Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant Germans at German Universities, 1890-1914

In trying to understand the origin of National Socialism, historians have often looked to German university cultures of the Imperial period (1871-1918). Leading historians of universities and student life have highlighted the role of radical antisemitic students of the turn-of-the-century. Many of these scholars follow the interpretation of Norbert Kampe that antisemitism had become a “rigid social norm” within German student body [Studenten und Judenfrage 186].

More recent contributions by a range of scholars including Thomas Weber, Sonja Levsen, as well as my research have uncovered a different, more nuanced picture. Outside of Marburg, Leipzig, and Berlin the antisemitic Union of German Students was small and isolated from other organizations. In their memoirs, few Jews describe being impacted at universities by the kinds of radical antisemitism that historians seem to have assumed existed. Jews and non-Jews formed bonds of life-long friendships that originated at universities.

My contribution to this panel draws on this recent research and contributes to a discussion of experiences of Jewish students at German universities. My work takes up Till van Rahden’s approach of a Jewish “situational ethnicity” and suggests the ways that this theoretical approach can better describe the experience of Jews than older concepts of assimilation or integration. My contribution will also highlight three moments of conflict where attitudes of Catholic and Protestant Germans toward Jewish Germans came into the open. My paper closes with a comment on the particular strength of antisemitism at Austrian universities in contrast to German universities.