In the years just before World War II, there were roughly half a million Jews living in Germany, making up less than 1% of the total population.

Core numbers

  • Around 522,000–530,000 Jews lived in Germany in early 1933, when the Nazis came to power.
  • A 1933 figure often cited by historians is about 525,000 Jews in Germany.
  • By 1939, due mainly to emigration under Nazi persecution, the number had dropped to about 214,000 Jews remaining in Germany on the eve of the war.

A bit of context

Before Nazi rule, Jews in Germany were a small minority but generally well integrated into society, concentrated especially in larger cities and in the province of Prussia. Many had deep roots in Germany going back centuries, while others were more recent immigrants from Eastern Europe.

In short: before World War II, Germany’s Jewish community was numerically small but socially significant, with roughly half a million people whose lives were profoundly disrupted and destroyed by Nazi antisemitic policies.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.