Glossary

Move the mouse pointer over a red word in the main text, to view the glossary entry for this word.

Involvement in Rebuilding Jewish Community Life in Germany

Norbert Wollheim (right) at the 2nd Congress of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British Zone, Bad Harzburg, July 1947'© United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Wollheim papers)
Slideshow_previous Slideshow_next
01/03
Norbert Wollheim (right) at the 2nd Congress of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British Zone, Bad Harzburg, July 1947
© United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Wollheim papers)

 a  “In my reply I restricted myself to the explanation that I could claim no right and authority for myself to speak for the Jews of Israel, or for the Jewish community outside of Germany. From my personal knowledge of the Jews in Israel, the United States, and Europe, I said, I could not spare the German politicians and, of late, statesmen who were responsible the reproach that on their part, either no contribution at all or only an utterly insignificant one has been made toward putting the relationship between Germans and Jews on a new footing. The present German state leadership has neither tried in an unambiguous and unmistakable way to make clear to the German people the extent of the crime committed against the Jews of Central Europe by Hitler’s accomplices, nor contributed through a visible and effective gesture toward restoring honor to the Jewish people: the honor that could not be taken away from us inwardly, of course, but that was impaired daily by propaganda and persecution. The reemergence of anti-Semitism in Germany, I said, had strengthened the mistrust, never entirely eradicated, of the Jews toward the new German development, and with deepest sorrow the Jews in Germany and elsewhere are keeping track of a neonationalist rebirth, which—if not resolutely opposed—must inevitably lead to renewed danger for the small group of Jews here, but not only here.”

(Conversation between Federal President Theodor Heuss and Norbert Wollheim in Kiel on January 19, 1950—transcript. (Zionist Central Archives, Jerusalem, Shalom Adler-Rudel papers, file A140/58). In: Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, ed.: Zwischen Moral und Realpolitik. Deutsch-israelische Beziehungen 1945–65. Eine Dokumentensammlung (Gerlingen: Bleicher, 1997), pp. 135–138, here pp. 136–137. (Transl. KL))

The Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British Zone, of which Norbert Wollheim served as deputy chairman, had always viewed the residence of Jews in Germany immediately after the Holocaust as only a temporary circumstance, the overcoming of which was its primary task. In that opinion, it was in accord with the assessment of Jewish life in Germany common to many Jewish organizations following World War II. This was expressed, for example, by the conference of the World Jewish Congress in Montreux in 1948, which adopted a resolution stating “the determination of the Jewish people never again to settle on the bloodstained soil of Germany.”[1] Norbert Wollheim, too, made similar remarks on that occasion, but in the course of the following years he was willing at the same time to accept that there were Jews who decided in favor of remaining in Germany. It was becoming increasingly apparent that some of the Displaced Persons (DPs) and returned emigrants wanted to rebuild Jewish life in Germany on a permanent basis, even if they frequently met with hostile reactions. Wollheim rejected the notion that “the hatred directed at the Germans [would be] extended to include the Jews in Germany or displaced onto them,”[2] and he wondered, “Why must the ‘historical answer’ to Germany be argued out on the backs of the Jews in Germany, who have been battered enough as it is?”[3]

 

Norbert Wollheim had a role in creating permanent structures for the recently begun rebuilding of Jewish community life in the Federal Republic of Germany. On July 19, 1950, the Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland) was founded; the four members of the board of directors were Philipp Auerbach, Heinz Galinski, Pessah Piekatsch, and Norbert Wollheim.

 

On January 19 and March 20, 1950, Wollheim already had met with Theodor Heuss, the president of the Federal Republic of Germany, who was seeking unofficial ways to establish contacts with, and make an approach to, Israel. Wollheim reported on these meetings to Shalom Adler-Rudel, director of the Office for International Relations at the Jewish Agency, with the express request that his accounts “be forwarded to the office in Israel that you think is responsible for handling these matters.”[4] He said that in talking with Heuss, he had expressly pointed out the problems of “Germany’s re-Nazification,”[5] the personal continuities, as in the case of the director of the Federal Chancellory, Hans Globke, “the resurgence of overt and covert anti-Semitic propaganda,”[6] and mentioned “the discouraging decisions of various courts in political trials and/or proceedings related to crimes against humanity.”[7] Norbert Wollheim clearly articulated his disappointment at the developments in postwar Germany, which reinforced his personal decision to leave the country as soon as the necessary help for the Displaced Persons was firmly in place.  a 

 

In August 1951, the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British Zone was finally disbanded, as its work was done. In September, Norbert Wollheim and his wife Friedel, whom he had met in Belsen, emigrated to the United States, along with their two children, whom he did not want to see grow up in Germany.

(MN; transl. KL)



Sources

Conversation between FRG President Theodor Heuss and Norbert Wollheim in Kiel on January 19, 1950—transcript. (Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, Shalom Adler-Rudel papers, file A140/58) In: Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, ed.: Zwischen Moral und Realpolitik. Deutsch-israelische Beziehungen 1945–65. Eine Dokumentensammlung. Gerlingen: Bleicher, 1997, pp. 135–138.

Letter from Norbert Wollheim to Shalom Adler-Rudel reporting on the meeting with FRG President Theodor Heuss [on April 4, 1950]. (Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, Shalom Adler-Rudel papers, file A140/58) In: Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, ed.: Zwischen Moral und Realpolitik. Deutsch-israelische Beziehungen 1945–65. Eine Dokumentensammlung. Gerlingen: Bleicher, 1997, pp. 142–147.

Norbert Wollheim, Interview with Nikolaus Creutzfeldt [Eng.], New York 1986–88 (Heinlyn Productions; produced by Leslie C. Wolf). Archive of the Fritz Bauer Institute, transcript.

Norbert Wollheim, First Interview [Eng.], May 10, 1991. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, transcript.

 

Literature

Geis, Jael: Übrig sein – Leben "danach". Juden deutscher Herkunft in der britischen und amerikanischen Zone Deutschlands 1945–1949. Berlin: Philo, 1999.

Geller, Jay Howard: Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany, 1945–1953. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge UP, 2005.

[1] World Jewish Congress: “Germany.” In: Resolutions Adopted by the Second Plenary Assembly of the World Jewish Congress, Montreaux, Switzerland, June 27th—July 6th, 1948 (London: Odhams, [1948]), p. 7, quoted in Jay Howard Geller: Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany, 1945–1953 (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge UP, 2005), p. 62.

[2] Jael Geis: Übrig sein – Leben "danach." Juden deutscher Herkunft in der britischen und amerikanischen Zone Deutschlands 1945–1949 (Berlin: Philo, 1999), p. 433. (Translated by KL)

[3] N. Wollheim, letter to H. Tramer of Irgun Olej Merkas Europa, dated October 29, 1950, quoted in Geis: Übrig sein, p. 433.

[4] Letter from Norbert Wollheim to Shalom Adler-Rudel reporting on the meeting with FRG President Theodor Heuss [on April 4, 1950]. (Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, Shalom Adler-Rudel papers, file A140/58) In: Yeshayahu A. Jelinek, ed.: Zwischen Moral und Realpolitik. Deutsch-israelische Beziehungen 1945–65. Eine Dokumentensammlung (Gerlingen: Bleicher, 1997), pp. 142–147, here p. 142. (Translated by KL)

[5] Ibid., p. 147.

[6] Ibid., p. 146.

[7] Ibid., p. 146.