Fritz Mauthner: a Study in Jewish Self-Rejection*

Fritz Mauthner: A Study in Jewish Self-Rejection*

BY GERSHON WEILER For Professor Hugo Bergman on his eightieth birthday. I Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 Fritz Mauthner was born in 1849 in Horcize, a small town in Bohemia. It acquired a certain fame as the Headquarters of the King of Prussia and of Bismarck, after the battle of Koniggratz, which is the nearest big town to Horcize. Mauthner's father owned a small weaving factory. The dominating language of the locality was Czech, but Mauthner's family, as was the custom of the wealthy and of the Jews of Bohemia in the 19th century, spoke German. The family moved to Prague when Mauthner was about six years old, mainly in order to provide a better education for the children. His early life was exceptionally unhappy. He never lost his resentment at the education he was subjected to up to his twentieth year, when he passed his Matura in the Kleinseitner-Gymnasium. Growing up in a linguistic border-area, at a time when Czech nationalism was on the march, he was forced very early to ask himself about his own identity and belonging. One thing was certain from the very beginning: he was no Czech, neither by origin nor by language. Although the matter probably never presented itself to him with the clarity of a straightforward alternative, yet his choice was to regard himself either as a German or as a Jew. That he whole-heartedly embraced the German nation and violently rejected, ultimately, everything Jewish was more or less the usual thing to do for a person in his position and in his time. However, Mauthner's case is of some general interest because as a philosopher he had to think and occasionally to write about the choice he had made. Mauthner came from a family which had only nominal connection with Judaism. Not only his parents but also his grandparents on both sides had long ceased to practise the precepts of the Jewish religion. They belonged in a purely formal manner to the synagogue but had no share in the life of the community. Mauthner's mother came from a family of Frankists, followers of Frank, the self-styled Messiah, who flourished in the second half of the eighteenth century. According to family legend, Mauthner's maternal grandfather still served as a bodyguard at the court of Eva, •I wish to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Henry Jacobs of London, whose intimate knowledge of Mauthner's life and work has been of invaluable help to me in my work on Mauthner and his philosophy. He has been untiring in answering my queries and charitable in correcting my mistakes. I am indebted to Dr. Jacobs also for access to the letters of Mauthner in his possession, and for permission to publish here, for the first time, a few of those which are relevant to the subject-matter of this paper. 136 Fritz Mauthner: Jewish Self-Rejection 137 Frank's daughter, who continued the cult after her father's death. From his mother Mauthner had heard a great deal about Jews, but always with an undertone of contempt and bitterness, which was but a conse- quence of the hostility of the synagogue to Frank and his followers.

Mauthner's paternal grandfather was a privileged Jew, with Rittergut Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 and Schloss. His father was totally ignorant of Jewish matters, and although he used to lament the fact that his children "grew up as heathen", he never did anything about it. The only Jewish education Mauthner received was the compulsory religion-classes in the Gymnasium, but these only heightened his sense of strangeness from all things Jewish. Herr Adler, the teacher of religion, was apparently a well-meaning Talmudist, without much secular education, who conducted these classes on the pattern of the traditional Talmud-school, not catering for those who, like Mauthner, did not bring with them even the rudiments of the Hebrew alphabet. Still, for a short period Mauthner attempted to observe the precepts of the Jewish religion, but this enthusiasm, just like a short-lived fascination for the Catholic Church, passed away ultimately, without leaving any noticeable trace. Later he complained that the lack of lasting religious influence made it easy for him to become an atheist, and therefore his atheism lacked that characteristic which could have made it most valuable, the memory of the struggle through which it had been achieved. While everything in his early life was calculated to alienate him from his Jewish origins, similarly everything he experienced attracted him to Germany. The decisive point in his decision for Germany was the year 1866, the annus mirabilis of German history, when the struggle between the German liberals and the militarist-nationalists ended with a victory of the latter under the impact of the tremendous success of Bismarck's Realpolitik. The Prussian troops in Prague, to whom Mauthner, at the age of seventeen, took a strong liking, must have seemed to him like a deliverance from the "Czech menace", which grew stronger as the years went by. Since that time the vision of a strong and united Germany never left him, nor did the limitless admiration he felt for Bismarck. When in 1876, at the age of twenty-seven, he ultimately left Prague, he chose Berlin in preference to Vienna, the capital city. In this he acted in con- formity with the prevailing German attitudes of his time: enthusiasm for the Reich and contempt for the Habsburg dual monarchy. Referring to Bismarck's saying that people came to Berlin in order to hear military music free of charge, he wrote "for me Bismarck was the music which called me to Berlin". By that time he had behind him quite a few experiences which made him deaf to any other music. The most lasting of these experiences was the opening of the new university of Strassburg. Mauthner was elected a member of the delegation of students at the University of Prague (where 138 Gershon Weiler he had enrolled as a law-student after leaving the Gymnasium), which was to take the greetings of the oldest German university to the one just being born. The hostility of the Czech students, who objected to the group representing the university, the enthusiasm at Strassburg when a telegram

