Equality and Citizenship ..…………………………………………………………33 II. Unification and the Kulturkampf……………………………………………………………….….38 III. Civil Marriage………………………………………………………………………………42 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………....48

CHAPTER THREE: THE IMPACT OF INTERMARRIAGE IN NINETEENTH CENTURY GERMANY……………………….50

I. Intermarriage Trends………………………………………………………………….……51 II. Intermarried Couples………………………………………………………………….……55 III. Opposition to Intermarriage………………………………………………………………...60 IV. The Struggle for a German Identity………………………………………………………..66 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………68

CONCLUSION ...………………………………………………………..…70

BIBLIOGRAPHY ……...…………………………………………………..73

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH………………………………………………..79

LIST OF TABLES

Table I: Breakdown of religious confessions in Prussia 39 following the Austro-Prussia War.

Table II: non-Jewish Intermarriage in Prussia, 1875-1900 53

Table III: Marriage in Prussia 1885, 1890, 1895 56

ABSTRACT

In 1875, citizens throughout the recently formed German nation were for the first time allowed to intermarry without conversion. Over the course of the next fifty years, German Jews marriages to German non-Jews increased to such a level that German-Jewish intermarriage became one of the central issues in German-Jewish relations. This thesis places intermarriage within the larger frameworks of German-Jewish relations and German-Jewish history. It develops a new interpretation of the evolution and legalization of intermarriage. The legalization of intermarriage took place within the framework of the kulturkampf and civil marriage debates of the early 1870s. Though intermarriage between German Jews and German non-Jews would become far more frequent after the turn of the century, intermarriage during the late nineteenth century had far more important political, religious, and social implications than mere numbers would suggest.

INTRODUCTION

In 1875, citizens throughout the recently formed German nation were for the first time allowed to intermarry without conversion.1 The German Reichstag and Bundesrat expanded a modified version of an existing law, the 1874 Prussian Law of Personal Status, to include the entire empire.2 This law made civil marriage mandatory for all marriages in Germany, removing a long standing obstacle to marriage between Jewish Germans and non-Jewish Germans. Over the course of the next fifty years, German Jews marriages to German non-Jews increased to such a level that German-Jewish intermarriage became one of the central issues in German-Jewish relations. German-Jewish intermarriages had far more important political, religious, and social implications than mere numbers would suggest. The dual nature of marriage as both a spiritual and a secular union made it a chronic source of tension between German churches and states. Given the added tension of incorporating a stigmatized foreign group into the German identity, it is small wonder that intermarriage commanded such importance. Following each step in the unification process, serious discussions about marital laws and practices occurred, keeping intermarriage debates at the forefront of national and religious discussions. Only in 1875 were the debates settled and intermarriage legalized. Though intermarriage was numerically insignificant until the last years of the nineteenth century, it remained a focal point for German- Jewish relations and relations between the state and religious groups. This study examines the social and political aspects of marriage between Jews and non- Jews in Germany in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It explores the formation of laws in the new German state that allowed intermarriage, the impact of those laws on German and

1 In this paper, “Germany” refers to the areas which make up the state after unification in 1871. Germany underwent several territorial changes from 1871 to 1945, and when appropriate, these changes are noted in the text.

2 The Reichstag and Bundesrat were the lower and upper houses, respectively, of the bicameral legislature in the German Imperial Government.

Jewish community self-identification, and comparisons to other forms of intermarriage in the German empire. Important political and social repercussions followed the laws allowing intermarriage, including increased Jewish assimilation, racial anti-Semitism, and questions of identity. Intermarriage as a sociological term refers to marriages that take place across group boundaries. Depending on where one sets those boundaries, whether it be religious, ethnic, class, or skin tone, what constitutes an intermarriage varies widely. Indeed, the marriage within a family (which is the smallest social group) is the only form of marriage that cannot be considered intermarriage.3 For the purposes of this study, I have classified intermarriages as marriage between German Jews and German non-Jews. Intermarriage is the ultimate crucible of social discussions of race and sex. Far more than non-marital sex, marriage constitutes legitimization of the act of sex by the church, society, and/or the state. Non-marital sex, though illicit, was generally tolerated because it was temporary and private and did not reflect consent by society or the government.4 During the nineteenth century, as race became a social concept and racial awareness increased concurrently with nationalism, the intermixing of races assumed new importance. Because there was such a stigma against Jews in Germany, legitimization of mixing with them constituted a watershed event in German–Jewish history. During the years of unification, the developing German nation was forced to continually redefine itself as it incorporated new areas and new social groups that changed the make-up of the national group identity. Every time society and the state changed, the social consent for sex and procreation would have to be redefined to incorporate or exclude groups in the new social unit.

3 Robert Merton analyzes the social structure of intermarriages. He asserts that all marriages are technically intermarriage, as these marriages necessarily occur across a social boundary. The family unit is the most basic of socially-bounded groups, and incest is universally tabooed. Intermarriage is an analytical term, based on the a subjective line being crossed. The two parties must identify with different group affiliations that are culturally or politically defined. Robert Merton, "Intermarriage and the Social Structure: Fact and Theory," Psychiatry 4, (1941): 361-374.

4 As we will see in Chapter 1, there are periods of time in German regions where sex between Jews and non-Jews were forbidden. For the most part, however, bans were not necessary because of the illicit nature of such acts and the social separation of Jews and non-Jews. Guido Kisch notes that following Emperor Constantine’s law banning intermarriage in 339 AD, the first written prohibition was found in Johann Buch, Gloss on Sachenspiegel (Leipzig: 1560). Guido Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany: A Study of Their Legal and Social Status (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949), 207.

Jews have historically had a unique relationship with German society, churches, and states. They had long been a group apart, maintaining their customs and traditions, even under the threat of death, for over 1,500 years. As we will see in chapter one, the unwillingness of Jewish communities to incorporate secular and local religious traditions planted the seeds of European anti-Semitism. Yet by the nineteenth century, their efforts against assimilation faltered, as Jews began to leave the oppressive stigma of Judaism in favor of German identity. Throughout the course of the nineteenth century, it appeared as if Judaism would eventually dissolve into German society until the two became indistinguishable. As the Jewish society Germanized during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, sexual and marital intermixing occurred more often. This mixing added people from a previously “foreign” group into the German nation, challenging German identity. Because of its importance as an intersection between the two groups, intermarriage became one of the central issues of German-Jewish society during the nineteenth century. Reactions against integration strengthened within the Jewish and non-Jewish German societies toward the end of the nineteenth century, disturbing the trend toward amalgamation. The reaction against Jewish assimilation culminated in the unlikely rise to power of the anti- Semitic National Socialist regime in 1933. Under the National Socialists, inter-group mixing was considered the greatest danger posed by Judaism.5 In National Socialist theory, the dilution of German blood by Jewish blood would weaken the German race, allowing the Jewish race to drag it down. Rassenschande (racial defilement) became one of the most notorious crimes under the regime; it was not just breaking the law, it was a crime against the German Volk.6 Despite the importance of intermarriage and inter-group sex to the history of Jewish and non-Jewish Germans, historians have paid relatively little attention to this topic. Generally, historians have researched intermarriage only indirectly, as it affects other studies. This is particularly true within Jewish historical studies. Guido Kisch’s history of medieval Jews in

5 Nathan Stoltzfus’ work on intermarriage under the Nazi regime shows how the unique position of intermarried Jews made them one of the most loathed Jewish groups in Nazi law and doctrine and at the same time the Jewish group that had the best survival rate. Nathan Stoltzfus, Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstraβe Protest in Nazi Germany (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996).

6 “Marriages between Jews and nationals of German or kindred blood are forbidden.” “Relation outside marriage between Jews and nationals for Germanor kindred blood are forbidden.” “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor.” September 15, 1935, Reichsgesetzblatt, I, 1935, 1146-7.

Germany mentions intermarriage as part of a general discussion of bans on Jewish relations with Germans.7 Werner Mosse covers marital choices as part of a discussion of wealthy Jews in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.8 Because most Jews did not intermarry, particularly among the wealthy families he studied, Mosse gives intermarriage only cursory coverage. Douglas Klusmeyer Jr. includes intermarriage in his discussion of the struggle between religion and the Prussian state over control of marriage.9 His work places intermarriage within the discussions about civil marriage and the relationship between religion and the developing German state. Aside from the historians listed above, Marion Kaplan, Deborah Hertz, Alan Levenson, and Kerstin Meiring have extensively studied intermarriage in nineteenth century German history. Kaplan has written extensively on intermarriage in her discussions of the evolution of Jewish society in Germany in the nineteenth century.10 Her numerous works investigate the gender history of Jewish society. She shows that at a time when Jews were undergoing radical urbanization, secularization, and assimilation, they also struggled to maintain their Jewish identity while “moving forward.” In chapter three, we will see how the maintenance of Judaism led many Jews to oppose intermarriage. Though her coverage of intermarriage is almost solely focused on the Jewish history, Kaplan’s work is invaluable for any study of intermarriage. In Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin, Deborah Hertz includes a lengthy discussion of intermarriage as it relates to her overall theme about Jewish conversions in the early nineteenth century.11 She tells the story of the intermarried couples of the Berlin Salons from the perspective of the Jewish women. Her research focuses on the small group of wealthy

7 Guido Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany, 207 and 315.

8 Werner Mosse, “Personal Relations and Social Contacts: III Marriage Patterns,” in The German-Jewish Economic Elite, 1820-1935: A Socio-Cultural Profile (New York: Clarendon Press, 1989), 160-85.

9 Douglas Benjamin Klusmeyer, Jr., “Between Church and State: Prussian Marriage Law from the German Enlightenment Through the Foundation of the Second Empire” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1989).

10 Marion Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Marion, Kaplan, "Friendship on the Margins: Jewish Social Relations in Imperial Germany." Central European History 34, no. 4 (2001): 471-501; Marion Kaplan, "Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany: Practices, Mentalities, and Community." Jewish Social Studies 9, no. 1 (2002): 1-33; Kaplan, “Tradition and Transition: The Acculturation, Assimilation, and Integration of Jews in Imperial Germany, A Gender Analysis,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 27 (1982): 3-35; Marion Kaplan, “For Love or Money: The Marriage Strategies of Jews in Imperial Germany,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 28 (1983): 263-300.

11 Deborah Hertz, Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988) 204-250.

Jewish women who hosted the famous Salons of the early nineteenth century. She has also produced several other works that study the relationship between conversion and intermarriage in the early nineteenth century. Because conversion was a legal prerequisite for intermarriage for such a long time, and because it remained closely tied to intermarriage socially even after such prerequisites were removed, the relationship between conversion and intermarriage is an important part of the history. Alan Levenson’s dissertation examines the Jewish community’s response to intermarriage in religious and social contexts.12 According to Levenson, Jews faced a pair of challenges that often led Jewish society onto divergent paths: on the one hand, they wanted to show that by assimilating into German society, that Jews were good Germans; on the other hand, they also wanted to maintain their unique identity within that society. Levenson traces the debates and Jewish responses to intermarriage along those two paths, showing how Jews reconciled their ultimate aim of becoming a third religion within German society. Kerstin Meiring’s book, Die Christlich-Jüdische Mischehe in Deutschland, is perhaps the least read among the group, though it has the most to offer on the topic of intermarriage.13 Where the other books investigate intermarriage in relation to larger topics, Meiring’s book focuses solely on intermarriage. It breaks intermarriage down into religious, political, social, and private topics, showing how each affected intermarriage. Because Meiring covers such a broad period of time (1840-1933), she does not go into detail about the political and social developments that led to the legalization of intermarriage. It is in this fashion that this paper seeks to add to the historiography of intermarriage in the Kaiserreich. Though this study rests heavily on secondary sources, it incorporates several important primary sources. The Stenographische Berichte Über die Verhandlungen are records of debates for both state and federal parliaments. These proved to be valuable for the political discussions of civil marriage legislation in Prussia and Germany. Despite being readily available for many years, historians have generally under utilized the Stenographische Berichte, an excellent record

12 Alan Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1990).

13 Kerstin Meiring, Die Christlich-Jüdische Mischehe in Deutschland 1840-1933 (Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz Verlag, 1998).

of the debates that occurred in the Reichstag and the opinions of policy makers.14 The Statistik des Deutschen Reichs and Preuβische Statistik were used to reveal trends in intermarriage practices from 1875 to 1900.15 This study also uses contemporary periodicals, such as the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums and the Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden, and memoirs. As this project examines how communities define membership, dealing with the limitations of those definitions makes conclusions inherently subjective. Defining who is Jewish, and the implications of that definition on the data chosen and the interpretations of that data, automatically skews all conclusions. For instance, the statistics on intermarriage are largely based on the published records of the German federal government and the state governments. These statistics created a set of criteria for who is considered Jewish and who is considered non-Jewish. Some people who consider themselves Jewish were not counted, while others who would not consider themselves Jewish were counted. A marriage between a converted German Jew and German non-Jew would not be considered intermarriage, while marriage between a baptized German Jew and a German Jew would be considered an intermarriage. Those kind of statistical flaws are unavoidable, making sole reliance on statistics for information difficult. A further problem is that the data is inconclusive about marginal categories of Jews and non-Jews in Germany. Non-German Jews marrying German Jews or non-Jewish Germans are only partially accounted for in the statistics. However, as those Jews who had been assimilated into German society were most likely to marry non-Jews, the category of non-German Jews marrying German Jews is statistically insignificant during the period studied. The choice of terminology, which is wrapped up in the question of identity tackled in this study, also creates problems. Are Jews German? How long must a population group live among another before they become the same? What role does citizenship play in determining identity? If Jews who have established heritages in Germany are considered Germans, terms such as German-Jewish intermarriage have to be shunned because it implies that Jews are something

14 Reports of the German Reichstag, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, 1867 1897. These are now easily accessible online at http://mdz.bib-bvb.de/digbib/reichstag/.

15 I would like to give credit to Kerstin Meiring for having done much of the leg work for finding the data presented in this paper. Though I am solely responsible for the tables found in this paper and the calculations, her work pointed me in the proper direction.

other than German. Yet this “otherness” in Jewish identity in Germany is exactly what many Jews experienced. However, using terms that truly reflect the social realities of the unions, such as Jewish-German-non-Jewish-German intermarriage, are too cumbersome to be useful. I have chosen to use the simplest terminology possible, Jewish and non-Jewish, because it reflects the focus of the study which is Germans who were Jewish and those who were not. Tackling a project that focuses on identity and community relations poses many difficulties, some of which only the subjective choices of the author can overcome. Despite the problems associated with accepting government definitions of who was Jewish, using the published government statistical information is far more effective for this paper’s needs than to investigate each person’s level of Jewishness. Not only would such an investigation mirror what was done in the 1930s and 1940s, but given the innumerable factors that would prohibit the investigation from being definitive, it would not make the conclusions of this paper any more definitive.16 In instances where clear disparities between government identity and personal identity occur, such differences are noted. Because the history of intermarriage in Germany has such long roots, and because the nature of those roots played such an influential role on later events, chapter one discusses the history of intermarriage in the German states prior to unification. Since the Roman period, German history has been more notably marked by instances of bans than intermarriages. Though calls for bans against intermarriage in the late nineteenth century were based on racial theory, justifications for earlier bans were based on religious differences, and at their earliest, based on social differences. The changing nature of bans against intermarriage came to play an important role in the trajectory of later anti-Semitic movements and Jewish assimilation and equal rights efforts. Chapter two focuses on the formation of intermarriage laws after unification. This chapter is intended to cover the most neglected portion of the historiography. The dynamics of legislative discussions on intermarriage and its place within the larger nation building process have largely gone unstudied. While not primarily about nation-building, this chapter places the intermarriage debates within the larger political picture. It shows the debates not just as a means

16 Such prohibitive factors include: time, war damage, decay, consolidations, and even politically- and socially- motivated destruction to protect or cover up Jewish identity.

to allowing intermarriages, but also showing how intermarriage fit into discussions about the nature of marriage and the struggle between the new state and religious groups. Chapter three analyzes the impact of legislation allowing intermarriages and the implications that legislation had on German-Jewish and German non-Jewish identities. The legislation allowing for intermarriage without conversions did not lead to an immediate rise in the numbers of intermarriages. Rather, the legislation was put in place far earlier than the social intermixing and assimilation that tended to precede intermarriages. It was not until the late 1880s that intermarriages became statistically significant; by 1900, however, they became an incredibly important group that was the subject of fear and animosity from anti-Semites and traditional Jews alike. Intermarriage had a tremendous impact of Jewish and non-Jewish German identity. Intermarried couples and the children that they produced challenged both identities, which had been in extreme flux throughout the nineteenth century. Classifying these couples and their children relative to the group identities was a source of much tension and debate. Though this issue has even to this day not been totally resolved, this paper will analyze its impact on the period and the subject of intermarriage. Initially, this study was meant to provide a solid foundation for work on intermarriage during the National Socialist regime. As I explored the works of others, I found that historians had passed over much of the earlier history of German-Jewish intermarriage because intermarriage had not been the main focus of the study and because it was so marginal an event that numerically, it appeared insignificant. Yet the numerous reoccurrences of discussions of intermarriage in important political and social arenas pointed to an issue that had a larger value than its numbers would suggest. The following chapters investigates the proper place of intermarriage in German Jewish and German non-Jewish history.

CHAPTER ONE INTERMARRIAGE IN GERMANY TO 1848

Introduction

The nation-wide legalization of intermarriage in Germany in 1875 overturned sixteen centuries of bans aimed at separating Jews from Germans. Though the laws that legalized intermarriage are discussed in chapter two, it is necessary that we begin by providing historical context for those changes. This chapter shows how intermarriage fits into the general marital, religious, and Jewish history of Germany. It traces the changes in the rationales against intermarriage. As one might expect, the rationales behind these bans changed over the course of the centuries. Though anti-Semitic attacks on intermarriage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were based on racial ideologies, the bans against intermarriage in the Roman Empire sprang from different origins. The changing nature of bans against intermarriage reflects not only the evolving relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish societies in Germany, but also the roots of contemporary anti-Semitism and group identities. Within that discussion, this chapter examines in turn at the changes in the Jewish and non-Jewish communities that led to intermarriage. The social position of Jews changed as German society found a need for them. Subsequent changes in other areas of life, like secularization and reduced religious threat of Jewish proselytizing, smoothed the way for tolerance of Jews and their eventual acceptance into German society. The debates within each community on how to cope with the changes were key features of social and political discussions of the time, and fundamentally shaped each society. Finally, this chapter discusses intermarriage within the religious and marital conflicts that afflicted Germany after the Reformation. Intermarriage was not allowed in Germany on its own merits: it was legalized as part of changes to the citizenship status of Jews in 1871 and the

institution of civil marriage in 1875. By showing intermarriage in the context of marital and religious changes, we will see the factors that directly led to the legalization of intermarriage.

I. Jews in the Roman Empire

Bans against intermarriage in Germany date back to the Roman period. Jews, of course, have old testament bans against intermarriage that date back at least as early as the sixth century B.C.17 These bans, and their application to Jewish society, were both religious and social. Though they were a part of religious legislation, in practice, their enforcement seemed to be linked to perceived threats of the Jewish community’s dissolution.18 In Roman society, non- Jewish bans against intermarriage were originally social in nature. While Jewish religious practices differed greatly from the practices of the dominant Roman society, it was not religious differences that led to bans on intermarriage, it was social differences. Alone among the foreign religious groups absorbed into the empire, Jews largely remained impervious to the temptations to conform to religious identity and practices of the dominant culture.19 “Strange” practices such as abstention from pork (a very popular staple in the Roman world) and circumcision gave the impression that Jews were exclusionists and isolationists.20 The Sabbath was also particularly agitating to non-Jews, who saw it as slothful and arrogant, especially among slaves and workers.21 Jewish “sovereign self-sufficiency” made it seem foreign and unaccommodating to other cultures. Non-Jews, especially the Roman upper-class, tended to believe that Jewish

17 Jewish bans were based on biblical prohibitions found in Ex. 34:16; Deut. 7:3-4; Ezra 9:12, 10:17; Nehemiah 13:23-31. See also Louis Epstein, Marriage Laws in the Bible and Talmud (Cambridge, Mass.: ,1942). The prohibitions set out by Ezra and Nehemiah were largely in response to the high levels of intermarriage during the Jewish captivity in the sixth and fifth century B.C. Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol I, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), 93-5.

