German. Soldier. Jew
BBC World Service | ★★★✩✩

At my boarding school I inherited a desk from a Jewish boy a few years above me who’d carved the words “Germany will pay” into the wood. Immediately after finishing his A-levels he joined the IDF.

Beyond the IDF’s “never again” vow, I’m not saying that one event connects directly with the other. But I do wonder what that angry proud teenager would’ve made of the Jews featured in this audio documentary German. Soldier. Jew, on the BBC World Service’s Heart and Soul podcast.

There are approximately 300 Jews serving in today’s German army, the Bundeswehr, and while the Spartans were able to hold back the Persians, can that number of Jews fight any antisemitism they encounter?

In the words of the Bundeswehr’s recently hired rabbi chaplain, one of only ten rabbis to be hired by the German army in the past 90 years, those drawn to signing up are rarely left-wing.

But as long as an institution recognises there’s an issue, as there was in the Bundeswehr when it discovered a network of far-right operatives in its midst in 2020, he is, he says, on board, and ready to do his bit to bring about change.

This wasn’t always the case in the Bundeswehr as Michael Fürst, the first Jew to join its ranks after the Shoah, explains in the programme. In 1966 there was conscription in Germany, but exemptions for groups who had been persecuted under the Nazis. But, as nearly all of the boys in his class weren’t exempt, Furst wanted to join up.

Michael Fuerst enlisted to the Bundeswehr – West Germany’s armed forces Paratroopers unit in 1966

Michael Fürst when he was enlisted into the German Army in 1966 (Photo: Alamy)

Once there, he discovered that two decades after the Second World War there were senior officers in the German army who had served under Hitler and who still wore their Nazi eagle, the symbol developed by the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1920s.

There was also an officer who stated openly Jews were responsible for his family’s problems. Even though, please note, “he didn’t have a personal problem with Michael”.

Why would other Jews insert themselves in potentially similar circumstances? Peer pressure appears to be one factor, but one young Jewish major spoke of a sense of duty to protect freedoms.

She argued that challenging unethical orders lay at the core of the Bundeswehr. Hmm. When her teenage self announced her intention to sign up, her Jewish classmates were frozen in shock, she says. I bet.

The final recruit we hear from, a technical specialist, is more blasé about his decision.

Perhaps it’s his youth, perhaps enough time has passed since the Shoah, perhaps German Jewry is entering a new phase. Shelly Kupferberg does a respectable job as an interviewer, but the programme’s 30 minutes’ running time means it is short on penetrating psychological analysis.

With Germany’s military assistance to Ukraine growing by the month, one can understand why people might want to be part of the Bundeswehr more than ever. So good luck to those Jews who are part of its change. I just hope they don’t need it.