of greeting was sent to Bismarck, impressed Mauthner so deeply that from Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 that hour Bismarck became for him Magister Germaniae. Even when he wrote his Totengesprdche (1906), in which his bitter irony makes figures of fun of the great of the past who enjoy eternal bliss in the Elysian Fields, he spoke with hushed reverence of the Iron Chancellor. Bismarck's influence was not limited to turning the young man into a Pan-German. Bismarck was to become one of the inspirations of the idea of a Critique of Language. What struck Mauthner as philosophically important was Bismarck's contempt for words, concepts and theories and the fact that, unruffled by these, he proceeded to do what he wanted to do. Here was a man who was not troubled by the phenomenal character of the world taught by Kant, and who took reality for what it was: the field of action. That Bismarck despised words and was nevertheless successful must have seemed to Mauthner a living proof of the un- importance of words and theories. It was Bismarck whom he invoked in the preface to his autobiography, published in the dark year of 1917, with the words: Sancte Bismarck magister Germaniae, ora pro nobis. Mauthner lived in Berlin till 1905, being most of the time employed as a theatre critic of the Berliner Tageblatt. During this period he acquired an everlasting hatred of the journalistic rat-race and the "intellectual prostitution" which went with it, and most of all a hatred of businessmen — many of them Jews. His flight to Freiburg was for him something like a symbolic act, the cutting of ties with a despised world and a commitment to the only thing which ever mattered to him: his philosophical work. In 1907 he settled in Meersburg am Bodensee, in the famed Glaserhausle where once the poetess Annette von Droste-Hulshoff found refuge. He died there in 1923. Mauthner left the Jewish community, officially, early in life and never joined any other religion. When he died he was given a funeral service in the local Lutheran Church, where his friend Dr. Jacobus Weidenmann gave a moving funeral oration, in which he paid tribute to Mauthner as a man who was against all that is false and artificial in religion, and yet was religious in the deepest sense. He spoke of the nameless dread Mauthner felt before the ultimate mysteries of the world and of life, and of Mauthner's god-less mysticism as the essence of true religion. Mauthner died as he lived, an atheist with a mystical awareness yet without any tie to any denominational group.1 iThe main source of this section is Mauthner's own autobiography: Erinnerungen, Georg Miiller (Mtinchen 1918, p. 349). Also, I have received communications from Fritz Mauthner: Jewish Self-Rejection 139 II Mauthner's contribution to philosophy is his Sprachkritik. He laboured on the preliminaries for twenty years, beginning in Prague and persever- ing in his self-imposed task throughout his whole period of residence in Berlin. He took nine years to write his Beitrdge zu einer Kritik der Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 Sprache, which appeared, in three volumes, in 1901-2. During his residence in Meersburg a.B. he wrote the three volumes of the Worterbuch der Philosophie (1910) and the four volumes of his Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte im Abendlande (1922-3), the proofs of which he corrected on his deathbed. Probably the most impressive thing about Mauthner is the remarkable single-mindedness with which he pursued, in volume after volume, one central idea. This idea, that of the Sprachkritik, could briefly, and with less than desirable accuracy, be stated as follows: Mauthner's problem is whether knowledge of the world is possible or not. The first and most fundamental fact he notes is that whatever is to qualify as knowledge has to be linguistically articulated. Therefore the epistemological question is for him, essentially, a linguistic one. The second point Mauthner makes is that all our knowledge comes to us, ultimately, through our senses. Now, these senses are accidental (Zufallssinne) and therefore we can register only that information which can be transmitted through the sensory channels available to us. This already imposes a limitation and selection upon the field of possible knowledge. Thirdly, Mauthner argues, there is an inherent tendency among language-users to turn into substances, into things existing in themselves, what originally was only a sense-experience of a quality, or the consciousness of an activity. So arises Mauthner's three-fold picture of die substantivische Welt, die adjektivische Welt, and die verbale Welt. Although in some places he says that all these three are necessary illusions, yet it is one of the corner-stones of his Sprachkritik that the first, the world of substance, is more misleading than any other illusion. Belief in this world is called by Mauthner Wortaberglaube, because, for him, it is a superstition to assume that for everything for which we have a name there is a corresponding entity of which it is the name. "Justice", "spirit", "God", "causality" (to mention a few examples) are all nouns, yet there is no existent thing corresponding to them. From all this it follows that knowledge of the world, as it really is, is impossible. The Critique of Language and the History of Atheism have, therefore, more in common than mere authorship. In the latter work Mauthner wanted to show how theology, a pseudo-science, distorted religious experience by fixing the articles of belief in definite verbal forms.

