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Abstract

Part I of this table shows the number of foreign-born Jews who settled in the German Reich, Prussia, and Saxony (the first and third largest federal states in the empire). The numbers for 1880 are estimates. Percentages show the respective proportion of foreign Jews among the total Jewish population in each locality. Part II shows the proportion of foreign-born Jews among local communities in 1910. The new immigrants settled mainly in large urban centers, where they found the best economic opportunities and, often, relatives to support them. Note the high proportions of foreign Jews among the total Jewish population in Dresden (52%) and Leipzig (65%), the two largest cities in the Kingdom of Saxony. Influential antisemitic associations in those cities targeted the immigration of East European Jews as a key component of the “Jewish Question.”

Proportion of Foreign-Born Jews in Germany (1871–1910)

Source

Table I. In Germany, Prussia, and Saxony (1880–1910)

-

1880

%

1890

%

1900

%

1910

%

Reich

15,000

2.7

22,000

3.9

41,113

7.0

78,746

12.8

Prussia

10,000

2.7

11,390

3.1

21,800

5.6

48,166

11.6

Saxony

1,000

15.3

2,800

29.9

5,637

54.5

10,378

59.0

Table II. In the Ten Cities with the Highest Number of Foreign-Born Jews (1910)

City

Number of foreign-born Jews

Percentile Share of the Jewish community in that locality

Berlin

18,694

20.8%

Leipzig

6,406

64.8%

Munich

3,857

34.8%

Frankfurt a. M.

3,541

13.5%

Hamburg

3,111

16.4%

Dresden

1,948

52.2%

Cologne

1,672

13.5%

Breslau

1,455

7.2%

Nuremberg

1,226

15.7%

Königsberg

1,169

25.6%

Source: Table I: Shalom Adler-Rudel, Ostjuden in Deutschland 1880–1940 (1959), p. 164; Table II: Jack Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany (1987), Appendix, Table 2b; both tables reprinted in Michael A. Meyer with Michael Brenner, eds., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 3, Steven M. Lowenstein et al., Integration in Dispute 1871–1918. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, pp. 20–21.