German Jewish Immigration

The German Jews in America

German Jews arrived in the United States during three eras marked by violence. The first large scale arrival of German Jews in the USA came about as the result of the 1848 revolution in Germany. There is really no country called Germany in Europe. The inhabitants call their country Deutschland. The English version comes from the Latin Germania, which the Romans used to label the primitives they found there.

The 1848 revolution was not related to any Jewish event. The German speaking people from Austria (Österreich) to Prussia (Preussen) and beyond revolted against the nobility who had inherited the land and  the kingdoms and principalities of which Deutschland consisted. Deutschland did not become one country until 1870. Until then, Prussia was a kingdom, as was Bavaria, as was Austria etc. Every one of the current states now constituting a united Germany was a separate country, of which Prussia (Preussen) was the largest. Preussen had an emperor, Frederick Wilhelm IV, who, like all despots, ruled absolutely.

In 1848, numerous German speaking peoples demanded that the nobility give them a constitution and a parliament . Frederick Wilhelm promised both but never did so. The German population was aware of the democratic developments in France and the United States and demanded the same for themselves. On May 18, 1848, the French Assembly opened its first meeting, leading Germans to seek similar concessions from the so called nobility governing them. The people of Frankfurt a. M. (at the Main river,  not Frankfurt a. O., at the Oder River) wrote a constitution which the nobles ignored.

As the agitation for American style freedom increased, the nobility used military force all over the German states and suppressed the hope of the German people to be better treated. Therefore the failure of the 1848 revolution led to the migration of millions of Germans, including German Jews, to emigrate to America.

There was then no immigration law to prevent anyone to come to the USA. It was not until 1924 that Congress passed an immigration law to the effect that new immigrants could not be more than 2%  of those nationalities already in America as of 1890. There were of course few eastern Europeans in the USA at that time. The real reason for this harsh form of exclusion was to keep Catholics from Poland and Italy out of America. Since religion was not mentioned in the law because the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the US government from making any law concerning religion, Jews became the victims of these exclusions, because they were mainly born in Poland. Of course it is well known that before 1924 2.5 million Polish and Russian Jews came to the USA.

Therefore, 400,000 Jews were living here as of 1924. These Jews were well received by the almost entirely Protestant population, so that numerous German Jews were elected mayors of towns and cities and others were elected to various other offices.  The German Jews invented the department store and were most active on the New York Stock Exchange.

The second German Jewish immigration to the United States came about between 1933 and 1941. Hitler became German dictator on January 30, 1933.  He declared war on the United States one day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. The entrance of the USA into the Second World War closed all chances of migration, so that only 145,000 thousand German Jews ever arrived in America in an effort to escape the Holocaust. The then President of the USA, Franklin Roosevelt, did everything possible to keep the persecuted German and other Jews out of this country. He went so far as to appoint a wealthy friend undersecretary for immigration. This man deliberately reduced the quota that Congress had voted in favor of the German Jews, so that millions were murdered when no country would allow Jews to come. Roosevelt was without doubt a co-conspirator in the slaughter of the European Jews during the Nazi era.

The Third migration of German Jews to the United States came about after 1945. Then, Germany was defeated, Hitler had killed himself, and a few, very few German Jewish survivors were found in the displaced persons camps, some of whom came here while most preferred to move to Israel.

The German Jews caused a huge renaissance of American science, literature and scholarship of all kinds. There are today many academic areas which German Jews introduced into American universities.

German Jews founded the first rabbinical seminary in America in Cincinnati. Many moved to Milwaukee, St. Louis, and even as far as California. Furthermore, German Jews helped the American war effort immensely by volunteering as interpreters during the Second World War.

Today, the children and grandchildren of German Jews are assimilated and part of the seven million American Jewish community.

Shalom u'vracha.

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