From Democracy to Dictatorship: How German Jews Responded to the Rise of Hitler in 1933

Dr. Michael Brenner American University

“Like a horrible nightmare the abrogation of equal rights weighs upon us all, but especially upon those Jews who, like me, had surrendered themselves to the dream of assimilation….As difficult as it has been for me, I have awakened from the dream that I dreamed my whole life long.”

— The painter Max Liebermann to the Hebrew poet Hayim Nachman Bialik in June 1933

This lecture addresses the different ways in which German Jews – Zionists and German nationalists, Orthodox, and Liberals (religious Reform and Conservative Jews) – awoke from their dream of being German citizens of the Jewish faith. What were their expectations of the new year 1933 and how did they react to the rapidly changing circumstances after Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January, 30th , 1933? How did they experience the immediate change from a democracy to a dictatorship and how did they reflect about it? And what does this all mean to American Jews in 2026?

Michael Brenner holds the chair of Jewish History and Culture at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and is Distinguished Professor of History and Seymour and Lillian Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies at American University in Washington DC. He is an elected member of the Bavarian Academy of Science, the Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana in Italy and the American Academy for Jewish Research. He published 9 books, which have been translated in 12 languages. Among them are In Hitler’s Munich: Jews, the Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism, In Search of Israel:The History of an Idea, A Short History of the Jews, and The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany.

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