[1] It was established to coordinate and represent the activities of Jewish political and religious groups, with headquarters in Berlin, and provide legal defence in the face of growing persecution of the Nazi era.
The Berlin Rabbi Leo Baeck was elected president of the Reichsvertretung with Otto Hirsch acting as its chairman.
It established central welfare organizations, occupational retraining for dismissed officials (fired in accordance with the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed 7 April 1933), preparation for emigration, built up schools and institution of elementary to higher education open for Jewish students and pupils.
After the November Pogrom in 1938 the Reichsvertretung had to rename into Reichsverband der Juden in Deutschland (English: Reich's Federation of the Jews in Germany), now adopting also many administrative tasks, which especially many of the smaller and impoverished Jewish congregations, reduced in their personnel by the arrests and emigrations, could not maintain any more.
In February 1939, this organisation assumed the name Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (English: Reich's Association of the Jews in Germany).