ABSTRACT
The ideology of “Gott mit Uns” is not a German invention. The Torah sets forth the laws of war, different categories of war, and reasons as necessary for justly killing the enemy. Perplexed Jews did not need to read Thomas Aquinas on the just war, for “the biblical and rabbinic laws of warfare are systemically presented in Maimonides’ Hilkhot Melakhim.”3 The main theological problem (related to war) for Jews in modern history was finding a justification for serving in non-Jewish armies concerned with winning wars that had little to do with Jewish interests. Most scholars decided that having no choice in the matter, Jews had to serve in the armies of the countries in which they were citizens.4 And enthusiastic citizens made courageous soldiers on opposing sides. Conditions of service varied according to the degree of enlightenment prevailing in various European belligerents, with discrimination increasing from west to east. During the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, there was no problem for qualified Jews like Jules Moch and Léopold Sée in becoming high-ranking officers in the French army, something not possible in the winning armies from across the Rhine. Of course German Jewish soldiers soon became as enthusiastic supporters of the army as were their gentile fellow citizens; to make sure that German Jewish soldiers had access to their God, the high command opened up the army to rabbis serving as chaplains. An illustration in the 5760 Jewish calendar of the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum shows German Jewish soldiers praying during Yom Kippur. Jewish communities
put up memorial plaques in synagogues to remind Jews of those who had died for the fatherland.5 The constitution of the Bismarckian Reich had granted Jews full citizenship rights, which they had enjoyed in France since the Revolution accorded them this privilege along with other pariahs of the old regime.
