In a June 1933 letter to the Hebrew poet Hayim Nachman Bialik and Tel Aviv mayor Meir Dizengoff, the German painter Max Liebermann wrote, “Like a horrible nightmare the abrogation of equal rights weighs upon us all, but especially upon those Jews who, like me, had surrendered themselves to the dream of assimilation. ... As difficult as it has been for me, I have awakened from the dream that I dreamed my whole life long.”
Historian Michael Brenner, author of In Hitler’s Munich, explores the different ways in which German Jews—Zionists, Liberals, and Orthodox—awoke from their dream of being German citizens of the Jewish faith. He examines how they reacted to the rapidly changing circumstances during the first weeks after Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. A broad variety of reactions, from attempts of accommodation with the new regime to religious responses to calls for emigration were all considered, some more successfully than others.
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