The Lion and the Star

Gentile-Jewish Relations in Three Hessian Towns, 1919-1945

Jonathan Friedman

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813188270
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: German History
• Index: History

The Lion and the Star not only offers an informed glimpse into the intricacies of daily German life but also confirms the continuing danger of making sweeping generalizations about German Jews and non-Jews. In the aftermath of World War II, many viewed the Third Reich as an aberration in German history and laid blame with Hitler and his followers. Since the 1960s, historians have widened their focus, implicating "ordinary" Germans in the demise of German Jewry.

Jonathan Friedman addresses this issue by investigation everyday relations between German Jews and their Gentile neighbors. Friedman examines three German communities of different sizes—Frankfurt am Main, Giessen, and Geisenheim. Symbolized by the Hessian heraldic lion, these communities represent a cross-section of both Gentile and Jewish society in Germany during the Weimar and Nazi years. Researching in the United States, Germany, England, and Israel, he gleaned information from interviews, memoirs, diaries, letters, newspapers, church and synagogue records, censuses, government documents, and reports from Nazi and resistance organizations. Friedman's comparative analysis offers a balanced response to recent scholarly works condemning the entire German people for their complicity in the Holocaust.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Maps
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Jewish Emancipation to 1919
• 2. Demography and Socioeconomic Structure
• 3. The Liberal-Jewish Model: Under Attack from Within
• 4. Gesellschaft vs. Gemeinschaft: Gentile-Jewish Relations before 1933
• 5. Jew-Hatred or “Arbeit und Brot!” Antisemitism and the Electoral Rise of the Nazis
• 6. Close to the Edge: Relations during the Early Years of the Third Reich
• 7. Relations during the “Final Solution”
• Epilogue
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index