Robert Weltsch

Who was Robert Weltsch?

Robert Weltsch was a journalist, editor and prominent Zionist.

He was editor of the Jüdische Rundschau, a newspaper published twice a week in Berlin, Germany during the years the Nazis were gaining influence. The newspaper had a peak readership of 37,000. He edited and wrote for the Rundschau from 1919 through its demise under the Nazi regime in 1938 . His best-known contribution was a reaction to the April 1, 1933 Nazi-led boycott of Jewish shops, which was the first meaningful anti-Jewish action of the newly empowered Nazis. In his editorial Weltsch used the phrase, "Wear it with pride, the yellow badge." This was a call for strength and solidarity, and a lone voice in reaction to the Nazi boycott. It was not a reference to the forced-wearing of yellow armbands, which the Nazis didn't force on Jews until 1941, but rather a call for unity to a German-Jewish community that had until then thought of itself as comfortably assimilated into German life.

Weltsch was born in Prague when it was part of Austria-Hungary. The city had a strong Jewish community which was culturally German. Weltsch fought in World War I on the German side.