18 Ismar Schorsch, Jewish Reactions to German Anti-Semitism, 1870-1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 8-9. His information was taken from Samuel Holdheim, Gemischte Ehen Zwischen Juden und Christen: die Gutachten der Berliner Rabbinatsverwaltung und des Königsberger Consistoriums (Berlin: L. Lassar, 1850), 58.

19 Robert L. Wilken, "Judaism in Roman and Christian Society" Journal of Religion 47, no.4 (1967): 314.

20 Marcel Simon, Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations Between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire, 135- 425 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), ch. v and vi. Also see Wilken, "Judaism in Roman and Christian Society": 315.

21 Roman poets such as Tacitus and Seneca abhor the laziness inherent in losing one-seventh of a person’s life to ritual idleness. Wilken, "Judaism in Roman and Christian Society": 316.

beliefs of a unique role in history as “God’s chosen people” proved Jews saw themselves as superior and special. Naturally this rankled the Roman upper-class, who believed Roman traditions were the pinnacle of civilization.22 Jewish maintenance of an isolated identity challenged the notion of Roman superiority, causing a form of social anti-Semitism to grow.23 This did not lead to immediate pagan bans on intermarriage, but would pave the way for such bans when Christianity was adopted. Despite the backlash against Jewish isolationism, Jews prospered under the Roman empire. Salo Wittmayer Baron notes, "Rarely in the history of the Diaspora have Jews enjoyed such a high degree of both equality of rights and self-government, under the protection of public law, as in the early Roman Empire. Responsible exponents of Roman rule reportedly stressed the principle that Jews were to be treated in all legal, administrative, fiscal, and, to a certain extent, political questions on an equal footing with other citizens."24 Though there were periods of persecution, particularly in the early decades of the first century, these seem to be exceptional during the early empire.25 Indeed, Marcel Simon has shown that far from coming to an end, Judaism was a real, active, and often effective rival and competitor to Christianity.26 In the early middle ages, the social and economic superiority of some Jews was so great that it led Christians to fear

22 “The superior gestures of an inferior people infuriated the nativist and proud Hellenists; this was perpetuated by the writings and speeches of the upper class in Hellenist society, which were the most nativist and chauvinistic population group and which had the time to devote themselves to such endeavors.” N.W. Goldstein, "Cultivated Pagans and Ancient Anti-Semitism." Journal of Religion 19, no.4 (1939): 346-364.

23 Wilken, "Judaism in Roman and Christian Society": 316.

24 Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol I, 240.

25 The Jews in Alexandria and Rome suffered violent persecution and expulsion during the time of the philosopher Philo. Philo: With an English Translation, trans. F. H. Colson, vol. VI (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929), 458-61. During Hadrian’s rule, Jews were prohibited from practicing circumcision and banned from setting foot in Jerusalem. Septimius Severus prohibited both Jews and Christians from proselytizing. Perhaps the most damaging form of persecution was the fiscus Judaicus. Originating in Egypt and eventually spread throughout the Empire, the fiscus Judaicus was a tax of two danarii on each Jew, which, while only a small amount, successfully segregated Jews socially from the rest of the Empire. Wilken, “Judaism in Roman and Christian Society”: 318.

26 Marcel Simon, Verus Israel, 239-45.

intermarried Christians would convert to Judaism.27 Judaism appealed to many groups under Roman rule, not only because of the strongly held beliefs of its followers, but also because it joined a supernatural belief with rationalistic interpretations of life and the world. At a time when the Roman Empire was heavily influenced by the religio-philosophical ideals of Hellenism, this rational-philosophical world view was compelling to many.28 The Jewish philosopher Philo noted the respect that Jewish traditions commanded in Hellenistic society, in spite of the animosity such traditions bred among the non-Jewish upper class.29 Around 500 A.D., Jews numbered between four and seven million, making up about seven percent of the population of the Roman Empire.30 Because the Roman empire controlled Germania when Jews established their first settlements, their first exposure to German territory mirrored their existence throughout the Roman Empire. During the fourth century, they settled in the areas that make up modern Germany, though some signs point to a Jewish settlement in Köln as early as the second century.31 There are few surviving records to give us a glimpse at how Jews in the Germanic territories of the Roman Empire fared; however, one might expect that they enjoyed the privileges and successes common to them throughout the Roman Empire, while also experiencing similar forms of social anti-Semitism.

27 Karl W. Deutsch, "Anti-Semitic Ideas in the Middle Ages: International Civilizations in Expansion and Conflict," Journal of the History of Ideas 6, no.2 (1945): 245.

28 Wilken, “Judaism in Roman and Christian Society”: 314.

29 Philo Vita Moises, trans. F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker, vol. 6, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), 458-61.

30 This is compared to a common estimate of 750,000 just before the captivity of Jews around 100 B.C. Julian Huxley and Alfred C. Haddon, We Europeans: A Survey of 'Racial' Problems (New York, London: Harper, 1936) 146-7. See also Carl Clemen, "Missionary Activity in the Non-Christian Religions" The Journal of Religion 10, no.1 (1930): 108-113.

31 Panikos Panayi, Ethnic Minorities in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany: Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Turks and Others (New York: Longman, 2000), 13. The Theodosian Code indicates the existence of a firmly established Jewish community in Köln in the years 321 and 331 A.D. which probably dated from the second century. Adolf Kober, The History of Jews in Cologne (Philadelphia: the Jewish Publication Society of America, 1940), 5-7. Fritz Fremersdorf, a noted archeologist of early Köln, has dated several sarcophagi new the Church of St. Severin to the middle of the second century. In the Roman provinces, Jewish settlement almost always predated the presence of early Christians, putting the arrival of Jews as early as the second century. However, other scholars, particularly Wilhelm Neuss, discounted Fremersdorf’s conclusion that the sarcophagi were Christian. Fritz Fremersdorf, “Weitere Ausgrabungen unter dem Kreuzgang von St. Severin in Köln” in Bonner Jahrbücher 131, 1928).; Wilhelm Neuss, Die Anfänge des Christentums im Rheinlande (Bonn: Röhrscheid, 1933).

Christianity took far longer to control German society than it had Roman society. Kober shows that Christians did not enter Germany until the fourth century, at roughly the same time as Constantine’s rule.32 It was not until the time of Charlemagne that Germany could be considered a Christian nation.33 Therefore, it is likely that Jews in Germany did not experience the religious anti-Semitism associated with the rise of Christianity in Roman Society until much later than the Mediterranean regions of the Roman Empire. Undoubtedly, however, they did face the social anti-Semitism of pre-Christian, Roman society. This anti-Semitism was non-religious and non-racial in character. Marcel Simon and Robert Wilken both speak of a “moderate pagan anti-Semitism” predating Christianity, which was the culmination of a spontaneous social defense against Judaism’s non-conformity. The Roman Empire contained many religious groups, and though most minority groups integrated some parts of the dominant religion, they were not forced to give up their own unique practices. The mild social anti-Semitism of the Roman Empire provided a social precedent for the more virulent form that sprang from the Judeo-Christian rivalry. Yet just as Simon and Wilken demonstrate the connection between pagan social anti-Semitism and Christian anti-Semitism, they also vividly show Christian anti-Semitism was “original” and unique because of its aggressive religious nature.34 Anti-Semitism was based on religious differences from the late Roman Empire until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It grew from early Judeo-Christian religious disputes. In the two centuries following the death of Jesus Christ, many people within the Roman World considered Christianity to be a religious sect within the Jewish faith.35 As both Christianity and Judaism grew rapidly, the differences in religious doctrine drove the two groups into conflict.

32 It would be interesting to see if this was a coincidence, or if Constantine’s “conversion” directly induced Christians to spread their faith to new areas. I have not found any information that sheds light on the matter.

33 Kober, The History of Jews in Cologne, 5-9. St. Boniface, considered the chief organizer of the German church in Central Germany and Bavaria, met the death of a martyr in 755 at the hands of the Frisians. Soon after, during the reign of Charlemagne, the Church and the Pope began to play decisive roles in German politics. Franz Kampers and Martin Spahn, “Germany Before 1556” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909). See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06484b.htm, 04/12/2005.

34 Simon, Verus Israel, 243; Wilken, "Judaism in Roman and Christian Society”: 323-4.

35 Wilken notes the “practice of outsiders to group Christianity and Judaism together.” Wilken, “Judaism in Roman and Christian Society,” 315. He mentions Galen’s criticisms of religious intolerance centered on Jews and Christians. Galen’s comments are found in Richard Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians (London, Oxford University Press, 1949), 48.

Both sides claimed to be the holders of ultimate truth and saw the other as blasphemous. The common origins of Christian and Jewish beliefs and the criticisms of outsiders played a decisive role in the early relationship between Jews and Christians. Jewish traditions and philosophies were well known and discussed throughout the Hellenistic world. Christians were not only forced to defend their traditions against Jews, but also against the pagans, too. Pagan critics of Christianity attacked the early Christians not only for their exclusionary beliefs but also for their failure to abide by the Old Testament laws set down in their own books. Christians found it necessary to simultaneously defend their own beliefs while attacking Jewish traditions. Jewish critics charged that by deserting Jewish traditions, Christians proved themselves to be usurpers of Jewish religion.36 Christian criticisms of Judaic practices struck a familiar cord in Roman society. It may be no coincidence that many of the Jewish practices not followed by Christians were those that were criticized most often in the empire. The Sabbath, abstention from pork, and circumcision were all ignored by Christians. While those traditions led some pagan critics to denounce Christianity as unfaithful to their own doctrines, it appealed to many pagans who found this more appetizing form of Judaism to be socially acceptable. It is not surprising that Christianity eventually succeeded in securing a following among the Roman upper class where Judaism had failed. By the fourth century A.D., Christianity would become the religion of the Emperor, changing forever the relationship between Jewish and Roman society. In 313 A.D., the Edict of Milan was decreed by the tetrarchs Constantine and Licinius. Contrary to popular belief, the Edict of Milan did not make Christianity the state religion, nor did it abolish paganism; it did, however, make Christianity legal. Though Constantine was the first baptized Emperor, he did not convert until just before his death in 337 A.D. Some historians believe his support of Christianity was not based on true belief, but reflected a political move to back the player with the most momentum.37 Though there were exceptions, for the most part the emperors who came after Constantine were Christians.38 Constantine was convinced of the need to maintain clear boundaries between social groups; much of his legislation dealing with Jews

36 Wilken, “Judaism in Roman and Christian Society”: 319-22.

37 John Eadie, The Conversion of Constantine (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 89-98.

38 Julian, who succeeded Constantine’s son Constantius II, was a neo-Platonist, and did not practice Christianity. He did however allow freedom of all religions and did not oppress either Jews or Christians.

attempted to segregate and define their position in society. His son, Constantius II, was as interested in creating a regimented society as his father, and was also a devout Christian. In 339, he banned intermarriage between Jews and Christians, making it a capital offense.39 His legislation was not anti-Jewish so much as it was an effort to bring Christian social position to an equal level. Given the bans that Jews themselves had placed on intermarriage, the Christian ban was not difficult for Jewish society to accept.40 It is interesting that the 339 A.D. ban targeted only Jewish men marrying Christian women. Simon concludes that Roman society (and also Christian society) “assumes that women…would ordinarily be expected to adopt her husband’s religion.” Simon goes further, comparing this ban with other contemporary bans to show that the real goal was not marital separation of Jews and Christians but attempts to restrict all forms of Jewish proselytizing and expansion. In Roman society, Jews enjoyed the privileges accorded to minority religious groups. Despite periodic persecutions and social anti-Semitism, Jews in the Roman Empire were given equal rights and opportunities for success that led to a dramatic growth in their population, power, and prestige. As we will see in medieval Europe, the fall of Rome and the ascendancy of the church effectively ended that growth and permanently changed the nature of Jewish/non- Jewish relations.

39 There is some debate over when the first Roman bans against Judeo-Christian intermarriages took place. The consensus opinion seems to be that Constantius II, Constantine’s son and eventual successor, banned such intermarriages in 339. Hagith S. Sivan, "Rabbinics and Roman Law: Jewish-Gentile/Christian Marriage in Late Antiquity," Revue des études juives 156, (1997): 59-100. Guido Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany: A Study of Their Legal and Social Status (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), 466. However, this has been disputed by a few historians, notably Amnon Linder and Judith Evans-Grubbs. Amnon Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), 144-51, 178-81. Judith Evans-Grubbs, Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce and Widowhood (London; New York: Routledge, 2002), 184-5, 307n137. The ban in 339 stated: “Concerning the women, previously occupied in our gynaeceum, whom Jews have led to share their own shamefulness, it is decided that they should be returned to the gynaeceum, and in the future they [the Jews] are to observe that they must not associate Christian women with their crimes. If they do so, they will suffer capital punishment.” Sivan, Kisch, and others have concluded that though not specifically banning Judeo-Christian intermarriage, the 339 law was a de facto ban. Evans-Grubbs and Linder maintain that the 339 law really concerns “Christian women employees in imperial weaving factories who were abandoning their jobs at the instigation of Jewish men, and were also perhaps converting to Judaism (it was originally part of the same law as Cod.Theod. 16.9.2, against the purchase of Christian slaves by Jews). Though such defections might also involve sexual relationships, the law is not about Jewish–Christian marriage per se.” Evans-Grubbs, 307n137. Evans-Grubbs and Linder conclude that it was not until Cod. Theod. 3.14.1 was issued in May, 370 or 373, that Theodosius I prohibited marriage between Jews and Christians, and called for criminal charges to be laid against such mixed marriages “after the manner of adultery.” Both Jews and Christians disapproved of marriages between their adherents and members of other religious groups, but this law marks the first appearance in imperial legislation of such a marriage ban.

40 Simon, Verus Israel, 292-3. At the same time, the government made it easier for Jews to become Christians. See Cod. Theod. 16.8.28.

II. Jews in Medieval Europe

The medieval period changed the character of the Jewish community. What had been a dynamic, if not tolerated, proselytic religion that for a period was able to challenge Christianity, became an isolated, stigmatized community that had to forego its expansionist character in order to survive. This change was not drastic: it occurred slowly as the Catholic Church expanded and consolidated its power in Europe. Roman laws on Judeo-Christian marital relations had a long lasting impact on intermarriage laws. Throughout the Middle Ages, popes reaffirmed prohibitions against intermarriage, perhaps pointing to the continuing presence of intermarriages.41 Guido Kisch notes that one of the first explicit German prohibition against intermarriage is found in Johann von Buch's Gloss on Sachenspiegel, published in 1560; Buch makes particular reference to the Roman law principles of the Justinian Code, which were drawn directly from the Theodosian Code.42 Throughout Christian Europe, intermarriage was restricted by bans that stemmed from fears of Christian property inheritances falling into the hands of Jews. Salo Wittmayer Baron notes “As long as they [Jews] were superior both in culture and in economic standing to the large mass of the population - and this was the case in the earlier Middle Ages - there was great danger that intermarriage would result in the conversion of the Christian partner to Judaism…”43 Jewish social position in Roman society also carried forward into the medieval period. Records show that, despite the harsher treatments Jews were subjected to over time, the

41 Pope Zachary (741-752) restated the Roman prohibition against intermarriage at the First Council of Rome in 743. The Pope even decreed that marriage to a converted Jew must be banned, unless “he should believe completely.” Edward Synan, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965), 61. Pope Zachary’s predecessor, Pope Gregory III also condemned intermarriage in 731. Bernard Bachrach, Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), 40-41.

42 Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany, 206. Kisch is referring to Johann von Buch, Gloss on Sachenspiegel (Leipzig, 1560), and the Codex Justinianus 9.5 and 9.6: “No Jew shall marry a Christian woman, nor shall any Christian man marry a Jewess; for if anyone should be guilty of an act of this kind, he will be liable for having committed the crime of adultery, and permission is hereby granted to all persons to accuse him”; “No Jew shall retain the customs of his race relating to marriage; nor shall he marry in accordance with his religion; nor shall he contract several marriages at the same time.” Baron mentions a thirteenth century law book, the Schwabenspiegel that states, “if a Christian fornicates with a Jewess, or a Jew with a Christian woman, they are both guilty of superharlotry and they should be put upon one another and burned to death.” Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. II, 54.

43 Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol II, 54.

privileges enjoyed by Jews during the Roman Empire did not end abruptly. Into the late thirteenth century, Jews were actively involved in the European feudal system, acquiring land, titles, and even employing Christian labor.44 The allure of Jewish economic and religious success proved to be a source of trouble for the Christian church throughout the medieval period. Indeed, many of the actions taken against Jews were not merely spiteful anti-Jewish actions. Rather, Jewish economic and proselytic successes were so great that anti-Jewish restrictions were deemed necessary for the safety of Christianity.45 Bishops and popes in the medieval period often complained that Jewish successes were leading Christians to adopt Jewish traditions and practices, especially in areas that were newly brought into the Christian world.46 In the ninth century, one French Bishop remarked, “foolish Christians say that Jews are preaching unto them better than our priests.” The same Bishop also noted that the status of Jews as facilitators of commerce was so great that “royal deputies have given orders to change the markets which used to be held on Sabbath days, so that their celebration of the Sabbath should not be disturbed.”47 The unity of Jewish communities, and relatively high level of Jewish education, and their traditional mercantile occupations made Jews dangerous rivals to existing nobility and the church. Because Jewish success threatened both nobles and the Church, they often acted in concert to prevent Jews from gaining power. Restrictions on conversion to Judaism, nobility, land ownership, and employing Christians sought to stem Jewish growth and deny Judaism power in the Christian world.

44 Deutsch, "Anti-Semitic Ideas in the Middle Ages”: 243-4.

45 At the same time, Islam was also rapidly spreading throughout the Mediterranean World, so that Christianity was facing competition from two different religions that professed to have similar origins, (Islam traces its history back to Ishmael, the spurned son of Abraham and his Egyptian concubine Hajar. See Qur’an, Surah 2, Al-Baqarah:125- 149 and Genesis 21: 8-21). At a time when Christianity was experiencing tremendous growth in the breadth and depth of influence, having two religions, each with similar origins and doctrines as Christianity, and each with dynamic leadership, created an atmosphere of real fear for the Christian church.

46 Baron notes the Christian fears of Judaism’s draw in newly Christianized Poland, even as late as the Third Lateran Council in 1179: “Since the Polish country is still a young plant in the body of Christendom [having only entered Poland in the tenth century], the Christian people might the more easily be infected by the superstitions…of the Jews living with them…” Baron, The Jewish Community, Its History and Structure to the American Revolution , vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1942), 97.

47 Bishop Agobard of Lyons, De insolentia Judeorum, taken from: Aronius, “Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden im Fränkischen und Deutschen Reiche,” in J. Höxter, Quellenlesebuch zur jüdischen Geschichte und Literatur, vol. III, (Frankfurt am Mainz: 1927). Translated in K. Deutsch, "Anti-Semitic Ideas in the Middle Ages”: 241.

However, despite the efforts of the Church, Jews remained an important part of European society. The value of Jews as economic and mercantile assets was too great to ignore. Local leaders found that having Jews around led to increased commerce and the ability to create the financial overhead necessary for large projects. During pogroms or other periods of heightened anti-Jewish sentiments, high level officials often went out of their way to aid Jews to keep them from harm.48 Often, anti-Jewish sentiment was motivated by neither the church nor the state. The non-Jewish urban middle class in Europe, which directly competed with Jews in their principle area of employment, was the principle and most consistent promoter of anti- Semitism and anti-Semitic actions.49 Another reason that Jews remained in the Christian world was the desire of Christian leaders to convert Jews. Given the education and wealth of Jewish communities, Jews were clearly valuable members of society. It was the church’s desire to incorporate these valuable people into Christian society, thereby increasing the wealth and power of that society. The effort to convert Jews to Christianity played an important role in Judeo-Christian relations. Unlike the holocaust in the twentieth century, in the medieval pogroms and crusades, Jews were encouraged to convert, often forcefully. There are many cases throughout Europe of Jews converting to Christianity for ennoblement.50 During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, some German city-states bequeathed nominal equal rights to Jews and allowed them to marry non-Jews if they converted to Christianity.51 Baron notes that the social position had a lot to do with the Christian response to intermarriage. After the medieval period, when Jews no longer posed a threat, the Church was far less vehement in its opposition to intermarriage, particularly in the nineteenth century, when the overwhelming majority of Jews who intermarried, converted to Christianity and/or raised their offspring as Christians. Intermarriage in those circumstances could be viewed as missionary work.52

48 Steven T. Katz, The Holocaust in Historical Context, I: The Holocaust and Mass Death Before the Modern Age, 173-4.

49 Deutsch, “Anti-Semitic Ideas in the Middle Ages”: 245-6n19.

50 Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol III, 103.

