7

64 Friday, November 11, 1918

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

DeBreffny's 'The Synagogue:' Architectural History
of World Sanctuaries Affected by Custom Economics

,

NEW YORK — For more
than 2,500 years the
synagogue has been the
center of Jewish spiritual
and social life and
synagogue architecture has
been directly affected by
liturgical requirements as
well as diverse cultural
conditions in the world's
Jewish settlements. In a
handsome and lavishly
illustrated book, "The
Synagogue" (Macmillan),
historian Brian deBreffny
offers a comprehensive his-
tory of the - world's
synagogues — from Por-
tugal to Baghdad, from
Sweden to Morocco — that
details the relationships be-
tween local customs, eco-
nomics and architecture.
Beginning in the First
Century with the earliest
archeological evidences
found in Egypt, Jerusalem,
Sardis Ostia and Masada,
deBreffny traces the change
from Eastern Oriental
mosaics and classical col-
umns to the severe twin-
nave masonry scheme of the

Middle Ages. He discusses
why the persecution of the
bloody Crusades forced
Jews to erect structures dis-
tinctly different from that of
the churches and why often
by force of local bans, they
resorted to using private
homes to comply with re-
strictions on height and dis-
tance from the local church.
More than . 100 photo-
graphs in the volume were
taken by George Mott.
Renaissance Italy in-
spired a spectacular
surge in elegance and
opulence despite re-
straints imposed by the
Pope and Doge of Venice.
Italian synagogues dis-
played lavish gilt trim-
mings, damask, and, in
Venice, rich gondola
trappings, all of which re-
flected the refined taste
and wealth of Italian
Jewry.
In Rome, the multi-
linguistic and ethnic heri-
tage of the Jewish commu-
nity was served by housing
five different congregations

("Cinque Scuole") within
one building, a ploy which
circumvented the one-
synagogue Papal rule. In
the northern region of Ven-
ice, prayer halls were lo-
cated on second stories
above the ground level
office and study, thereby
avoiding the damage of
floods and fulfilling tal-
mudic law which specified
an elevated site for worship.
DeBreffny traces the fol-
lowing architectural trends
from 17th Century Amster-
dam Jewry which was heav-
ily influenced by Spanish
and Portuguese Jews to the
neo-classical revivals - of
10th Century Europe.
It was at the turn of the
century, deBreffny notes,
that the beginnings of mod-
ern architecture and "free
traditionalism" surfaced in
America and a short while
later in Israel.
He gives particular at-
tention to the eclectic in-
novative works of such
prominent architects as
Eisenshtat, Mendelsohn,

Percival Goodman and
Frank Lloyd Wright.

A separate chapter
explores the exotic Oriental
influence developed during
the Diaspora which scat-
tered Jews to Asia and
North Africa. Geograph-
ically severed from the tra-
ditions of Western Jewry,
the white and black Jews of
Tunisia, Morocco, and India
worshipped sitting on the
floor amidst the splendor of
Chinese tiles, Bokhara rugs
and ornate Oriental wood-
work.
"The Synagogue" devotes
itself equally to the charm
of Bavarian folk art in the
village synagogue, the
modern silhouettes of Texas
and Michigan, and the
grandness of Europe's
landmarks. "It is my hope
that this book will stimu-
late pride in, and care for,
synagogues past as well as
present, and thereby con-
tribute to the preservation
of those in danger of decay,"
wrote deBreffny.

One of the more than 100 George Mott photographs
in Brian deBreffny's "The Synagogue" shows the
Moorish style of a synagogue in Florence, Italy.

Herbert Malloy Mason's To Kill the Devil'
Documents Numerous Plots Against Hitler's Life

By ALAN HITSKY

Adolf Hitler was the sup-
reme ruler of Nazi Germany
for 12 years, snuffing out
laws and lives as he pleased.
Although much is made of
the Germany and the Ger-
mans who were swept up or
swept along with the lead-
ers of the 'Master Race,"
Herbert Malloy Mason Jr.
tells a story of those Ger-
mans who dared to resist.
Mason's new book is "To
Kill the Devil — The At-
tempts on the Life of Adolf
Hitler" (Norton).
He documents assassina-
tion plans initiated and
scrapped on numerous occa-
sions between 1938 and
1944 by high-ranking Ger-
man army officers who de-
tested Hitler and his SS
troops, as well as attempts
on Hitler's life by individu-
als.
Many of the plans within
the Wehrmacht originated
with general staff. Leading
field generals, including
Erwin Rommel, were ap-
proached over the years by a
core group of plotters who
were in the leadership of the
Abwehr, Germany's mili-
tary intelligence service.
The Abwehr plotters, who
originally wanted to kill
Hitler in 1938 in order to
prevent a war they knew
Germany could not win, ul-

