Professor Pulzer asks what lay behind the often-repeated denunciation of the Weimar Republic as a 'Jewish Republic' ('Judenrepublik'). He will discuss the association of Germany's Jews with ideas of liberalism and democracy and above all the role of Jewish constitutional lawyers in elaborating and defending the constitution of Germany's first experiment with democracy, with special reference to Hugo Preuss, Hermann Heller and Hans Kelsen.
Until his retirement Peter Pulzer was Gladstone Professor of Government at the University of Oxford and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. His publications include The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, Jews and the German State: The Political History of a Minority and Germany 1870-1945: Politics, State-Building and War. He is Chair of the Leo Baeck Institute, London and Vice-president of the International Association for the Study of German Politics
