Volume 29

Jeder Bürger Soldat

The Polish military was involved like practically no other institution in the establishment and formation of the Second Polish Republic. The degree to which citizens who did not belong to the majority society were to be granted access to the armed forces was a matter of dispute. The tension between general conscription and the army’s claims to nationalization becomes especially clear in the case of Polish Jewish relations. These were shaped by rejection and cooperation, exclusion, and incorporation, and were characteristic of minority politics in this era. On this basis, Christhardt Henschel describes the strong influence exerted by national memory narratives and normative ideas of the nineteenth century on the process of negotiating the Jewish population’s emancipation, equality, and national belonging. The author paints a nuanced picture of Polish Jewish relations between 1918 and 1939.