51 Worms and probably other Rhenish and German cities too. Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany, 207.

52 Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. II, 54.

Reliable records on medieval intermarriages between converted Jews and Christians in Germany are not available.53 Though they definitely existed, there are only isolated records: reemphasis of previous bans, memoirs, or documented court cases against infractions.54 Whereas conversions in the late medieval era in Spain occurred in large numbers, for Germany, they were infrequent.55 Political classifications of Jews as a religious group did not always translate into social ideals. Though race was not a polemic before the nineteenth century, many Jews found that the stigmas of Judaism were not erased by mere conversion to Christianity. Many converted Jews wrote about the continued hatred of German Gentile society and they found the Jewish community, which saw them as traitors to their heritage, to be equally hostile.56 Jewish reactions to intermarriage are difficult to determine. Israel Abraham, citing the Book of the Pious, which tacitly supports intermarriages of Jewish men to exemplary Gentile women, concluded that Jews were normally tolerant of intermarriages in the medieval period. However, he provides little support to show that tolerance of intermarriage was anything more than spatially and temporally isolated. As noted, Jewish reformer Samuel Holdheim argued against Jewish intermarriage bans in the mid-nineteenth century, having concluded that traditional bans were not based on religion, but on social needs to prevent dissolution of the Jewish community. There is seemingly a pattern of Jewish social acculturation in dominant host

53 Baron argues that intermarriages definitely occurred, but the records of such events were far more numerous in the Mediterranean areas than the Northern areas. He concludes that the level of social intercourse between Jews and Gentiles in Germany, as shown by the development of Yiddish, points to intercourse and intermarriages between Germans and Jews. Similar examples of language as a proof for social intercourse occur in Spain and Italy. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol II, 43-4.

54 They certainly occurred throughout the rest of Europe, particularly in Italy and Spain. Baron notes a multitude of definite examples of intermarriage or non-marital sex. Ibid., 43, 90. and Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. III, 108n19.

55 For discussions of conversions and intermarriage in medieval Spain, see Solomon Katz, The Jews in the Visigoth and Frankish Kingdoms of Spain and Gaul (Cambridge, Mass.; The Mediaeval academy of America, 1937); Bernard S. Bachrach, “A Reassessment of Visigothic Jewish Policy, 589-711,” The American Historical Review 78, no. 1 (Feb., 1973): 11-34; Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1961); Daniel J. Lasker, “Averroistic Trends in Jewish-Christian Polemics in the Late Middle Ages,” Speculum 55, no.2 (1980): 294-304.

56 Marion Kaplan, “Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany: Practices, Mentalities, and Community,” Jewish Social Studies 9, no. 1 (2002): 1-33. Maria Boes reports that converted Jews were actually treated with more contempt that other Jews; "getaufter Jude" was considered an invective term. Maria Boes "Jews in the Criminal- Justice System of Early Modern Germany," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 30, no. 3 (1999): 420. See also Deborah Hertz, "Intermarriage in the Berlin Salons," Central European History 16 (December, 1984).

societies that lead to intermarriages, causing backlashes within the Jewish and non-Jewish societies. More comparative research is needed in this area before a firm conclusions can be developed. Given the diversity within the Jewish community in Germany, the information we have on rare occurrences of intermarriage and the hostility of the Jewish and Gentile communities reported by Jewish converts and intermarried Jews, it is likely that for the most part, Jewish reactions to intermarriage were at least as harsh as those of non-Jews.57 Not only were the Jewish bans far older, but even secular Jews tended to follow such commands out of loyalty to their heritage.58 Rather than view bans on intermarriage simply as a means of Christian repression, however, we might view them as a defense mechanism against the perceived threat of Judaism. As Karl Deutsch has shown, the medieval period was characterized by a clash of three civilizations, made more desperate by their similar religious origins. Both the anti-Semitism Jews faced and the bans on intermarriage were religious in nature. Guido Kisch shows that only considerations of a religious nature were involved; no trace of racial ideas were discernable.59 Though economic and social competition often catalyzed anti-Jewish actions, religious differences were the primary divisor between German Jewish and German non-Jewish society. Whereas Judaism had been one minority religion among many in the Roman Empire, in medieval Germany, it was the principle minority. That Jewish social practices were also different from the dominant society (as they had been under the Romans), only exacerbated the animosity toward Jews. No matter how we view the nature of the bans, the medieval period was very difficult for the Jewish population. They did not suffer constant oppression and abuse. However, the almost regular pogroms, crusades, and restrictions against Jews made medieval Germany a very difficult place for Jews to live. As many as five thousand were killed in the first instance of German mass

57 While both the religious institutions of the Jews and Christians both opposed intermarriage, the reaction was in all probability directly related to the level of fear by the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. Opposition to intermarriage by the Church was dependent on the fear of Christians being corrupted by Jews into leaving the Christian faith. As the fear of Christian conversion to Judaism lessened, so to did the opposition to intermarriage lose some of its vehemence. For Jews, heated opposition seemed to be dependent on the proportion of Jews intermarrying in the community (threatens dissolution) or the social position of Jewish society. Again, more research is needed on this point.

58 Ismar Schorsch, Jewish Reactions to German Anti-Semitism, 1870–1914 (New York, 1972), 119, 147. Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917), 201-2.

59 Kisch, Jews in Medieval Germany, 207, 315.

murder in the First Crusade in 1096.60 Further mass murder occurred in 1349 when the Jews became the scapegoats for the Black Death. Jews were massacred in 350 towns, 210 of which saw the complete eradication of Jews. Most surviving Jews were expelled east, settling in Poland. The Jewish community in Germany would not revive until the seventeenth century, in the time of the Thirty Years War. The medieval period changed the character of the Jewish community. What had been a dynamic, if not tolerated, proselytic religion that for a period was able to challenge Christianity, had become an isolated, stigmatized community that had to forego its expansionist character in order to survive.

III. Social Changes in the Early Modern Period

While the medieval period was characterized by the Christian church’s fight for religious supremacy in Europe, the early modern period was characterized by the church’s attempts to maintain it holdings. By the sixteenth and seventeenth century, Judaism had been reduced to a small, segregated minority, without any real means to challenge the position of the church. Islam was also beginning its tenuous decline, first being expelled from the Iberian peninsula in the fifteenth century, and then slowly losing being beaten back in the Balkans and the Mediterranean Sea. Christian church’s struggle for ascendancy in Europe had been won. Yet the victory was short lived, for within the Catholic Church lay the roots of schism and within European society lay the roots of secularism. The efforts of the Church to secure its religious dominance prompted a backlash in European society. Religious philosophers such as Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, and Martin Luther believed that the Church had become corrupt with power and had over stepped its bounds of religious authority. Splinter sects emerged within the Christian fold, calling for a return to doctrine over dogma and reforms in the Church’s social functions. Eventually, many of these sects separated entirely from the Church, collectively forming the Protestant movement, which the Catholic Church never successfully subdued. Germany, which many consider the heart of the Protestant movement, was one of the chief battle grounds between the Catholic and Protestant churches. The Thirty Years War,

60 Ruth Gay, The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 201.

(1618-1648), fought mainly in northern Europe, decimated the German states.61 Wars, corrupt church officials, and religious institutions that controlled non-religious matters, all combined to create a large, disaffected population. While many Christians joined the Protestant movements, a significant portion also moved away from religion all together. In the eighteenth century, secularism emerged to play an increasingly powerful role in European, and especially German, society. Secularism was supported not only by those who were unaffiliated Christians, deists, agnostics, and atheists, but also by Christians who wished to relegate religious authority to only religious matters. This trend was particularly strong among Protestants and Catholics within states that practiced another form of Christianity. In the nineteenth century, secularization gained such power as to forcibly separate church and state. For Jewish/non-Jewish relations in Germany, the secularization of society would have profound implications. Jews maintained a small foothold in Germany despite persecution in Germany throughout the late medieval period. Following the destruction of the Thirty Years War, Jews were allowed by some German princes to reenter a few German states to aid in reconstruction. Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg allowed fifty wealthy Jewish families to settle in Berlin to help with the post-war economic recovery.62 Both the city and the Jewish council strictly monitored the entrance and quartering of those Jews into the city, but the Jews there prospered; by 1800, thirty-five hundred Jews were living in Berlin.63 Secularization had caused an increase in religious tolerance and the removal of the Catholic Church’s primacy in many non-religious affairs. Following the Reformation, the Enlightenment was a period of

61 Brandenburg-Prussia lost more than half of its population in the war. Gerd Heinrich, Geschichte Pruessens (Frankfurt am Main, 1981), 95.

62 Around the same time, Jews were allowed into Hamburg. Arno Herzig and Saskia Rohde, Die Juden in Hamburg 1590 bis 1990: wissenschaftliche Beiträge der Universität Hamburg zur Ausstellung "Vierhundert Jahre Juden in Hamburg (Hamburg: Dölling & Galitz, 1991). Jews had been in Frankfurt since their return from forced exile in 1360. However, their status had clearly changed since that time. While they were forced into the ghetto (Judengasse) in 1462, they were protected and exonerated by the Emperor when that ghetto was attacked by anti- Semites and debtors in 1624. Cecil Roth, ed. Encyclopedia Judaica (New York: Macmillan, 1972).

63 Deborah Hertz, Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988). The status of Berlin Jews grew to such an extent, that in the 1780s Rahel Varnhagen would often brag about being “one of Frederick the Great’s Jews.” Michael Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany, 1749-1824 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967), 109.

heightened secularism and social contact between Jewish and non-Jewish society. Particularly among the wealthy, elite Jews, those changes led to acculturation, and for some, assimilation.64 Deborah Hertz’ work on the Berlin Salons shows the impact of assimilation among wealthy Berlin Jews. At the turn of the nineteenth century, a cadre of elite Jewish women succeeded in marrying Gentile men and moving within the circles of German high society. The high level of education among many Jewish women and the wealth that their dowry and family status promised, made them an attractive group to liberal intellectual German men. All of the women had to convert to Christianity to marry, but the couples often came from secularized families and were not actively religious. The intermarried Jewish women of the Berlin Salons in no way constituted a significant number of intermarriages, but does show how secularization had changed the social position of Jews in Germany. Similar circumstances would occur in the last quarter of the century, when ennobled but impoverished Gentile men found it “particularly fashionable” to marry wealthy Jewish women.65 To be sure, Jews were persecuted and continually segregated from German society, but the Berlin Salons highlighted the beginnings of a successful Jewish assimilationist movement in German society that had not been possible before. Jews began to convert in steadily growing numbers, not to become Christians, but to become secular. Because restrictions on Jews were based on religious affiliations, Jews saw conversion as a means of escaping the bonds holding them back from social and economic success. However, just as the Catholic Church had found out following the medieval period, Jews discovered that removing one ‘s chief rivals only led to another rival stepping in. As Jews removed their religious ties to integrate into German society, they found that a new obstacle awaited them: racial anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism took a racial form that had not existed before the nineteenth century. Removing ties to Judaism did not make one less Jewish. Though converted Jews had often faced

64 Marion Kaplan has written an excellent exposition on the differences between assimilation and acculturation. She argues that the continuation of identification and attachment to Judaism by most Jews in the nineteenth century meant that they had not been assimilated, as if often postulated. She concludes that except for a small number of Jews, who cut complete ties and identifications to Judaism and therefore were assimilated, German Jews experienced acculturation during the nineteenth century. Marion Kaplan, “Tradition and Transition: The Acculturation, Assimilation, and Integration of Jews in Imperial Germany: A Gender Analysis,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 27 (1982): 3-35.

65 Arthur Ruppin, Die Juden der Gegenwart: eine sozialwissenschaftliche Studie (Berlin: Judischer Verlag, 1918), 162. Marion Kaplan noted that such occurrences were well known, but not representative or numerous. “With the growth of anti-Semitism in the early 1880s, these marriages, despite the attractiveness of wealth, were seen as racial misalliances, and the declined in frequency.” Kaplan, “Tradition and Transition”: 16.

continued hostility from Christian society in the Roman and medieval periods, this was a normal trait among religious groups. In Christian, Jewish, and Islamic areas, new converts were often treated as second class to the life-long believers. This action was perhaps not anti-Jewish so much as life-long believers’ assertion of dominance over newcomers. The rise of racial anti- Semitism coincided with the events that this paper discusses in the subsequent chapters. Though Jews had been in Germany since the Roman period, and had at times intermingled with them, racial anti-Semites still saw them as a foreign race that threatened to dilute the purity of German blood. Whereas anti-Semitic policies against intermarriage previously focused on religious or cultural differences, racial anti-Semitism would make religious conversion and acculturation moot. Intermarriage represented the most odious and repugnant form of racial defilement. Not only were Jews intermixing with Germans, diluting the purity of the German nation, but because procreation was done within the institution of marriage, the state was giving such unions approval. Despite the long efforts of Jews to gain social acceptance or at least tolerance in Germany, racial anti-Semitism meant that no matter how much they changed, they would always be considered non-Germans. Though there were Jews who did not disagree with that proposition, the extremely negative connotations of anti-Semitic racial theory made it unpalatable to German Jews. The impact of racial anti-Semitism on intermarriages is discussed in the following chapters. For the current discussion however, it serves as the final evolution in the changing nature of anti-Semitism and calls against intermarriage.

IX. Intermarriage As Part of the Religious Struggle Over Civil Marriage

While it was the apparatus of the state that eventually granted legality to intermarriages, it was largely debated within the realm of religion. The conflicts between the different religious organizations and the states was one of the defining elements of German society since the days of Martin Luther. It was in great part the desire of the German rulers to control the religious life of their subjects that enticed the German princes to convert to Protestantism during the Reformation.66 Denominational disputes over marital matters, especially divorce and remarriage

66 Douglas Benjamin Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State: Prussian Marriage Law from the German Enlightenment Through the Foundation of the Second Empire,” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1989), 9; Heinz

remained a point of contention well into the nineteenth century. Indeed, from Reformation until the late nineteenth century, the term intermarriage was used most often in reference to marriages between Catholics and Protestants.67 Because Jews made up such a small proportion of German society, Jewish marriages to Christians was far less of a problem than jurisdictional control of marriages by the Christian churches. Though the Peace of Westphalia (1648) granted religious jurisdiction of marital ceremonies to the groom’s confession, the battle over control of inter-faith families continued into the nineteenth century.68 The idea of civil marriage was raised as both a solution to the inter-faith marriage conflict and the role of religion in the basic unit of society: the family. Martin Luther had maintained that marriage was not subject to church authority because it was not explicitly given to the church by scripture.69 As Protestantism had its basis in the wrestling of religion from the Church to the state and individual, civil marriage was strongly supported by several Protestant theologians. Most supporters of civil marriage did not intend to support marriages between non-Christians and Christians; weakening the Catholic Church was their main goal. Nevertheless, their objective would make it possible for German Jews to marry Christians. Civil marriage and intermarriage were thus intertwined. As religion declined and nationalism ascended during the nineteenth century, Judaism’s classification played an important role in the development of intermarriage. Had it been defined as a race, Jews would have been segregated from Germans as a nation apart, much as they had been throughout their history in Germany. As a distinct religious group within the German nation, only religious laws would prevent Jews from intermarrying. Civil law allowing them to intermarry was thus dependent upon Judaism being considered a religion. Within the Jewish community, there were three competing groups, all of which favored the religious classification of Judaism, but diverging on the issue of adherence to religion. The first group, led by the Gemeinde and traditionalist synagogues, advocated refraining from

Schilling, “The Reformation and the Rise of the Early Modern State,” trans. Heinz Schilling and T. Brady in James Tracy, ed., Luther and the Modern State in Germany (Kirksville, MO.: 1986), 21-30.

67 See for example, Brockhaus' Conversations-Lexikon: allgemeine deutsche Real-Encyklopädie, 1882-1887 ed., s.v. “mischehe.”

68 Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 24.

69 Martin Luther, “Von Ehesachen” in Dr. Martin Luthers Werke, (1910; reprint, Weimar: 1964), 30, Abteilung 3: 205. From Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 14n10.

intermarriages and maintaining close ties to the Jewish community. It feared for the health of the Jewish faith and community in Germany, which was threatened by conversions and intermarriage. Many Jews attempted to escape the pariah status caused by their Jewishness through conversion, or the conversion of their children.70 Jews who married Christians almost never raised their children as Jews, draining the life blood of Judaism in future generations.71 During the period of relatively high conversion rates from 1800 to the early 1840s, Jewish discourse on baptisms were rampant with fears of the dying out of German Jews.72 Many Jews, particularly men and lower-class women, converted to better their employment or marital standing.73 The economic boom at mid-century somewhat lowered the need for conversion as a vehicle for employment, and for the first time since 1806, the conversion rates began to descend.74 However, this lull was short lived and was conversions resumed their climb in the 1850s. This first group continually protested against intermarriage on the basis of fundamental differences between Jews and Christians. All but the most reformist of rabbis refused to preside over the union of a Jew and a non-Jew. Because anti-Semites charged Jews with separatism and endogamy to justify their calls for segregation of and restrictions on Jews, those Jews who protested against conversion and intermarriage had to be careful to do so without making inherent group differences the basis of their arguments. This concern led them to approach the issue as a religious problem, not a social one. If they contended that intermarriage should not be prohibited because of inherent racial differences within Jews and Christians, they would undermine their efforts to gain equality within German society and politics. If, however, Jewish- Christian intermarriage could be placed within the civil marriage debate, Judaism would be just another religious sect. This is indeed the path they chose. Like the Catholic Church and some

70 Kaplan, “Redefining Judaism”: 16.

71 Kaplan, “Tradition and Transition: The Acculturation, Assimilation, and Integration of Jews in Imperial Germany, A Gender Analysis,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 27 (1982): 17.

72 Alan Levenson fully discusses this topic in Alan Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany,” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1990).

73 Peter Honigmann, Die Austritte aus der Jüdischen Gemeinde Berlin, 1873–1941: Statistische Auswertung Und Historische Interpretation (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang., 1988), 11–13.

74 Deborah Hertz, “Seductive Conversion in Berlin: 1770-1809,”in Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, ed. T. M. Endelman (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1987), 56-7, 67.

Protestant churches, the Jewish synagogues opposed civil marriage and attempted to block intermarriages unless they could ensure that the progeny of such couplings would be raised within their respective religious community.75 The second group within Jewish society was comprised of reformists and an ever growing number of secular Jews. These Jews favored assimilation and abandoning German and Jewish identity. Like the traditional-minded Jews, the secular and reform Jews classified Judaism as a religion. For secular Jews, Judaism as a religion held no lasting claim to Jews who chose Christianity or atheism as a means of social enhancement. These Jews were part of a general nineteenth century German and European trend away from religious devotion and toward national identity. Within the Jewish-German community especially, nationalism was seen as a means to German identification. By distancing themselves from the Jewish identity that so hindered their lives, they hoped to find greater acceptance in German society. For reform- minded religious Jews, religious practices needed to be updated to reflect current social ideals. A third group of Jews also favored assimilation, but desired to do so while maintaining their Jewish identity and traditions. For these Jews, one’s Jewishness and Germanness were not necessarily mutually exclusive. As Johann Jacoby, a leading Jewish liberal of the Vormarz period, wrote in 1837, “As I myself am a Jew and a German at the same time, so the Jew in me cannot become free without the German and the German without the Jew. Just as I cannot divide myself, so I cannot separate within myself the freedom of the one from the other.”76 Another famous “1848er,” Gabriel Riesser, refused to renounce his Jewish identity for professional advancement and refused to convert to secure an inviting academic career. Instead, he sought to combine “loyalty to Germany with an attachment to Jewish moral and domestic values.” He instilled those ideas in Der Jude, a pro-emancipation newspaper he founded in 1832.77 These

75 Ludwig Philippson, founder and editor of the orthodox newspaper, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, noted and approved of the Christian churches’ stand. Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage,” 88.

