includes a number of poems by Jewish German Soldiers of WW!

Reichsbund juedischer Frontsoldaten. In 1935, in a climate of worsening anti-Semitism, this group launched a collection of letters, this time exclusively of fallen Jewish soldiers. Their message is a powerful (and obviously deliberate) one. The letters resound with heroism and devotion to country. But they too seek to portray anti-Semitism as un-German. Joachim Beutler writes from the trenches in France: "I have never heard of any anti-Semitism here, the times are too serious for that." Lieutenant Berthold Elsass, the only Jewish officer in his regiment, recovering from a serious shrapnel wound to his head, expresses the hope that "with this war we Jews will finally achieve equal rights in every respect." Yet this volume also reveals the official discrimination. Gotthold Kronheim, an apprentice pharmacist, who has only made it to sergeant, knows full well why he has been deliberately held back. He wants Germany to win the war, confident that in this way his fellow-countrymen will learn to "assess the value of a man according to his deeds and his vigor, not according to his religious faith." T