For the Honor of Our Fatherland

"'For the Honor of Our Fatherland: German Jews on the Easter Front during the Great War' focuses on the German Jews' role in the reconstructing Poland's war-ravaged countryside. The German army assigned rabbis to serve as chaplains and to support and minister to their own Jewish soldiers, which numbered 100,000 during the First World War. However, upon the army's arrival in the decimated region east of Warsaw, it became abundantly clear that the rabbis might also help with the poverty-stricken Ostjuden by creating relief agencies and rebuilding schools. By implementing a philanthropic agenda in the east, Germany recognized that its success might lie in part in enfranchising the Jewish population. Moreover, the directives of these relief agencies were not only beneficial to the impoverished Jewish communities, but the German army also had much to gain from this transnational relationship. The tragic irony was that Germany returned to the east in the Second World Ward and killed millions of Jews." -- back cover