Although antisemitism was rife within the First World War higher echelons of the Imperial Army, many German Jews did serve in the German army as both officers and enlisted men. Many middle-class assimilated Jews volunteered for service in the hopes that service would do away with antisemitism by proving that being a Jew and a good German was possible. Ironically, in Hitler's WWI unit, the List Regiment, there were proportionately more Jewish volunteers than gentiles (85% of the regiment were conscripts) in 1914. Many Jewish political organizations decried the Entente's aggression and called all Jews to flock to the colors.

All of this activity did not stop the popular conception from arising that Jews were shirkers and rear-area pigs (Etapenschweine). The Imperial Army conducted a census in October 1916 of Jewish participation in the war effort, and it embarrassingly discovered that German Jews as a whole were just as likely as gentiles to serve in the front lines. The census results were not published during the war and ostensibly were to quell antisemitism, but many Jewish organizations felt that the Imperial state wanted to document any Jewish misdeeds.

Sources

Elon, Amos. The Pity of It All: A Portrait of German Jews 1743-1933. New York: Picador, 2002.

Weber, Thomas. Hitler's First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.