Dr. Jacobus Weidenmann and Dr. Erwin Eckert, who have kindly answered my questions concerning Mauthner's funeral. Dr. Weidenmann also presented me with a copy of his funeral oration. I am grateful for their kindness. 140 Gershon Weiler The main target of his attack is Christianity which, against the tradition of classical antiquity, has made dogma the essence of the religion of Europe. Making statements about God as if they were scientifically demonstrable truths about an existing entity, is the worst sort of Wort-

aberglaube. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 At this point, Mauthner's lack of understanding of Judaism acquires some importance.2 He thinks of Judaism, much as did his admired Schopenhauer, as the religion which introduced into Europe all that is wrong with Christianity. According to Mauthner Judaism is dogmatic, just like Christianity,

. .. der Wortrealismus, d.h. der Aberglaube an die Substantiality der abstrakten Begriffe, war auch bei ihnen verbreitet; ein Jude hatte ebensogut wie ein Erzscholastiker sich vorstellen konnen: die Hauptsache bei der Anfertigung einer Bank sei, dass der Schreiner die Begriffe Bank und Holz habe.8 It is paradoxical, but it was precisely Mauthner's lack of knowledge of the Hebrew language which was responsible for this misunderstanding.4 It is probably the most dominant feature of Hebrew that words are normally produced from verb-roots, and that all substantives retain an essential connection with the verb from which they originated. What Hebrew thinking does not allow is the existence of things in themselves, unconnected with some activity. In fact, this characteristic of Hebrew should have appealed to Mauthner, if he had only known of it. However, his views on the subject were formed from early memories, among them the great — and by him ill-understood — reverence for the Book, which is so characteristic of Jewish piety. The role of the Massorah is represented by him as an example of Wortfetischismus:

Die alten Fetische sind verschwunden. Man bringt z.B. den Cherubim, den geflugelten Ochsenkopfen, keine materiellen Opfer mehr dar. Die .richtigen' Worte der Bibel sind an diese Stelle getreten.5 What he failed to notice is that it was precisely "the Rabbinic worship of the letter which, paradoxically, saved Judaism from enslavement to authority".6 The Law is no theological dogma which pronounces theo- retical or pseudo-scientific truths but a guide to action. Mauthner treats

