Jewish Diplomacy in the Interwar Period

Description: This seminar aims to interpret and disseminate Jewish initiatives to realize and defend a binding system of minority rights in Europe between 1919 and 1939. Beginning with the establishment of the »Comité des délégations juives« at the Paris peace conferences and extending through the participation of Jewish delegates at the Congress of European Nationalities between 1925 and 1933 to the foundation of the »World Jewish Congress« in 1936, we will use selected sources to examine and discuss the strategies and demands for the protection of Jews from economic, political, and cultural ostracism. Through a precise investigation of institutions and individuals, we will illuminate the close networks of Jewish minority diplomacy in the interwar period. We will moreover investigate the question of what potential for protection and salvation remained for the Jews of Eastern and Western European under the worsening conditions of the 1930s. Participation is conditional on the readiness to prepare a presentation.

Participation is conditional on giving a short presentation.

Literature: Dan Diner, Imperiale Residuen. Zur paradigmatischen Bedeutung transterritorialer Erfahrung für eine gesamteuropäische Geschichte, in: Daniel Weidner (Hg.), Figuren des Europäischen. Kulturgeschichtliche Perspektiven, München 2006, 259–274; Philipp Graf, Die Bernheim-Petition 1933. Jüdische Politik in der Zwischenkriegszeit, Göttingen 2008; Mark Mazower, Reiche, Völker, Minderheiten, in: Ders., Der dunkle Kontinent. Europa im 20. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt am Main 2002, 69–116; Ezra Mendelsohn, Zwischen großen Erwartungen und bösem Erwachen. Das Ende der multinationalen Reiche in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa aus jüdischer Perspektive, in: Dittmar Dahlmann/Anke Hilbrenner (Hgg.), Zwischen großen Erwartungen und bösem Erwachen. Juden, Politik und Antisemitismus in Ost- und Südosteuropa 1918–1945, Paderborn 2007, 13–30.

Participation is limited to 25 people.

Open to mature age students: no