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Viewing report
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Wicked Sons, German Heros. Edition No. 1
VDM Publishing House, Sep 2008, Pages: 352
This study traces the journey of the solider in
German-Jewish history from wicked son to German hero
and back again. In traditional Jewish life, military
service represented assimilation to the surrounding
culture and rejection of the Jewish community.
German-Jewish institutions did not embrace military
masculinity until the birth of Zionism in the late
1800s. Jewish soldiers in the First World War
believed their heroics in battle would at long last
complete the integration of Jews into German
society. After the war, the National Association of
Jewish Combat Veterans (Reichsbund juedischer
Frontsoldate, or RjF) organized combat patrols to
defend their religious community against antisemitic
attacks, and organized German Jewry welcomed the
RjF's campaign to instill military masculinity in
the younger generation. The RjF denounced Zionist
and leftist Jews in the last years of the Weimar
Republic, however, and then sought and received
exemptions for veterans from antisemitic legislation
in the first years of the Third Reich. In the eyes
of many contemporaries, the leaders of the RjF
became the wicked sons of German Jewry.
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