ABSTRACT
The author had an unpleasant prospect: military service. Most of his contemporaries had entered the army immediately after leaving school and were by now Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) of the 'reserve'. The author undergone a medical examination, had been rejected because of his asthma. After his graduation, postponement was impossible; He had to report at a recruiting office, and He was accepted, to my great annoyance, for he had rather expected to be rejected again. In the last decades of the nineteenth century the first strong wave of anti-semitism had swept over the country, produced and directed by the 'Oberhofprediger' Stocker and by a demagogue, Ahlwardt, who became a member of the Reichstag. Slowly these ideas spread and infected the officer's corps of the army. Jewish soldiers were promoted to the various ranks of NCOs and finally admitted to examination for a 'commission', as called in Britain.
