For around 150 years, Jewish men served bravely and dutifully in the army of the Austrian monarchy and in the army of the First Republic. A story that came to a terrible end in 1938 with the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany and the crime against humanity of the Shoah. Militär Aktuell tells the story of Austria’s Jewish soldiers.
For centuries, Jews in Europe were subjected to anti-Semitic discrimination, which led to many of them assimilating and/or being baptized as Christians in order to no longer be considered or recognized as Jews. Until the late 18th century, Jews were even considered unworthy of defense in most European countries. The Austrian Habsburg Monarchy (from 1867 to 1918 known as “Austria-Hungary” or “k.u.k. Monarchy”) was the first European state in 1788 to extend the “conscription”, a preliminary form of compulsory military service, to the Jewish population. “The background to this measure was the intention of the reformers in the court chancellery under Joseph II to better integrate the Jewish population, especially those of the newly acquired Galicia, through service in the military – the military was anything but happy about this decision,” explains historian and ethnologist Erwin A. Schmidl, author of the book “Habsburg’s Jewish soldiers: 1788-1918” in an interview with Militär Aktuell. https://militaeraktuell.at/cavs-patria-lettland-finnland-arbeiten-zusammen/ The reaction to the introduction of compulsory military service varied in the Jewish communities in the territory of the monarchy. It should be noted that there were only a few Jews living in the western part of the Monarchy, many of whom were very secular and assimilated. This was shown, among other things, by the fact that their gravestones were often inscribed in the national language, whereas in the east they were inscribed exclusively in Hebrew. The liberal-secular circles welcomed the opportunity to stand their proverbial ground in the army for emperor, people and fatherland. The traditionally strictly religious, often Yiddish-speaking Jews of Eastern Europe, on the other hand, saw the obligation to serve in the army as an attack on their way of life and rejected it. Within the troops, they first had to adjust to the new religious beliefs, as Jews were not actually allowed to carry out any work on the Sabbath and kosher food was another challenge. Expert Schmidl comments: “In practice, however, these things proved to be of little consequence and also depended heavily on the personal religiosity of those affected and the understanding of their superiors. It is difficult to generalize here. Attempts were often made to observe religious regulations, at least on Jewish holidays. Naturally, this was easier in places where many Jews lived than in places where this was not the case.” In fact, the Jewish soldiers proved themselves so well that within a few years the first of them made it to the rank of non-commissioned officer. In the battles against Napoleon (first in 1792), Jewish officers even led their Christian comrades in the front line against the enemy. For Schmidl, this circumstance is enormously “significant”, because the fact that Jews had a command function over Christian soldiers was an absolute novelty. With the expansion of compulsory military service in the 19th century, the number of Jewish soldiers continued to rise. However, concrete data is only available from the 1870s onwards. In 1902, 59,784 soldiers of Jewish faith served in the Austro-Hungarian army. This corresponded to 3.9 percent of all men who served under arms for the Emperor.
“That was the highest figure of all time and brought us close to the proportion of Jews in the total population, which was 4.6 percent,” says Erwin Schmidl, describing the results of his years of research.
It is interesting to note from the data that the proportion of Jewish professional officers was only one percent in the years before the First World War. First World War was significantly lower than the Jewish proportion of the population, while Jews made up 18 percent of the reserve officers. Schmidl: “This was well above the proportion of Jews in the population as a whole and corresponded to the high proportion of Jewish secondary school pupils and students, but also shows that anti-Semitism in the army in Austria-Hungary was relatively low.” In principle, there were no career restrictions for Jews in the army in the multi-ethnic state of Austria-Hungary. Several reached the rank of major general and Eduard Ritter von Schweitzer (1844-1920) even reached the rank of field marshal lieutenant, the equivalent of a two-star general. According to Erwin Schmidl, the low level of anti-Semitism in the Austro-Hungarian armed forces was due to “the special position and identity of the k.u.k. Army”. As the armed force of a multi-ethnic state, the emperor’s army “was oriented towards the ruler and the dynasty and embodied the state as a whole, not individual nationalities”. Nevertheless, there was occasional subtle pressure on Jewish soldiers to be baptized and formally convert to Christianity. But these tended to be exceptions.