8,Ich war von Abstammung Jude, und habe doch jiidische Religion und jiidische Sitten eigentlich niemals kennengelernt; hochstens haufiger als ein deutsches Kind die jiidische Sprechweise und Mauschelausdriicke gehort. Mein Elternhaus stand dem jiidischen Wesen fremd gegenuber.' Erinnerungen, p. 110. $Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte im Abendlande (referred to below as GA), Vol. I, p. 254. On p. 114 of his Erinnerungen he explicitly mentions that he forgot his early Hebrew. However, he could not have been very thorough in learning later about the subject, though he say* that ,was ich vom Baue der semitischen Sprachen spater fur meine Arbeiten brauchte, habe ich ganz neu lernen miissen'. sBeitrage zu einer Kritik der Sprache. Vol. I, pp. 169-70. 6L. Roth: Judaism: A Portrait, p. 87. Fritz Mauthner: Jewish Self-Rejection 141 Judaism throughout as if it were a kind of Christianity, missing thereby the radical difference between them. This can be illustrated by his treat- ment of Maimonides, of whom he writes with considerable appreciation. He praises him for his rationality, for his rejection of popular super- stitions but ignores the fact that it was Maimonides who tried to for- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 mulate the articles of Jewish faith, provoking thereby the great dogma- controversy. Mauthner describes the violent opposition to Maimonides, adding that "he was put on the Jewish index"7 but without mentioning the controversy about the thirteen articles of belief. Yet, this was the only point in the history of Judaism concerning which some case — albeit rather weak — could have been made out for the charge of dogmatism. From this essential misunderstanding of Judaism, from his mistaking the moral law for clearly defined dogma, follow all Mauthner's other mis- interpretations.

The Jewish idea of chosenness is understood by him in the most vulgar manner, as a justification of Hochmut, which he finds in the writings of Hermann Cohen, to whom he refers as ,,ordentlicher Professor der Philo- sophie und des Judenturns".8 There is no mention anywhere of the idea of the Kingdom of God as a moral ideal, nor of the fact that Jewish tradition interprets the idea of being chosen as an acceptance of the yoke of Law. The notion of sheol is identified by him, without a hint at the fact that the word most probably means no more than grave, with the Greek Hades and the Christian hell.9 Again, there is no mention of the fact that the Bible speaks nowhere of another world where reward and punishment are dispensed.

There are only two places in Mauthner's writings where he actually uses Hebrew letters, and both are instructive. In an article about the concept of Geist he says: ,,Er findet sich als Metapher schon in den Psalmen als ruach kadesh Jehova.10 (mn* vip nil)". It is interesting that Mauthner gives no reference. Normally, he is extremely careful to note his sources and on this occasion he must have relied on his memory which, however, proved misleading.11 There is no such expression in the Psalms. Mauthner knew very little of Jewish source- material. His rejection of Jewish tradition was made entirely on Christian grounds, or more precisely under the influence of Christians who have iGA. I, 245. »GA. II, 101. *Worterbuch der Philosophic (referred to below as W.) I. 231. i

Ill If Mauthner knew little of Jewish tradition, he certainly knew a great Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 deal about Jews. Very early in life he acquired an infinite contempt for East-European Jews, and in his Erinnerungen he notes that some of the Jewish boys in his form were not even richtige Europder. In this Mauthner shared the attitude of most German Jews, who were at pains to dissociate themselves from the so-called Ostjuden. However, Mauthner's additional fierceness is understandable if we remember that he himself was not really a German Jew, but an Ostjude of sorts. He writes in a private letter dated 14th December, 1905:

Ja wenn ich in meiner Jugend all die schdnen Sachen hatte lernen diirfenl Wenn ich aus einem anderen Milieu stammte als aus der Horzitzer Judengasse! He proposed the sealing of the German borders with Poland and Russia to prevent the entry of Jewish immigrants from those countries and to eliminate thereby the adverse influence their presence had on the assimilation of those Jews who were properly German.13 In this he was echoing the views of the privileged Berlin Jews who succeeded at the end of the eighteenth century in preventing the influx of Eastern Jews into Prussia.14 However, these wealthy Jews of Berlin's Tier gar tenviertel were, for him, no examples to be followed either. Mauthner saw in them only ruthless businessmen, people concerned with material goods above all other things, and who were, presumably, hardly better than Ostjuden. In effect, Mauthner attempted to pave for himself a way into the German nation without having to pass through the stage of first becoming an ordinary German Jew. Paradoxically, in this he was adopting an attitude typical of German Jewish intellectuals in his time, who deeply resented the fact that German society was far more ready to accept Jewish businessmen than the suspect group of assimilated intellectuals. Mauthner thought that Jews in Germany ought to watch themselves more carefully in the language they used, as

