Advertisement for Purchase of War Bonds, 1918

Almost all of the large countries involved in the war appealed to their citizens to help achieve victory by donating their private money through the purchase of the bonds.

First page of a booklet for the purchase of war bonds (ARC. 4* 1776 03 9)

Every war requires tremendous resources. Vast funds are needed to finance the weapons and military equipment, soldiers’ salaries and food, and the various other costs that arise in wartime. Armed conflicts alter the economies of all the nations involved: in order to prepare the national economy for this exceptional situation, the state needs money from loans and bonds, including funds for the purpose of changing the profile of the national economy for the benefit of the war objectives.

In the history of the 20th century, governments were always full of hope that they would be victorious, and thereby be able to return the debts at the end of the war. Defeated countries were expected to pay reparations to the victors, and the money would be allocated to covering the latter’s debts. However, there are losers in every war, and in the case of defeat, it was impossible to repay the banks and individuals who had purchased war bonds. To the contrary, in such a situation, it was necessary to borrow additional funds, i.e. to incur new debts in order to satisfy the demands of the winning side.

During periods of war, propaganda has always played a central role, both in maintaining unity on the home front, but also for garnering civilian support from soldiers on the battlefield. Needless to say, the eventuality of defeat did not come up in the public declarations, and naturally, not in the various materials printed in wartime: placards, pamphlets, etc. Public discussion of such a possibility posed the risk of interfering with civilians’ willingness to harness themselves to the war effort, for example, leading in turn to a drastic reduction in the purchase of war bonds. Therefore, advertisements for the purchase of war bonds usually played on the sentiments of the civilians and their fears of the cruel enemy. Fear is a known sales pitch during war.

World War I was the heyday of war bonds and associated advertisements. Almost all of the large countries involved in the war appealed to their citizens to help achieve victory by donating their private money through the purchase of the bonds.

The German Empire issued war bonds nine different times, in order to fund the tremendous war expenses. Selling these bonds yielded almost 100 billion marks for the war treasury of the German army – some 85 percent of the overall cost.

Approximately every half year during the war, the German government launched a new campaign to raise money from the public. The last was in September 1918, just two months prior to the end of the fighting. The interest rate was set at 5% (more than in ordinary savings plans). It was possible to trade in war bonds, which in principle had a chance of high yield in the event of a German military victory.

However, history took its own course, and Germany was vanquished in 1918. This is how the terrible economic catastrophe occurred: the state was incapable of paying its debts. Moreover, it was forced to commit to paying enormous reparations to the Allied Powers through the Treaty of Versailles agreements. In addition, following the explosive hyperinflation from 1922 to the end of 1923, all of the bonds lost their value. The result was that the state was released of its obligation to its citizens, while the latter irreversibly lost their private capital, which they had invested to finance the German army. This development caused despair among the citizens of Germany, who had been educated to place their belief in the authorities. The authorities, however, had collapsed, leading to defeat in war, and ultimately, an unfathomably large-scale dissolution of private capital.

The placard displayed here was published apparently in 1918, but to date, we do not know with certainty if it was released together with the eighth or ninth (and last) issue. The central motif was the threat to Germany and its forces posed by a new type of weaponry: the British tank. The Mark I tank model entered into intensive use during the last year of the war, and confounded both the German High Command and the soldiers in the trenches. The placard presented here belongs to the collection of Arthur Czellitzer, a Berlin ophthalmologist who collected placards and political and propaganda fliers in Berlin for a period of ten years. Dr. Czellitzer deposited the collection in the Jerusalem library in 1936. Czellitzer met a bitter end: he was murdered in the Holocaust in 1943.

The First Person to Photograph the Land of Israel from the Air

Fritz Groll was a German officer sent to Ottoman Palestine at the height of World War I in order to assist Ottoman forces. Along the way, he photographed the country’s landscapes, cities and sites, from the ground and the air

Aerial view of Jaffa. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections

By 1916, things were looking rather bleak for Ottoman forces in the Middle East. They were finding it difficult to repel the multi-pronged attack by the British. The Great Arab Revolt began in the summer, led by Emirs Abdullah and Faisal, with the support of Great Britain which had sent Lawrence of Arabia to the region. Even before the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman Empire had become known as “the sick man of Europe.”  At this point, after two years of fighting, the sick man was on his deathbed.

The Ottoman Empire’s German allies could no longer remain on the sidelines. They needed the Turks to engage the British in order to distract them from the critical battles on the Western Front. Indeed, following pressure from senior military officials, in the spring-summer of 1916, German units were finally dispatched to the Middle East to fight alongside the crumbling Ottoman army.