Tobias Österreicher, son of a Jewish merchant from Piestling in Moravia (now the Czech Republic), commanded the paddle steamer “Kaiserin Elisabeth” under Admiral Wilhelm Tegethoff in the naval battle of Lissa in 1866. Österreicher was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Leopold for his successes and bravery. Six years later he was ennobled, and in 1874 he was made a baron. During the First World War from 1914 to 1918, around 300,000 Jewish men served in the army, 30,000 of whom lost their lives on the battlefields. Many families lost several sons who gave their lives for the emperor, the people and the fatherland. For example, the Jewish military pilot Lieutenant Viktor Berger was killed in a crash in Aspern on December 23, 1916 at the age of 22. Almost exactly one year later, on December 22, 1917, the family also lost their second son Anton at the age of just 18 – he fell as a one-year-old volunteer during an assault on the Col del Rosso in Italy. Two examples of thousands. During this time, anti-Semitic sentiment increased and the Jews were accused of being “cowardly” or responsible for defeats. “At the very least, however, the imperial and royal. army managed to prevent discriminatory measures such as the ‘Jewish census’ in the German army,” says Schmidl. https://militaeraktuell.at/rheinmetall-keiler-ng-zeigt-leistungsfaehigkeit/ Incidentally, these accusations were all unfounded. The Jewish soldiers served with the same bravery as their Christian comrades, the majority of them in the fighting troops at the front. Long-forgotten names bear witness to this: Leopold Austerlitz from Prague, for example, was an artillery colonel, a certain Maximilan Maendel, also a colonel, born in 1860 in Horatitz in northern Bohemia, Sudetenland, fought on the Italian front and led his brigade of mountain infantrymen against the enemy. He was even ennobled and was henceforth allowed to call himself Maximilian Maendl von Bughart, and was promoted to major general in 1917. The army leadership supported the Jewish soldiers in practicing their religion in the field. In cooperation with Jewish associations, kosher rations were sometimes provided and sometimes menage money was paid out, with which the soldiers could organize kosher food for themselves. In 1916, field kitchens behind the front line were even obliged to provide kosher rations as soon as there were more than 100 Jewish soldiers in a unit. The Jewish community published prayer books and distributed them to the soldiers. By the end of the war, there were around 100 field rabbis in the Austro-Hungarian army. Army, who took care of the salvation of their fellow believers and held religious services. They also visited the wounded and organized the sending of parcels to the front for the Jewish Hanukkah festival. During and after the First World War and the collapse of the k.u.k. Monarchy, war memorials were erected throughout the country, which usually included Jewish names. Memorial plaques in churches, on the other hand, only listed the members of the respective (Christian) congregation. Similarly, there were memorial plaques in synagogues for the Jewish fallen.
As the Jewish dead were usually buried in Jewish cemeteries, separate memorials were also created there. In Vienna, the Jewish Community began planning in 1919. The Heroes’ Memorial was to be located in Vienna’s Central Cemetery amidst the graves of Jewish soldiers who died in the First World War. However, due to various circumstances, it took until October 13, 1929 before the memorial could be dedicated in the presence of Federal Chancellor Johann Schober, City Commander Major General Otto Wiesinger and the President of the Jewish Community of Vienna, Alois Pick.
Pick was born in Prague-Karolinenthal in 1859 and studied medicine at the German university in his home town. He received his doctorate in 1883 and later practiced with the famous Robert Koch in Berlin and worked in various capacities as a military doctor. He survived the Shoah and died in Vienna on July 17, 1945. The graves of around 1,000 Russian prisoners of war of Jewish faith who died in Austrian captivity can also be found around the memorial, which he helped to plan and open. Numerous Jewish soldiers and officers also served in the Austrian army of the First Republic, which was founded in 1920. The best known of these was the later Major General Emil Sommer (born in Bukovina in 1859), a highly decorated veteran of the First World War, who was awarded the Order of the Iron Crown III Class with Swords and War Decoration, the Austrian Cross of Military Merit III Class with Swords and War Decoration, the Cross of the Order of St. Charles and the Medal for the Wounded. On September 5, 1921, while still a colonel, he made Austrian history when Sommer and his men fought in the Battle of Kirchschlag (-> The Alpine Infantry Regiment No. 9 in the Burgenland Operation 1921/22) was successful. On January 1, 1923, Colonel Sommer took his well-deserved retirement. Around a year and a half later, the Republic awarded him the honorary title of Major General – also in recognition of his impeccable conduct in the battle for Kirchschlag two years previously. Nine years later, Major General Sommer founded the “Association of Jewish Frontline Soldiers” to counter the growing anti-Semitism in Austria in the 1930s. https://militaeraktuell.at/muehsamer-weg-zur-strategischen-autonomie/ The annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in 1938 marked the beginning of a great ordeal for the Jewish population. Disenfranchisement, humiliation and expropriation were the order of the day. Most of those who did not manage to flee abroad in time were later murdered by the National Socialists in the Shoah. Many Jewish front-line fighters of the First World War rightly felt betrayed by their fatherland, as they had believed that serving for Austria would protect them from persecution by the Nazis – no such luck. Major General Emil Sommer embarrassed the Nazis a few days after the Anschluss with a sensational action. The barbarians wanted to force him, together with other Jews, to clean the street on his knees with scrubbing brushes. Incidentally, this degrading scene was depicted by the sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka in his “Memorial against War and Fascism” on Albertinaplatz in Vienna. Sommer politely asked if he could change beforehand, which he was allowed to do. He then appeared in full general’s uniform with all his medals and decorations with the words: “Please gentlemen, let’s go.” The Nazis then let him go in shame. Between 1938 and 1942, however, the regime’s henchmen arrested Major General Sommer several times and eventually deported him and his wife to the Theresienstadt concentration camp (now in the Czech Republic).
