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This article examines Theodor Fritsch (1852-1933), a leading figure among the radical antisemites in Germany during the 1880s, who promulgated a "scientific" and "racial" form of antisemitism radically different from traditional Christian Jew-hatred. From 1907 until his death, Fritsch edited the Handbook of the Jewish Question (Handbuch der Judenfrage), which was published by his publishing house Hammer-Verlag in 49 editions until 1944. The Handbook was a compendium of extremist antisemitic reflections on topics such as the Bible and the Talmud, the Jewish roots ofChristianity with particular emphasis on the toxic Jewish influence on the Catholic Church, and the relationship between Judaism and Freemasonry. At the time, sundry financial crises from the Berlin stock exchange collapse in 1873 to the Great Depression were blamed on Jewish manipulation. Germany's defeat in the First World War and the subsequent peace agreements were seen as the result ofa Franco-Jewish conspiracy. Germany is presented as the sole stronghold against a world Jewish conspiracy, thereby combining radical antisemitism with a virulent nationalism, which for all its threadbare scholarship and muddled thinking, was to provide the foundations of National Socialist "Racial Studies" (Rassenkunde).
This article examines Theodor Fritsch (1852-1933), a leading figure among the radical antisemites in Germany during the 1880s, who promulgated a "scientific" and "racial" form of antisemitism radically different from traditional Christian Jew-hatred. From 1907 until his death, Fritsch edited the Handbook of the Jewish Question (Handbuch der Judenfrage), which was published by his publishing house Hammer-Verlag in 49 editions until 1944. The Handbook was a compendium of extremist antisemitic reflections on topics such as the Bible and the Talmud, the Jewish roots ofChristianity with particular emphasis on the toxic Jewish influence on the Catholic Church, and the relationship between Judaism and Freemasonry. At the time, sundry financial crises from the Berlin stock exchange collapse in 1873 to the Great Depression were blamed on Jewish manipulation. Germany's defeat in the First World War and the subsequent peace agreements were seen as the result ofa Franco-Jewish conspiracy. Germany is presented as the sole stronghold against a world Jewish conspiracy, thereby combining radical antisemitism with a virulent nationalism, which for all its threadbare scholarship and muddled thinking, was to provide the foundations of National Socialist "Racial Studies" (Rassenkunde).
Introduction
In 1935, a group of Berlin Zehlendorf's most distinguished residents, among them Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg, and Gertrud Scholtz-Klink assembled in what is now the Lindenthaler Allee to witness the unveiling of a statue dedicated to the memory of the antisemitic mastermind Theodor Fritsch. Leni Riefensthal and Ernst Udet were also present when the local mayor Walter Helfenstein pulled the cord to reveal a statue by Arthur Wellmann, a local sculptor of modest talent, in the form of a naked muscle-bound Germanic youth wielding a huge hammer. A repulsive amalgam of the reptilian and the feline cowered at his feet. In Germany's first public monument to antisemitism, Siegfried is shown slaughtering the Jewish Fafner. In 1943, this horrific statue was melted down to make weapons. Two years later the Theodor-Fritsch-Allee resumed its former name.1
Emil Theodor Fritsche was born on his father's farm in Wiedemar, Saxony, in 1852, the sixth of seven children, four of whom died in childhood. He trained as a mechanical engineer and die caster, first in nearby Delitzsch and gained a diploma in the Royal Technical Institute in Berlin Charlottenburg in 1875.2 In 1879 he formed his own engineering company, which included printing presses and a publishing house. In 1898, he formed the Royal Saxon Middle Class Association (Mittelstandsvereinigung des Königreichs Sachsen), which furthered the interests of artisans and small businesses. The following year, he founded the German Millers' Alliance (Deutscher Müllerbund), a splinter group of the German Milling Association (Verein Deutscher Mühlenindustrieller). He was the editor of the Alliance's journal The German Miller (Der Deutsche Müller), and at some point he changed his name to Fritsch.3
