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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
In September 1950, Julius Meyer, head of the State Association of Jewish Communities in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), sent a letter to the Finance Ministry inquiring about the current state of Jewish communal property. Throughout the immediate postwar years, he and other Jewish leaders had requested, though with little success, the return of Jewish property and assistance to rebuild Jewish sites. With the occupation now over, Meyer hoped that the newly formed East German state might be sympathetic to the needs of the Gemeinde (a religious community of Jews). He noted that the Jewish community had “still not acquired its own property” since most of it remained “under the control of the state” or in the hands of those who had seized it during the Nazi program of “Aryanization.” Meyer also pointed out that the Gemeinde needed money to reconstruct the numerous synagogues and Jewish cemeteries that had been damaged during Kristallnacht and World War II. “We ask,” he explained, “that you take into consideration the fact that the Jewish community, because of the extermination policy of the fascist state, finds itself in a situation like no other religious community.”
1 CJA, 5B1, Nr. 28, Meyer to Ministry of Finance, 09 30, 1950.Google Scholar
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4 The most influential book on the subject—Jeffrey Herf's pioneering Divided Memory—only mentions in passing the period from 1970–1989. Herf, , Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 199–200Google Scholar. Works that discuss the GDR's handling of Jewish issues in the 1970s and 1980s emphasize the SED's political use of Jewish sites. Although this line of reasoning is partially correct, it overlooks developments in East German society that were not politically motivated. See Mertens, Lothar, Davidstern unter Hammer und Zirkel. Die Jüdischen Gemeinden in der SBZ/DDR und ihre Behandlungen durch Partei und Staat, 1945–1990 (New York: Olms, 1997)Google Scholar; Offenberg, Ulrike, “Seid vorsichtig gegen die Machthaber.” Die Jüdischen Gemeinden in der SBZ und der DDR, 1945–1990 (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1998)Google Scholar; Illichmann, Jutta, Die DDR und die Juden: Die deutschlandpolitische Instrumentalisierung von Juden und Judentum durch die Partei- und Staatsführung der SBZ/DDR von 1945 bis 1990 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1997).Google Scholar
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6 See, for instance, Offenberg, “Seid vorsichtig”; Illichmann, Die DDR und die Juden. See also Monteath, “German Democratic Republic.”
7 The writings of Pierre Bourdieu, Alon Confino, Rudy Koshar, and Edward Soja have shaped much of my thinking here. Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Nice, Richard (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Confino, Alon, “Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method,” American Historical Review 102 (1997): 1386–1403CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Koshar, Rudy, Germany's Transient Pasts: Preservation and National Memory in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Soja, Edward W., Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (New York: Verso, 1989).Google Scholar
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10 I am applying to the East German case the analytical category of “Jewish communist” developed by Schatz, Jaff in his The Generation: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Communists in Poland (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).Google Scholar
11 “Aufruf des SK der KPD vom 11. Juni 1945,” reprinted in Dokumente und Materialien zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 3 (Berlin, 1959), 15.Google Scholar
12 Keßler, Mario, Die SED und die Juden—zwischen Repression und Toleranz (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1995), 32–37Google Scholar. The studies on the origins and causes of anti-Semitism are Heymann, Stefan, Marxismus und Rassenfrage (Berlin: Dietz, 1948)Google Scholar; Kahn, Siegbert, Antisemitismus und Rassenhetze: Eine Üersicht über die Entwicklung in Deutschland (Berlin: Dietz, 1948).Google Scholar
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14 CJA, 5 A 1, Nr. 0126, VJGB to SMA, 11 4, 1947.Google Scholar
15 In the SBZ, administration was complex. The SMA and Soviet troops had the most power, but the SED and state officials also carried out administrative duties. For a detailed discussion, see Naimark, Norman, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1995).Google Scholar
16 The number of survivors comes from BLHA, Rep. 204A, Nr. 2631, Landesverband to Brandenburg Ministry of Finance, 12 27, 1948.Google Scholar
17 For an insightful analysis of the Landesverbands role throughout the SBZ, see Geller, Jay Howard, Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).Google Scholar
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19 Although he does not deal directly with Jewish property and the issue ot restitution, see Naimark's Russians for the wider context of seizing property in the SBZ.
