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The history of Youth Aliyah most accurately begins during Weimar Germany’s closing year. Historians of modern German Jewry have recognized 1932 not just as a watershed of German history but also as a time of singular signi¤cance for Germany’s Jewish population.1 Yet this chronological classi¤cation does not only revolve around the coincident rise of Hitler. Although Youth Aliyah is commonly viewed as a German Jewish response to Nazism, its origins must be understood within the context of Weimar’s decline. The unique economic circumstances of this period, coupled with increasingly successful anti-Semitic politics, provided the speci¤c background that inspired the vision behind Youth Aliyah. Under these conditions, large-scale immigration to Palestine was¤rst conceived to ensure the material and spiritual survival of German Jewish youth, not to provide physical security. The 1929 Depression hit Germany with particular severity, having dramatic repercussions in a country that had only recently recovered from the ¤nancial crisis of the 1923 in®ation.2 Unemployment, perhaps the de¤ning characteristic of the Great Depression, grew to unprecedented numbers in Germany. Intensely devastated in this regard was the country’s youth, especially those who had only recently completed school.3 These teenagers faced the prospect of entering a job market that held few opportunities for older, more experienced individuals and offered almost no hope for the young. As poorly as Weimar’s unemployment insurance program functioned in its attempt to cope with the world economic crisis, the existing legislation , and subsequent adjustments to it, discriminated against un1 1932—The Decisive Year employed youth.4 Individuals under the age of twenty-one could be required to attend courses and perform compulsory labor in order to receive bene¤ts. Unemployed youths were also excluded from subsistence level “crisis bene¤ts,” available to citizens who had already received the allotted twenty-six-week subsidy. In 1930 unemployment compensation for those under seventeen depended on applying a means test to their parents’ income. And most decisively, in June 1931, the government of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning disquali¤ed all claims for unmarried unemployed individuals under twenty-one years of age.5 Government spokesmen and of¤cials throughout Germany recognized the demoralizing and potentially dangerous consequences of unemployment for the future of the republic, particularly its impact on the younger generation. A ministry of the interior of¤cial in 1932 referred to the pressing task of “protecting and helping an endangered generation.”6 These leaders justi¤ably expressed concern that unoccupied youth would take to the streets and the pubs, venues in which radical political ideologies such as Nazism and Communism proliferated. The government, therefore, sponsored two similar programs to maintain order within the ranks of German youth: compulsory labor (P®ichtarbeit) for those receiving welfare bene¤ts, and the Voluntary Labor Service (Freiwillige Arbeitsdienst ) providing short-term low-paying work and accommodations . Often the youth camps organized by the voluntary labor service drew on the nationalist traditions of the German youth movements and also incorporated ideas from racist movements. Many churches, hoping to prevent a mass exodus to atheistic Communism, also assisted in implementing voluntary labor schemes with the similar expectation of using this institution to in®uence an increasingly indifferent young generation .7 Despite these programs, widespread unemployment had a psychologically debilitating impact on Germany’s youth. Apathy, anxiety, and indifference were major consequences. What type of future did an individual leaving school at the age of fourteen have to look forward to? Those fortunate few in an apprenticeship or vocational training had little prospect of ¤nding gainful employment upon completing the program.8 In Weimar Germany, unless a family had the means and a child the desire and ability to continue formal schooling, fourteen-year-olds were expected to ¤nd gainful employment. Families depended on the extra income, especially during the Depression years. For such children, the 18 Chapter 1 outlook was grim and the overall mood could aptly be characterized as one of despair. The prevailing misery did bene¤t the politically astute Hitler and his Nazi party, whose electoral successes coincided with continuing economic distress and general dissatisfaction with Weimar administrations, which had unsuccessfully attempted to tackle the problem of unemployment since 1918.9 Hitler’s offer of stability through resolute leadership appealed to voters more than any speci¤c plan for economic reconstruction , allowing the Nazis to capitalize on this deteriorating situation rather than directly causing the demise of German democracy.10 The growing success of the...

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