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Abstract
This article uses the history of Jewish street names in Frankfurt to challenge prevailing narratives about World War I's deleterious effect on Jewish integration in Germany. It also shows how spatial theory ca,n raise new questions and enrich our understanding of the nature and markers of Jewish integration. By naming streets after prominent local and national Jews between 1872 and 1933, Frankfurts municipal government used urban space to physically reinforce the idea that Jews were an integral part of their city's history and culture. The continued presence of many of these 49 Jewish street names during the five years following the Nazi Party's seizure of power suggests a surprising tenacity of certain elements of Jewish integration at a local level into the early years of the Third Reich. In the end, only an outside edict from Berlin brought about the final "aryanization" of Frankfurt's streets.
Key words: German Jewish history, street names, integration, Frankfurt, National Socialism, space
On December 17, 1933, the Frankfurter Volksblatt, a Nazi newspaper, received an impassioned letter from Gertrud Bengen, a member of the Nazi Party who lived in Eschersheim, a quiet northern district of Frankfurt. In the letter, Bengen asked the editorial staff of the Volksblatt if they would be able to use their influence to convince the city government to change the name of her street:
[It] is named after the Jew Jacob Schiff. Right now, the residents of our street are almost entirely National-Socialist minded people and . . . the Swastika waves outside of every house. This "Jacob Schiff' always causes a sting in the heart. [If not to you] where else can someone direct this request? . . . we would all be very grateful for a revision.1
The Volksblatt quickly forwarded Bengen's plea to city officials and it soon came to the attention of Friedrich Krebs, Frankfurt's Nazi mayor, who eventually called for a campaign to "aryanize" the name ofJacobSchiff-Straße as well as all the other streets in Frankfurt that had been named after Jews.2 However, despite the city's best efforts to quickly resolve this matter, the city struggled to complete this campaign and Jewish street names remained a regular presence in Frankfurt until the fall of 1938.
In theory, little stood in...