(GERMANY).
World War One-era Diary of a German-Jew, Siegfried Mai.German text. c. 115 closely ...

(GERMANY).
World War One-era Diary of a German-Jew, Siegfried Mai.


German text. c. 115 closely written pages. Tipped in: 17 original photographs, two military certificates (Iron Cross 2nd Class and Bavaria’s Military Merit Cross, 3rd Class with Crown and Sword); various other inserts, postcards and clippings.
Original boards, worn. 4to.
Germany: 1917-19 and 1938


This fascinating war journal and memoir of the young German Jew Siegfried Mai (1898-1980) who stemmed from Hagenbach, Rhineland-Palatinate (close to Karlsruhe), details the trials and tribulations of the war and its after-effects in a personal account. The young student's narrative of patriotic enthusiasm who feared that the war would be over before he was finally drafted on January 17th 1917, changes into the staccato of an increasingly grueling trench warfare with growing number of casualties. The detailed diary culminates with a narrative of his disillusionment when returning home and faced: "A reception we had not imagined. But it was all the same to us, we were back in our home country. The war was over." After the war, Siegfried Mai reflects here on the betrayal of Jewish soldiers: "I fought with all my youthful strength, I fought with joy for freedom and equality in a beautiful Germany, which I believed in, as did so many of my co-religionists. A Germany that would fulfill what was promised by the German Emperor at the beginning of the war: ‘The gratitude of the Fatherland is assured you.’ For us German Jews it turned out differently. The blood of 12,000 Jewish soldiers was shed in vain. In 1919, a great anti-Semitic agitation began, which has increased from year to year…" The diary ends shortly after Kristallnacht, 1938. Siegfried (soon to be known as Fred) was able to flee to America where he built a new life with his wife and children in the German-Jewish émigré haven of Washington Heights, New York.