Max Naumann

Max Naumann (12 January 1875 – May 1939) was the founder of Verband nationaldeutscher Juden (League of National German Jews), which called for the elimination of Jewish ethnic identity through Jewish assimilation. The league was outlawed by the Nazis on 18 November 1935.

Naumann was a Captain in the Bavarian Army during World War I and a Berlin lawyer.

Naumann was born to an assimilated Eastern European family. He attended the Friedrichs-Werdersches Gymnasium in Berlin, and received a law degree from the University of Berlin. He served as an infantry commander during World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross (First and Second Class).

Standing in opposition to Zionist groups and Jewish organizations such as the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens, he advocated total assimilation as an answer to antisemitism. During the Weimar Republic Naumann was active with the German People's Party. He was quoted in Michael Brenner's book The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany as saying "The election campaign must not be a struggle of religious conceptions, it must be a decisive struggle about our Germanness!" in reference to the 1933 election that resulted in Hitler's rise to power.

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