Peter C. Appelbaum

Loyal Sons: Jewish Soldiers in the German Army in the Great War Peter C. Appelbaum

During World War I, approximately 100,000 Jews served in the German army, of whom around 80,000 fought on the Front and 12,500 were killed, died, or went missing in action. About 35,000 were decorated, 23,000 promoted, and more than 2,000 became officers. Using excerpted diaries and memoirs of soldiers from all branches of the army, this book describes their war experiences on the Western, Eastern, Balkan, and Ottoman Fronts. It also looks at the impressions of other nationalities and their varied feelings about anti-Semitism in the army. Historiographical details, as well as religious and other details, are provided, and, in the process, a look inside the vanished world of Eastern European Jewry is given by the soldiers who served there. The book also contains an extensive analysis of the Judenzahlung (Jewish census) of October 1916 - a pivotal event in the post-war development of German anti-Semitism. Loyal Sons closes with a few examples of the fate of these veterans, whose Fatherland 'thanked them' for their loyal service less than two decades later with all the horrors of the Holocaust.