Carsten Schapkow: Jewish Intellectuals and World War I

An overwhelming majority of German Jews perceived the beginning of the Great War in 1914 as a possibility to finally prove that they are Germans first of all who would not hesitate to fight for Germany on the battlefield. There were, however, German Jews who did speak up against the war. This obviously was an extremely difficult undertaking because there was an overwhelming feeling of excitement in the overall society. How could one stand up against this overall positive reception of the war that would – one hoped – ultimately challenge the situation to the better?

In my paper I will pay attention to German-Jewish intellectuals who spoke up against the war. My focus will be on Gustav Landauer (1870-1919) and Erich Mühsam (1878-1934). Feelings of despair, isolation, and disorientation had a huge impact on them during the war. Censorship, moreover, made it difficult to interact and read the news from the front correctly. In this regard my focus will be on two main aspects: the significance of anti-Semitism also in a transnational framework and to what extend Landauer and Mühsam viewed cosmopolitism as an answer to the war?