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German soldiers with planes in the background. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections

These units, which included an air squadron, arrived in preparation of the final Turkish-German offensive against British forces in Sinai. The German army excelled in the use of aircraft, at the time a new and not so reliable means of transportation, which was being used in war for the very first time. Accompanying the squadron was Fritz Groll, a 40-year-old German officer who was also the commander of a new unit dedicated to aerial photography. This was Groll’s first visit to Ottoman Palestine – the Land of Israel.

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Fritz Groll. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections

Groll’s main mission was to photograph the area from the air for military purposes. This was how the first military aerial photographs of the Land of Israel came into being. Groll photographed Jaffa, the ​​Galilee and areas in the Sinai Desert from the air for the first time. One can even make out agricultural fields and railway tracks in the photographs.

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The region of Ashkelon. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections
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Aerial view of Caesarea. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections
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Aerial view of the ancient city of Shivta (Subeita). From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections
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Aerial view of Be’er Sheva. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections
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Aerial view of the Sarona Templar settlement. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections

But Groll, along with his comrades in the squadron and other German units, did not treat the Land of Israel merely as a military destination. Like any avid tourist—or pilgrim—Groll documented his journey from Europe’s shores through Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, to the Land of Israel. He photographed the Bosphorus, documented the streets of Damascus, his various travels and the people he met along the way, as well as his comrades in arms. The German soldiers’ uniforms hint somewhat to the military’s colonialist attitude toward the Holy Land and the Middle East (note the pith helmets). On the other hand, Groll filled the pages of his album featuring photographs of the Temple Mount and other holy sites in Jerusalem with dense, hand-written and enthusiastic descriptions. Despite the outdated photographic equipment, it seems that Groll documented non-stop: Haifa and Jaffa, Be’er Sheva, where the forces were stationed, and even two pages of photographs of the town of Ramla.

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Squadron members at attention. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections
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Istanbul. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections
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Locals in Syria. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections
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An “Arab begger”. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections
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Bedouin women in Be’er Sheva.  From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections
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Photograph of Ramla. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections
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A page from the album documenting the Temple Mount and other holy sites in Jerusalem. Groll added hand-written descriptions in German. From the Fritz Groll photo album, the National Library of Israel collections

It is worth taking a closer look at this magnificent album, which was donated to the National Library of Israel by Ms. Ruth Schell of London, through Prof. Benjamin Zeev Kedar, who researched Groll’s photographs. The dozens of pictures afford an authentic view of the Land of Israel of that time, at the end of 400 years of Ottoman rule. The complete album is available for viewing, here.

Thank you to Dr. Gil Weissblei for his help in preparing this article.

 

Weimar Republic

Despite all of the difficulties faced by young democratic Germany, its parliamentary method was quite well-developed

Between the end of World War I in 1918 and the Nazi rise to power in 1933, Germany was a democratic republic. This attempt at democracy, however, endured for only 14 years, ultimately failing due to tremendous political, social and economic strains.

In gatherings of the National Assembly, held at the National Theater in the city of Weimar at the beginning of 1919, delegates formulated a modern democratic constitution, which provided the foundation for German society after hundreds of years under monarchic rule. This constitution is considered progressive to this day, although a significant discrepancy remained between the good intentions of most of the delegates and their implementation during the short life of the republic, a gap that ultimately led to the failure of the first democracy on German soil.

Although political power was seized from the elite following the revolution that took place at the end of 1918, most of the state functionaries remained in office even after the political change, and in most cases, these individuals did not support the democratic government.

Despite all of the difficulties faced by young democratic Germany, its parliamentary method was quite well-developed. Many parties competed for votes and for the first time in German history, women were granted suffrage in 1919.

The range of parties was quite wide, including streams and ideologies from the left (the Communist Party) to the center (Social-Democrats, Liberals, Christians) and the far right (the German Nationalist Party, and later, the National Socialist Party). The electoral threshold remained very low, which increased the number of parties in the national parliament and made coalition agreements very difficult throughout the Weimar Republic’s 14 years.

The beginning of this political entity was also complex. Difficulties abounded. Defeat in the world war resulted in subsequent debts and enormous reparation payments to the Allied powers, a high number of casualties, a high rate of unemployment, a general sense of disorientation, and hyper-inflation so out of control that in December 1923 a loaf of bread cost billions of marks. Beginning in 1924, the overall situation began to improve, and the period until 1929 became known as the Golden Age. With the global financial crisis that began in 1929, and its particularly detrimental effect on Germany, the ranks of the unemployed rose to unprecedented rates (in 1932, there were some five and a half million unemployed Germans!). As a result, the political system became unstable. This state of affairs made it possible for the Nazi party to garner strength and quickly gain hold of public support.