However, presumably due to his high profile and military rank, he was treated better than most prisoners and was therefore able to survive the Nazi era. The couple’s two children had fled Austria abroad in time and thus escaped being murdered in the Shoah. Major General Sommer and his wife were liberated by the Red Army on May 8, 1945 and returned to Vienna after years of humiliation and deprivation. Two years later, the Major General died of a stroke during a trip to the USA and was laid to rest on August 31, 1947 in the Jewish section of Vienna’s Central Cemetery in the presence of high-ranking representatives of the federal government and the Jewish community. In the 1955 founded Federal Army of the Second Republic initially no longer played a role. Most Austrian Jews had been murdered in the Shoah, the rest had fled abroad. Only a few returned. In addition, as was the case everywhere in Austrian society, old Nazi ropes were also present in the armed forces for many years, but fortunately times changed. Today, the Austrian Armed Forces not only acknowledge their historical responsibility, but also openly acknowledge their Jewish veterans. On May 5, 1999, the Vienna Military Command and the Jewish Community placed a memorial plaque at the Jewish Heroes’ Memorial at the Central Cemetery for those Austrian Jewish soldiers who were murdered in the Shoah. In addition, the Austrian Armed Forces have held an annual memorial service at this site for many years, as spokesman Colonel Michael Bauer told Militär Aktuell. However, Bauer was unable to say how many soldiers of Jewish faith are currently serving in the army: “The religious affiliation of a soldier has not been recorded for some time.”
In 2014, Doron Fischman, who was doing his military service at the time, described his experiences to the Jewish city magazine “Wina”: “As a devout Jew in the army, I received many special benefits. I was also given time off for holidays during basic training. I was given extra time for prayer. I was also allowed to go home early on Fridays because of Shabbat. I can wear my kippah and eat kosher food. A lot of things are not comparable with the k.u.k. But even today there is a wide range of soldiers with different ethnic and religious backgrounds in the army. I am really very happy that there are currently no problems between the Jewish and Muslim soldiers.”
However, in view of the ongoing Islamist terror by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel since October 7, 2023 and the frequent violent flare-up of Muslim anti-Semitism worldwide since then, it is questionable whether the situation is still as harmonious as it was ten years ago. Against the backdrop of ongoing anti-Semitic hate speech on social media and physical attacks on Jews and Israeli institutions in Europe, it would not be surprising if at least some Jewish soldiers in the army no longer dared to identify themselves as Jews to their Muslim comrades.
In his role as military rabbi, state rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister has been the official point of contact for Jewish soldiers in religious matters and pastoral care since 2017. “There are around half a dozen professional Jewish officers in the army. Around 20 Jewish recruits also enlist each year, although not all of them declare themselves to be Jewish or strictly religious,” explains the Jewish military chaplain. Jews who profess to be “strictly religious” serve in the Guard in Vienna and also have the right to kosher food. Incidentally, the great tradition of Jewish soldiers in Austria will be commemorated this year with a very special ceremony. The graduating class of 2024 from the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt has chosen Major General Emil Sommer as its patron saint for the following reason, thus paying an extraordinary tribute to a great Austrian patriot: “Major General Emil Sommer is the epitome of the conscientious, sacrificial officer, in short, a modern-day leader. His personal commitment, his ‘leading from the front’, his credo of ‘never giving up’ and his ‘personal example’ are virtues that are still absolutely relevant today. His fate, however, should serve as a warning so that such dark times in Europe and the world can never be repeated.”