In these early years, Fritsch was greatly impressed by Bruno Wilhelmy's experiment in communal living and vegetarianism in the Eden Colony (Eden Gemeinnützige Obstbau-Siedlung), founded in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, in 1893. This rejection of city life was also reflected in his first major publication of 1896, The Town of the Future (Die Stadt der Zukunft), which was a precursor to Ebenezer Howard's Garden City Movement, whose Tomorrow: A Peaceful Oath to Real Reform was published two years later.4
From the outset, Fritsch had been deeply involved in the antisemitic movement. This comes as no great surprise as the artisans and small businessmen whose interests he championed in these difficult economic times, after the Berlin stock exchange collapse of 1873 and the onset of a lengthy depression, found it easy to blame their misfortune on the Jews.5 Similarly, the Eden experiment soon became infected with a virulent anti-modernism, ultra-nationalism, and antisemitism. It was Wilhelm Marr, whom we have to thank for the concept of "antisemitism," who opened Fritsch's eyes to the need "to set the racial struggle on fire."6 He immediately offered to assist Marr in organizing the Antisemites League (Antisemitenliga) in 1879, which was designed to act as "a beacon for the racial struggle."7 Henceforth, his aim was to win broad popular support for his radical form of antisemitism. To this end, he published a series of pamphlets and in September 1882 he took part in the First International Anti-Jewish Congress in Dresden, which was attended by such prominent Jew-baiters as Adolf Stoecker, Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg, Ernst Schmeitzner, Hans von Bülow and Ernst Henrici. This, as Jacob Katz reminds us, was the moment when antisemitic ideas "entered the phase of active realisation."8
In 1885, Fritsch published the journal Antisemitic Mail (Antisemitische Correspondenz) in an attempt to reach common ground for diverse antisemitic groups. In 1890, he tried his hand at practical politics, and with Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg he formed the German Social Antisemitic Party (Deutschsoziale Antisemitische Partei). The same year, Liebermann von Sonnenberg was elected to the Reichstag, and in the 1893 elections the party succeeded in electing 16 members. It allied with the 11 deputies from the German Reform Party (Deutsche Reformpartei) to form a parliamentary faction. In the following year, the two parties united in the German Social Reform Party (Deutschsoziale Reformpartei), but were so riven with rancorous debate, personal rivalries, and unseemly scandals that Fritsch came to the sorry conclusion that it was virtually impossible to form a united front of antisemites and that the Reichstag was not a suitable forum for them. He gave the editorship of Antisemitic Mail to Liebermann von Sonnenberg in 1894, who made it into the official organ of the party.
Countless groups and sub-groups of antisemites found it impossible to find common ground. Stoecker was court preacher to Kaiser Wilhelm I, a Lutheran theologian and social reformer. Conservatives viewed him with mistrust, while many fervent antisemites felt that he was blind to the toxic Jewish foundations of Christianity. Liebermann von Sonnenberg was a staunch reactionary, who soon broke with his associate Otto Böckel, who was also a radical reformer. Henrici was a rowdy agitator from the Left. His Soziale Reichspartei was anti-conservative, anti-capitalist, antiliberal, and given to mob violence. Schmeitzner is best remembered as Nietzsche's publisher, but whose firm also produced the works of a number of prominent antisemites, much to the philosopher's disgust. Hans von Bülow seems to have lost interest in the cause and concentrated on his career as a conductor and virtuoso pianist.9
