When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, some 525,000 Jews were living within the borders of Germany. Over the next six years between 250,000 and 300,000 either chose or were forced to emigrate as a result of officially sanctioned anti-Semitism, yet as the pivotal year of 1939 dawned, nearly half remained.Why so many German Jews appeared reluctant to leave their homeland and escape the Nazi terror is one of the great unsolved questions of the Holocaust. Theories abound: the vagaries of Hitler’s Jewish policy during the 1930s did not clearly foreshadow the Final Solution; Jews expected to survive this period of German anti-Semitism as they had others throughout the centuries; those who tried to escape were denied immigration visas all over the world. While there is some truth in all these responses, according to John Dippel they are more ex post facto rationalizations than explanations. In this revelatory book he examines diaries, letters, and other documents written before 1939 in an attempt to discover an answer uncolored by hindsight.Bound Upon a Wheel of Fire is the story of six prominent figures in the German Jewish community who chose to stay on under the Nazis—the chief rabbi of Berlin, the editor of the leading Zionist newspaper, a renowned international financier, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist, a society columnist, and a conservative youth movement leader. Owing to their visibility, their decisions not to emigrate changed irreversibly not only their own lives but also the lives of thousands of others.In spite of their disparate lives, Dippel argues that these six shared a single passion: a deep and abiding love for their country. Able to trace their German heritage back hundreds of years, they were proud of their ability to assimilate successfully—to become ”more German than the Germans.” Their ties to their homeland in fact were so deep that most probably would have described their primary identification as German rather than Jewish. Ultimately, their sense of loyalty and nostalgia—their patriotism—blinded them to the hatred that swirled around them until it was too late.Bound Upon a Wheel of Fire explores the emotional and psychological conflicts as well as the patriotic, cultural, and economic ties that kept these six leaders, along with countless others, from fleeing. In addition, it provides a fascinating look at the dynamics of late nineteenth and early twentieth century German Jewish life, including the rise of the Zionist movement and the tensions between established Jews and their eastern European immigrant cousins.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The author of Two Against Hitler, Dippel follows the lives of six relatively prominent German Jews from January 30, 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor, until late 1938. The six are Hans-Joachim Schoeps, the leader of an extreme right-wing group; Nobel prize-winning chemist Richard Wilstatter; banker Max Warburg; Leo Baeck, who was Berlin's chief rabbi; columnist Bella Fromm; and journalist and editor Robert Weltsch. The thread that ties the six together is their decision to remain in Germany during the Nazi era.
From Library Journal
Based on the author's research in surviving personal letters, newspaper accounts, and archival records, this arresting book succeeds in explaining why vast numbers of German Jews decided to remain in their homeland during the Nazi terror. Dippel (Two Against Hitler, Greenwood, 1992) focuses on six leaders of the German-Jewish community, among them the renowned Rabbi Leo Baeck and the powerful financier Max Warburg. Through their life stories he shows how their deeply ingrained love of country produced delusionary hopes of coming to terms with the "new" Germany. These six were lucky enough to survive the terror, but, sadly enough, they influenced thousands of their fellow Jews to stay behind when they still had the chance to leave. Soon it was too late, and most of those who stayed perished in the "Final Solution." In an accessible style that will attract general readers as well as specialists, Dippel shows how the German Jews' intense love of the fatherland together with their historical, emotional, and economic ties to Germany blinded them to the reality of the fate that was in store for them. An important and original contribution to Holocaust studies; highly recommended.?Robert A. Silver, formerly with Shaker Heights P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
John V. H. Dippel (Piermont, NY), an independent historian, is the author of Race to the Frontier, Bound Upon a Wheel of Fire, and Two Against Hitler. His articles on politics and social affairs have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
good representation of a concerned Jewish community,
By A Customer
This review is from: Bound Upon A Wheel Of Fire: Why So Many German Jews Made The Tragic Decision To Remain In Nazi Germany (Hardcover)
This book gives a good representation of what happened in the Jewish community as Hitler grew in power. This shows the transformation from a community that had little regard for a Jewish identity to being bonded together by that mere fact alone. Dippel shows the unfortunate internal struggles that prevented any full Jewish unity (from assimilation, emigration, & fighting back to denial and prejdice). It allows you to see just what was felt during a confusing time in Germany & what was being done about it.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
interesting and readable book, misleading subtitle,
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This review is from: Bound Upon A Wheel Of Fire: Why So Many German Jews Made The Tragic Decision To Remain In Nazi Germany (Hardcover)
The subtitle is a bit misleading since, as the book points out, about 2/3 of German Jews did leave Nazi Germany before 1940. Having said that, the book did teach me something I didn't know: over half of those Jews left during the last couple of years before WW 2, rather than leaving right after Hitler took power.
The book seeks to answer the question: Why did Jews dawdle? Because at first, it was unclear how bad Nazi oppression would be; in the mid-1930s, it seemed quite possible that Jews could still make a living in Nazi Germany. But by 1938, the situation was more desperate, and most Jews tried to leave. If anything, the author fails to explain not why Jews stayed, but why so many were able to leave in the last years before the Holocaust. In 1938-39, most large countries were unwilling to accept a significant number of Jewish refugees. Yet over 100,000 German Jews managed to somehow leave Germany during those years. A better book would have explained how they managed to do it, and what separated the successful emigrants from those who tried to leave but couldn't.
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