Der Jude wird erst dann Volldeutscher, wenn ihm Mauschelausdriicke zu einer fremden Sprache geworden sind, oder wenn er sie nicht mehr versteht.1' For Mauthner himself the problem was settled. He was German — and there the matter rested. In a letter to Gustav Landauer he wrote on the 10th October 1913: "I feel myself to be a German, and a German only. 12e.g. W. II. 15. There are dozens of places where der alte Judengott occurs. i3S. Liptzin: Germany's Stepchildren, p. 234. 14Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 18. isBeitrage zu einer Kritik der Sprache I, 540-1. Fritz Mauthner: Jewish Self-Rejection 143 I know that my brain has somewhere a duct which is called Jewish; all the worse or all the better. I cannot and do not want to change it. Your conclusion is different, and there we are at a parting of the ways."16 Possibly the most interesting feature of Mauthner's thought in this res-

pect is that he refused to take the easy way out, the one followed by Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 the vast majority of German Jewry. Being without religion he could not choose the formula of being a German of the Mosaic faith. He was also too much of a philosopher and a historian not to realize that Judaism cannot be described simply as a religion among other religions. He was fully aware of the group character of Judaism and diagnosed antisemitism, with exceptional clarity, for what it was.

Dass heute in religionslosen Kreisen der alte Judenhass als Antisemitismus wieder Mode geworden ist, widerspricht nicht der Anschauung von der Toleranz als einer Folge des Indifferentismus. Galten schon die Judenverfolgungen des Mittelalters nicht eigentlich der jiidischen Religion, sondern dem fremden Volke der Juden, so ist der neue Antisemitismus erst recht nicht religiose Unduldsamkeit, sondern Rassenhass. Unausbleiblich in einer Zeit, in welcher der Nationalitatsunterschied an Stelle des Glaubensunterschiedes getreten ist. Doch auch die Nationalitatsidee ist ein Riickschritt vom Standpunkte des Naturrechts.17 Yet he thought that Bruno Bauer was right when he said that while Christians were ready for atheism, the Jews still had to pass through the stage of Christianity, remarking: "Ein Wort das seinen guten Sinn nach zwei Generationen noch nicht verloren hat."18 Indeed, he held that

... da bildeten und bilden aber bereits die .assimilierten', die entjudeten Juden einen Bestandteil der vom Dogma losgelosten Christenheit.19 It is not easy to see in all this a consistent attitude and a well-worked out position. Yet there is no doubt of Mauthner's obvious sincerity. Probably, the best proof of this sincerity is that he never availed himself of a way out which was only too common in his time: to deny his Jewish origin and to join a Christian Church. On the contrary, his Erinnerungen give a detailed and clear picture of the kind of Jewish background he had, and even in later years he constantly referred to his own Jewishness. When writing, shortly before his death, about the main ideas of his Sprachkritik he leaves unanswered the question . . . ob Hinneigung zur Skepsis wirklich, wie auch mir vorgeworfen wurde, charakteristisch ist fur Denker jiidischen Stammes?20

16Gustav Landauer. Sein Lebensgang in Briefen. Unter Mitwirkung von Ina Britschgi- Schimmer herausg. von Martin Buber. Frankfurt 1929, Bd. I, S. 450. Quoted by Liptzin, I.e. "GA. 11,321. i»GA. IV. 207. "GA. I. 246. nDie Philosophic der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen. Ed. by Dr. Raymond Schmidt. Verlag von Felix Meiner, Leipzig. 1924. Vol. 3, p. 136. 144 Gershon Weiler His attitude to Jewish thinkers is instructive in this context. He has only contempt for Mendelssohn because of his jiXdisch-nationale Beschrdnkt- heit.21 He has great respect for Spinoza, the excommunicated philosopher and originator of modern Biblical criticism but denies that Spinoza can be 22 credited in any way to Jewry. And most interesting of all is the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 fascination that Salomon Maimon exerted over him.23 There is a strange mixture of rejection and identification in his appreciation of this Polish Jew who rose to be an eminent philosopher of Germany. From his Freiburg period24 we have a sketch of a poem which sums up his attitude:

