They had never numbered more than 1 per cent of the German population, and their rate of apostasy was higher in modern Germany than anywhere else except Italy. After the first World War, social scientists predicted that within two generations there would be no more Jews in Germany. The progression from orthodoxy to agnosticism (via “liberalism”) was the largest factor, underlying the conversion of thousands to nominal Protestantism, which had economic and, more significantly, social advantages, and even to Catholicism.
