Background to Nazism I: Antisemitism Quiz

Answer: False

This view dates from the 1930s onwards. For most of the period between the late Middle Ages and the rise of the Nazis, Germany (and before that, the German states) were not regarded as exceptionally antisemitic by comparison with other European countries. It's a common mistake to project the recent past on to the more distant past.

Answer: Austria-Hungary

In the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary Karl Lueger's Christian Social Party was the largest party in the lower house of the Austrian Reichsrat from 1907-1911. Karl Lueger, a very effective demagogue, was Mayor of Vienna from 1897-1910. While in office he dismissed Jews from municipal employment, segregrated the school system in Vienna into Jewish and Gentile schools and also segregated teacher training.

He habitually referred with contempt to the more tolerant capital of the Hungarian part of the empire as "Judapest". To the right of Lueger was an even more extreme, but electorally unsuccessful party headed by Georg Ritter von Schönerer.

Answer: Ludwig Uhland (1787-1860)

Although Fichte enjoys some regard as a philosopher, his "Reden an die deutsche Nation" (1807-08) ("Addresses to the German Nation") are hysterical. His anti-Jewish views are most clearly expressed in an attack on the French Revolution published in 1793.

At the time he was taken to task for his attitude to the Jews by Saul Ascher. Jahn, who encouraged gymnastics as a means of keeping young men 'fighting fit' and who encouraged the foundation of the German student fraternities was even more anti-Jewish and banned Jews from his gymnastics clubs. Arndt described the Jews as "degenerates". Except in the case of Jahn there is scope for debate as to how central anti-Jewish attitudes were to their thinking. Fichte, for example, wasn't consistently anti-Jewish and during his spell as Rektor (American English "President", British English "Vice-Chancellor") of the University of Berlin he devoted considerable energy to resisting attempts to deny a Jewish student admission on grounds of religion. Uhland was a liberal and not anti-Jewish.

Answer: False

In 1819 a series of disturbances, starting in Würzburg (where about 400 Jews were forced to flee the city), spread to Heidelberg, Mannheim and Frankfurt and later to much of northern Bavaria, to other parts of Baden, to Düsseldorf and Hamburg - and even beyond Germany to Copenhagen.

This wave of pogroms is often referred to as the "hepp-hepp riots" (from the anti-Jewish cry "Hepp, hepp!"). Historians suggest as possible reasons: (1) economic distress following the Napoleonic Wars, exacerbated by very poor harvests; (2) opposition to the removal of many civil disabilities on the Jews during the Napoleonic period and (3) increased competition from Jewish businesses.

In Würzburg, the initial riot was started by nationalist students at the university.

There were further "hepp-hepp" riots in 1830 and 1835, but on a much smaller scale. The violence of the riots of 1819 was such that in some places (especially Frankfurt and Heidelberg) they had to be suppressed by military force. In 1848 there were, yet again, anti-Jewish disturbances in some parts of Germany, but these have almost completely ignored by historians, German, Jewish and foreign.

Answer: 1869

Many of the German states granted their Jewish inhabitants citizenship (of various kinds) earlier. For example, Prussia granted something approaching citizenship in 1812. However, territorial expansion in 1815 (especially the re-acquisition of Posen and of parts of West Prussia) greatly increased Prussia's Jewish population, whereupon there was a ruling that Jews in the newly acquired (and re-acquired) territories weren't covered by the Emancipation Edict of 1812.

Moreover, throughout Prussia, the rights of Jews were cut back - above all, the right to be elected to municipal office and to sit in regional diets (assemblies). Until 1833 Jews in the Grand Duchy of Posen were not even allowed to migrate to other parts of Prussia without special permission (generally granted to the better off).

It's important not to read too much into the granting of legal citizenship: conditions "on the ground" were often equally important.

Answer: For all these reasons

In the period from about 1850 till the early 1870s, the position of the Jews in Germany and Austria-Hungary improved. In May 1873 the stockmarkets of Central Europe crashed, and there followed a six-year period (1873-79) of zero growth in the German economy, followed by a long period of slow growth (till about 1890). "The Jews" were blamed by some politicians for the crash and for the poor economic conditions. It was this period that saw the rise of politically organized antisemitism in Germany and Austria-Hungary, especially the rise of antisemitic political parties, including Marr's "Antisemitic League". They also claimed to have an ideology, but it consisted entirely of conspiracy theories about the Jews.

It was Wilhelm Marr who invented the bizarre conspiracy theory that claimed that "the Jews" and "the Germans" were locked in a struggle to the death for control of Germany. Not taken very seriously at time, it later became a key Nazi cliché and a core belief of many Nazis.