Lied eines Juden an Deutschland. Maimon spricht: .Liebloses Land, ich liebe Dichl' In fact, we have in Mauthner's thinking about the position of Jews in Germany three distinct strains of thought, which are hard to reconcile with each other. First, there is a clear recognition of the fact that Jews are a group apart and that antisemitism is primarily a hatred of a foreign national body. On the other hand, he castigated Jewish separatism, and the continued use of Jewish jargon. From this point of view he thought that even the acceptance of Christianity, against which he fought so vehemently, would be a step forward. And he also thought of Jewishness as of a psychological trait, "a duct in the brain", something which was so pronounced in Maimon, and which he was terrified to rediscover in himself.25 Ultimately, one is left wondering whether beneath it all there was not a little Hochrnut, a sense of pride in being different, or even some secret satisfaction at being German through choice rather than through the trivial circumstances of birth. We do not know whether he believed assimilation ever to be a success. It is most probable that he did not think that a time would actually come when, the immigration of Eastern Jews finally prohibited, the Jews of Germany would have disappeared completely. His attitude could best be described as a personal decision to be German and nothing but German, but with a clear knowledge of what such a decision entails. He rejected Zionism unconditionally, yet nowhere in his writings do we find a reasoned argument against Zionism. Indeed, he was in no position to argue. Had he been a practising Jew, he could have stood on the ground of a universal- istic religion which refuses to be limited and watered down to a narrow nationalism. But Mauthner accepted the premiss of the Zionist idea, i.e. that the Jewish question was not a religious but a national-political one.

I. 273. ™GA. I. 246. 23See Appendix. "From a letter to C.L. dated 29.4.1906. 25See Appendix. Fritz Mauthner: Jewish Self-Rejection 145 From this point all he could do was to reject it as one rejects an un- desirable alternative.

Die Cberschatzung des Jahwekults scheint jetzt, in der Zeit des tiefstehenden Antisemitismus, wie aus Trotz neue Wurzeln zu treiben. Ich denke an die

Versuche Martin Bubers, in oft schoner Sprache aus einem ostjiidischen Sekten- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 geiste einen Mystischen Zionismus herauszuspinnen; und an die Verwegenheit Max Brods, die Historie auf den Kopf zu stellen (Judentum sei moderner als Heidentum oder Christentum), um einen schon chauvinistischen Zionismus zu begr iinden.26 Again it is interesting to note that "mystical" cannot appear here as a term of rationalist abuse, as Mauthner himself professed a mysticism of his own, and had the highest admiration for Meister Eckhart. Generally speaking, Mauthner faced the problem of his own Jewishness, and the problems involved in the existence of a Jewish community in the midst of the German nation, not with the academic detachment of a philosopher but with the passionate fervour of a man who had made his choice. Being himself a target of resurgent antisemitism he could not but condemn it.27 He could not easily see what attitude could be adopted on the basis of German nationalism towards the Jewish community, which in fact continued to exist in Germany. He may well have seen that there is no easy solution in the assimilation he advocated. However, his choice for Germany was irrevocably made. He would rather have been himself an antisemite than a Jew.28 Probably the most interesting feature of this case history of Mauthner as a Jew is the fact that the decision he so steadfastly adhered to throughout his life was made, more for him than by him, early in life, on emotional grounds and out of childhood experiences. He knew little of Jewish traditions, and never understood Judaism except in the most superficial manner. Yet, living in Germany, he came face to face with the problematic character of Jewish existence. While he contributed nothing to our deeper understanding of the problem, his reactions and thoughts will retain their interest as testimonies of a genuinely sincere though complex character and as a reflexion on an important phase in the attitude of the German-educated Jewish intellectual at the turn of the century.