76 Jacob Toury, Die politischen Orientierungen der Juden in Deutschland: von Jena bis Weimar (Tübingen: Mohr, 1966), 40. For an excellent biography of Jacoby, see Rolf Weber, Johann Jacoby: Eine Biographie (Cologne, 1988).

77 Ritchie Robertson, The ‘Jewish Question’ in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and its Discontents (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 79.

Jews did not fear the loss of Jewish identity through intermarriage, and many intermarried Jews in Imperial Germany harkened to this sentiment.78 Two events within the Jewish community, the Napoleonic Sanhedrin of 1807 and the Braunschweig Assembly of 1844, were convened with the goal of bringing religious policies in line with contemporary practices. In the years following the Napoleonic Wars, Jewish society underwent drastic changes. The Napoleonic Sanhedrin was organized to clarify the obligations of the Jewish community to the new Napoleonic state system in France. It took a definitive step away from the isolationist policies of the past and towards the integration of Jews into European society. The Sanhedrin refused to change its position on marrying a Jew and a Gentile. However, the rabbis broke with tradition by accepting the validity of civil marriages. They promised not to excommunicate intermarried Jews or obstruct intermarriage.79 For Napoleon and the Sanhedrin, civil intermarriage represented the assent of religious institutions to the governance of the state. Though it by no means commanded authority over German synagogues and rabbis, the Sanhedrin was influential in providing general direction for the Jewish religious community. By 1844, that influence was wearing off. The Braunschweig Assembly met with the purpose of reforming Judaism, to better acclimate it to changing world currents. Much had changed in European society since the Sanhedrin met, not the least of which was the social position of the Jews. Affluence, acculturation, and acceptance, which a small segment of the Jewish upper-class had achieved by the late eighteenth century, were rising within a large section of German Jewry. The Braunschweig Assembly was the first time German university-trained, “modern” rabbis had the power to change old practices.80 The Assembly began its discussion on intermarriage with an affirmation of the Sanhedrin’s decision. However, it soon went beyond the position of the rabbis in 1807. Samuel Holdheim, a former orthodox rabbi who had shifted to a reformist position, tried to convince the Assembly that Biblical and Talmudic prohibitions against intermarriage had not been religious in nature, but nationalist defensive actions to prevent the dissolution of the nation. He argued that

78 Marion Kaplan discusses this group of intermarried Jews in her article “Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany: Practices, Mentalities, and Community” Jewish Social Studies 9, no. 1 (2002): 1-33.

79 Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany,” 47-8.

80 Ibid., 49.

those bans must not be allowed to prevent Jews from assimilating into German society.81 Though even reformist Rabbis tended to disagree with Holdheim’s conclusions about the nature of intermarriage bans, they believed that religious institutions needed to support state sanctioned marriages. The Assembly stated, “The marriage of a Jew with a Christian is not forbidden, if the parents are permitted by the laws of the state to bring up the children produced from such a marriage in the Israelitish religion.”82 This was a drastic move away from the Talmudic intermarriage bans and created a sharp backlash by the traditionalists. One example of this backlash is the 1844 case of Ferdinand Falkson, a Jewish physician and socialist who wished to marry a Christian women. After three failed attempts to marry, Falkson traveled to England with his bride-to-be and were married there. Upon the couple’s return to Prussia, they were brought to trial for violating Prussia’s Land Law. Holdheim gave testimony supporting the couple’s marital rights under Jewish law. He was opposed by David Oettinger, a traditionalist who opposed intermarriage and maintained before the court that Jewish law forbade all marriages between a Jew and a non-Jew until after the bridal party had undergone religious consecration by Jewish authorities.83 The court found Holdheim and Oettinger’s interpretations of Jewish law to be “irreconcilable” and decided to set precedence by ruling against Falkson. This case did much to publicize the issues of civil marriage and intermarriage, but not all of the publicity was good for intermarriage. It highlighted the Jewish barriers to intermarriage, reinforcing the notion that Jews were self-segregating and unwilling to become Germans. It also served as a rallying point for traditionalist Jews, who used the occasion to denounce the Braunschweig Assembly’s conclusions.84 Yet even with the acceptance of intermarriage by some rabbis and reformist Jews, very little intermarriage actually occurred.85 Most German

81 Ismar Schorsch, “On The History Of The Political Judgment Of The Jew,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 20 (1976), 96 .

82 Protocolle der ersten Rabbiner-Versammlung (Braunschweig: 1844), 73. From Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage,” 51.

83 Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage,” 60-1.

84 Ibid.

85 Bruno Blau writes that from 1831 to 1840, there were approximately 200 intermarriages in the areas that made up Germany in 1933. Bruno Blau, “Die Mischehe in Nazireich,” Judaica 4, no. 1 (1948): 48.

states still had bans or restrictions on intermarriage without conversion that made the conclusions of the Braunschweig Assembly moot.86 German society was undergoing an equally impressive transformation. In addition to the changes previously covered, the German states were reorganized during the Napoleonic Wars, and were still coming to terms with that during the 1840s.87 Reorganization and expansion of the German states created the need for uniform laws to cover newly incorporated lands and demographic groups. Discussions about the health of the German nation rose as a result of the nationalism caused by the Napoleonic Wars. During the first half of the nineteenth century, legislators in several German states expressed concerns about overpopulation and increasing numbers of the impoverished classes. This concern coincided with the rise of nationalism and worries about the health of the nation, which led them to pass legislation restricting marriage to those considered by the community authorities as morally and financially capable of rearing a family.88 Racial anti-Semitism, which would take root during this period and blossom forth in the 1870s and 1880s, took many of those fears to heart. In the years following the Napoleonic Wars, Germany also experienced a re-emergence of open hostility between Prussia and the Catholic Church. Douglas Klusmeyer shows the impact of religious fragmentation on marriage reform law. The annexation of the Rhineland had doubled Prussia’s Catholic population, and its strong organization raised the visibility of the Papacy as a foreign agent capable of exerting influence in a Protestant land.89 Polarization

86 For example, Prussian law, which did allow intermarriages, demanded that children of intermarriage had to be raised under the religion of the father until the age of fourteen. Alfred Michaelis, Die Rechtsverhältnisse der Juden in Pruessen (Berlin, 1910), 466-8. Brauschweig and Hesse-Kassel allowed intermarriage without conversions in 1848, and Hamburg, Saxony and Baden followed in 1851, but all of the other German states prohibited intermarriage without conversions. Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage,”18.

87 Baron shows how the reorganization of the German states following the Napoleonic wars also impacted Jews in Prussia. Prussian Jews were divided into twenty one regions, each with distinct statuses and each cut off from the other by travel restrictions. Salo Baron, “The Jewish Question in the Nineteenth Century,” The Journal of Modern History 10, no. 1 (Mar., 1938): 53-4.

88 Looking at the statistics for German states, John Knodel shows that though marriage rates rose substantially following the general removal of marriage restrictions, illegitimacy rates decreased relatively, showing that unwanted reproduction by the poor was not stemmed by the restrictions, it was merely offset by illegitimate births. While this work does not directly address intermarriages, it does address marriages contemporary to the unification era, providing information on general German marital trends. John Knodel, "Law, Marriage, and Illegitimacy in Nineteenth-Century Germany" Population Studies 20, no. 3 (1967): 279-294.

89 Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 115.

between liberals and conservatives among Protestants in Prussia combined with the struggle with the Catholics to act as counter-pressures to the cohesion sought by the Prussian government. The Revolution of 1848 led to the creation of a Prussian constitution and parliament. The smoldering issues of civil marriage and the relationship of the church and state were rekindled as they were discussed in the constitutional debates. Attempts to totally separate church and state were shot down by conservatives, who wanted to maintain the control of religion that the states had fought for since the Reformation. Though the Prussian Parliament thoroughly discussed civil marriage, it was not included in the constitution. The constitutional assembly decided instead to delay the introduction of a civil law rather than continue to let it hold up the constitution. Otto von Bismarck, the architect of unification and future Chancellor, had an important role in the defeat of civil marriage in 1848, which he opposed to garner Catholic support.90 With victories and annexations during the unification era, the need to reevaluate laws and expand them into the new territories ensured that civil marriage and intermarriage would remain hot topics.

Conclusion

This chapter has shown how intermarriage fits into the general marital, religious, and Jewish history of Germany. The evolution of anti-Semitism, Jewish social position, and relations between religious institutions and the states had a tremendous impact on practices and restrictions of intermarriage. Bans from both Jews and non-Jews acted as barriers to intermarriage. While it is unfortunate that concrete records of intermarriage are sparse, we are able to draw conclusions about the nature of bans, the relationship between social position and intermarriage, and how intermarriages were viewed over time. This information provides historical context to the changes that occur at the end of the nineteenth century. It is to these changes that we now turn.

90 Protokolle des deutscher Bundestag, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen der durch die Allerhöchste Verordnung vom 30 Mai. 1849 einberufenen: Zweiten Kammer (Berlin 1489) 2: 1188-9.

CHAPTER TWO THE FORMATION OF GERMAN INTERMARRIAGE LAWS91

Introduction

Throughout the nineteenth century, discussions of intermarriage were closely tied to German unification, Jewish emancipation, and the struggles between religious groups. Jewish legal emancipation had important ramifications for intermarriage: it undercut arguments in the Jewish mainstream that adduced legal hostility as a reason for opposing intermarriage and changed the rhetoric of support and opposition of intermarriage among Jews. Civil inequality was no longer grounds for Jews to oppose intermarriage. Jewish opponents to intermarriage were forced to fall back on religious arguments, and subsequently lost ground in the Jewish communities to those who favored greater integration into German society. Instead, Jewish emancipation removed the secular obstacles to intermarriage, while state control of marriage would remove the religious obstacles. In the 1870s, the primacy of the state over religion was established and religious institutions increasingly lost their ability to control the lives of their followers in the secular realm. Two laws in particular fundamentally altered the relationship between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities in Germany. In 1871, following the unification of Germany, Jews were given equal rights and citizenship under the new Imperial Constitution, successfully concluding the major social project of German-Jewish communities since the Enlightenment. In 1875, following contentious debates in the government, the religious institutions, and society at large, all marriages were required to be sanctioned by the state. This chapter focuses primarily on

91 An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the German Studies Association’s Annual Conference, Washington D.C., October 2004.

these two laws, which were responsible for the rapid rise of intermarriages during the Kaiserreich. Since Napoleon’s conquest of Europe, the German states seemed to be evolving toward some form of a united Germany. Following the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna reduced the hundreds of small German states, principalities, and duchies into thirty-nine larger states to act as a strong buffer against potential French aggressions. Many of the new states underwent centralization reforms to consolidate the new territories and populations. While the Edict of 1812 partially emancipated Prussian Jews, it only applied to areas under Prussian control at the time. Jews in the territories acquired in 1815 were subject to different codes. The desire of many Jews for a single unified code was a reason for Jews to support unification. By 1848, liberals were meeting at the Frankfurt Assembly for talks on unifying Germany under a liberal constitution. The feeling that Germans were embarking on a new beginning was widespread and influenced many issues: Jews were to be emancipated and given equal rights; the role of religion in German society was to be renegotiated; laws were to be rewritten to encompass and improve all of Germany. It was in this atmosphere that the changes discussed in this chapter were supposed to occur. But it was not to be: the Frankfurt Assembly and the revolutions of 1848 failed, ending the dream of a liberal Germany. It was to be the conservative forces of Prussian aristocracy, under the aegis of Otto von Bismarck, that the German states would be transformed into an empire. Yet it was during the unification of Germany by conservative forces that intermarriage was legalized and Jews were emancipated. This chapter is not primarily about the nation building process; however, it places the controversy over intermarriages within the larger political picture.

I. Jewish Equality and Citizenship

Jews who opposed intermarriage rested their opposition on two main grounds: religious bans and government bans. Religious bans were effective only so far as the Jewish population was willing to rigidly follow traditional Jewish laws. Throughout the nineteenth century, adherence to traditional laws eroded and in some cases the interpretation of the laws were

challenged.92 Arguments based on religious bans did not fade, but religious bans came to have less impact as a deterrent to intermarriage, leaving opponents of intermarriage to rely upon the anti-Jewish legislation of the German states as rationales against intermarriage.93 Following the reforms of the Napoleonic Sanhedrin in 1807 and the Braunschweig Assembly in 1844, the rationales that relied upon government bans were also eroded, as Jews slowly gained better rights and social status in the German state. Because the traditionalists continuously upheld the right of the state to preside over civil marriages involving Jews, and pledged themselves to refrain from punishing or otherwise ostracizing intermarried Jews, they could only discourage Jews from intermarrying.94 In 1873, when Prussian Jews were allowed to leave the Gemeinde (the Jewish community organization) without declaring themselves either Christian or Konfessionslos, the traditionalist Jews lost yet more leverage for discouraging intermarriage.95 Liberation from such obligations made it easier for German Jews to feel detached from Jewish group identity if they so desired, and less burdened by the stigmatization associated with intermarriage.96 The decreasing value of religious and egalitarian rationales against Jewish intermarriage caused traditionalist opposition to lose ground in the legal and political discussions.97 As the German states took control of the institution of marriage away from religion, the already diminished Jewish religious bans became insignificant to the legal discussion of intermarriage. After Jewish religious organizations lost their legal power to prevent intermarriage, they were forced to voice their opposition within the social arena. It was the civil and civic status of Jews

92 See, for instance, Holdheim’s arguments against interpretations of biblical opposition to intermarriage as religious bans in chapter 2. Though numerically inferior within the Jewish community, adherents of Holdheim’s ideas were vocal and visible, wielding greater influence than their numbers would at first indicate.

93 The Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums stressed that contemporary rabbinical prohibitions of intermarriage was based on “outside rejection” rather than religious or national differences. It was the refusal of Christian society to recognize Jews as equals that had prompted Jewish rejection of intermarriage. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, (Leipzig) 4 March 1862. For an analysis of the evolution of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums’ stand on intermarriage, see Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany,” 42-79.

94 Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany,” 86.

95 From 1848 to 1873, all German Jews who left the Jewish Gemeinde had to join another religious community.

96 Marian Kaplan discusses several Jews and their reaction to this passive hostility in Marian Kaplan, "Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany: Practices, Mentalities, and Community." Jewish Social Studies 9, no.1 (2002): 1-33.

97 See for example, Levi Herzfeld’s arguments against Judeo-Christian intermarriage in Levi Herzfeld, Vorschläge zu einer Reform der jüdischen Ehegesetze (Braunschweig: G.C.E. Meyer, 1846). Herzfeld challenged Holdheim’s interpretations of intermarriage in the Torah, and demanded Jewish “civil parity” and Christian spouses abandonment of the belief in the Trinity as prerequisites to intermarriage.

that would play the decisive role in whether the Jewish community in Germany would accept intermarriages. For Jews, it was only natural that emancipation was a prerequisite for their acceptance of intermarriages. During the nineteenth century, Jewish emancipation and unification were the two paramount issues for German Jews.98 Intermarriage, though theoretically and ideologically important, was in reality only a marginal occurrence prior to the 1880s and did not have a direct impact on the everyday lives of most Jews. In contrast, emancipation affected all German Jews and was the center of their political life during the Vormärz and unification periods.99 Many Jews thought unification would provide the best chance for emancipation. Indeed, throughout the Vormärz and unification periods, many liberal Jews identified and subsumed Jewish equality with the struggles for German unification. One of the leading proponents of Jewish emancipation, Gabriel Riesser, said in 1835: “If I were to be offered, in one hand, the emancipation that is the goal of my profoundest aspirations, and, in the other, the realization of the beautiful dream of German political unification and freedom, I would unhesitatingly choose the latter: for I am firmly and deeply convinced that it includes the former too.”100 For most Jews, unification and freedom from the old order went hand in hand. Naturally, these Jews

98 For most Jews, emancipation was a far more important issue than intermarriage. Alan Levenson shows that in the 1870s and 1880s, at a time when the German Jewish community struggled greatly over intermarriage, many of the traditionalists who opposed intermarriage in Germany supported it in Hungary. They saw the ability to intermarry as the last step on the road to emancipation for Hungarian Jews. If acceptance of intermarriage was a prerequisite for emancipation and equality, then they were willing to accept it as a necessary evil. In Germany, however, emancipation had been granted before intermarriage was allowed; there was no need to accept intermarriage except on its own merits. Alan Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany,” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1990), 88. He makes particular use of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, an orthodox-leaning newspaper. See Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, 47, (1883), 790-2, 805-10, 821-4, 841-2 and Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, 48:1, (1884), 4-6.

99 The Vormärz, which literally means “before March,” was a retrospective characterization of the period between 1830 and 1848 whose unstable political and social climate anticipated the revolutionary fervor of the 1848 revolution.

100 Moshe Rinott, “Gabriel Riesser: Fighter for Jewish Emancipation,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book VII (1962): 26. Similar sentiments were expressed by Ludwig Börne. Koppel S. Pinson, Modern Germany: Its History and Civilization (New York: Macmillan, 1954), 67. Riesser, a member of the Jewish group that believed Jewish and German identities were compatible, proved his point by his appointment as the first Jewish Judge of the High court in Hamburg in 1861. He also took part in the Frankfurt Assembly and personally attended the Assembly’s delegation to Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, inviting his to be Emperor of a united Germany. To the great disappointment of Riesser and others, it was not to be the forces of liberalism which unified the German states. Ritchie Robertson, The ‘Jewish Question’ in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and its Discontents (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 79.

found themselves attracted to German liberalism, which supported both emancipation and unification as part of their larger efforts to recreate German society. Liberals advocated Jewish emancipation for a variety of reasons. Some liberals did so out of the conviction that discriminatory laws were outdated and morally unjust. Others wanted to rescind prejudicial laws in the belief that this would be an effective way to encourage assimilation or conversion. Most liberals believed that emancipation would compel Jews to adapt to the ways of the majority. David Sorkin writes that many non-Jewish liberals viewed Jews as morally and secularly inferior (as opposed to the view of spiritual inferiority held by the Christian churches), with potential to be equals, should they educate themselves enough. Liberal support for Jewish emancipation was often motivated by the desire to help raise Jewish education to a level that would produce Germans. Support for emancipation as a means of Jewish equality as a distinct group was not altogether supported by all liberals.101 Indeed, German liberals often went out of their way to appear as non-denominational as possible to avoid being labeled as a Jewish movement.102 Yet, no matter what motivated their support, liberals were willing to aid Jews in their efforts for equal rights. Because of the connection between liberals and Jewish emancipation, Jews were often actively involved in the liberal revolutions at mid-century. Two of the victims in Vienna in the March 1848 violence were Jews, while at least ten Jews died in the fighting in Berlin.103 Jacob Toury estimates that about 640 Jews played an active role in the armed insurrections and organized clubs during the Revolution of 1848.104 German Jews were so prominent and disproportionately active in the revolutions that, according to Salo Baron, Jewish emancipation became “intimately tied in the public mind with revolution.”105 While many Jews resented the

101 David Sorkin, The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780-1840 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 20.

102 Keith H. Pickus, Constructing Modern Identities: Jewish University Students in Germany, 1815-1914 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), 76-7.

103 Ritchie Robertson, The ‘Jewish Question’ in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and its Discontents (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 78. Jacob Toury, Die politischen Orientierungen der Juden in Deutschland. Von Jena bis Weimar (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1966), 66n81.

104 Jacob Toury, Die politischen Orientierungen der Juden in Deutschland. Von Jena bis Weimar (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1966), 66n81.

