Trying to do a little research about the Weimar Republic....

[nancylebov]

I wanted to bring the usual "the Weimar Republic lifted restrictions on the Jews" into a discussion, and I thought I'd do a little research on the details first.

It turns out that a search on anything like [Weimar Republic Jews] gets pretty much swamped by anti-Semitic material (I'm really angry about this, and open to suggestions for improving the situation), and the little that isn't anti-Semitic doesn't have the information I wanted. I did find out that Jews got more opportunities to be professors and have high level civil service positions, and also that there were anti-Catholic laws which were gradually being lifted.

After some thought, I went to Google Books and found this, but as is typical of all real history, it's full of details, and as is typical of most real history, it's pretty depressing.

It does talk about a gradual and unreliable lifting of restrictions against Jews in German academe which started centuries before the Weimar Republic and at this point, I have no idea whether there was strong improvement in policies towards Jews then. The book excerpt says not for academe, but I don't know about other parts of life.

So does anyone know what was actually going on in the Weimar Republic in regards to Jews? Or know of an online source about it? And if a subject is swamped with anti-Semitic links, how do you get past them?

Comments

[green_knight]

I find that a lot of the time the white nationalist pages use the same dog whistles over and over, so once you know what they are, they become easier to avoid, but that doesn't help here.

And since I would search in German, that might not be much help for you. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsbund_jüdischer_Frontsoldaten and
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central-Verein_deutscher_Staatsbürger_jüdischen_Glaubens

might provide starting points.

(I have very little time right now, otherwise I'd be googling a bit more.)

[nancylebov]

Thanks for trying. I could take a crack at finding common phrases that the white nationalists use (like that Jews drafted the constitution for the Weimar Republic) and see if I can use that for a filter.

I don't know German, but maybe I can find some words to search on.

[siderea]

"Haskalah" may be a useful search term to approach the topic sideways.

Googling "Haskalah Weimar" got me the phrase "Weimar Jewish Renaissance", which may also be useful. It lead me to German-Jewish History in Modern Times: Renewal and Destruction ..., Volume 4
By Avraham Barkai and to The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, among others, which may have what you want.

Also this but I don't know how to access more than the first page.