VARIETIES OF ANTI-SEMITISM:
“The Socialism of Fools” (Friedrich Engels)
1880-1910: Waves of “pogroms” in Russia & Rumania.
1878: The Protestant court pastor Adolf Stoecker founds a
“Christian Social Party” in Berlin.
1879: Wilhelm Marr coins the term “anti-Semitism” in “The
Victory of Jewry over Germandom.”
1889: Racial anti-Semites found the “German Social Party.”
1891: In Vienna Karl Lueger founds the Catholic clericalist
“Christian Social Party,” and Georg Ritter von Schönerer
bars Jews from his new “Pan-German League.”
1893: Anti-Semitic candidates win 3.4% of the German
vote and 16 Reichstag seats.
Jewish migrations in the Late Middle Ages: In Germany the
worst attacks came in 1096; in France, 1181; in Spain, 1492
The Blood Libel:
The supposed ritual murder of Simon of Trent in 1475
Catholics
prayed for
“the
perfidious
Jews” on
Good
Friday and
recalled
Matthew
27:25–
“Let his
blood be
on us and
on our
children.”
Jews worshipping the Devil (Germany, 16th century):
Indignant Christians appeal to their prince to intervene
A Jew under
interrogation with
the strappada
(Germany,
16th century)
Execution of 40
Jews convicted of
desecrating the
Host in Berlin.
Martin Luther
called for the
destruction of all
synagogues in “On
the Jews and their
Lies” (1547).
The Oberammergau
Passion Play in
1860 and 1900
Christ and
John enter
Jerusalem
Sephardic Jews
in Holland & Italy
had long
pursued
assimilation;
by 1800 that
ideal had spread
among most
Ashkenazi Jews
in Central
Europe
Interior of the
first Jewish
Synagogue of
Berlin,
built in 1714
Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) of Berlin
inspired Lessing’s Nathan the Wise (1779)
Felix Mendelssohn
(1809-1847)
was his grandson
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, “The Return of the Jewish Volunteer
from the Wars of Liberation” (1833-34)
Carl Spitzweg,
“In the
Synagogue”
(ca. 1850)
Outside Prussia,
many German Jews
still lived in
ghettoes:
The “Judengasse”
in Frankfurt a.M.,
early 19th century.
The “Hep, Hep Riots,” Frankfurt a.M., 1819
Conservative ridicule of the idea of equality:
“PROFIT – Equal Rights with Christians” (Vienna, 1848)
“Germania
and Her
Suitor,”
Der kleine
Reactionär,
Berlin,
10 January
1863
“How the Jew,
Levy Philippsbloch,
made his fortune,”
cartoon published
in Der kleine
Reactionär,
Berlin,
23 May 1863
Decree of Jewish emancipation in the
North German Confederation, July 3, 1869
Jewish field service during the Franco-Prussian War
Distribution of Reformed and Orthodox Jews in 1880
The largest
Jewish
organization
was the
“Central
Association
of German
Citizens of
the Jewish
Faith”
“The New
Synagogue
on
Oranienburg
Street,”
Berlin,
ca. 1880
The growth of
the Jewish
communities of
Eastern
European
“Your purse or the whip!” French cartoon on the
plight of Jews in Russia, published in 1885
GERMANY’S (LUTHERAN)
CHRISTIAN SOCIAL PARTY, 1878-1918
Court Preacher Adolf Stoecker
(1835-1909) and a poster from
1882 to celebrate Bismarck’s
program for social insurance as
“Germany’s Dawn”
THE ANTI-SEMITES’ PETITION OF 1881
The Berlin prep school teacher Bernhard Förster and the
journalist Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg gathered
250,000 signatures in 1880/81 for a petition to the
government with FOUR principal demands:
1. Legal restriction of Jewish immigration to Germany.
2. Exclusion of Jews from all government offices and
restriction of the number of Jewish judges.
3. A ban on all Jewish teachers in elementary school and
restriction of their number in secondary schools and
universities.
4. Government statistics on the number of Jews.
The petition gained 54,000 signatures in Silesia, 38,000 in
Brandenburg, and 27,000 in Westphalia, but only 9,000 in
Bavaria. It was signed by 4,000 university students, 18%
of all students in Germany. Bismarck ignored it.
Wilhelm Marr
(1819-1904),
The Path to Victory for
Germandom over Jewry
(1880)
“The Future: Toward Palestine” (1880):
The “exclusionary” anti-Semitism of Wilhelm Marr
THE TIVOLI PROGRAM OF THE GERMAN
CONSERVATIVE PARTY, 1892
1. “We desire the preservation and strengthening of the
Christian life-view in the nation and the state…. State
and church are institutions ordained by God; the
cooperation of the two is the necessary precondition
for healing our national life…. We regard the
confessional, Christian Volksschule as the foundation
of national education and the most important
guarantee against the increasing degeneration of the
masses and the dissolution of all social bonds. We
fight against the often obtrusive and corrosive Jewish
influence in our national life. We demand Christian
authorities for the Christian people and Christian
teachers for Christian students.”
Postcard from “The Only Jew-Free Hotel in
Frankfurt am Main,” aka “New Jerusalem” (1897)
“The Jews in Germany” (Dresden 1896), running department
stores, Yellow newspapers, banks, and music halls
Europe’s most
multi-cultural
state:
AustriaHungary
in 1900
FOUNDERS OF AUSTRIAN ANTI-SEMITIC PARTIES
Georg von Schönerer,
Karl Lueger, the
the Pan-German
Christian Social
(1842-1921)
(1844-1910)
“Carriage Shafts” (Austria, 1900): “Schmul’s Patented
Automobile. Cheapest operation! Completely safe!”
“Museum of
Horrors:
The Traitor!”
(French
caricature of
Alfred Dreyfus,
ca. 1896)
AntiDreyfusard
caricature of
Baron de
Rothschild
(1898)
The Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl (1860-1904),
author of The Jewish State (1896), founder of modern Zionism
The Maccabee Fraternity, Berlin, 1906
THE ANTI-SEMITIC VOTE IN WILHELMIAN GERMANY
YEAR
Number of
a-Sem voters
Share of
national vote
Reichstag
seats won
1887
12,000
0.2%
1
1890
48,000
0.7%
5
1893
264,000
3.4%
16
1898
284,000
3.7%
13
1903
245,000
2.6%
11
1907
249,000
2.2%
22*
1912
301,000
2.5%
10*
* Refers to the “Economic Union” with some non-anti-Semites.
DILEMMAS OF THE WILHELMIAN ANTI-SEMITES
THEORETICAL: Did the “problem” with Jews stem
from their religion, “culture”, or “blood”? (Scientific
studies showed that there was no discernible
difference in hair color, eye color, or other visible traits
between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans.)
HUMANITARIAN: What level of action against Jews
could be justified ethically? Should Jews who
converted to Christianity or displayed outstanding
patriotism (e.g., decorated combat veterans) be
exempt?
TACTICAL: Was there any realistic hope to “solve the
Jewish problem” through electoral politics?