The initial patriotic fervor of Jews in Germany was put to a severe test as anti-Semitic incidents in the army accelerated. The climax came with the order to conduct a Jewish census, or Judenzählung, in 1916. Many Germans believed that Jews were shirking military duty. The Prussian government conducted a survey on the number of Jews serving in the army and the numbers proved irrefutably that Jews were exemplary in their patriotism. The census results were repressed, leaving the rumors intact.

While open anti-Semitic outbursts were held in check by army discipline, the constraints were off after the Armistice. Conservatives and nationalists accused liberals, progressives, and especially Jews of having caused Germany’s crushing defeat. The so-called Dolchstoßlegende [stab-in-the back-legend] maintained that the war had been lost because “certain circles” had deliberately sabotaged the war effort, first and foremost the Jews.  

Organizations such as the Federation of Jewish Front Soldiers [Reichsbund Jüdischer Frontsoldaten] founded in 1919 by Leo Löwenstein, and the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (Central-Verein), set out to defend Jewish veterans from the mounting anti-Jewish propaganda. Anti-Jewish and anti-liberal hysteria in Germany provided a taste of the diffuse and contradictory allegations that would become the staple of Nazi propaganda.