For the Honor of Our Fatherland

ebook German Jews on the Eastern Front during the Great War

By Tracey Hayes Norrell

cover image of For the Honor of Our Fatherland

Sign up to save your library

With an OverDrive account, you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive accounts.

   Not today
Libby_app_icon.svg

Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.

app-store-button-en.svg play-store-badge-en.svg
LibbyDevices.png

Search for a digital library with this title

Title found at these libraries:

Loading...
For the Honor of Our Fatherland: German Jews on the Eastern Front during the Great War focuses on the German Jews' role in reconstructing Poland's war-ravaged countryside. The Germany Army assigned rabbis to serve as chaplains in the German Army and to support and minister to their own Jewish soldiers, which numbered 100,000 during the First World War. However, upon the Army's arrival into the decimated region east of Warsaw, it became abundantly clear that the rabbis might also help with the poverty-stricken Ostjuden by creating relief agencies and rebuilding schools. For the Honor of Our Fatherland demonstrates that the well-being of the Polish Jewish community was a priority to the German High Command and vital to the future of German politics in the region. More importantly, by stressing the importance of the Jews in the East to Germany's success, For the Honor of Our Fatherland will show that Germany did not always want to remove the Jews—quite the contrary. The role and influence of the German Army rabbis and Jewish administrators and soldiers demonstrates that Germany intentionally supported the Polish Jewish communities in order to promote its agenda in the East, even as the modes for future influence changed. By implementing a philanthropic agenda in the East, the Germans recognized that its success might lie in part in enfranchising the Jewish population. Moreover, the directives of these relief agencies were not only beneficial to the impoverished Jewish communities, but the German Army had much to gain from this transnational relationship. The tragic irony was that Germany returned to the East in the Second World War and killed millions of Jews.
For the Honor of Our Fatherland