Germany Is Really "Coming to Grips "Benign Socio-Economic Antisemitism" and His Republic

Volume XXXIII No. 1 January, 1978 INFORMATION ISSUED BY THE AssoaAnm or JEWBH RERKOS BI GIEAT BRmm E. HeUendaU these parties grappled with the all-pervading problem of antisemitism. The authors of the three interesting essays on this subject be A LESSON TO BE LEARNED long to a younger generation which did not actually experience the pre-Hitler period. Nearly every issue of this joumal carries career although "he did little to translate his It is to be regretted that the articles do not reports indicating a rise in neo-Nazi trends in campaign antisemitism into practice". Never all deal with the final period of German- if T^'^^'^ Republic and making us wonder theless, Rosensaft concludes that Lueger's Jewish history, the period of the Weimar Whether Germany is really "coming to grips "benign socio-economic antisemitism" and his Republic. Robert Wistrich somewhat arbit wth the dark side of her past" as President "popular antisemitic rhetoric provided much rarily limits his investigation of the attitude Scheel recently asserted. This "dark side" of the foundation for the Austrians' enthu of German Social Democracy to the "problem started long before 1933. To what extent were siastic participation in the anti-Jewish out of Jewish Nationalism" to the period from we, and our parents and grandparents aware rages which followed the Anschluss in 1938" 1897 to 1917. With the benefit of hindsight he of the dangers growing around us? and that it was the "combination of leads an attack against Karl Kautsky whom We are approaching the 45th anniversary Schoenerer's and Lueger's antisemitic ten he describes somewhat contemptuously as the Of that fatal January 30, 1933, the beginning dencies", "which enabled the vast majority of "Pope of the Intemational Labour Move Of the end of German-Jewish history; more the Austrian people to accept as legitimate ment", whilst showing quite clearly that dur than a generation has come and gone and it the Hitlerite programme for the Final Solu ing Kautsky's life, there was no such thing as « only right that the Leo Baeck Institute has tion of the Jewish Question". It is as well that a pope or a dogma in the Socialist movement, aevoted the greater part of its 1976 Year Rosensaft underlines this historical truth as and ignoring the fact that Kautsky was later oook to the Jewish question and antisemitism against the fairy tale so often put forward by the subject of pungent attacks by Lenin. aunng the last one hundred years, although post-war Austrian apologists including govem According to Wistrich, Kautsky believed that some smaUer essays deal with the eariier his mental circles that the majority of the Aus only the forced segregation of the ghetto with tory of German Jewry*. Thus Dolf Michaelis, trian population was "forced" into participat its attendant civil and political inequality ^^° .^ssay on the Ephraim family, describes ing in Nazi atrocities as a result of the enabled Jewry to maintain itself, and observed f history of this prominent Berlin Jewish military invasion of that country by Nazi that Zionism "sought to divert the Jewish family as a "microcosm" of the fate of Ger- Germany. masses away from their historical role of help man Jewry Frederick II of Prussia, whilst Mendes-Flohr shows Sombart, one of the ing to overthrow Tsarist absolutism". He Bresf"^^ the settlement of Jewish famUies in leading German economists in the first half quotes Kautsky's views: "Zionism meets anti ti<!m ^'^^ reasons of unconcealed antisemi- of this century, developing from a Socialist semitism half way in its striving, as well as ^™' "âde use of the Ephraims' banking into an open antisemite who devoted a whole in the fact that its goal is to remove all Jews Seven V Pf^^û^^rly in order to pay for the "scientific" tome to "the Jews and Modem from the existing states. There is so much in uhni 1,1 X^^^ ^^^ "making sure that nothing Capitalism" to which he added a number of common between Zionism and antisemitism "ôuia be known publicly of his part in the smaller publications. Sombart blamed the on these points that there have been Zionists mmtmg contracts" Jews for the creation of modem capitalism who expected the gracious promotion of their objectives from the head of the Orthodox An essay by H. G. Reissner on Henriette and contrasted the "bourgeois" or "trader", whom he later identified as a "Jewish species" Russian people, from the fountain-head of Menaelssohn, daughter-in-law of Moses Men- antisemitism, from the Russian Tsar". On the h 1^! and friend of Alexander von Hum with the "entrepreneur"—Hitler's "raffendes" und "schaffendes Kapital". No wonder that other hand. Socialist Zionists of the period, boldt, is probably the last of the valuable anticipating Stalin and some of his successors, contnbutions by this author who died earlier Sombart who lived to 1941 became a member of the Nazi Party. It is