Persecution of Jews in Germany

Roman emperors
Under Christian emperors, Jews were persecuted in the Roman Empire, which included forbidding Jews from marrying Christians, restricting Jewish ownership of slaves, and punishing those that converted from Christianity to Judaism.

Dagobert I
Frankish King Dagobert I gave Jews the alternatives of conversion to Christianity or exile in 629. Those that did not convert or leave his dominions were killed.

Leo VII
In the mid-tenth century, Pope Leo VII described Jews as “enemies of God” and urged the archbishop of Mainz to expel Jews that refuse to convert to Christianity.

Massacres of the 1010s
In the 1010s, Jews were massacred in Mainz and other places near the Rhine river.

Crusaders
The Crusaders were composed of Christians and they massacred and forced Jews to convert to Christianity in multiple towns and destroyed the houses and synagogues of the Jews in the late 11th century and the mid-12th century during the First and Second Crusades. Crusaders persecuted, forcefully converted, forcefully baptized, and killed Jews in Speyer, Worms, Cologne, Regensburg, Trier, Neuss, Eller, Xanten, Kerpen, Geldern, Ellen, and hundreds of Jews died in Mainz during the Rhineland massacres of 1096.

Blood libels
Jews were murdered after blood libels, which falsely accuses Jews of having killed Christian children for rituals, in Würtburg in 1147, Boppard in 1179, Erfurt in 1199, Fulda and Wolfsheim in the mid-1230s, Frankfurt in 1241, Kitzingen in 1243, Pforzheim in 1267, Mainz in 1281 and 1283, and Munich and Oberwesel in the mid-1280s.

Christian church councils
The Diocesan Council at Mainz in 1229 ordered Jews to wear horned hats and a synod of the archdiocese in Mainz ordered Jews to wear yellow badges in 1259.

Host desecration accusations
Jews were murdered after accusations of host desecration in Beelitz in 1243, Röttingen in 1298 (part of the Rintfleisch massacres), Deggendorf in 1337, Passau in 1478, Mecklenburg in 1492, Brandenburg and Berlin in 1510. Jews were also expelled from Passau and Brandenburg. Beginning in 1298, thousands of Jews were killed in Germany by a Christian mob led by Rintfleisch.

Louis IV
Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV instituted more taxes for Jews in 1342. He decreed every Jewish male aged 12 and above to pay an annual tax of one kreutzer in every gulden of their property in addition to the taxes they were already paying.

Persecution of Jews during the Black Death
Jews were falsely blamed for the Black Death or bubonic plague pandemic in Europe during the mid-1300s. They were persecuted and massacred. Jews were often used by Christians to blame due to their resentment of them considering the antisemitic Christian belief that Jews as a people hold the responsibility for killing Jesus Christ or Jewish deicide. Many Jews were murdered in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

14th-16th century expulsions
In the 15th century, the sermons of Franciscan John of Capistrano, who was appointed as Inquisitor for Germany, incited Christians to expel Jews from Neustadt. After host desecration accusations in 1478 in Passau and Brandenburg in 1510, Jews were expelled from there. Other expulsions of Jews occurred in Mainz in 1420, 1438, 1462, and 1471, Cologne in the mid-1420s, Augsburg in the late-1430s, Würtburg in 1453, Rothenburg ob der Tauber in 1519, Weissenburg in 1520, Mühlhausen in 1543, Münster in 1553, Schweinfurt in 1555, and Nordhausen in 1559. They were also expelled from entire states or regions, as happened in the Palatinate in the 1390s and 1550s, Saxony in 1432 and 1537, Bavaria in 1442 and 1450, Württemberg in 1521, Upper and Lower Bavaria in 1551, Brunswick, Hanover, and Lünesburg in 1553, and Brandenburg in 1573.

Maximilian I
Catholic theologian Johannes Pfefferkorn was authorized by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I to confiscate Jewish books.

Martin Luther
The Protestant Reformer Martin Luther advocated for persecuting Jews in On the Jews and Their Lies in 1543 and Martin Luther's Table Talk. He called for destroying Jewish property, forbidding rabbis from teaching under the pain of death, taking belongings from Jews, and killing Jews.

Frederick II
King Frederick II of Prussia restricted Jews in trade, occupation, residence, and marriage. Jews were also taxed higher under Frederick's reign.

Hep-Hep riots
Antisemitic pogroms in 1819 that began in Würzburg called the Hep-Hep riots occurred in Germany, Alsace in France, and Denmark. Jews were abused and Jewish property was pillaged and destroyed. The riots lasted from August to October.

Adolf Stoecker
In the late 19th century, Adolf Stoecker, court chaplain to German Emperor Wilhelm I, gave antisemitic speeches and petitioned to take civil rights away from Jews.