20 Spannuth, , “Rückerstattung Ost,” 136–41 and 143–47.Google Scholar
21 BLHA, Rep. 203, Nr. 1830, SMA Order Nr. 82, 04 29, 1949.Google Scholar
22 There is one important exception to this statement. In 1945, the parliament of the state of Thunngia passed a restitution law (Wiedergutmachungsgesetz); it was the only one that directly dealt with the issue of restitution for Jews in the SBZ; however, in 1952, under intense pressure from top GDR officials, the parliament repealed the law. See Schüler, Thomas, “Das Wiedergutma-chungsgesetz vom 14. September 1945 in Thüringen,” Jahrbuch für Antisemitisnmsforschung (1993): 118–138.Google Scholar
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24 They were a piece of unknown property in Rathenow, a Jewish community home in Wolzig, the Jewish cemetery in Prenzlau, and a Jewish children's center in Miersdorf.
25 BLHA, Rep. 203, Nr. 1828, Meyer to Brandenburg's President, 07 21, 1949.Google Scholar
26 Ibid., state of Brandenburg to SMA, August 1, 1949.
27 Ibid., SMA to state of Brandenburg, November 1, 1949.
28 See the exchanges between the Landesverband and the interior ministry, CJA, 5B1, Nr. 107.
29 BLHA, Rep. 204A, Nr. 2631, Landesverband to state of Brandenburg, 12 27, 1948Google Scholar; PSA, 7982, City Council Decision, 06 20, 1949.Google Scholar
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32 The following numbers that he gives are incorrect. Before 1933, Berlin Jews totaled 160,564. In 1941. when the Nazis began deporting Jews from the city, Berlin's Jewish population was between 60,000 and 75,000. From October 1941 until December 1945, the Nazis transported 50,535 Jews to the death camps in the East. He is, however, correct that about 7,000 Berlin Jews survived.
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41 See the letters sent to the Magistral and the Stockfish trust located in LAB C Rep. 104. Nr. 382, C Rep. 105, Nr. 6912, and BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DY 30 IV/2/14, Nr. 249.
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57 LAB, C Rep. 101–04, Nr. 64, City Council decision, 02 16, 1948. On negotiations between the Gemeinde and the Magistrat about reconstruction efforts at Weißensee and other locations, see LAB, B Rep. 002, Nr. 4860; LAB, C Rep. 101–04, Nr. 64; LAB, C Rep. 110, Nr. 1078.Google Scholar
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69 PSA, 388, “Objektliste der künstlerischen Baudenkmale (Einzelobjekte),” 1956. All the buildings on the list were constructed in the 1600s and 1700s, with a few exceptions. The youngest structure was built in 1838.Google Scholar
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83 BA-Berlin (SAPMO), DO 4, Nr. 1337, VJGvGB to State Secretary for Church Affairs, 03 7, 1961Google Scholar; LAB, C Rep. 131–12, Nr. 27, VJGvGB to City Regional Council of Berlm-Mitte, 09 18, 1965Google Scholar; LAB C Rep. 104, Nr. 601, VJGvGB to City Director of Church Affairs, 07 15, 1975Google Scholar; LAB C Rep. 104, Nr. 601, VJGvGB to mayor, 02 20, 1981.Google Scholar
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123 Palmowski, , “Building an East German Nation”Google Scholar; Applegate, Celia, A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heitnat (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Confino, Alon, The Nation as Local Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871–1918 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Koshar, , Germany's Transient Pasts.Google Scholar
124 This does not apply merely to the GDR. The bulk of memory studies has largely assumed that the memories of politicians or cultural elites—as evident in political discourse, film, literature, monuments, and museums—represent a given society's “collective memory” (see fn. 5 above). This assumption largely conflicts with the theoretical analysis of “collective memory” posited by the often-cited French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. For an excellent analysis of these points, see Confino, Alon, “Telling about Germany: Narratives of Memory and Culture,” Journal of Modern History 76 (2004): 389–416CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Confino, , “Collective Memory.” The phrase “administered past” comes from Sabrow, Verwaltete Vergangenheit.Google Scholar
125 The notion of a “shut down” society comes from Meuschel, , Legitimation und ParteiherrschaftGoogle Scholar. This argument has been highly contested by historians. See Ross, , The East German Dictatorship, 44–68Google Scholar; and Epstein, , “East Germany.”Google Scholar
