soldiers

Schneidemühl's Jewish patriots

In Prussia’s war of 1866, three Jews from Schneidemühl are known to have volunteered; only the name of H. Silbermann is known, however, who was listed as “having been shot through the hand in Gravelotte.”

During the ten months of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 when Germany’s general mood of war ecstasy peaked, Rabbi Nehemiah Zwi Anton Nobel, brother of Schneidemühl’s future rabbi, spoke of ”the holy soil of the German fatherland,” and declared the war to be “a pious and solemn undertaking.”

Thanks to the newly formed ‘Committee for the defense of anti-Semitic attacks’ and the initiative of Dr. Ludwig Philippsohn, the editor of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, their names have been preserved for later generations.

The Gedenkbuch an den deutsch-französischen Krieg von 1870–71 für die deutschen Israeliten listed fifteen men of Schneidemühl’s Jewish community who went into the field:

Abrahamsohn, A. — 3. Pommersches Inf.-Reg. No. 14

Bakofzer, — Marketender des 2. Res.-Ulanen-Reg.

Berliner, — 3. Pommersches Inf.-Reg. No. 14, Ersatz-Bataillon

Heymann, Julius — Pommersches Füsilier-Reg. No. 34

Klein, Aron, — 3. Pommersches Inf.-Reg. No. 14

Krause, Hermann, — Einjähriger Freiwilliger, Garde-Füsilier-Reg.

Lippmann, — 3. Pommersches Inf.-Reg. No. 14

Lippmann, — 1. Pommersches Ulanen Reg. No. 4

Marcus, M. 3. — Garde-Reg. z. F., Ersatz-Bataillon Hannover

Markwald, Max, — com. zum General-Gouvernement des Elsass in Strassburg

Markwald, S. — Inf.-Reg. No. 14

Meyer, Hermann, — Pommersches Landwehr-Reg. No. 14

Nast, A. — Handwerker–Comp., 3. Pommersches Inf.-Reg. No. 14

Simonstein, Hirsch, — 3. Pommersches Inf.-Reg. No. 14

Warschauer, — Ulanen-Reg. No. 4

One of them had volunteered, and several others were reported to have earned promotions later. Although unnamed, one soldier returned with the rank of second lieutenant, two were corporals and one lance corporal; two others were wounded.

Years later, after Schneidemühl’s council had erected on one of the town’s squares an imposing memorial to those who had valiantly died in that war, an interesting development occurred. When it was noticed that the name Sally Cohn, a highly decorated Jew in the war, had been left off the memorial plaque—allegedly for anti-Semitic reasons—the wealthy councilor Louis Kronheim took it upon himself to have a new memorial erected.

The unveiling of this impressive memorial, with a front plaque to Germany’s first emperor, ‘Wilhelm der Grosse, 1861–1888,’ took place with much fanfare in June of 1903, attended by all and sundry who had a standing in the community, many in full military regalia.

While the sides of the memorial’s pedestal featured medallions of Bismarck and Moltke, a large plaque on the back of the memorial paid tribute to the eighty-five men of the ‘Second Bataillon of the first combined Landwehr-Regiment from Schneidemühl who had died in the war of 1870/71.

Foremost was now the name of the Jewish second lieutenant Sally Cohn who had died a Heldentod, ‘a hero’s death,’ in the field by Strasbourg, together with six corporals and another thirty-five men. Further on, first lieutenant Albert Zippmann was remembered, together with three corporals and thirty-nine men who had fallen near Belfort.

But the Jews who had died were merely a minute number of the Jewish soldiers from Posen, a quarter of whom were eventually decorated. During that war, the above editor saw an unparalleled opportunity to demonstrate to Bismarck’s government the unbridled enthusiasm of the country’s Jews who had flocked so eagerly to serve the king.

It appeared to have been the right occasion to ask every rabbi and Jewish community in the land to submit the names of their soldiers, in order to publish a Gedenkbuch, a memorial book. The first time ever that a memorial book to all ‘German soldiers of the Israelite religion’ was published, in a show of satisfying gratitude to the numerous Jewish men who were enlisted, and to others who were decorated for bravery.

Although the book could lay no claim to completion—Berlin, Breslau, Posen and Frankfurt/M. did not participate in the project—a total of 2,531 German-Jewish soldiers from all of Germany’s participating kingdoms and principalities could be listed as having taken part in the relatively short war.