however pathetic and pointed to the "latent fear that the victorious Jhis year. Reissner's intimate knowledge of Russian proletariat might in the future mis Wrman-Jewish history, particularly in the terrifying to note to what extent Sombart's pseudo-scientific antisemitism was taken treat the Jews no less than did the antisemitic early nmeteenth century will be sadly missed. Black Hundred gangs". However, Wistrich A lively article on Albert Einstein by Pro seriously in Germany long before 1933, even in some Jewish circles. points to the tragic feature of Zionism in the tessor Banesh Hoffman gives a short summary period under review: "The most distinctive Of Einstein's theories and describes Einstein's It may be diflScult for our British and feature of the pro-Zionist advocacy of German Changing attitude to Judaism under the im American contemporaries to visualise that Socialists . remained their positive attitude pact of events in Germany. The book also during the whole period of Jewish emancipa to colonisation as such". ^rnes an essay by Hans Liebeschuetz about tion in Germany Jews were practically ex Arnold Toynbee and a number of other im cluded and shunned by the parties of the The German Social Democratic politicians portant contributions which, for reasons of Right. Although in the earlier part of the like Hildebrand and Quessel quoted by Wis ?Pace, can unfortunately not be dealt with nineteenth century a baptised Jew, Friedrich trich show even more clearly how far in the in this review. Julius Stahl, helped to create a theory of Germany of Wilhelm II racialist ideas had Christian German Conservatism, Prussian and The intellectual forerunners of the Nazis permeated Social Democracy and also the German Conservatives and Right-wing Liberals formative years of Jewish nationalism. The are described in articles by Menachem Rosen were always outspokenly antisemitic and it saft on "Jews and antisemites in Austria" and racial theories of parts of the Jewish National was thus unthinkable for any self-respecting movement grew up in Central Europe, mainly by Dr. Paul R. Mendes-Flohr on "Wemer Jew to support these parties. A German bombart's The Jews and and Modem Capital- in Germany and Austria. It is one of the Disraeli or a German Sir Keith Joseph would ironies of the situation that those who vilified jsm". Rosensaft contrasts the antisemitic fana- have been unimaginable throughout pre-Nazi «c Georg Schoenerer with the opportunist assimilation were themselves to a large extent German history; the political allegiance of products of this assimilation and the ideas ^1 Lueger, Mayor of Vienna, towards the German Jewry was therefore confined to the lum of the centur\-. According to him, Lueger of their environment, good or bad! Apart Liberal, Socialist and later the Communist from other reasons, a generation later Nazi Was not an antisemite at the beginning, and parties**. some of his best friends were Jews", as the persecution and the fact that hundreds of ^ying goes; however he is stated to have Perhaps the most important articles in the thousands of Jews were able to find a refuge Year Book are devoted to the question of how in what later became Israel should have dis oecome an antisemite because it helped his posed of any arguments in the intemational ** See in detail on this point the excellent essay by labour movement about the justification of Warh^f ^^^^ 'n»"ime Year Book XXI, 1976, Seeker & Amold Paucker—"Zur Problematik einer juedischen J6ri«=i • '-°"'lo"- published for ttie Instituie London, Abwehrstrategie in der deutschen Gesellschaft" In "Juden assi^.t • ''«*' '*'°^- E'ii'ed by Robert Weltsch with the im wilheiminischen Deutschland" (reviewed in AJR Infor "sis.ance of Arnold Paucker. £7-50. mation June 1977). Continaed on page 2, colnmn 1 Page 2 AJR INFORMATION January 1978 deplored the radical, racial antisemitism and on the Jews" and adds that "no comparably A Lesson to he Learned looked on the Fanatiker in the voelkisch and authentic account has been published by Continoed from page 1 Nazi movements as madmen. Conventional students of contemporary history in the moderate antisemitism also had its dangers, Federal Republic". Jewish statehood in Israel, but it may be that for it made the German people callous to the The author concludes—this reviewer is un in those early years of Jewish nationalism Jewish tragedy in history and to their mis able to quote any material to the contrary— the contradictions between the messianic and treatment in Germany. The prevalence that "no major contribution to our real under liberating ideas of Jewish nationalism and of moderate antisemitism and its seeming standing of German-Jewish history has hither chauvinistic and even racialist tendencies in harmlessness may also have blinded the Jews to come out of the GDR" and that none of the certain sections of the Zionist movement be to their real peril".

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