Whereas Stoecker, the leading figure in pre-war political antisemitism, stressed the irreconcilable differences between Christians and Jews, Fritsch insisted that the fundamental issue was the racial war between Germans and Jews.10 To this end, he published a Catechism for Antisemites (Antisemiten-Catechismus) in 1887, with Hermann Beyer's publishing house. The book was updated and re-issued 26 times. Paul de Lagarde's disciple Friedrich Lange, who combined antisemitism, romantic nationalism, antiCatholicism, anti-socialism, colonialism, and "Aryan" racism in a heady mixture that he labelled "national socialism," enthusiastically supported Fritsch's views. He demanded that to ensure a "purely Germanic race" (reines Deutschthum) every German should produce a family tree (Ahnentafel) to prove that there was no trace of "non-Aryan blood" in one's ancestry. It was a standard that would eventually prevail with unbelievably horrific effects. In 1894, Fritsch joined Lange's German Union (Deutschbund), an organization that called for radical eugenics to render Germany racially pure by the eradication of its "inferior elements." The Union was to amalgamate with the Nazi Party in 1930.11
Many antisemites were reluctant to attack the Old Testament on the grounds that many Christians were mindful of the biblical foundations of their faith, and would find this highly offensive. Fritsch had no such compunctions. He unleashed a series of broadsides against the Bible and the Talmud and was one of the first to make the preposterous suggestion that Jesus was of Aryan descent.12
In 1902, Fritsch founded the publishing house HammerVerlag in Leipzig and it was soon churning out antisemitic propaganda on an industrial scale. It published such classics of the genre as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and all four volumes of Henry Ford's The International Jew, along with articles from The Dearborn Independent. Fritsch concentrated on denouncing what he was pleased to call the "Jewification" (Verjudung) of Christianity, the baneful influence of the aristocracy, the landowners, the press, the judiciary, and assorted professions. Fritsch's extremist views led to several confrontations with the law and earned him a series of fines and prison sentences, which in turn served to further radicalize him. The Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (CV) launched three major lawsuits against his books My Case Against Yahweh and The False God, resulting in two jail sentences for blasphemy, insulting a religious organization, and causing a public disturbance.13
Handbook of the jewishquestion
In 1907, the 26th edition of Fritsch's Catechism for Antisemites was renamed the Handbook of the Jewish Question (Handbuch der Judenfrage) which went through 49 editions until 1944 and became a best-selling standard work on "Racial Studies" (Rassenkunde). There were numerous contributors, who wrote on various topics such as the Bible and the Talmud, music and literature, and the "fundamentally Jewish" Catholic Church. Statistics on the number of Jews in certain professions and social groups were provided. Extracts from the writings of prominent antisemites were lavishly quoted along with the demands of various antisemitic groups. Earlier editions listed Jewish businesses that should be avoided, while recommending certain newspapers and journals for their informed views on the "Jewish Question." Fritsch, who acted as editor of the Handbook, was in no sense an original thinker, but he produced a devil's brew extracted from the fulminations of Ernst Moritz Arndt, Eugen Dühring, and Paul de Lagarde that characterized Jews as "proliferative vermin," "trichinae," and "bacteria" that needed to be destroyed so that the Germanic race could be rendered healthy and strong. Fritsch found enthusiastic support for his intemperate views from Ernst Haeckel's assistant, the "racial hygienist" Willibald Hentschel, whose magnum opus Varuna was published by Fritsch's publishing house in 1901.14 The book called for the "purification" (Veredelung) of Germany by means of "racial breeding" and "racial hygiene." The two men joined together to form yet another antisemitic splinter group, the "German Renewal Association" (Deutsche Erneuerungs-Gemeinde). Hentschel, who died in 1947 at the age of 89, made frequent contributions to the Handbook and published a number of antisemitic tracts with Fritsch's Hammer-Verlag.
