spanishspy
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 22, 2018 20:29:32 GMT
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jul 23, 2018 13:34:30 GMT
Strange to read this text knowing what would happen many year later. But in view of the nature of the czarist regime and the large proportion of Polish and Russian Jews, the sympathy of most Jewish leaders lay with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The German Foreign Office was aware of this, and during the first years of the war tried to exploit this to further German interests. German Jews all over the world founded the “Committee for the East” which disseminated pro‑German propaganda among the Jews in Poland |
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spanishspy
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 23, 2018 15:45:14 GMT
Strange to read this text knowing what would happen many year later. But in view of the nature of the czarist regime and the large proportion of Polish and Russian Jews, the sympathy of most Jewish leaders lay with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The German Foreign Office was aware of this, and during the first years of the war tried to exploit this to further German interests. German Jews all over the world founded the “Committee for the East” which disseminated pro‑German propaganda among the Jews in PolandStrange in hindsight, yes, but understandable given the treatment of Jews in the Russian Empire. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jul 23, 2018 15:55:26 GMT
Strange to read this text knowing what would happen many year later. But in view of the nature of the czarist regime and the large proportion of Polish and Russian Jews, the sympathy of most Jewish leaders lay with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The German Foreign Office was aware of this, and during the first years of the war tried to exploit this to further German interests. German Jews all over the world founded the “Committee for the East” which disseminated pro‑German propaganda among the Jews in PolandStrange in hindsight, yes, but understandable given the treatment of Jews in the Russian Empire.
Very true and I have read reports of massacres of Jews by Russian forces as they marched to the front in 1914. Extremely brutal and pointless.
To a large degree the Jews of Germany were the most assimilated in the western world in 1914. Which may have been part of the problem for the Nazis as they saw the Jews as becoming fully integrated into German society and hence intractably connected with it. Which is not a preferred option if your a deranged racist bigot, as too many of the Nazis and their supporters were.  |
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futurist
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Post by futurist on Oct 4, 2018 20:04:27 GMT
Strange in hindsight, yes, but understandable given the treatment of Jews in the Russian Empire.
Very true and I have read reports of massacres of Jews by Russian forces as they marched to the front in 1914. Extremely brutal and pointless.
To a large degree the Jews of Germany were the most assimilated in the western world in 1914. Which may have been part of the problem for the Nazis as they saw the Jews as becoming fully integrated into German society and hence intractably connected with it. Which is not a preferred option if your a deranged racist bigot, as too many of the Nazis and their supporters were. The interesting thing, though, is that the Nazis spared people who were of only partial Jewish ancestry. In turn, this makes one wonder whether the Nazis worried about nothing; after all, if Jews were already intermarrying with Germans in large numbers, why interrupt this process? I don't remember where I read this comment, but I've previously read a comment somewhere where someone said that the Nazis' optimal goal should have been to maximize Jewish-German intermarriage instead of killing the Jews en masse. Also, the interesting thing is that Ashkenazi Jews were probably the most Germanized ethnic group in Eastern Europe other than the Germans themselves. After all, Yiddish is essentially German with Hebrew letters. Thus, if the Nazis would have been smarter, they could have tried using the Jews to settle their desired Lebensraum in the East instead of murdering them en masse--especially considering that there would have probably been few Germans who would have actually been willing to move to the East. |
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futurist
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Post by futurist on Oct 4, 2018 20:06:58 GMT
Strange to read this text knowing what would happen many year later. But in view of the nature of the czarist regime and the large proportion of Polish and Russian Jews, the sympathy of most Jewish leaders lay with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The German Foreign Office was aware of this, and during the first years of the war tried to exploit this to further German interests. German Jews all over the world founded the “Committee for the East” which disseminated pro‑German propaganda among the Jews in PolandStrange in hindsight, yes, but understandable given the treatment of Jews in the Russian Empire. Yeah, the Russian Empire was certainly very noxious in regards to its treatment of Jews. I mean, I understand the Jewish quotas essentially being an affirmative action program for the non-Jewish inhabitants of the Russian Empire, but there was absolutely no point in having pogroms and in preventing Jews from moving outside of the Pale of Settlement unless they converted to Christianity. Interestingly enough, keeping so many Jews within the Pale of Settlement instead of allowing them to move to the interior parts of Russia ended up causing more Jews to end up under Nazi rule during World War II. |
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