*«GA. IV. 413. 87He notices with some uneasiness that the admired Schopenhauer was a Judenhasser' (GA. IV. 170) and he refers to Nietzsche's sister as Jbeschrankt antisemitisch'. (GA. IV. 367). *8See Appendix. 146 Gershon Weiler APPENDIX

The letters which follow are published here by kind permission of Dr. Henry Jacobs. They were addressed to Frau Clara Levysohn,

Mauthner's life-long friend, to whom he dedicated — in a somewhat dis- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 guised form — his Beitrdge. The letters form part of what could be described as Mauthner's Freiburg Diary. The exceptional intensity of feeling in some of them could be attributed to the fact that Mauthner was, at the time of their writing, at a turning point of his life. He had just broken with Berlin and its commercialized literature but had not yet reached the serenity of the Glaserhdusle. The explanatory footnotes were written by Dr. Jacobs. Freiburg, 29.11.1905. ,,Die Zeitung aus Odessa sehr interessant. Aber ich bin nicht fahig in mir ein jiidisches Herz zu entdecken; Antisemit ist natiirlich Unsinn. Gabe es aber einen ernsthaften u. unlosbaren Wider- spruch zwischen Judentum u. deutschem Volkstum, dann ware ich Anti- semit. So sehr u. so ganz bin ich Deutscher. Und lache dazu, dass trotzdem ich u. mein Werk als ,,jiidisch" von ganzen Gruppen (,,Kunstwart") tot- geschwiegen werden. Dabei werde ich jiingst wieder offentlich neben Avenarius (eben dem vom Kunstwart) als einer von den Zweien genannt, die gegen die Unsittlichkeit in der Literatur als Richter berufen werden sollten. 17.2.06. Dr. Rubin habe ich so gut wie die Thiire weisen miissen; wollte sich mit jiidischer Unbescheidenheit als Freund u. Arzt etablieren. 7.3.06. Das Buch, das ich so gern gehabt hatte, leider schon verkauft. Die Selbstbiografie von Salomon Maimon, einem polnischen Judenjungen, der sich vor 100 Jahren nach Berlin durchschnorrte und dort nicht nur zu Mendelssohn, sondern auch zu Kant immer nur sagte: ,,Ich weiss! Ich weiss besser!" Und er wusste wirklich manches besser. 26.4.06. Ich kann von dem alten Juden Maimon nicht loskommen. Es ist doch das wahrste und — unfreiwillig — lustigste Judenbuch, das je geschrieben wurde; dagegen sind alle jiidischen.. .* von Bernstein bis Franzos unwahres Zeug. Ich habe Lust, nachdem ich es endlich auf einem so seltsamen Umwege ,,entdeckt" habe, es zur Erinnerung neu heraus- zugeben. Wenn mir niemand zuvorkommt. 28.4.06. Ich bin mit meinem Maimon fertig geworden und fange an ihn zu fiirchten. Nie noch vorher ist judischer Geist in solcher Caricatur er- schienen. Und ich schaudere davor, manchen Zug bei mir leise wieder- zufinden. lGap for a probably illegible word. Fritz Mauthner: Jewish Self-Rejection 147 30.4.06. Maimon lasst mich nicht los. Ich fiihle da eine erz-jiidische Im- pertinenz: er will eine Revision aller Wissenschaften ankiindigen. Und wortlich dasselbe habe ich toricht gesagt, als ich das Unding ,,Deutsch- land" herausgab.