105 Salo Baron, “The Impact of the Revolution of 1848 on Jewish Emancipation,” Jewish Social Studies 11 (1949): 195-248. Baron uses this perceived connection between Jewish emancipation and revolution to support his explanation of the holocaust.

further public association between Judaism and radicalism, the revolution’s promise of emancipation was too good to ignore.106 Another source of Jewish enthusiasm for a united Germany stemmed from the belief that one uniform law of basic rights would be more beneficial than thirty-nine separate ones, where Jewish rights were subject to the whims of local politicians and religious groups. In practice, each state in the German Confederation enacted different ways of dealing with its Jewish population ranging from minor acts of discrimination to outright bans against Jews. The Edict of 1812 partially emancipated Prussian Jews. However, those edicts only applied to areas under Prussian control at the time, so that in all the territories acquired in 1815, Jews were subject to different codes.107 It was not until 1847 that Prussia developed a unified code for all of its territories.108 The expansion of Prussian terms of emancipation continued during the unification period. In 1869, the Norddeutscher Bund (North German Confederation) included Jews in its guarantee of religious equality.109 The Law of Religious Equality was designed to remove religious affiliation as an obstacle to public office. It particularly targeted discrimination against Christian denominations. In 1871, the law was expanded throughout the new German Empire, guaranteeing Jewish equality and civil rights. These changes were granted in part as concessions to German liberals for their continued support of Bismarck’s wars and unification programs. These laws were the last step to full emancipation and removed the question of Jewish status as a component of the constitutional debates and disappeared as an individual issue until the late 1870s.110

106 It must be pointed out though that perhaps a quarter of European Jews could be considered conservative, and that a majority of Jews were not politically active during the events of 1848. Those Jews who did participate in the rebellions were however liberal or radical. Peter Pulzer, Jews and the German State: The Political History of a Minority, 1848-1933 (Cambridge, Mass., Blackwell Publishers, 1992), 83-4.

107 Jews in Prussia’s Polish territories were excluded from the Emancipation Edict and were considered to be closer akin to Russian Jews than Jews in Germany. Gordon R. Mork, “German nationalism and Jewish Assimilation: The Bismarck Period,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 22 (1977): 84-5.

108 Pulzer, Jews and the German State, 74-5. For an excellent analysis of the slow and uneven rate of modernization and Germanization of German Jews during the nineteenth century, see: Steven M. Lowenstein. Steven M. Lowenstein, “The Pace of Modernisation of German Jewry in the Nineteenth Century,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 21, (1976): 41-56.

109 Ibid., 22-3, 39-42.

110 Pulzer, Jews and the German State, 18.

While the laws removed official discrimination of Jews de jure, de facto inequalities remained. Jews still faced invisible obstacles to public office, career advancement, and educational opportunities.111 Inequalities also occurred in individual states, which largely controlled religious affairs and education. Jews found that, despite the equality granted in the Gleichberechtigung (Federal Constitution), without continuous struggle, equality was more apparent than real. Fights for equal rights in the German states, particularly over educational issues, continued right up until the end of the Weimar Republic in 1933.112

II. Unification and the Kulturkampf

With Jews having full rights within Germany, religion was the only remaining obstacle to intermarriages. As mentioned in the previous chapter, control of inter-faith marriages had been contested in the German states since the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Regulating inter- faith marriages would give the state the ability to serve as a higher authority on marriage than religious institutions. Following three hundred years of German Protestant state traditions, Prussia, the principal unifying agent and the largest and most powerful state in Germany, greatly desired such control. So long as inter-faith couples who were spurned by their religious institutions could go to the state for marriage, those institutions lacked absolute control over their followers’ marital practices. Intermarriage was one part of several larger issues that came to dominate the early legislation of the Empire. Apart from the civil marriage debate, intermarriage was part of a much larger, and no less contentious, action to reduce the power of religion in the secular sphere. After the unification, Otto von Bismarck focused all of his attention on building a German national identity and consolidating Prussia’s preeminence. It was largely within the context of nation building and the kulturkampf that civil marriage was debated. Prussia wished to expand its laws and practices to the rest of the Empire, and to incorporate the many new or expanded demographic groups of the other German states under its influence. Expansion had two effects on marriage law: it created the need for a uniform

111 Those obstacles will be discussed in Chapter Three.

112 Max Birnbaum, “On the Jewish Struggle for Religious Equality in Prussia, 1897-1914,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 25 (1980): 163-71.

marriage law for all of Prussia’s possessions and it magnified the problem of religious and social minority status.113 In particular, the powerful Catholic constituencies of Bavarian and the Rhineland needed to be addressed. The new state needed to create laws and institutions to unify the German people. Out of many small, but proud identities, one single German identity was to be formed. Catholicism was the primary target of national hostility during the post-unification years. In some ways, it was the strength of the Catholic Church that made it such a likely target. The Protestant churches had developed with close ties to the states, and bore no allegiances to a foreign body, while the Jews were numerically small and lacked a strong centralized bureaucracy. It was the Catholic Church, with it foreign allegiance to the Papacy in Rome, its heavily developed bureaucracy, and status as the largest minority religion that made it the biggest threat to German unity. Bismarck had come to resent the opposition of the Catholics to his political aims. The years of German unification coincided with the unification of Italy. The Papacy, which was not sympathetic to liberalism to begin with, was adamantly opposed to goals of Italian liberals trying to unify the Italy. The Italian revolutionaries were largely fighting against the Austrian Empire, long one of the Papacy’s strongest supporters, and violated the secular sovereignty of the Papacy by absconding almost all of the Papal States and the city of Rome. The Papacy, therefore, was already predisposed to oppose the unification of Germany. Given that Germany’s two obstacles to unification were Austria and France, both strong supporters of

113 Table I. Breakdown of religious confessions in Prussia following the Austro-Prussia War.

Confession Old Provinces New Provinces Total I. Christian Evangelical U. 11,974,967 3,639,923 15,614,890 Old Lutheran 29,620 2,049 31,669 Herrenhuter 2,918 407 3,325 Irvingianer 2,104 109 2,213 Baptist 10,038 2,754 12,792 Mennonite 13,697 947 14,644 Roman Catholic 7,351,804 598,875 7,950,679 German Catholic 8,595 2,325 10,920 Greek Orthodox 1,707 286 1,993 Other 13,660 951 14,611 II. Jews 262,726 50,430 313,156 III. Other 5 44 49 Source: Gerhard Besier, “Preussische Kirchenpolitik in der Bismarckäre”, Vol.49 Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission zu Berlin (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1980), 541.

the Papacy, the opposition of the Papacy to German unification was understandable. The difficulty in controlling the southern German states, all heavily Catholic, during the wars with Austria and France, led Bismarck to distrust the loyalty of Catholic Germans to the new state. However, Robert Lougee suggests that it was the emergence of the Zentrum, a strong Catholic political party in the Reichstag, that catalyzed Bismarck’s anti-Catholic actions.114 The Papacy exacerbated the religious tensions in the German states with its Syllabus Errorum of 1864 and the 1870 Vatican Council’s Decree of Papal Infallibility. The Syllabus, which contained the Papacy’s judgment of all modern ideological doctrine, rejected almost all of liberalism’s tenants.115 The Decree, which stated the divine orientation of the Pope’s decisions, caused even more controversy in Germany, particularly because most German bishops had opposed it during the council. These actions by the Catholic Church operated on the fears and prejudices of German liberals and nationalists, confirming their belief that German Catholics could not maintain total allegiance to the new Reich. Throughout the 1870s, Bismarck and his political associates reeled off a series of openly anti-Catholic actions, dedicated to reducing the power of Catholicism in Germany and to loosening the ties between German Catholics and Rome. The 1873 May Laws were the culmination of those actions: they restricted the disciplinary powers of the church and placed the education of the clergy under state supervision. Adalbert Falk, one of the principal architects of the civil marriage laws, designed the May Laws with Bismarck’s approval.116 The kulturkampf would never have reached the fevered pitch it achieved in the early 1870s had the German populace not been so conditioned to react against Catholicism. German liberals, particularly intellectuals, had already developed antagonistic views of Catholicism. Statists and nationalists, both products of the upsurge in patriotism following each Bismarckian war, desired to see Catholicism’s “special privileges” reduced. Nationalists abhorred the influence of a foreign power such as the Papacy controlling the minds and loyalties of Germans. Statists were rather less particular about their anti-Catholicism: they wished all Germans to be subject to absolute legal control of the state. Protestant support of the kulturkampf was less rigid

114 Robert Lougee, “The Kulturkampf and Historical Positivism,” Church History 23, no.3 (1954): 221.

115 Eyck, Bismarck and the German Empire, 203-4.

116 Schubert, “Zur Vorgeschichte und Entstehung der Personesstandsgesetze Preussens und des Deutschen Reichs,” 60-63.

than the Statists and nationalists. Despite the generally positive Protestant reception of anti- Catholic legislation, a sizable portion balked at the May Laws. Many feared the consequences of the May Laws, should they be applied to Protestant Churches.117 Jews were also reliable supporters of Bismarck’s anti-Catholic programs.118 German Catholics had long been targets of Jewish animosity. Though there were areas of obvious disagreement in religious beliefs, it was Catholic opposition to emancipation and liberalism that created Jewish support of the kulturkampf.119 Catholics rejected the rationalist basis for emancipation, which held all men to be equal. Catholics viewed liberalism as a threat, as the Syllabus Errorum demonstrated. Catholic hostility toward German Jews was especially evident in the Catholic press during the kulturkampf. The largest publication of the Zentrum, Germania, was especially anti-Semitic and anti-liberal.120 Jews saw the kulturkampf as an intellectual movement against the anti-liberalism and anti-rationalism of the ultramontanists within the Catholic Church in Germany, who refused to acknowledge the ultimate sovereignty of the new German nation. Jews, whose identity as German citizens was dependent on the new state, feared that by refusing to recognize the authority of the new state, Catholics would not recognize them as fellow citizens.121 Within the German-Jewish community, fear of the kulturkampf existed. Like the Protestant Churches, some Jews who were sympathetic to kulturkampf legislation that repressed the Catholic Church, also feared the anti-liberal connotations of such legislation. Bans on “sermons detrimental to the Reich” implied low tolerance for criticisms of government and society, which could eventually be used against Jews. In a social group long used to such abuses, this was a very real fear.122

117 Lougee, “The Kulturkampf and Historical Positivism,” 222.

118 Uriel Tal, Christians and Jews in Germany: Religion, Politics, and Ideology in the Second Reich, 1870-1914 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), 97-106. Gordon Mork traces Jewish support of Bismarck back to his nationalist policies in 1866. When anti-Semites agitated against Jews following the economic depression in 1873, Bismarck was included among their targets. Mork, “German nationalism and Jewish Assimilation: The Bismarck Period,” 81.

119 Tal, Christians and Jews in Germany, 87-8.

120 Pulzer, Jews and the German State, 141.

121 Tal, Christians and Jews in Germany, 98.

The Law of Personal Status, which mandated civil marriage for all Germans, was part of the kulturkampf legislation that followed the May Laws. The law contained mandates for the state to assume the function of record keeping for births, deaths, engagements, and marriages from religious institutions. The requirement that all marriages be conducted in a civil ceremony was contained within this legislation.

III. Civil Marriage

Civil marriage had been tossed around in Parliament for a dozen years following the Revolution of 1848. During that time, three forms of civil marriage law were discussed. Emergency civil marriage (Notzivilehe) was proposed as a means of marriage for inter-faith couples whose religious institutions refuse to preside over the wedding. Optional civil marriage would allow couples to choose between ecclesiastic and civil rites of marriage. At first glance they seem to be the same thing, but there is an important difference between the two. Emergency civil marriage could be considered only as a method of last resort, after all efforts to marry under confessional laws were exhausted, clearly favoring religious ceremonies. Optional civil marriage treated both religious and secular marriages as equally valid alternatives.123 Obligatory civil marriage was far more disruptive because it removed confessional power from marriages. Obligatory civil marriage meant that all marriages had to be conducted by the state. During the dozen years after 1848, all three forms of civil marriage were thoroughly discussed, but the passage of meaningful legislation remained a distant dream. During this time, Bismarck, a member of Prussia’s second chamber, the Herrenhaus and later the Prussian Minister to the Deutscher Bundestag, openly opposed civil marriage. He ridiculed the notion that the church should be stripped of its authority over marriage in the name of religious freedom.124 In 1861, Justice Minister Otto Friedrich von Bernuth pulled a bill for

122 It must be noted that the Judeo-Catholic relationship did not remain antagonistic throughout the Kaiserreich. In the early twentieth century, many Jews believed the Zentrum was a better guarantor of Jewish civil rights than the liberals, and in the election of 1907 and 1909, Jews supported Zentrum candidates. Pulzer, Jews and the German State, 187.

123 Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 223.

124 Protokolle des deutscher Bundestag, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen der durch die Allerhöchste Verordnung vom 30 Mai. 1849 einberufenen: Zweiten Kammer (Berlin 1489) 2: 1188-9.

optional civil marriage from consideration by Parliament after months of futile haggling. Marriage law reforms would remain dormant until 1869.125 On November 2, 1869, Dr. Gustav Eberty and Dr. Wilhelm Löwe-Calbe, both members of the liberal Progressive Party, revived the civil marriage issue amidst general anti-Catholic fervor following the war against Austria in 1866.126 They petitioned the Prussian Abgeordneten (delegates of the legislature) for a new marriage law that would require civil ceremonies for all marriages in Prussia. Heinrich von Mühler, the conservative Kultusminister (Minister of Education), opposed Eberty’s and Löwe’s measure because as a strong supporter of ecclesiastical rights, he rejected any form of civil marriage that exceeded emergency civil marriage. He believed the lower house would not accept any form of civil marriage unless it was obligatory. However, he was opposed by the Justizminister (Minister of Justice) A.W. Leonhardt, who wanted to create a more unified marriage law to remove the gaps that existed between state law and ecclesiastical practices.127 It was largely the work of Leonhardt that despite rejecting the petition, the Abgeordneten recommended the government prepare legislation on an obligatory civil marriage law.128 During this time, Bismarck was one of the staunchest supporters of civil marriage. The “Iron Chancellor” had amended his position on civil marriage since 1848, largely because he was no longer interested in the support of the Catholic church. Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach, a conservative who had opposed the wars of unification, also opposed obligatory civil marriage.129

125 Protokolle des deutscher Bundestag, Die Verhandlungen über den Gesetz-Entwurf, das Eherecht betreffend, in beiden Häusern des Landtages in Jahre 1860, Vollständiger Abdruck der stenographischen Berichte, nebst Gesetz- Entwurf, Motiven zu demselben und Kommissions-Berichten (Berlin, 1860), 498. From Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 228.

126 Austria was a Catholic state and anti-Catholic sentiments were at a heightened level throughout Germany during and following the confrontation.

127 Werner Schubert, “Zur Vorgeschichte und Entstehung der Personesstandsgesetze Preussens und des Deutschen Reichs (1869-1875),” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische Abteilung XCVII (1980), 49-50.

128 Reports of the German Reichstag, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen, Haus der Abgeordneten (Berlin, 1870), 1: 235.

129 Gerlach, together with his brother General Leopold von Gerlach, had been a close political allies of Bismarck in the years following the revolution of 1848. Bismarck’s repeated willingness to set aside political morality in favor of geo-politics greatly offended the coservative dogmatism of the Gerlach brothers. They were both opposed to the unification of Germany, which was intimately tied to German liberalism. Throughout the 1860s, Bismarck’s relationship with Ludwig deteriorated, and the separation was completed over Gerlach’s adamant opposition to the

Gerlach pointed out that in 1848, Bismarck had opposed that form of civil marriage and quoted Bismarck at length. Gerlach’s use of Bismarck’s earlier works to call out of Bismarck for his political duplicity aroused much amusement among the other Abgeordneten.130 However, Bismarck, whom Gerlach did not realize was in the chamber, quickly responded to the allegations and attacked Gerlach vehemently. He ridiculed Gerlach’s position as too mired in ideology and lacking the practical grounding necessary for politicians. Bismarck acknowledged his shift in position on intermarriage and even admitted that the reason for the shift had been the need in 1848 to maintain the allegiance of the German Catholics, a need that was no longer present: I have got to occupy myself with politics. From the standpoint of politics, I am convinced, that the state is forced by the dictates of self-defense, in a situation which the (I do not want to use the expression injuriously, but scientifically) revolutionary behavior of the Catholic bishops (I will comment on the expression more precisely immediately to mitigate the offense) has brought the state, to enact a law to prevent damages caused by some of His Majesty’s subjects which the rebellion of the bishops have inflicted on the law and the state, and as much as it concerns him, and as much as the state is capable, to do his duty on his part. 131

Bismarck’s attack of the Catholic Church as “revolutionary” exemplified the antagonistic atmosphere of the kulturkampf. Bismarck, who had shared Gerlach’s conservativism during the Revolution of 1848, had shifted his political outlook to the realpolitik that would characterize his career first as Chancellor of Prussia and then as Chancellor of all Germany. His support of obligatory civil marriage would prove vital to the passage of the marriage reforms in the Prussian and German Reichstag. Following the rejection of Eberty and Löwes’ petition, von Mühler, Leonhardt, and Innenminister (Minister of the Interior) Friedrich Graf Eulenburg developed a draft in January 1870 that provided for an emergency civil marriage law. Several modified versions were presented to the Staatministerium throughout 1870 and 1871, until finally the legislation was

Austro-Prussian War. Erich Eyck, Bismarck and the German Empire (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1964), 16, 118, 121, 142, 204.

130 For Gerlach’s speech, see Reports of the Reichstag, Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen durch die Allerhöchste Verordnung vom 4. November 1873 einberufenen beiden Häuser des Landtages, Haus der Abgeordneten. (Berlin, 1874): 411-2.

131 Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen durch die Allerhöchste Verordnung vom 4. November 1873 einberufenen beiden Häuser des Landtages, Haus der Abgeordneten. (Berlin, 1874): 414. Quote translated by Klusmeyer in Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 247.

cleared for Parliament’s approval in December 1871. However, von Mühler began to waver in his support of the bill, which he criticized as too close to optional civil marriage. He thought there were too many loop-holes for individuals wishing to elude confessional mandates, which would undermine religious discipline. Always the target of liberals, von Mühler’s obvious stalling tactics had led to further heated attacks which finally forced his replacement by a liberal, Adalbert Falk.132 Falk, a moderate liberal with a strong belief in the supremacy of the state over the church, became the most outspoken advocate for obligatory civil marriage.133 With Bismarck’s backing, Falk submitted a new plan for obligatory civil marriage to the Staatsministerium for discussion in November 1872. Falk still needed to persuaded Leonhardt and Eulenburg that an obligatory law was preferable to their earlier optional drafts, and the other ministry heads needed to be convinced.134 Falk also had to contend with King Wilhelm I, who adamantly opposed obligatory civil marriage.135 It was not until 1873 that Falk would be able to secure Wilhelm and the Staatsministerium’s reluctant approval of an obligatory civil marriage law. He did this by making the law part of a broader personal status law that was to cover birth and marriage registration.136 The Staatministerium and the crown were engaged in a general action against the Catholic church and its perceived “ultramontism.”137 They were not fully supportive of

132 Schubert, “Zur Vorgeschichte und Entstehung der Personesstandsgesetze Preussens und des Deutschen Reichs,” 51-59.

133 Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 238.

134 For instance, Handelsminister (Trade Minister) Graf von Itzenplitz counter-proposed optional civil marriage as a less radical change and the President of the Prussian Staatsministeriums Albrecht Graf von Roon rejected civil marriage altogether, as it would promote religious indifference. Schubert, “Zur Vorgeschichte und Entstehung der Personesstandsgesetze Preussens und des Deutschen Reichs,” 60-63.

135 Wilhelm I (1861-1888) was a deeply conservative man, who nonetheless felt free to choose moderate liberals for cabinet positions. He saw himself above partisan politics and attempted to demonstrate his balanced approach to politics through appointments across the political spectrum. Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 219.

