Carlebach's three uncles - Emanuel Carlebach (1874–1927) and Leopold Rosenak (1868–1923; an uncle by marriage), both Field Rabbis of the imperial German Army, and the educator Rabbi Joseph Carlebach, who was assigned to them in 1915 - were active in promoting German culture among the Jews in Lithuania and Poland during the German occupation (1915–1918). Erich Ludendorff's intention was to evoke pro-German attitudes among Jews, in order to prepare the installation of a Polish and a Lithuanian state dependent on Germany. Part of the effort was the establishment of Jewish newspapers (e.g. the folkist "Warszawer Togblat ווארשאווער טאָגבלאט"), of Jewish organisations (e.g. Emanuel Carlebach initiated in Łomża the foundation of the Hassidic umbrella organisation Agudas Yisroel of Poland, part of a non-Zionist movement founded in Germany in 1912) and of modern educational institutions of Jewish alignment. Joseph Carlebach founded the partly German-language "Jüdisches Realgymnasium גימנזיום עברי" in Kaunas and directed it until 1919. Carlebach's uncles mostly came down for Hassidim and faced Zionists rather critically. Thus the name Carlebach sounded rather suspicious in the ears of "Haynt's" audience.