The Pity of it All, by Amos Elon

The history of Jews in Germany before the Third Reich reveals progress and integration. Michael Arditti remembers the triumphs that preceded tragedy

The story of the Jews in Germany is like a classical ballet of which only the third act is regularly played. Images of shattered glass or piles of shoes are sickeningly familiar, but those of the preceding years less well known. Amos Elon fills the gap with this fascinating study of the calm before the storm.

This is not an account of the steady growth of anti-Semitism (a term coined by a German writer in 1879) from the Reformation to the First World War and the Great Depression, until it reached its apogee in Hitler. Elon maintains there was nothing in either German history or character that made Nazism inevitable and that Hitler's rise was, rather, the product of circumstance – in particular, the flaws in the Weimar constitution. Moreover, his researches reveal the intimate inter-relationship of Jews and Germans (except at the very lowest level of society) throughout the period.

The first record of Jews in the lands that became known as Germany comes in a decree from the Emperor Constantine in AD321 – long before the area hosted any Prussians, Saxons or Bavarians. In later centuries, Jews were banned from Prussia and its environs until their wealth – and, especially, wealth-creating abilities – attracted the attention of Frederick the Great. During the next 150 years, their fortunes changed depending on the political realities of the day but, by 1900, German Jews were reckoned to be the most privileged in Europe.

Elon integrates a sociological and statistical study of the German Jewish minority (at its peak, just over 1 per cent of the population) with anecdotes of celebrated individuals. He begins with the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, who entered Berlin in 1743 through the gate reserved for Jews and cattle, and ends with Hannah Arendt's flight from the city in 1933. In between, he examines writers, scientists and revolutionaries, none more eminent than Heinrich Heine, whose 1827 Book of Songs made him the best-loved German poet after Goethe and whose work received almost 4,000 musical settings.

The chief revelation in the book is the strong assimilationist tendency of German Jews. Mendelssohn was closely allied to leading Protestant intellectuals, Lessing and Nicolai. The former took him as the model for the protagonist of his play, Nathan the Wise – a counterblast to Shylock. Although Mendelssohn resisted conversion, by the mid-19th century only four of his 56 descendants were still Jews. One of his grandsons, the composer, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, was the foremost German exponent of church music.

Although the urge to convert was due in part to the official ban on Jews taking up posts in the government or universities, it also reflected a belief that Jews and Christians shared the same moral values. So the family of the young Karl Marx converted in 1824 while continuing to enjoy Sabbath lunches at the home of a rabbinical uncle. In an echo of Henri IV of France's famous dictum, Heine cynically declared "Berlin is worth a sermon". More striking than the number of conversions is that of intermarriages, which rose from 8.4 per cent of all marriages in 1901 to an astonishing 44 per cent in 1933, Hitler's first year.

That many assimilated Jews continued to feel unease is seen in their response to the influx of persecuted co-religionists from the East. Gustav Mahler complained to his wife of Polish Jews who "run about this place as dogs do". German Jews tirelessly raised funds for the victims – largely so that they could be despatched to America.

This is a meticulously researched, richly detailed account of the profound connections between two (in Kafka's word) "pariah" nations. It explains, more persuasively than ever, why it was that when the Nazi threat was so evident, so many Jews acquiesced in their fate.