136 Schubert, “Zur Vorgeschichte und Entstehung der Personesstandsgesetze Preussens und des Deutschen Reichs,” 61.

137 Ultramontanism refers to the belief in the superiority of Papal authority over the authority of local government. All German Catholics who upheld the doctrice of Papal Infalliability were branded as such during the unification era.

obligatory civil marriage, but they were willing to subsume their hesitation to their desire to reduce the power of the Catholics in Germany.138 The arguments of the Motive emphasized three points.139 The first point explained the need to “establish a uniform state marital law for all Prussian provinces.” The second point argued that religious minorities of churches not recognized by the state had extremely limited prospects of marriage under the old system. The final point was directed against the renegade Catholic clergy, who, having refused to comply with the harsh May Laws, were unauthorized to conduct marriages. These clergymen were continuing to perform marriages for couples, creating an ever growing number of unrecognized marriages among Catholics.140 The three points of the Motive emphasize the target of the obligatory intermarriage law was the Catholic Church. Not only were the “rogue” clergy of the Catholic Church specifically mentioned, but the second point also made specific reference to the “Old Catholics,” a small, but strong group of Catholics in central Europe that had refused to accept the doctrine of Papal Infalliability and were ostracized by the leadership in Rome. The state, wishing to use this split to its advantage, championed the cause of the “Old Catholics” by making external marriage via the state a means for their continuation. The civil marriage portion of the Law of Personal Status bill was first discussed in the Landtag (Prussia’s Lower House) in December 1873. Unlike the contentious debates of the 1840s and 1850s, the discussions on the civil marriage portion of the Law of Personal Status were rather one sided. In large part, this was due to the tremendous shift in the position of conservatives since the kulturkamf, which had put the Catholics and their supporters on the defensive. The general anti-Catholic sentiment in Prussia and in Germany at the time meant that Catholics had to appeal to liberals and Protestants to have any chance of swaying votes in the legislature. While many delegates among the Zentrum (the Cathlic party in Germany) continued to rehash the old party platform against civil marriage and the kulturkampf, a few delegates

138 Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 242.

139 A Motive was an explanatory attachment to a bill or petition to the Reichstag, giving the governments reasons for submitting and supporting the bill.

140 Erich Förster, Adalbert Falk, Sein Leben und Wirken als Preuβien Kultusminister (Gotha: L. Klotz, 1927), 219- 36. See also Schubert, “Zur Vorgeschichte und Entstehung der Personesstandsgesetze Preussens und des Deutschen Reichs,” 66-76 and Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 242-3.

attempted to attack the legislation on different grounds. August Reichensperger, a leading representative in the Zentrum, tried to use the past failures of civil marriage bills to show that there was no need to “impose” legislation on Germany. Because of the anti-Catholic sentiment in the Landtag, he tried to distance opposition to civil marriage from the Zentrum by pointing out several liberals who had expressed opposition to the obligatory form of civil marriage contained in the current bill.141 Yet any points he might have gained by such tactics quickly evaporated when he attacked all of the programs associated with the kulturkampf. He denounced the May Laws and in an undisguised threat, implied that the current attacks on the Catholic Church would eventually come back to hurt all religious groups within Germany, particularly the Protestant churches.142 Von Gerlach’s attack on Bismarck’s duplicity on civil marriage during the November 1873 sessions had the most potential to influence delegates. However, any chance of significant impact quickly disappeared after Bismarck’s swift and damning rebuttal against Gerlach. Shortly after, in January 1874, the bill came to a vote in the Landtag. The draft was overwhelmingly passed and moved into the Herrenhaus, where, after three days of deliberation, the draft was easily approved with a few modifications.143 Four days later, the Landtag confirmed the modifications, and on March 9, 1874, the new Law of Personal Status took effect. On January 12, 1875, the German Reichstag began its own deliberation on the expansion of Prussia’s Law of Personal Status and Marriage to the entire Reich.144 There is little need to go into the individual arguments for and against civil marriage, as these mirrored those that were laid out during the Prussian Landtag debates. Catholics and their sympathizers vehemently argued to no avail against the new law. The vast majority of Abgeordneten who had been sympathetic to the opposition to civil marriage in earlier debates were not willing to oppose legislation of the kulturkampf. After two weeks, the new law was sent to the floor for a vote, and

141 One of the liberals noted by Reichensperger, Rudolf Gneist, affirmed his personal objection to civil marriage, but remarked that he would subsume his personal beliefs to the legal and marital need of the state. Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen durch die Allerhöchste Verordnung vom 4. November 1873 einberufenen beiden Häuser des Landtages, Haus der Abgeordneten. (Berlin, 1874): 415.

142 Ibid., 403.

143 Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen durch die Allerhöchste Verordnung vom 4. November 1873 einberufenen beiden Häuser des Landtages, Herrenhaus (Berlin, 1874), 1: 229.

144 Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstag. 12. Januar 1875. Sitzung 977.

on January 25, 1875 it passed with ease; it was sent through the Bundesrat (Upper House) on February 4, 1875.145 The Prussian Law of Personal Status became the Reichsgesetz über die Beurkundung des Personenstandswesens und der Eheschließung. Despite the success of the kulturkampf in usurping control of marriages from the Catholic Church, Bismarck’s anti-Catholic programs failed to achieve their mark. Civil marriage appeared to be a victory for the state, but it had less of an effect on the Catholic Church than had been hoped. The Catholic Church had a long tradition of dealing with marriages outside of its control and was adept at enforcing its rules independently of the state. It was the Protestant Church, with its long established links to the German states, that lacked the institutional structures necessary to enforce confessional discipline without state support.146 Although many marginal Catholics left the Church during the kulturkampf, their absence had the effect of creating a far more unified religious constituency. As the Catholic Church attempted to expand over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, it had been forced to compromise on some of its rhetoric and ideology to appeal to a larger group of people. As marginal Catholics left the Church, the remaining Catholics were able to abandon those compromises and focus on a more orthodox form of Catholicism. What remained were a hardened and unified group of Catholics who were immune to the privations of the German state. By the 1880s, Bismarck reconciled with the Catholics as he turned his attacks toward liberals. The kulturkampf had achieved its goal of reducing the power of the Catholic Church in some social functions (like marriage and education), but it failed to prevent the emergence of a stronger more entrenched Catholic block that would play an important role in the government and society until 1933.

Conclusion

Though the Personal Law of 1875 did not end the struggle for control of marriage between the state and religious institutions, it marked the success of the state in imposing its will over the churches and synagogues. Religious institutions still maintained influence in German

145 Schubert, “Zur Vorgeschichte und Entstehung der Personesstandsgesetze Preussens und des Deutschen Reichs,” 76-89.

146 Klusmeyer, “Between Church and State,” 249-50.

politics and society. The Zentrum was particularly successful in consolidating the power of the Catholic Church in Germany into a unified political party that could be a major player in parliamentary politics. But the primacy of the state over religion was established in the 1870s and religious institutions continued to lose their ability to control the lives of their followers in the secular realm. Because marriage was both a secular and spiritual event, barriers to intermarriage were present in both realms. Jewish emancipation removed the secular obstacles to intermarriage, while state control of marriage would remove the religious obstacles. Yet as long as Jews and non-Jews refrained from interacting, marriages would be rare. It was only when Jews began to integrate into German society under their new rights that intermarriages occurred. Though legal and religious barriers between Jews and non-Jews were removed, one final barrier to intermarriage remained: social segregation.

CHAPTER THREE

THE IMPACT OF INTERMARRIAGE IN NINETEENTH CENTURY GERMANY147

Introduction

In the years after the Law of Personal Status and Marriage Certification, discussions of intermarriage were muted. It was not until racial anti-Semitism emerged onto the German political scene in 1879 that popular interest in the issue of intermarriage resurfaced. In part, this was due to the small number of intermarriages during those first years; this lack of a substantial increase in intermarriages following the enactment of civil marriage legislation shows that a lag between legislation and social response existed. It also shows that official sanction of intermarriage was the result of top-down legislation. This chapter analyzes the historical trends of intermarriage in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and its impact on German-Jewish as well as on German society in general. In this chapter, intermarriage is connected to the responses to emancipation and unification. All three topics greatly affected the conflict and evolution of German and Jewish identity. Though it played only a marginal role in the legislation discussed in chapter two, anti- Semitism gained influence in German politics and society during the 1870s and 1880s, and has an important place in this chapter. It pervaded Jewish/non-Jewish relations and influenced the support and opposition to intermarriage within both communities. With the Law of Personal Status and Marriage Certification of 1875, the legal obstructions of intermarriage by the government and religious institutions had been removed or significantly reduced. While religious organizations could exert control over their constituency

147 An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the Social Science History Association, Chicago, IL, November, 2004.

through reprimands or ostracism, they lacked legal recourse for preventing intermarriages, and were able to oppose it only in the arena of social debate. This chapter focuses almost exclusively on the subsequent social discussions of intermarriage among Jews and non-Jews. Intermarriage exacerbated and catalyzed the Judenfrage. The Judenfrage was the debate over the appropriate place of Jews in German society that dates back to the late eighteenth century.148 It forced Germans and Jews to ponder the true status of Jews as Germans. This dispute led to divergent movements, one which led toward Jewish assimilation, the other which led toward the rise of a new anti-Semitism. Although by no means were all Jews for assimilation or the majority of non-Jews for anti-Semitism, those movements strongly influenced the direction of relations between German Jews and non-Jews during the Kaiserreich. Intermarriage also challenged the definition and identity of German Jews and German non-Jews. How these couples and their children were to be classified within the groups created much tension and debate. Both anti-Semites and liberal Jewish endogamists feared and opposed intermarriage and what they believed to be a threat to their people.149 Though this issue has even to this day not been totally resolved, its impact on intermarriage in the nineteenth century is the subject of this chapter.

I. Intermarriage Trends

The breakdown of intermarriage statistics on the following page reveals several important trends.150 The Federal Law of Personal Status and Marriage Certification in 1875 was not

148 Ritchie Robertson, The ‘Jewish Question’ in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and its Discontents (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1.

149 It is not the intent here to assert that anti-Semites and traditionalist Jews shared common goals. Though their views of certain issues, such as intermarriage and assimilation shared some commonalities, they differed on many important points. The traditional Jews did not advocate a form of pro-Semitism that was founded upon anti- Germanism. They wanted to maintain their distinct beliefs within German society. Anti-Semites were decidedly against any integration of Jews into German culture, and wished to end the perceived “Jewish domination” or economics and politics. Though opposition to assimilation and intermarriage both served the purposes of the two, they did so for different reasons. “Liberal Jewish endogamists” is the best term I could come up with to describe the liberal mainstream Jews that opposed intermarriage. Though liberal, these Jews upheld the traditional opposition to intermarriage. The favored endogamy because of the perceived damaging effects of intermarriage on the future of Judaism in Germany.

150 Though it only contains statistics from Prussia, it is adequate for our purposes. Prussia was home to most of Germany’s Jews in the nineteenth century, and followed the patterns of intermarriage in the rest of Germany, though at a slightly higher rate. There are other sources that give slightly different annual numbers and statistical

followed by a deluge of intermarriages. It is unclear, however, how many intermarriages took place in Prussia before 1875. Because conversion was mandatory for Jews to marry non-Jews, those marriages were not recorded as intermarriages. What is clear is that in the decade after the Federal Law of Personal Status and Marriage Certification, intermarriages occurred at a steady, slow pace. From 1875 to 1885, intermarriages in Prussia wavered between eight and ten and one-half percent of marriages involving Jews. In 1875, 277 Jews married non-Jews in Prussia, a number not exceeded until 1887. During that time, the Prussian Jewish community experienced a general lag in marriages. Intermarriages decreased to as low as 216 in 1878, but were accompanied by an equally low rate of marriage in general, so that intermarriages never dipped below nine percent of all Prussian Jewish marriages. Jewish marriages picked up again at the same time that intermarriages begin to climb. However, the two increases do not seem mutually dependent. From 1883 to 1893, the beginning of the upward slope, the yearly increases and decreases in intermarriages were not always concurrent with rises in total Jewish marriages. While intermarriages slowly increased from 1883 to 1888, total Jewish marriages were depressed during that same period. The opposite occurred from 1889 to 1895, when intermarriages fell while total Jewish marriages held steady. On Table I, two trends stand out: the changing gender distributions among intermarrying Jews and the overwhelming number of Protestants relative to Catholics who intermarried.

breakdowns of intermarriages. For instance, the May 1907 issue of ZDSJ counted 3,905 Jews married to each other in Germany in 1906, and 458 Jewish men and 361 Jewish women who married outside of their faith, compared to 3132 Jews married to other Jews, and 495 Jewish men and 425 Jewish women whose intermarriages were recorded in the Preuβische Statistik . Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden, May 1907, p. 80. Cited in Kaplan, “Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany,” 25n172. Though the numbers sometimes differ, the differences seem to have little impact on the general trends described in this paper.

Source for Table II on the following page: My own calculations based on numbers from Preuβische Statistik, vol. 42 (Berlin: Verlag des Königlichen Statistischen Bureaus, 1875), 79; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 45 (1876), 75; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 47 (1877), 99; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 51 (1878), 99; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 56 (1879), 69; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 61 (1880), 69; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 68 (1881), 99; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 74 (1882), 69; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 79 (1883), 69; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 86 (1884), 69; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 89 (1885), 69; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 94 (1886), 123; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 98 (1887), 83; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 107 (1888), 83; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 113 (1889), 91; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 117 (1890), 89; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 123 (1891), 89; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 127 (1892), 93; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 134 (1893), 93; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 138 (1894), 93; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 143 (1895), 93; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 149 (1896), 165; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 155 (1897), 93; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 160 (1898), 93; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 164 (1899), 93; Preuβische Statistik, vol. 169 (1900), 106.

0 0 5 0 3 6 3 Other 9 14 2 1 9 2 1 2 5 7 5 1 7 7 6 6 10 9 12 1 1 9 1 18 3 1 22

4 0 9 5 4 2 4 2 507 Catholic 5 57 30 4 37 42 2 50 42 4 37 50 53 66 69 65 50 67 55 5 87 8 75 95 9 8 1 JihS 4 1 2 1 7 2 2 9 6 Religious Affiliation of non- Religious Affiliation 85 87 66 8 8 06 87 9 06 5 58 3 60 97 Protestant 214 1 1 1 1 1 2 221 1 1 2 21 2 2 2 256 237 22 2 24 2 306 333 350 386 379 636

2 4 2 .3 . .6 .3 .8 .8 .6 .9 Jewish M 4 4 3.9 4 4 4 4 5.8 4 4 5. 6.0 6.7 6.7 5.9 6.2 5.6 5.5 6.3 6. 8.3 7.7 7.7 8.2 9.5 8.5 6.0

4 1 2 1 1 4 4 2 2 4 .7 . . .5 .6 % of Jewish % of Jewish Mi 4 4 4 Jewish W 5.5 5.7 5. 4 5.6 5. 4 5.0 5.0 6. 6. 5.7 6.0 5.7 5.9 5.7 6.0 6. 7. 7. 8.3 7.6 8. 5.8

2 2 4 4 1 4 1 1 1 2 1 1 4 . . .0 .6 . . .6 .0 .9 . 3.7 5. 1 5. 6.0 9.8 2 2 1 1 7.9 2 1 1 2 % 4 42 4 5 4 53. 4 53.5 50. 4 5 57. 5 5 5 51.1 49.5 4 5 5 57. 5 5 49.7 56. 50. 50.9

8 0 5 6 8 9 4 6 2 7 1 M Jewish 08 03 53 6 69 57 7 58 06 7 39 121 1 99 111 1 12 11 14 11 121 12 1 1 1 1 167 147 14 1 1 22 2 221 230 2 2 411 termarriage in Prussia, 1875-1900 termarriage in Prussia,

2 4 1 4 1 1 .8 .6 .0 .9 . .8 4 8.6 4 6.9 4 6.5 9.6 8.0 7. 8.9 8.9 2 7. 9.0 8. 7.9 3.9 9.6 9. % 56.3 57.8 5 4 5 4 5 4 4 50. 4 42 4 4 4 48.9 50.5 5 4 4 42 4 4 50.3 4 4 4

8 0 7 6 9 5 8 2 2 1 56 05 06 35 6 50 59 55 5 70 9 03 35 Mixed Marriages Jewish W 1 14 12 1 124 1 1 12 11 122 11 11 14 1 1 160 150 1 1 1 1 1 2 233 212 2 3973

4 4 2 1 1 1 .0 .6 .0 . .0 .3 . .8 .7 0. 0.5 0. 3.7 3.0 5.9 6. 6. 8.6 8.5 % 1 1 9.0 9.5 9.8 9.5 11 11 9.6 1 11 11 1 14 12 13.0 11.9 12 12 1 1 1 1 17.9 1 1 12 1 9 6 7 6 4 3 8 1 7 0 4 Table II: Jewish/non-Jewish In 77 56 50 73 3 68 12 2 1 83 7 2 21 21 22 22 2 2 2 24 24 2 3 33 307 327 297 305 3 3 397 397 424 463 4 4 809 Total 2

7 4 8 1 5 2 2 8 76 42 56 8 2 70 675 305 390 350 3 397 356 503 5 559 383 50 63 590 560 Jewish Endogamic Marriages 2 244 2442 22 2 2 22 2 244 2 22 2 22 2 2 2513 2488 2 2 2 2 24 2 2582 2 2 63556

7 2 1 2 6 6 3 2 4 0 4 4 1 2 2 1 6 95 703 66 500 53 6 5 6 68 585 50 665 593 687 8 830 886 693 899 867 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3045 Total Jewish Marriages 2 2 2 2 2 2840 2785 2 3056 3073 303 7 2

1 2 4 2 4 ta1 o 875 876 877 878 879 880 88 88 883 88 885 886 887 888 889 89 893 89 895 896 897 899 900 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1890 1891 1 1 1 1 1 1 1898 1 1 T Year 1

Marion Kaplan writes that “Jewish men led the way in intermarriage and conversion,” but as the table shows, the numbers do not entirely bear that out.151 Jewish men certainly did intermarry at much higher rates after 1900, but prior to that, women married out almost as much.152 Between 1875 and 1900, 4118 Jewish men in Prussia intermarried, compared to 3973 women. A closer look shows that rather than following the lead of Jewish men, Jewish women led the way in intermarriages. Between 1875 and 1885, 1259 Jewish women in Prussia intermarried compared to 1162 Jewish men. Historians of intermarriage often try to establish causes of gendered trends, linking intermarriage to marriage prospects, economic needs, or professional goals.153 Yet the reason that Jewish women intermarried more often than Jewish men in the beginning remains unexplored. What seems most likely is that lower-class Jewish women, lacking marriage prospects in the Jewish community without a dowry, now had the legal means to look outside the community for other prospects. However, there may be other equally viable explanations for this short trend. Between 1875 and 1900, about seventy-eight percent of Jewish intermarriages in Prussia were to Protestants. The balance remained steady throughout that time, never dropping below seventy-two percent, and exceeded eighty-three percent only once. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Protestant Churches had less experience and fewer means of compulsion than the Catholic Church in enforcing doctrinal adherence in the face of government regulations. Deviants from confessional laws and practices found it easier to evade respective religious authorities’ marital discipline than before. They could marry under the state and suffer no harsher penalty than ostracism within the religious group. The Catholic Church, facing similar conditions, was far more prepared to face the challenges of a secular government. In the wake of the kulturkampf, German Catholics generally tended to adhere to the authority of their Church

151 Kaplan, “Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany”: 13. Peter Honigmann, Die Austritte aus der Jüdischen Gemeinde Berlin, 1873–1941 (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), 11–13.

152 For statistics on post-1900 intermarriages in Germany, see Kerstin Meiring, Die Christlich-Jüdische Mischehe in Deutschland, 1840-1933 (Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz Verlag, 1998), 95.

153 See for example Kaplan, “Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany”; Meiring, Die Christlich-Jüdische Mischehe; Deborah Hertz, “Leaving Judaism for a Man: Female Conversion and Intermarriage in Germany, 1812- 1819,” in Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Frau in Deutschland, edited by Julius Carlebach (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 1993).

leadership, which frowned upon intermarriage. Protestants were relatively less willing to accept the compulsion of Church leaders.154 Jewish intermarriage was statistically only a marginal occurrence in the nineteenth century. It accounted for less than 0.2 percent of all marriages in Germany from 1875 to 1900.155 It was only within the Jewish community that intermarriage was a demographic danger. By 1900, 15.6 percent of Jewish marriages in Prussia were to non-Jews. In less than a decade, the Centralverein Deutscher Staatsburger Jüdischen Glaubens (Central Union of German Citizens of Jewish Faith) would declare apostasy (of which intermarriage was one form) to be a greater threat to German Jewry than anti-Semitism.156 By 1900, it was clear that intermarriage was becoming an important demographic concern for German Jews.

II. Intermarried Couples

An analysis of the background of couples that intermarried shows why some socio- economic groups within each gender were more likely to intermarry than others. Most intermarriages were between urbanites. Rural Germans were far less cosmopolitan in their outlook, more conservative, and fundamentalist (in a religious sense). In cases where rural Germans did intermarry, marriages between Jewish women and non-Jewish men predominated. In Baden, for every two men who intermarried between 1888 and 1897, six women intermarried. In Hesse, from 1871 to 1901, Jewish women accounted for 57.1 percent of intermarriages.157

154 One could also make the argument that the individualism of Protestant faith also undermined the ability of Chruch leaders to enforce confessional discipline.