timately met their • own
deaths after an elaborate
bombing and putsch at-
tempt in 1944 injured but
did not kill Germany's
Fuhrer. -
Intelligence chief Hans
Oster even went to the ex-
treme in 1939 of committing
treason. After failing to
convince , ranking German
officers of the need to kill
Hitler to prevent war, Osthr
informed Danish and
Norwegian contacts of the
upcoming German inva-
sion. Oster's Norwegian
contact admired Hitler and
deliberately withheld the
information, while Danish
intelligence failed to believe
the information, or pass it
on to the British.
Through the years the
Abwehr plotters were con-
tinually thwarted by cir-
cumstances: lack of nerve,
command decisions that
prevented action, with-
drawal of support by senior
Wehrmacht officers at criti-
cal times and Hitler's sud-
den changes in plans which
either removed him or the
assassin at the key moment.
Mason intersperses the
Abwehr plots with tales of
individual heroes, includ-
ing the deranged, who made
attempts on Hitler's life. He
also describes a revolt by
German college students.

GEORG ELSER

The most ingenious plot
was constructed by a 36-
year-old workman, Georg
Elser, who spent a year
gaining access to explo-
sives, working painstak-
ingly at night to carve out a
niche in a column in the
Munich Burgerbraukeller
to hide a bomb.
Hitler's annual speech
commemorating the beer
hall putsch of 1923 started
20 minutes earlier and was
much briefer on Nov. 8,
1939, than in previous years
and this saved Hitler's life.
The explosion from Elser's
bomb, eight minutes after
Hitler left the hall, would
have buried Hitler and
many of the Nazi hierarchy
under tons of rubble.

Elser was arrested while
trying to cross the Swiss
border. German authorities
could not believe that Elser
could have done the work
alone, 'but he reconstructed
the entire affair and his
apparatus for them. He
spent five years in Dachau
and was executed before the
Allied invasion.
Another key personality,
who in the end was brought
into the Abwehr plot, was
Carl Goerdler, the lord
mayor of Leipzig. He was
outspoken in his opposition
to the Nazis.
In the spring of 1936,
Goerdler "received a mes-
sage from Berlin via the
Nazis on his city council.
The statue of Felix Men-
ielssohn visible from Goer-
dler's office must be re-
moved, the delegation said;
this monument to a Jew in
Leipzig's main square of-
fended National Socialist
sensibilities. Goerdler or-
dered the petitioners out of
his office. 'When that statue
goes,' he said, 'then so will
I!"
worked
Goerdler
throughout the war, con-
tacting Allied governments
in an effort to make a peace
for Germany. But after
being caught by the Nazis
following the failure of the
Abwehr putsch, Goerdler
had a final chapter: •
"Now Heinrich Himmler
entered the scene and -
stayed the execution. Him-
mler knew the war was lost
and desperately wanted to
open a dialogue with the Al-
lies to end the war. He
thought the best route lay
through neutral Sweden.
"Goerdler's sympathetic
SS guard, Wilhelm Bran-

denburg, recalled: 'Him-
mler invited him to use his
close personal and political
contacts with the Swedish
banker Jakob Wallenberg
in Stockholm, and with the
Zionist leader Chaim
Weizmann, and through
them the King of Sweden. In
short, he was to do what he
and his circle would have
done had the coup d'etat
succeeded, that is, pave the
way for contact with Chur-
chill and end the war on ac-
ceptable terms.' "
Himmler backed away
from the plan and Goerdler
was --ultimately executed.
Swedish banker Jakob Wal-
lenberg was the father of
Raoul Wallenberg, the Uni-
versity of Michigan

graduate who issued
passports and protected
tens of thousands of Jews in
Budapest before disappear-
ing at the hands of the Rus-
sians at the end of the war.
Mason's detailed descrip-
tions of events and conver-
sations, analysis of the
thinking of Hitler and the
many plotters, and the link-
ing of all of the assassina-
tion attempts to the events
of the war make Mason's
book more than just a his-
tory of assassination.

"To Kill the Devil" pro-
vides important insight into
the workings of the leader-
ship of the Third Reich as a
backdrop for the attempts to
eliminate its leader.

Adolf Hitler is shown during a 1936 parade in Berlin
riding in his 10,000-pound, armored Mercedes-Benz.
The car carried a small armory of weapons in secret
compartments.