Ironically, eighty-three soldiers were awarded the Iron Cross, one of the military’s highest honors. "Religion and fatherland, both indestructibly rooted in the soul—may they unite in our hearts," the book concludes in a flowery confession by the editor; few casualties and deaths are mentioned.

Two generations later when, on the eve of the First World War, the kaiser proclaimed that all Germans were equal, irrespective of faith or origin—the patriotic enthusiasm of Jewish war volunteers was not surprising.

“We German Jews will demonstrate and prove to be good, trustworthy sons of our fatherland” Rabbi Ludwig Geiger predicted in 1914. Rabbi Leo Baeck, in his shabbat sermon of 14 August at Berlin’s Fasanenstrasse synagogue, filled to capacity, reiterated how deeply connected the life of the fatherland is to the Jews.

“It is not a war about land and value, but rather a war that will decide about the culture and civilization of Europe, the fate of which has been placed in the hands of Germany and those who are allied with us. We may pray to God and trust in him. This ethical conscience will strengthen Germany and lead to victory. The right will triumph.”

Thus, when German Jews went forth in defense of their German Kultur, many saw this as the last rung on the ladder to the long sought total social acceptance and integration. Almost forgotten was Kaiser Wilhelm II’s cynical statement of yesteryear—seemingly a Hohenzollern trait—when he had labeled the Jews in his realm as parasites.

Of Schneidemühl’s Jewish soldiers who went to war with great fervor in 1914, Julius Edel, who belonged to one of the older Jewish families of Schneidemühl, advanced to commissioned officer—but the Jewish community lost fifteen of their best.

In the post-war years, a prominent plaque in the synagogue commemorated these victims of the Great War:

Louis Abraham — Kurt Arndt — Franz Brasch — Wilhelm Cohn — Georg Gabriel-Israel — David Guttmann — Hermann Horwitz — Gotthold Kronheim — Hugo Lachotzki — Hugo Lesser — Adolf Lewin — Willi Lippmann — Siegesmund Loeffler — Hubert Michaelis — Dr. Emil Mislowitzer,

— the latter was the first to fall in September 1914 in France, when a quarter million German soldiers had already been sacrificed.

Altogether a third of Schneidemühl’s Jewish soldiers were lost within the first year; the largest casualties came in 1915/16—most of the fallen were only in their early twenties. They were merely a minute number of the 100,000 German Jews recruited throughout the war, 7,000 of whom were highly decorated. 12,000 never returned from the battlefields. Sadly, their willingness to lay down their lives for the kaiser and the fatherland was not rewarded.

Twenty years after the the end of the First World War a terrible irony emerged,
when many decorated Jewish soldiers would flaunt their war medals and Iron Crosses earned for bravery—on their way to Hitler’s concentration camps and gas chambers.

The Jewish War Memorial

With Hindenburg’s victory at Tannenberg during the First World War—greatly facilitated by Schneidemühl’s important railhead—the Russian offensive in East Prussia collapsed. As a consequence, Schneidemühl saw the arrival of vast numbers of Russian prisoners. On the outskirts of town near Plöttke, at the former infantry grounds, a rapidly growing camp for the more than 45,000 prisoners of war arose, becoming a virtual town within a town, outnumbering Schneidemühl’s own population at the time.

The camp is said to have included everything from recreation facilities to theatres and churches; the camp even had its own paper money. Among others, some of Schneidemühl’s own Jewish recruits were used as guards there, and friendly ties often developed between them and Jewish- Russian prisoners.

On occasion Russian officers were granted permission for leave on Friday nights to partake in kosher Sabbath meals with the families of the local Jewish guards.

An impressive monument, dedicated to the Russian-Jewish soldiers of the First World War, was erected in the post-war years by the Jewish community of Schneidemühl. A plaque, inscribed with Hebrew letters, attested to the sacrifices made by the Russian Jewish soldiers.

Alas, this somber memorial was allowed to stand watching over the vast acres of graves for only a little over a decade. As early as 1934, in an orgy of anti-Semitic violence, Schneidemühl’s Nazis saw to its destruction.

To this day a large military cemetery remains on the outskirts of the town, virtually untouched within a forest of pines. Of the thousands of international prisoners who had died and were buried there during the Great War, a few remaining gravestones still bear witness of the grim past.

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