13.5.06. Dass Du Maimon vorgelesen hast, hat mich eigen beriihrt. Ulr.2 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 hat ganz recht, wenn er da nicht lachen kann. Ich kam auf Maimon in der Arbeit. Es wird wochenlanges Studium geben u. dann vielleicht 2 Zeilen Zusatz. Er ist uns als einer der ersten Kantianer interessant. Dazu kommt nun: 1) dass ich das Buch am 23. April erhalten habe, 2) dass er ein pudelnarrischer grotesker, polnischer ,,Saujud" ist, 3) dass ich ihn wegen kleiner jiidischer Gehirnziige als abschreckendes Beispiel brauche. In dem Biichel, das ich Dir schickte, kommt er ganz echt heraus. In seiner eigenen Lebensbeschreibung noch echter, noch grotesker, noch polnischer. 14.5.06. Erhalte heute eine mir unbekannte Zeitschrift ,,fiir modernes Judenthum". Darin ein gutgemeinter, grenzenlos inhaltsleerer Aufsatz iiber mich; ich werde da fur das Judentum in Anspruch genommen. Wie fein hatte so etwas geschrieben werden konnen, fiir oder gegen mich. Und da tappst so ein armseliges Rabbinerjiingelche hinein und brummelt was zusammen. Ich schicke Dir das Zeug gar nicht erst. Es ist zu dumm. 17.5.06. Habe ja von dem dummen Artikel in der jiidischen Zeitschrift Erwahnung getan. Nun heute ein bodenloser Brief des Redacteurs. Ein angesehener Mann teile ihm mit, ich sei getauft, Antisemit. Und hilflos bittet er mich, ihm etwas dariiber zu schreiben. Ich habe Lust so grob zu werden wie Gotz. So'ne Judenbande! Ich argere mich natiirlich nur iiber die Impertinenz u. dariiber, dass ich da wieder eine halbe Stunde Briefe zu schreiben habe. Sollte es aber zum Krach daruber kommen, zu einem offentlichen Streit, dann lang ich mir so einen Jiiden bei seinen ,,Peies" und statuiere ein Exempel. Solches Pack gehort wirklich nicht in Verkehr mit Europaern. 18.5.06. Die Judengeschichte macht mir iiberfliissige Aufregung. Ich habe den Kerlen eben den grobsten Brief meines Lebens geschrieben. 31.5.06. Gegen Mittag kam Dr. Buber aus Florenz. Seltsam wertvoller Mensch. Polnischer Jude, Freund von Landauer, atheistischer Zionist. Gibt im Herbst eine Sammlung von Monographien heraus (erste Namen darunter, wie man so sagt), wofiir ich etwas wie ,,Ideal u. Sprache" halb versprochen habe. Dieser Dr. Buber hat mir stundenlang aus einer Arbeit vorgelesen, die demnachst erscheint. ,,Rabbi Nachman" vor 100 Jahren gelebt, polnischer Jude, Vorganger in sprachkritischen Ideen. War mir anstrengend, aber sehr interessant. Und beschamend dazu. Ein armer polnischer Jude ohne Bildung und solche Pracht der Bilder. Daneben freute *Ulrich Levysohn, Clara's husband. 148 Gershon Weiler mich auch die intime Kenntnis, die Dr. Buber von meinem Werke zeigte.3 8.7.06. Da schliige ich mich doch lieber mit Kaiser und Reich herum als mit diesem Judengesindel.4 5

25.11.06. Nun ist J. J. David in Wien gestorben. Gewiss ein Talent u. ein Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/article/8/1/136/938433 by guest on 29 September 2021 sehr armer Mensch. Mitleid! Gewiss. Aber doch nur ein an Talent geringe- rer, an Anstand besserer Franzos, Karl Emil, natiirlich.6 Zweimal hat er mich aufgesucht. Beidemal wie ein jiidischer Schnorrer um Lob gebettelt u., ganz ruhig erzahlt, dass ihn sein Verleger so schlecht behandle, schimpfe, einen 40 jahrigen Mann. Das miisste schon ein Riesen-Talent sein, dem man solches Schnorrertum (auch ausserlich) verzeihen konnte. Ich war von diesem netten Talent personlich angewidert wie von wenigstens einer hiibschen Strassendirne.

'Mauthner has probably pp. 27-29 of Buber's Die Chassidischen BiXcher in mind, where Rabbi Nachman speaks about words. Also on p. 33 ,Alle Gedanken des Menschen sind Worte und sprechende Bewegung, auch wenn er es nicht weiss'. (G.W.) This corres- ponds to pp. 35-38 of the original edition of ,,Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman" (Riitten & Loening, Frankfurt 1906). The series of monographs to which Mauthner refers was called Die Gesellschaft (1905-1912, 40 vols.) for which Mauthner later wrote the volume entitled Die Sprache. 4He was attacked in a review in the magazine "Ost & West". sjakob Julius David (1859-1906), a "poet", now almost forgotten, of the "naturalistic" movement. «K. E. Franzos, an Austrian, wrote novels about the Eastern Jewish life in Galicia.