Assimilated German Jews tied their identity to long local roots.

Evidence

His father had achieved social recognition not merely through his commercial success but also through his patronage of the arts, gifts to charity and patriotic commitments, particularly during the war. In 1917 the King of Bavaria conferred on him the title of Kommerzienrat, an award honouring distinguished businessmen, for his `charitable activities in every possible field of social welfare’, and in 1918 he was given the freedom of the town of Zuffenhausen. … His family, after all, had lived there longer than that of Mr Hitler, he wrote to his son in the USA. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 163

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on German-Jewish assimilation and delusion about Nazism, paralleling discussions of Jewish patriotism before 1933. — connects to: Wealthy German Jews saw themselves as fully German until forced out in the 1930s
• SHARE: The detail that Horkheimer’s father defied leaving Germany by claiming his family predated Hitler’s — a poignant, archive-able anecdote about German-Jewish self-deception.