155 See Table III below.

156 Jacob Boas, "German Jewry's Search for Renewal in the Hitler Era," Journal of Modern History 53, no. 1 (Mar. 1981): 1003. Marion Kaplan implies that the steep rise in intermarriages after the turn of the century was the catalyst for the statement. Marion Kaplan, “Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany: Practices, Mentalities, and Community,” Jewish Social Studies 9, no. 1, (2002): 13. The Centralverein Deutscher Staatsburger Jüdischen Glaubens was the largest organization of German Jews with approximately 50,000 members. From 1893 to 1938, this organization championed Jewish equality while also fostering Jewish identity.

157 Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden, August 1905, p. 7; June 1906, p.82. From Kaplan, “Tradition and Transition: The Acculturation, Assimilation, and Integration of Jews in Imperial Germany, A Gender Analysis,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 27 (1982): 16n57.

Percent of All Marriages that were Jewish Inter- marriages 0.108% 0.134% 0.157% 0.133%

, vol. 117

Percent of Marriages that were Inter- marriages 7.5% 8.0% 8.4% 8.0%

ische Statistik

Preu

Total Marriages 229908 244010 252935 242284

Total Inter- marriages* 17230 19564 21207 19334

, vol. 89 (1885), 40-3, 69;

248 327 397 324 Total Jewish Inter- marriages

ische Statistik ische β

Total Jewish Marriages 2504 2840 2899 2748

Preu

, vol. 143 (1895), 47-50, 93. Jews and non-Confessional Germans. Table III: Marriage in Prussia 1885, 1890, 1895

Total Christian- Christian Inter- marriages 16982 19237 20810 19010

ische Statistik

β 212678 224446 231728 222951 Endo- gamous Marriages Total

Preu

227647 241491 250420 239853 Total Christian Marriages

This includes marriages between * (1890), 47-50, 89; Year 1885 1890 1895 Avg. Source: Based on my own calculations from

Most German-Jewish intermarriages were between German women and Jewish men.158 As mentioned earlier, through the end of the nineteenth century, the gender ratio for intermarriages was almost equal. However, a clear shift occurred at the end of the century toward more Jewish men marrying German women. This group, which made up the majority of intermarried couples from 1885 to 1918, was largely middle-class and urban. The financial stability of Jewish men and their lack of religious adherence (relative to Jewish women), enticed many non-Jewish women.159 Financial stability would ensure a comfortable life, while lax religious adherence eased or removed difficult questions about raising children, domestic lifestyle, and which holidays to celebrate.160 Jewish demographers commenting on intermarriages during the First World War suggested that Jewish women were less likely to intermarry because the “usual way of getting married among the Jews, namely arranged marriages.”161 Jewish familial control of marital choice seems to have held far longer for women than men. The dowries of Jewish women were like a transmission of assets from the bride’s family to the groom’s, so that the newlyweds would be secure. The financial nature of the bride’s part of the initial marital bargain gave the bride’s family somewhat more control than the bride. Without the financial support of the family, the bride would not be able to marry. This made brides far more dependent on the goodwill of their families, and families would be loath to give up that control. The oft-cited marriage of poor German noblemen to wealthy Jewish women was more apparent than real. The legacy of the Berlin Salons played a role in stereotyping intermarriages in the nineteenth century as means of economic and social ambitions for poor noblemen and Jewish women, respectively. This stereotype lasted into the 1880s; Arthur Ruppin suggests that they were considered fashionable among impoverished noblemen in early years of the Kaiserreich. However, the rise of racial anti-Semitism in the early 1880s soon put an end to

158 The chart on page 3 shows 4118 Jewish male intermarriages versus 3973 Jewish female intermarriages in Prussia from 1875 to 1900. Meiring’s research shows that for all of Germany, from 1901 to 1918, Jewish male intermarriages outnumbered Jewish female intermarriages 9784 to 7301. My own calculations based on statistics from Meiring, Die Christlich-Jüdische Mischehe in Deutschland, 95.

159 See Kaplan, “For Love or Money” and “Tradition and Transition” for discussions of the role of Jewish women in the religious life of Jews during the Kaiserreich.

160 Kaplan discusses compromises made within intermarriages and assimilated families on the questions listed above. Kaplan, “Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany,” 1-17.

161 Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden XII (1916), 56. Cited in Kaplan, “For Love or Money,” 264.

these marriages.162 Though they were the most visible and also the most scorned, the small numbers of Prussian aristocrats and wealthy Jewish women ensured that this group was never numerous and certainly not representative of intermarried couples. Marriages between Jewish women and German men tended to be poorer and less successful.163 Intermarried Jewish women tended to come from the lower-class, had smaller or no dowries to entice Jewish grooms, and were far more likely to be employed before marriage than Jewish women who married Jewish men.164 Lack of dowries encouraged poor Jewish women to seek non-Jewish spouses. It was difficult to find a Jewish man who would marry without a dowry, and the parents of such girls could not withhold money to enforce their opposition to an intermarriage. Intermarried Jewish women bore more children and suffered higher rates of stillbirths than intermarried non-Jewish women, which suggests poorer health and nutrition, less access to medical facilities, and lack of family planning that was often found in middle-class families. Divorce rates of intermarriages between Jewish women and non-Jewish men were higher than other intermarriages.165 Jewish women sometimes chose non-Jewish spouses out of necessity. In rural areas, eligible Jewish women often outnumbered eligible Jewish men. This was due in part to the migration of rural Jewish men to urban areas. Already limited by sheer numbers, Jewish women found their marital choices further decreased if their dowry was lacking. As marriage to a non- Jew was better than no marriage at all, some Jewish women opted for intermarriage. Jewish women intermarried from a lower social and economic status than Jewish men, and had a more difficult time in their marriages. Kaplan asserts that under the strain of their marriages and lives, intermarried Jewish women found it difficult to maintain their cultural ties to Judaism. She concludes, “The extent to which these women did assimilate suggests that class status influences women’s allegiance to their religion and community. Without middle-class means it may have

162 Arthur Ruppin, Die Juden der Gegenwart: eine sozialwissenschaftliche Studie (Berlin: Judische Verlag, 1918), 162.

163 Marcuse, Über die Furchtbarkeit der Christlich-jüdischen Mischehe, 16.

164 Felix Theilhaber, Die Schädigung der Rasse durch soziales und wirtschaftliches Aufsteigen bewiesen an der Berliner Juden (Berlin: L. Lamm, 1914), 87-88. Theilhaber’s information only covers the post-1900 period, but seems to imply that the trends in employment for Jewish women prior to intermarriage reached back into the late 1880s. Further research on this point would go far in illuminating the background of intermarried couples.

165 Intermarriages generally had higher divorce rates that endogamic marriages. Many opponents to intermarriage used the high divorce rates as proof that intermarriages were unnatural and could not last.

become increasingly difficult to maintain traditional loyalties.”166 Part of their difficulty arose from the cultural-heritage position of Jewish women in the intermarried family. In Judaism, women were the conduit for religious and cultural transmission. However, in Christianity the religion of the wife was subordinate to the religion of the husband. German society expected the children of mixed marriages to be reared in the traditions of the father and for wives to convert. It is unclear if this reasoning held true for marriages between Jewish men and German women. Despite Jewish and non-Jewish rhetoric, marriages within both groups had many similarities. As Kaplan demonstrates, the arrangement of Jewish marriages in the Kaiserreich, while retaining semblances of ancient Jewish traditions, mirrored the practices of the German urban middle-class.167 Most marriages in Germany were arranged by parents and often centered around economic and social alliances. Jews, predominantly from the middle-class, followed that pattern, using dowries as a means to create overhead for economic ventures and ensured financial stability for the next generation. Yet over the course of the Kaiserreich, dowries and arranged marriages were seemingly replaced by marriages of love and emotional partnership. Kaplan argues that many of the marriages of love were really just carefully arranged and concealed traditional marriages.168 As a group, Jews were slower to give up dowries and arrangements. The minority status and prejudice against Jews forced them to continue using dowries and arranged marriages as a means of stability. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, anti-Semites often berated Jews for their antiquated approach to marriage and their “dowry chases.”169 Because most Jewish marriages in the Kaiserreich were arranged marriages, intermarried Jews increasingly tended to be male. The lack of children produced in intermarriages was one of the most visible trends of intermarriage. In Prussia between 1875 and 1900, intermarried Jews and non-Jews averaged only 1.7 offspring. In comparison, Catholic couples averaged five children, Protestants four, and Jews 3.8; even Protestant-Catholic intermarriages averaged 3.8 children per couple.170 Several

166 Kaplan, “Tradition and Transition,” 17-18.

167 Marion Kaplan, “For Love or Money: The Marriage Strategies of Jews in Imperial Germany,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 28 (1983): 263.

168 Ibid., 292.

169 Ibid., 282.

reasons for the low number of offspring have been hypothesized, though most likely a mixture of factors were responsible. Higher divorce rates among intermarried couples meant that the time for child-bearing was sometimes shortened. Most intermarriages were in urban settings where family planning and smaller living spaces depressed reproduction. Among poorer intermarried couples, insufficient healthcare and poorer diet led to more still births and miscarriages.171 Intermarried couples also tended to be slightly older than endogamic couples. Many inter-faith couples waited to marry until they could convince their parent to give their blessing, or until the parents were dead.172 They had to be financially established to avoid parents opposing intermarriage from controlling their purse strings.

III. Opposition to Intermarriage

Opposition to intermarriage reveals much about the status of the German-Jewish/non- Jewish relationship. It is a reflection of reactions to Jewish emancipation, unification, and the challenge to Jewish and non-Jewish identity. Multiple sources and complex motivations characterized the opposition to intermarriage. Religious groups continued to speak out against intermarriage without conversion, calling on their congregations to remain faithful. However, most confessions were not opposed to marriages with converts. Most groups welcomed marriages accompanied by conversions.173 While the groups that lobbied against intermarriage prior to 1875 still voiced their opposition in the following years, the most important opposition came from dissatisfaction over the impact of Jewish emancipation. In the years following unification and emancipation, many Germans viewed emancipation as a sort of social contract. Yet as Peter Pulzer shows, the terms of such an agreement were not clear to anybody, and the differences of opinion on the terms led to mutual accusations of failure to live up to the bargain.174 Many Germans expected Jews to

170 Max Marcuse, Über die Furchtbarkeit der Christlich-jüdischen Mischehe (Bonn: A. Marcus & E. Weber, 1920), 5. 171 Ibid.

172 Kaplan, “Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany,” 13-15.

173 There were, of course, examples of Churches, particularly Protestant Churches, that did not welcome Jewish converts. However, these were a marginal minority and did not reflect the outlook of most Churches.

remove all vestiges of their distinctive group identity and fully assimilate into German society.175 Some Jews believed that they were to lose control of their self-governing apparatus in return for full legal, civic, and civil status; they were, however, not willing to completely deny their unique heritage. Many Jews did not believe their Jewish and German identities were contradictory, and rejecting their Jewishness should not be a prerequisite for becoming German. Much of the opposition to intermarriage centered around the Judenfrage.176 Many Germans believed that Jewish equality and citizenship would conclusively settle the Judenfrage once and for all. After all, in the constitutional debates of the late 1860s, the Judenfrage had disappeared as an individual issue after the Law of Religious Equality was enacted in 1869. From then on, official opposition to emancipation had to skirt a fine line between anti-Semitism and anti-government.177 However, emancipation and religious equality was a double-edged sword; rather than conclusively settling the Judenfrage, they helped to exacerbate it. Not only did emancipation arouse anti-Semitic and nationalist sentiments, but many Germans who were previously ambivalent about Jews also started to question the criteria for German nationality. Ritchie Robertson notes that public discussion of the Judenfrage “became sharply hostile” in the 1870s, culminating in the seeming eruption of anti-Semitism in 1879.178 Jews were seen as the cause of

174 Pulzer, Jews and the German State, 33-34. The standard work on the terms of emancipation is Hans D. Schmidt, “The Terms of Emancipations,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 1 (1956).

175 David Sorkin calls this bargain a “quid pro quo in which the Jews were to be regenerated in exchange for rights.” Sorkin, The Transformation of German Jewry, 20.

176 Pulzer discusses the reasons that the Judenfrage existed and why it reemerged in such a hostile fashion following emancipation and unification. He concludes that it was not the relatively high economic and employment status of Jews in Germany that caused the tensions. While these were factors, they were secondary to more important questions of German identity and national conscience. While France and the Enlightenment were the target, the need for internal group cohesion necessitated defining outsiders. Pulzer, “Why was there a Jewish Question in Imperial Germany,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 25 (1980): 133-146.

177 Later attempts to legally abolish the position of Jews in society and the government by abrogating the articles emancipation in the constitution were met by scorn, even from officials sympathetic to the anti-Semitism of the petitioner. See Pulzer, Jews and the German State, 18.

178 Robertson, The ‘Jewish Question’ in German Literature, 1749-1939, 1. Reinhard Rürup has argued that anti- Jewish sentiment in the 1870s and 1880s was a “post-emancipatory phenomenon,” rather than a continuation or resumption of earlier types of anti-Semitism. Reinhard Rürup, Emanzipation und Antisemitismus. Studien zur “Judenfrage” der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (Göttingen: 1975), 74. However, Pulzer hypothesizes that anti- Semitism and opposition to emancipation in Germany in the late 1870s was also part of a general reaction in Germany against both the Enlightenment and the ideologies of the French Revolution. Pulzer, Jews and the German State, 20. Steven Lowenstein writes that the anti-Semitism of the 1870s and 1880s was founded on the precepts of

the decadence of modernity and enlightened rationalism. There were enough opponents of social emancipation that it remained a dominant concern for most of Germany’s Jewish population. In the German community, racial anti-Semites were the most outspoken in their opposition. They attacked Judaism’s endogamy and refusal to give up its identity as proof that Jews did not wish to integrate, but to overcome German society. In 1879, following the revival of the Judenfrage, radical racial anti-Semites Bernhard Förster, Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg, and Ernst Henrici drafted a petition titled The Emancipation of the German People from the Yoke of Jewish Rule.179 The petition extolled the German government to call for restriction or elimination of Jewish immigration, removal of Jews from the government, and reestablishment of a regular census for all Jews. It argued that Jews were not interested in equality; they sought domination of German society through subversive means. Conversion was not enough to solve the Judenfrage because immutable differences in the races would hinder Jews from becoming true Germans. Moreover, conversion increased the Jews’ ability to undermine German society from within. The petition blamed Jews for the failure of the emancipation contract writing: “The former hopes that the Semitic elements would merge with the German proved to be deceptive, although Jews were granted equal rights. Now, it is no longer equalizing Jews with ourselves, but rather of the diminishing of our national privileges due to the predominance of the Jews.”180 This message found much resonance throughout the middle-class and universities, where competition with Jews for jobs was greatest.181 Not all Germans who were nationalist were anti-Semitic; many believed in Jewish equal rights, but did not believe Jews and non-Jews could integrate. In his early career, Heinrich von Treitschke, a well-known historian and political theorist who gave anti-Semitism academic credibility in the late 1870s, subscribed to the non-anti-Semitic nationalism. He was a former member of the Liberal Party and did not oppose emancipation. However, he believed in a racial Christianity that did not allow for incorporation of non-Christian elements into German society.

intellectual racisms, and anti-liberal, anti-modernist, and anti-integration in form. Steven M. Lowenstein, “The Pace of Modernisation of German Jewry in the Nineteenth Century,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 21, (1976): 53.

179 Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1964), 94- 6.

180 Paul W. Massing, Rehearsal for Destruction: A Study of Political Anti-Semitism in Imperial Germany (New York: Harper, 1949), 442.

181 Pickus, Constructing Modern Identities, 68-9.

No matter what legal rights Jews would and perhaps should be given, Treitschke believe they would always be foreign and socially unequal.182 On intermarriage, Treitschke wrote: The Emancipation has been carried out so fully as to preclude every ground for further Jewish demands. Nevertheless, the Jews also foreswear the blood-mixing which has always been the most effective means toward an equalizing of tribal differences; the number of converts to Christianity has greatly decreased, and intermarriage between Christians and Jews will remain only an infrequent exception as long as our people hold their Christian beliefs as holy.183

Treitschke criticized Jewish endogamy and refusal to assimilate as proof that Jews did not want to join German society. He claimed that no one wanted a German-Jewish “Mischkultur” (mixed-culture). The only way for Christian society to integrate with Jewish society would be for Christians to abandon their faith.184 Treitschke’s argument contained contradiction that was found far too often in anti-Semitic literature: While admonishing Jews for failing to assimilate unconditionally, he also wrote that Jews could never assimilate.185 His attack also implied that the best way to assimilate Jewish culture was via intermarriage (Geschlecht zu Geschlecht).186 Treitschke was far less extreme than some of his contemporary anti-Semites, but his claim “The Jews are our misfortune!” became a slogan for the anti-Jewish campaigns.187 Treitschke’s work became more anti-Semitic and racial during the 1880s, but never reached the extreme level that characterized radical anti-Semitism. Many Germans heeded Treitschke’s arguments that Jews had not shown an inclination to set aside their Jewish identity. While not everyone accepted his racial ideas, his attacks on

182 Ibid., 66-7.

183 Walter Boehlich, Der Berliner Antisemitismusstreit (Frankfurt am Main: 1965), 79. Translation of quote from Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany,” 82.

184 Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany,” 83.

185 Compared to non-Jewish intermarriages (those between Christian denominations, such as Catholics and Protestants), Jews, a tiny minority, showed a stronger tendency to marry out. In 1901, for example, 8.8 percent of Christians married out of their denomination. This percentage rose to 12 percent in 1914. Gerd Hohorst, Jürgen Kocka, and Gerhard Ritter, eds., Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch: Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs, 1870–1914 (Munich, 1975), 31.

186 Ibid., 82.

187 Heinrich von Treitschke, “Unsere Aussichten,” Preuβische Jahrbücher 44 (1879): 575. Though Treitschke popularized this slogan, he did not coin it as most history books have written. Pulzer, Jews and the German State, 17.

Jewish segregation resonated with many Germans. Why should Jews expect total acceptance if they were not willing to give up their uniqueness? However, as Jewish acculturation, assimilation, and intermarriage grew, arguments for anti-Semitism based on Jewish self- segregation lost potency. In the 1890s and early 1900s, anti-Semitism radicalized as it lost its moderate political following.188 Like non-Jewish opposition, Jewish opposition to intermarriage was tightly bound to their frustration following emancipation and their opinions on the Judenfrage. Jews had believed that in giving up their self-government and becoming more Germanized, they were gaining full legal, civic, and civil status. According to Levenson, the anti-Semitic attacks in 1879 and 1880 caught German Jews by surprise.189 The prevailing view among Jews had been that anti-Semitism was an outmoded relic of the past that would dissipate as Jews integrated into German society. The intensity and sudden popularity of the new anti-Semitism initiated a reevaluation of the Judenfrage within the Jewish community. Jews began to wonder if they would ever be truly accepted into the German nation. Bertold Auerbach, a supporter of emancipation and adamant assimilationist, wrote: “My life and my work has been in vain.”190 Anti-Semitism was not the Jews’ only concern. They found emancipation far less satisfying than they had hoped. Both Jews and liberals thought the first step toward an equal society was to have laws guaranteeing basic freedoms. Paragraph 13 of the Basic Rights of the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848 stated that civil rights were not to be conditional on belonging to a particular religious faith. The Imperial Constitution of 1871 guaranteed equality and religious freedom, but the state constitutions were so ambiguous on matters of Jewish rights that in practice, Jews still faced many of the same discriminations as before the Empire. For example, the Prussian constitution guaranteed freedom of religion and outlawed religious discrimination in

188 Paul W. Massing, Rehearsal for Destruction: A Study of Political Anti-Semitism in Imperial Germany (New York: Harper, 1949).

189 Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany,” 81.