At the same time, the period of the Weimar Republic is considered one of the most dynamic in the history of Germany with technological and scientific advances including the research of Albert Einstein, Max Planck and Gustav Herz in Berlin, radio broadcasts reaching a broad audience, German zeppelins crossing the Atlantic Ocean, sound films conquering the cinemas, and many other notable achievements.

Fourteen German scientists won Nobel prizes between 1919 and 1933. In design and art, innovations appeared in the famous Bauhaus school, while modern German literature reached many readers and popular music was influenced by America, as can be seen, for example, in the success of the Comedian Harmonists ensemble (comprised of three Jews and three Christians), which conquered the concert halls of Germany and Europe at that time.

Countless German Jews were leaders in a variety of fields, including Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches, two of the founders of the German Communist Party, as well as Walther Rathenau, the Director of the Board of AEG and German Foreign Minister of 1922 (all three of whom were murdered by right-wing extremists); conductor and composer Otto Klemperer; actors Alexander Granach and Kurt Gerron; authors Else Lasker-Schüler, Lion Feuchtwanger and Jakob Wasserman; director Max Reinhardt; scientists Albert Einstein, James Franck and Gustav Hertz; philosophers Ernst Cassirer, Leo Strauss and Ernst Bloch; architect Erich Mendelsohn; and many others.

The Weimar Constitution and its “Father” Hugo Preuss

Jewish lawyer Hugo Preuss' contribution was so great that today he is considered the “father” of the constitution of the Weimar Republic

The collapse of monarchic rule following the defeat of Germany in World War I and the revolution of November 1918 gave rise to a new and almost completely unknown political order in Germany: democracy. The nascent political forces understood the need for drafting a new constitution that would suit the democratic regime and prevent the aristocracy from obtaining any political power.

The assembly of the German people that gathered in the city of Weimar included a special committee for drafting a new constitution. Members of the committee were jurists with an expertise in constitutional law and legislation.

The committee’s discussions continued for a number of months, until the new constitution was approved by the general assembly in Weimar on August 11, 1919. One of the permanent members of this committee who also served as its chairman for several months was the Jewish lawyer Hugo Preuss (1860-1925). His contribution was so great that today he is considered the “father” of the constitution of the Weimar Republic.

Preuss presented the first draft of this important text and considerable portions of it became part of the final version, approved by the representatives of the general assembly. For the first time in German history, a constitution was passed that included basic civil rights.

Among the many innovations that Preuss suggested in his draft was a new internal division of Germany, necessitating the dismantling of Germany’s historical states, including the largest state of Prussia. This suggestion was unacceptable to the more conservative assembly representatives, but it anticipated the future, since the idea was carried out in the prevailing political reality after 1945, with the founding of the new German state.

Hugo Preuss was born in Berlin to a family of merchants, studied law in Berlin and Heidelberg, and completed his doctorate at the university in Göttingen. He decided to devote himself to academic research, and joined the faculty of the University of Berlin as a “private lecturer” (a special status of senior lecturer without a position but with teaching obligations). He remained in this uncomfortable position for 15 years, since Jews were not awarded the status of professor unless they agreed to convert to Christianity for this purpose. While conversion was not a formal legal requirement, in the minds of German academics it was still required. Only with the establishment of a private trade school in Berlin in 1906 was Preuss hired as a professor of law.

Beginning in 1895, Hugo Preuss became a member of the Berlin City Council. In 1918 he became one of the founders of the German Democratic Party DDP, where Walther Rathenau was a member as well. From 1919 to his death, Preuss was a member of the Prussian parliament, yet he also served as Interior Minister of the Weimar Republic. He resigned from this post in protest when Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles. In this treaty, Germany relinquished its sovereignty in certain areas and committed to paying hefty reparations to the Allies. Preuss’s resignation as minister brought about an absurd situation: the signature of this brilliant jurist does not appear at the bottom of the constitutional text, though most of it is his brainchild; the constitution was approved only after he had stepped down.

In 1949, when German jurists drafted the “Basic Law” of West Germany (instead of a formal constitution, which Germany lacks to this day), they used the Weimar Constitution as a basis for their work. Considerable portions of the original constitution migrated to the “Basic Law,” though certain articles that proved to be ineffective or even dangerous to democracy and state stability were amended.

Ultimately, it should be recalled, Hitler established his reign of terror based on article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which enabled the revocation of basic civil rights as well as human rights when state security was at risk, a provision that the Nazis exploited for their own interests.