Theodor Fritsch died in September 1933. His son, also named Theodor, took over the Hammer-Verlag and played a leading role in Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda. Ludwig Gengler, a fanatic so obsequious than even Goebbels described him as "slimy brownnose," took over editorship of the Handbook. He made sure that it was purged of views that contradicted National Socialist ideology, but this was often a challenging task. Since there was never a rigid National Socialist orthodoxy there was plenty of room to manoeuvre.15
The Handbook begins with the bold assertion that the Jewish people are not a religious community but an economic and political association. Quotations from Luther, Fichte, Wagner, Johann Andreas Eisenmenger, H. Naudh (Johannes Nordmann), and Wilhelm Marr are used to support this claim.16 In a remarkable aside, Charles Maurras takes Hitler to task for being more anti-Bolshevik than antisemitic. But at least, thanks to his friend Dietrich Eckart's influence, he had seen the importance of rescuing workers from the "Jewish Communist Party."17 Praise is unreservedly heaped upon Edouard Drumont, Henry Ford, and Henry Hamilton Beamish. Then comes the astonishing revelation that the Ku Klux Klan was a Jewish organization designed to cause general disruption.18
The blanket assumption of the Handbook that the Jews formed a race was not quite so straightforward on second thought, in part because the word "race" is so hard to define. Usage of the term race is varied: "the human race," "the white race," "the race of Englishmen," and "the island race," or individuals as in "the last of his race." What then is the distinction between a race, a nation, and a tribe? For most racial antisemites the Jews were a race-whatever that meant-but with an admixture of other races, such as found in the Ashkenazim and Sephardim, plus those of "host countries." Some vague references to Mendel's peas do not help to clarify the situation, and the contention that Jews are bound together by cultural similarity does nothing to strengthen the claim that there is such a thing as a Jewish race.19 With a feeling of regret, the authors admit that much of the popular prejudice against Jews has no basis in fact. Although, it is widely believed that Jews are particularly skilled in financial matters: we are told that in this respect it takes seven Jews to match a Greek and seven Greeks to match an Armenian. Generalizations about physical characteristics are also open to question: not all Jews are fat, or have flat feet and thick lips. Not all Jewish women are broad in the beam and even the characteristic Jewish nose is not as common as most imagine. To top it all, 25 percent of Jews in Galicia are blonde.20 An analysis of other physical characteristics comes to similarly disturbing conclusions. The Jew as portrayed in Julius Streicher's Der Stürmer was thus admittedly nothing but a crude caricature. Perhaps the answer is that the Jews form a "psychological race," but that is somehow not very convincing.21 Almost shamefacedly the author has to admit the importance of religion. Assimilated German Jewry would disappear were it not regularly replenished by observant Jews from the East.22 The case for "scientific racism" is thus far from compelling, so the remaining 534 pages of the Handbook rest on singularly feeble foundations.23
The section on the Bible and Jewish history is the work of Heinrich Wolf, whose antisemitic tracts were widely used for instructional purposes in German schools during the Third Reich. It is little more than a compilation of profanity, unfounded assertions, and biblical misquotations, such that it is impossible to tell whether they result from deliberate misinformation or sheer ignorance.24
Judaism, we are told, is not a religion but a business contract, which by skillful bookkeeping and cunning calculation, provides mutual benefits. Its true nature is concealed behind a mechanical religion with a mummified priesthood, whose absurd beliefs prop up a fraudulent theocracy. Whereas the Germanic race is one of farmers and settlers, Orientals are nomadic and parasitic usurers. The notion of "Ex oriente lux" is pure rubbish.25 This fraudulent eastern religion and its offshoots brought with it imperialism, mammonism, and rationalism, along with the destruction of marriage and the family. It was directly responsible for the downfall of Greece and Rome, thereby from the outset undermining the basis of European civilization. 26
After such a bewildering introduction, the fact that Wolf's reading of the bible is somewhat distorted comes as no surprise. What, we are asked, can we make of a religion whose founder offers up his wife on two occasions in order to save his own skin? First Abraham palmed off Sarah as his sister and offered her to Pharaoh as a concubine, then he did it a second time to Sarah giving her to Abimelech, the King of Gerar.27 Other leading biblical figures are similarly dismissed: Jacob was a typical con-artist, Joseph brought his entire parasitic family to Egypt, and Moses stole everything in sight before fleeing the country. Saul died, not because he was unfaithful to the Lord and for seeking the counsel of the Witch of Endor, but fell in battle with the Philistines, thereby giving David the opportunity to seize the throne. We are told that although David murdered Uriah, having seduced his wife, God ordered him to build the temple. No mention is made of Nathan's condemnation of the King's misdeeds and his prophecy that one of his sons would build the temple. Solomon is simply remembered as a sexual reprobate, despot, sadist, and founder of Freemasonry.28