190 Margarita Pazi, “Berthold Auerbach and Moritz Hartmann. Two Jewish Writers in the Nineteenth Century,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 18 (1973): 215-218; Berthold Auerbach, Briefe an seinen Freund Jakob Auerbach, Ein biographisches Denkmal, vol. 2 (Frankfurt am Main: 1884), 442; Gordon R. Mork, “German nationalism and Jewish Assimilation: The Bismarck Period,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 22 (1977): 81-2; Jacob Katz, “Berthold Auerbach’s Anticipation of the German-Jewish Tragedy,” Hebrew Union College Annual (1982).

Article 12, while also emphasizing the Christian nature of the school systems and the judicial system in Article 14.191 This was partly due to the conservative nature of Bismarck. Though united with the National Liberal Party in the early years of the Kaiserreich, Bismarck was unwilling to give into all of the demands of the German liberals and Jews. Bismarck’s goal was to centralize German power around the Kaiser and the aristocracy. He used the liberals and Jews to establish the government and to wrest power away from the Catholic Church. Afterwards, Bismarck turned his attention toward his former allies and took power from them as well. Dissatisfaction with emancipation was also caused by the divergent desires of the liberals and Jews. Liberals wanted emancipation to be an avenue for total Jewish integration into a German society based on the ideals of liberalism. However, many Jews were not willing to sacrifice their identity for equality. The frustration of a false emancipation, the rise of anti-Semitism, and the renewal of the Judenfrage made it difficult for Jews to accept that they would ever be allowed to assimilate into German society. Within the Jewish community, mainstream liberals generally opposed intermarriage on the basis of group survival. Baptisms (Taufe), leaving the Jewish community (Austritte), and intermarriage (Mischehen), were combining to sap the life-blood of the German Jewish community.192 From 1870 to 1914, Jewish defections rose to such high rates that there were fears that the Jewish community would die out.193 A small portion of radical, assimilationist Jews saw this as a good thing: it was the best way to resolve Judenfrage. However, most Jews did not wish to see Judaism disappear. In light of the pessimism many Jews felt about being

191 Pulzer, Jews in the German State, 33-5.

192 The relationship between the three forms of defection have not been adequately explored. Until civil marriage allowed intermarriage without conversion, the two defections were inseparable. Even after intermarriage without conversion was legalized, the two remain closely linked. Children of intermarriages were often raised as Christians and baptized, and a significant portion of intermarried Jews were baptized, (most were baptized before marriage). Many intermarried, but unbaptized Jews were Austritte.

193 The statement by the Centralverein, discussed here on page 65, is the best example of the magnitude of this fear. It is interesting that the second Taufwelle (baptismal wave), which caused a great amount of fear within the Jewish community was relatively small in comparison to the earlier wave described in Deborah Hertz, “Leaving Judaism for a Man: Female Conversion and Intermarriage in Germany, 1812-1819,” in Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Frau in Deutschland, edited by Julius Carlebach (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 1993). The abundance of several statistical demographic studies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century demonstrates the fear of many Jews that German Jewry was endangered. See for example, Johann de la Roi, Judentaufe im Neunzehnjahrhundert,” Nathanael (1887) and Nathan Samter, “Judentaufe im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert,” Ost und West 1 (1901).

accepted by German society, it seemed that maintaining the Jewish community would continue to be necessary as a support for Germany’s Jews. The Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, a liberal-moderate journal, reflected the popular Jewish opposition to intermarriage.194 The Allgemeine Zeitung rested its opposition on legal prohibitions against intermarriage and religious differences. Obviously, after 1875, legal prohibitions had been lifted, leaving religion as the only basis for opposition to intermarriage. The journal concluded that no couple could be truly united if their religious beliefs were different.195 In the end, the journal could find no compelling reason not to intermarry other than to secure the vitality of the Jewish faith. This conclusion reflects the apparent inevitability of increasing intermarriage and defections many Jews felt.

IV. The Struggle for a German Identity

Intermarriage and Jewish emancipation took place during a time when German identity was in a state of flux. Throughout the nineteenth century, the question of who was German (and by default who was not German) and what that meant was centrally important to the nation building process. Every state that undergoes a nation building process must overcome the regional and local pride and identities to forge a national conscience. In Germany, where regional mentalities had been fostered long after most other European nations had established a national state and identity, the process was even more difficult. There were thirty-eight German states within the Federal system in the Kaiserreich, though only thirteen of these had real power.196 As the strongest state throughout the unification process, it was often against Prussian hegemony that other states were forced to maintain their identity and rights. The southern Catholic states of Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg particularly feared the Protestantism and secularism of the other states and insisted on a high degree of political autonomy, especially in cultural affairs. Jealously-guarded states’ rights,

194 For an in-depth analysis of the evolution of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums’ stand on intermarriage, see Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany,” 42-79.

195 Ibid., 88-9.

196 Included in the thirteen are the Thuringian states, which though really a collection of small states, often acted collectively.

identities, and prestige fractured the federal state, creating a system where individual states struggled over issues of domestic sovereignty. Determining who was German was a contentious and complicated matter. Some wanted to base it on Jus Sanguinis, which measured citizenship based on heritage. Others believed it should be based on the land of birth, Jus Soli. In either case, there were people left out who felt German, and people left in whom other Germans felt did not belong. There was no clear-cut answer that would make everybody happy, especially when mixed heritages were taken into account. The presence of Jews within German family units meant that for Germans who believed in nationality through Jus Sanguinis, the purity of the German race was diluted. The children of intermarriages, known as Mischlinge, presented another problem for determining who was German.197 The Mischlinge had German blood, as well as non-German blood, and people were unsure of how German these children were. This uncertainty was borne out in the rather ridiculous percentages method used by the National Socialists in the 1930s and 1940s, in which the percentage of Jewish blood was determined by the number and placement of Jews within an individual’s genealogy.198 It is clear from the writings of several intermarried Jews and baptized Jews that their Jewishness was never truly forgotten by society. Despite objections of anti- Semites and German nationalists, the constitution of 1871 ruled in favor of Jus Soli, giving Jews who had been in Germany for several generations German citizenship. While this legally solved the question of Jewish citizenship and nationality in Germany, the issue remained contentious and would play an important role in the future for both Jews and non-Jews. Intermarried Jews and their children sat astride two group identities: they were at once Germans non-Jews and German Jews and could make choices to which group they would identify with. Overwhelmingly, they chose to be counted among German non-Jews. Between 1885 and 1910, up to seventy-five percent of the children of marriages between Jews and Christians grew up Christian.199

197 The term Mischlinge designates human beings of mixed racial heritage. The word was in use at least as early as 1809, when it appeared in J.H. Campe, Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache (Braunschweig: 1809). During the course of the nineteenth century, it began to have an increasingly negative connotation. Racial anti-Semites considered it synonymous with mixed-breed and mutt. J. and W. Grimm, Deutsche Wöterbuch (Leipzig: 1885).

198 For an assessment of Nazi policy toward Mischlinge and determinations of Jewishness, see Jeremy Noakes, “The Development of Nazi Policy towards the German-Jewish ‘Mischlinge,’ 1933-1945,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 34 (1989): 291-354.

199 Meiring, Die Christliche-Jüdische Mischehe, 104–5.

At the forefront of Jewish identity was the conflict between race and religion. Judaism was clearly a religion; yet it was also equally clear that it was more than that. Judaism was almost solely the religion of an diasporic ethnic group that practiced endogamy and maintained a traditional culture foreign to the lands where they settled. To many Germans this obviously meant that Jews were a racial group. Until the nineteenth century, to restrict Jews based on religion had been enough, as all Jews were part of the religious group or at the very least identified with it. The secularization of Jews in Germany during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries changed all that. Jews were now something more than just a religious group, because they were not solely practicing the Jewish religion. This question was partially solved in 1871, when Jews were given equal rights. Whether society looked at them as full Germans or not, legally they were. Many intermarried Jews experienced hostility from other Jews, particularly family members. Piety or orthodoxy were not always reliable measures for acceptance of intermarriages. Gershom Scholem's father, for example, who purposely ignored Jewish rituals, declined to have any further contact with his son after his marriage to a non-Jew.200 Other Jews who wished to intermarry would wait several years until disapproving parents passed away. Intermarried Jews felt rejection from the non-Jewish families as well, many of whom shunned the unwelcome additions to the family. Those Jews who intermarried to escape the social stigma of being Jewish often found that their identity failed to change in the eyes of non-Jews, and they were left hoping that their children would fair better. Jews who converted or intermarried often received hostile responses from other Jews based on more than just anger at leaving the faith: there was also a fear of dying out. At the same time that German Jews were converting to Christianity, intermarrying, or defecting from their community, the children of intermarried Jews being raised in the faith and culture of their Christian families.201 The loss of future generations led many within the Jewish community to see intermarriage as a greater threat than anti-Semitism.202

200 Gershom Scholem, From Berlin to Jerusalem:Memories of My Youth, translated by Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1980), 31.

201 Dr. Georg Joachim argued that inter-faith children preferred Christianity to Judaism because of the material and social advantages, as well as the fact that the Christian part of their family was far more welcoming than the Jewish side. Levenson, “Jewish Reactions to Intermarriage in Nineteenth Century Germany,” 90.

Conclusion

The impact of intermarriage on German-Jewish relations in the nineteenth century can hardly be overstated. For a subject that directly affected so few, its importance to community definitions and the future of the communities made its impact bigger than the phenomenon itself. Intermarriage challenged the Jewish and non-Jewish German communities to rethink their self- definitions for what it meant to be German or Jewish. The struggle that ensued between and within the communities became an integral part of the trajectory of German-Jewish history. One can see how discussions of intermarriage shifted from the religious and legal arenas to the social arena. Religious institutions were not the paramount group involved, nor was the government. Discussions were held between social groups, intellectuals, anti-Semites, German nationalists, liberal Jewish endogamists, and radical assimilationists. The shift to the social arena also demonstrates the important relationship between laws and cultural practices. The legislation allowing intermarriage was put in place far earlier than the social intermixing and assimilation that tended to precede intermarriages. After the law was written and religious and government institutions were removed, it was social groups that had to debate the value of intermarriage. Much of this chapter discusses interconnected topics that influenced intermarriage: the Judenfrage, emancipation, and anti-Semitism. None of those issues were resolved during this time. Though one tries to discuss German-Jewish history without tying everything into the Nazi era, it becomes apparent that none of those issues can be adequately covered without mentioning how the contradictions and competition between them finally came to a head during that time. Yet none of that was apparent during the nineteenth century. Emancipation did not end anti- Semitism, but it did reduce the laws against Jews to manageable proportions.203 Jews had less of a wall to climb to achieve financial and in some cases social success. By the turn of the century, political anti-Semitism was losing ground, and for the most part, anti-Semitic agitators were excluded from polite society.204

202 Jacob Boas, "German Jewry's Search for Renewal in the Hitler Era," Journal of Modern History 53, no. 1 (Mar. 1981): 1003.

203 Pulzer, Jews and the German State, 342.

204 Ibid.

CONCLUSION

In studying intermarriage, on the surface it appears that it was only of marginal importance. The legislation that legalized it, the Law of Personal Status and Marriage Certification, was principally enacted to limit the power of the Catholic Church and to settle the struggle between Germany’s religious institutions over control of inter-confessional marriages; intermarriage was only a minor part of it. The number of intermarriages remained steady in the ten years after the law, indicating that German society was not ready for intermarriage. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, intermarriages occurred relatively infrequently, making up less than 0.2 percent of all Prussian marriages. Yet intermarriage was an important measure of relations between German and Jewish societies. Bans on intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews date back to the Christian era of the Roman Empire. The bans were based on religious anti-Semitism, which strove to prevent rival religious groups from stealing members. Only with conversion could an inter-faith couple marry. The religious anti-Semitism of Christianity during the Roman Empire was fueled by an older social form. As the Catholic Church expanded and consolidated its position in Europe during the medieval period, social and religious anti-Semitism led to the segregation and stigmatization of Jewish society. The medieval period changed the character of the Jewish community. What had been a dynamic, if not tolerated, proselytic religion that for a period was able to challenge Christianity, had become an isolated, stigmatized community that had to forego its expansionist character in order to survive. The separation of Jewish society from German society allowed very little social interaction, and so, very few intermarriages occurred. It was not until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century that relations between the Jews and Germans improved to such an extent that German-Jews formed social bonds with Germans.205 The social position of Jews changed as German society found a need for them.

205 One of the best early examples of this is the Berlin Salons.

Subsequent changes in other areas of life, like secularization and reduced religious threat of Jewish proselytizing, smoothed the way for tolerance of Jews and their eventual acceptance into German society. A sharp rise in the number of Jewish baptisms, some so that they could marry Christians, was one of the leading indicators that Jews were integrating into German society. The Napoleonic Sanhedrin and Braunschweig Assembly demonstrated the role that intermarriage would play in Jewish relations with the state during the nineteenth century. The Sanhedrin took a definitive step away from the isolationist policies of the past and towards the integration of Jews into European society. It asserted that the Jewish community would recognize intermarriages conducted by the state. The Braunschweig Assembly reaffirmed the conclusions of the Sanhedrin while adding one caveat: for Jewish society to accept the validity of an intermarriage, state law must allow intermarried couples the freedom to decide the faith of their children. Both the Sanhedrin and the Assembly redefined the relationship between the state and the Jewish community. For Napoleon and the Sanhedrin, civil intermarriage represented the assent of the religion to the governance of the state. For the Assembly, recognition of the governance of the state was exchanged for recognition of Jewish rights. Because intermarriage was only a marginal event in Jewish and non-Jewish society, it was subsumed by Jewish emancipation, religious equality, and civil marriage. As unification proceeded, the question of Jewish status in the coming empire became less obscure. The 1869 Law of Religious Equality was the last step to full emancipation and removed the question of Jewish status as a component of the constitutional debates. Legally, Judaism was just another religious group. As such, marriage between Jews and non-Jews fell under the definition of inter- faith marriages. Legalization of Jewish/non-Jewish intermarriage was realized as part of the obligatory civil marriage law. Following legalization discussions of intermarriage shifted from the religious and legal arenas to the social arena. Intermarriage challenged the Jewish and non-Jewish German communities to rethink their self-definitions for what it meant to be German or Jewish. Re- evaluation of community identity and boundaries led to the formation a Jewish defensiveness that stressed endogamy and maintaining Jewish vitality. Re-evaluation also led to the vehement emergence of racial anti-Semitism, which posed as a defense of Deutschtum. The legislation allowing intermarriage was put in place far earlier than the social intermixing and assimilation that tended to precede intermarriages. Only in the 1880s did

intermarriages start to increase appreciably. Despite the slow start, by the beginning of the twentieth century, it was clear that intermarriage was becoming an important demographic concern for German Jews. The increase in intermarriages, coupled with baptisms and Austritte, caused many Jews to believe that defecting Jews posed a greater threat to the community than anti-Semitism. Over the course of the nineteenth century, discussions of intermarriage shifted from being legal and religious in nature to being social. Religious discussions of intermarriage continued after civil marriage was instituted, but religious institutions no longer had the legal ability to prevent their members from intermarrying. They were forced to voice their opposition from the social arena, along with anyone else who opposed it. Discussions of intermarriage also left the realm of the theoretical and entered the practical during the nineteenth century. In the last decade, intermarriages had been occurring long enough and at a high enough rate that people were able to discuss real drawbacks and real benefits to intermarriage, rather that the abstract ideas that were present in most earlier discussions. The issue of intermarriage was not normally an agent of change in German history. Rather, discussions, laws, and social practices of intermarriage reflected the effects other issues had on relations between Jewish and non-Jewish society in Germany. Issues such as civil and religious equality, marriage, the primacy of the state over religion, citizenship, and issues of identity were catalysts of change in relations. This paper has shown how intermarriage was affected by those catalysts. In the next century, the role of intermarriage changed from acting as a symptom of German-Jewish relations to becoming a catalyst of change. As intermarriages occurred more frequently, they posed a threat to the vitality of the Jewish community, and came to represent a new level of relations between Jews and non-Jews.

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Baron, Salo Wittmayer. “The Impact of the Revolution of 1848 on Jewish Emancipation.” Jewish Social Studies 11 (1949): 195-248. Birnbaum, Max. “On the Jewish Struggle for Religious Equality in Prussia, 1897-1914.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 25 (1980): 163-71. Blau, Bruno. “Die Mischehe in Nazireich.” Judaica 4, no. 1 (1948): 48. Boas, Jacob. "German Jewry's Search for Renewal in the Hitler Era." Journal of Modern History 53, no. 1 (Mar. 1981): 1003. Boes, Maria. "Jews in the Criminal-Justice System of Early Modern Germany." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 30, no. 3 (1999): 420. Clemen, Carl. "Missionary Activity in the Non-Christian Religions." The Journal of Religion 10, no.1 (1930): 108-113. De la Roi, Johann. “Judentaufe im Neunzehnjahrhundert.” Nathanael (1887). Deutsch, Karl W. "Anti-Semitic Ideas in the Middle Ages: International Civilizations in Expansion and Conflict." Journal of the History of Ideas 6, no.2 (1945): 245. Goldstein, N.W. "Cultivated Pagans and Ancient Anti-Semitism." Journal of Religion 19, no.4 (1939): 346-364. Hertz, Deborah. "Intermarriage in the Berlin Salons." Central European History 16 (December, 1984). Kaplan, Marion. “Tradition and Transition: The Acculturation, Assimilation, and Integration of Jews in Imperial Germany, A Gender Analysis.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 27 (1982). Kaplan, Marion. “For Love or Money: The Marriage Strategies of Jews in Imperial Germany.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 28 (1983): 263-300. Kaplan, Marion. “Redefining Judaism in Imperial Germany: Practices, Mentalities, and Community.” Jewish Social Studies 9, no. 1 (2002): 1-33. Katz, Jacob. “Berthold Auerbach’s Anticipation of the German-Jewish Tragedy.” Hebrew Union College Annual (1982). Knodel, John. "Law, Marriage, and Illegitimacy in Nineteenth-Century Germany." Population Studies 20, no. 3 (1967): 279-294. Lasker, Daniel J. “Averroistic Trends in Jewish-Christian Polemics in the Late Middle Ages.” Speculum 55, no.2 (1980): 294-304. Lougee, Robert. “The Kulturkampf and Historical Positivism.” Church History 23, no.3 (1954): 221. Lowenstein, Steven M. “The Pace of Modernisation of German Jewry in the Nineteenth Century.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 21 (1976). Mork, Gordon R. “German nationalism and Jewish Assimilation: The Bismarck Period.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 22 (1977). Noakes, Jeremy. “The Development of Nazi Policy towards the German-Jewish ‘Mischlinge,’ 1933-1945.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 34 (1989): 291-354. Pazi, Margarita. “Berthold Auerbach and Moritz Hartmann. Two Jewish Writers in the Nineteenth Century.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 18 (1973): 215-218. Pulzer, Peter. “Why was there a Jewish Question in Imperial Germany.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 25 (1980): 133-146. Rinott, Moshe. “Gabriel Riesser: Fighter for Jewish Emancipation.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book VII (1962): 26. Samter, Nathan. “Judentaufe im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert.” Ost und West 1 (1901).

Schorsch, Ismar. “On The History Of The Political Judgment Of The Jew.” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 20 (1976), 96. Schmidt, Hans D. “The Terms of Emancipations.” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 1 (1956). Sivan, Hagith S. "Rabbinics and Roman Law: Jewish-Gentile/Christian Marriage in Late Antiquity." Revue des études juives 156, (1997): 59-100. Von Treitschke, Heinrich. “Unsere Aussichten.” Preuβische Jahrbücher 44 (1879). Wilken, Robert L. "Judaism in Roman and Christian Society." Journal of Religion 47, no.4 (1967).

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Christopher Griffin was born on October 14, 1979 in Washington D.C. In 1998, he enrolled at the Florida State University as a transfer student from Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland. In 2002, he graduated Cum Laude with a degree in History. Later that year, he was awarded the College of Arts and Sciences Teaching Fellowship and began his graduate studies in the Department of History at Florida State. Over the course of his graduate studies, Christopher presented his research at national and international conferences, published encyclopedia articles and book reviews, and served as Graduate Assistant to the Dean of Arts and Sciences. Following his completion of the Master of Arts degree, Christopher will be continuing his graduate education in the Department of History at Florida State University.