Answer: Polna, Moravia (1899)

At Tisza-Eszlar (also spelled Tiszaeslar), near Debrecen, no fewer than 15(!) Jews were initially charged: all were acquitted. In the Polna case the accused was convicted on the basis of a confession made while he was terrorized by other prisoners, and the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In all these cases, the whole local community became involved: in other words, there was much violence, and groups and individuals manipulated the situation for their own ends. In Konitz, a town of about 10,000 inhabitants between Schneidemühl and Danzig, the violence reached such a pitch that it took two interventions by the Prussian army to suppress it. As can be imagined, in these cases the Jews had to leave these towns, and many emigrated permanently.

The accusations of ritual murder (often referred to as the "blood libel") came as a shock at the time. After all, Europe thought of itself as highly civilized, but these cases showed that at a local level there was anti-Jewish prejudice that agitators could exploit. The motives for prosecuting are not entirely clear. In some of these cases it seems that the state prosecutors feared further public disorder if they did *not* prosecute. All in all, it was an unexpected throw-back to one of the worst medieval forms of Jew-baiting. (The first documented case of an accusation of ritual murder against Jews dates from 1144, when the zeal of the Crusades encouraged religious fanaticism).

Answer: That a census be taken of Jews serving (1) at the front and (2) behind the lines

The accompanying document spoke of complaints that Jews were avoiding military service and 'shirking' within the army by getting themselves posted behind the lines. The results were kept secret and the government put out rumours that the reason for secrecy was that the results, if published, would be very distressing for Jews.

It was not until the early 1920s that the results were published. There were problems with the way the census had been carried out, but an analysis using a range of sources showed that the proportion of the Jewish population serving at the front was about the same as the proportion of non-Jews.

This analysis, published in 1922, also showed that if the occupational and age structure of the Jewish community was taken into account, an *above average* proportion had served at the front.

Answer: Russia

Much of the anti-Jewish violence was organized by the Tsarist authorities. Tsar Alexander III (reigned 1881-94) and Tsar Nicholas II (reigned 1894-1917) were themselves notoriously anti-Jewish. The Russian pogroms were severe and continued over a long period of time.

Many Jews emigrated from the Russian Empire. In France, the Dreyfus Affair revealed widespread antisemitism in high places and in 1898 there were anti-Jewish riots in several French cities. On the whole, Germany was seen as tolerant, especially by Jews themselves.

Answer: None of these

The booklet is entitled "Über die Juden and ihre Lügen" ("On the Jews and Their Lies"). Luther raved and ranted against all those he hated - the Pope, Catholics, rebellious peasants, Anabaptists - and also the Jews. In these rantings he expresses himself with such coarseness, vehemence and sheer hatred that these writings became an embarrassment to later generations of Lutherans. Martin Luther was no "Renaissance man".

The Lutherans didn't have specifically anti-Jewish doctrine. From a political point of view the most significant of Luther's teachings was his insistence that Christians must obey "the powers that be".

This was exploited by absolute rulers. Lutheranism lacked the individualism characteristic of many other Protestant denominations.

Answer: False

As far as attitudes can be reconstructed, Jews inside and outside Germany saw the country as civilized and relatively tolerant - and as safer than France and many other European countries. Especially since about 1990 the German Jews have sometimes been harshly criticized for being "too German" and for being unaware that they were sitting on a time-bomb.

It is easy to forget that antisemitism was widespread in much of Europe and in America at the time. With the benefit of hindsight one can claim that some warning signs were overlooked.

However, the notion that the German Jews were living in some kind of collective cloud-cuckoo-land is a classic example of blaming the victims.

Answer: All of these

The view of the Jews as subversives predated the revolutions of 1917-18. Previously, they were identified mainly with liberalism. In Germany, the perception of the Jews as Communists was strongest in Bavaria, where some of the leaders of the Munich Soviet were indeed of Jewish origin.

In much of Europe fear of Bolshevism played a significant role in the rise of Fascism. Some Russian emigrés took the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and similar conspiracy theories at face value.

Answer: True

From the point of view of the Nazis it was a failure and was not repeated in this form. It has even been described as a fiasco. Even the "Kristallnacht" ("Night of Broken Glass") in November 1938, which took place after the population of Germany had been subjected to five years of intense antisemitic propaganda, was greeted with mixed reactions in Germany.

Answer: Vienna

When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, in some parts of Vienna the local population forced Jews to sweep the streets with tooth-brushes while onlookers jeered gleefully. Hitler himself was greeted in Linz and Vienna with delirious applause that made even the Nuremberg rallies look a shade tame.

Answer: All of these

Moreover, since the early 1960s nearly all historians of the Nazi period and Holocaust specialists have rejected this notion. It also fails to explain why so many Germans found Nazi antisemitism relatively easy to confront and reject after 1945. It is important to avoid constructing "German antisemitism" as something with a life of its own. One should always be wary of monocausal ("single-cause") explanations of complex phenomena - also of explanations that operate, even implicitly, with the notion that a nation is pathological.