Description

This is a study of the ideological and political relationship between Zionism and anti-Semitism in modern Germany, from the nineteenth century through the Third Reich, focusing on the years between 1933 and 1942. It considers three contentious issues in post-Holocaust historiography and debate: the nature of modern German anti-Semitism; the decision-making process leading to the Nazi mass murder of the Jews of Europe; and the nature and role of German Zionism in German-Jewish history before the Holocaust. This study sheds more light on both the ideological and practical assault of German anti-Semitism and Nazi Jewish policy on the Jews of Central Europe, as well as the ideological and political response of some German Jews, the Zionists, to that assault. It concludes that the attitudes and policies of German anti-Semitism and National Socialism toward Zionism reflect a relatively consistent ideology that was applied in an inconsistent and contradictory manner.