Life Under the Threat of Nazism

Abstract

Anti-Jewish hostility — always present in German social and political life in varying degrees — finally broke through to the surface in the 1920s and 1930s when it developed into the major political force. After the deceptive ‘Golden Age of Security’¹ which German Jews had enjoyed during the period before World War I, they were rudely shaken out of their dream of progressive integration and, ultimately, full acceptance by the majority society.