The prophets Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah are awarded good marks for standing up to the priests, who were merely heathen worshippers of Baal. But they are also condemned for laying down the elaborate set of rules and regulations laid out in Deuteronomy. They were not interested in cultivating the spiritual life, but simply in enforcing the law. The Jews were never able to do things on their own and had to instead exploit the help of others. Cyrus allowed them to return home, Darius helped them build the temple, and Artaxerxes completed the work of establishing the high priestly caste and banning mixed marriages.29
Such were the foundations of "a universal priestly state that aspires to world domination."30 Ferocious rules were enforced against foreigners and non-believers, even to the point of genocide in the case of the Moabites.31 Contrary to the biblical account, the Jews are said to have prospered during the Babylonian Captivity. Wolf had something of a soft spot for the Maccabees, thanks to their robust nationalism, but he regretted their religious fanaticism.32 The last remnants of moderate Judaism disappeared after the Kitos War and the Bar Kokhba Revolt. All that was left was "rabbinical stubbornness" and a literal interpretation of the law. The result was a parasitic people that had a sense of national identity but no state of their own. In Theodor Mommsen's words they followed the winners "like the miasma on a quagmire."33 As a result the Roman Empire fell prey to an "Asiatic theodicy" resulting in a bastardized "Roman-Jewish mixed culture."34
Contrary to other passages in the Handbook, Jesus is praised for his valiant stand against the Pharisees and their literal interpretation of the law, rationalism, mammonism, and-this comes as something of a surprise-their Jewish concept of the Messiah. Since his kingdom is not of this world, he is our staunchest ally against a Judaism that seeks world domination and the enslavement of the Gentiles. Equally surprising is the assertion that there is a symbiotic relationship between Christianity-at least in Wolf's heterodox apocryphal version-and the Germanic world. This was a view that was hotly contested by hard-line antisemites. Strong objection was raised against the Catholic Church on the grounds that "the throne of Moses came to Rome as Peter's throne." The Codex Juris Canonici is the equivalent of the Mosaic Law, and Jews and Catholics rival one another in the struggle for world domination.35 "Puritans," which here seems to mean Calvinists, are also condemned for their distinctly Jewish show of outward piety and their covetousness.36 In order to remove all remaining traces of Judaism from the Evangelical Church an Institute for the Study (and Exclusion) of Jewish Influence from German Church Life (Institut zur Erforschung [und Beseitigung] des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben) was founded in Jena in 1939.37
Whereas Theodor Fritsch felt that Christianity in all its forms was irredeemably infused with Jewish ideas, and was thus to be condemned out of hand, Heinrich Wolf argued that once purged of its "Jewish-materialistic spirit" there was something left of value, which Alfred Rosenberg called "positive Christianity." For practical political reasons the National Socialists abjured Fritsch's militant denunciation of Christianity. The party's 25-point programme of 1920 called for religious freedom and in Hitler's speech on January 31, 1933, he announced that "our entire moral code is based on Christianity." The whole notion of "positive Christianity" could never be clearly defined and remained conveniently vague. Since National Socialism and Christianity, in whatever form, were irreconcilable the attempt to find some common ground was bound to fail.38
Catholic antipathy to Freemasonry, formalized by their excommunication by Pope Clement XII in 1738, ran parallel to the church's hostility toward Jews. Gougenot des Mousseaux expanded on the fact that a number of Masonic Lodges, particularly in France, opened their doors to Jews to argue that Freemasons were infused with a Jewish spirit.39 The Handbook did not see fit to mention any of the earlier exponents of this contention, but boldly claimed that Solomon was the first Grand Master thereby, by some inscrutable and unspecified means, making Freemasons "artificial Jews." By an equally arcane metamorphosis, the Anglo-Saxons are closely allied to Jews through Freemasonry. The Handbook reminds us that Werner Sombart stated that "in all its parts America is a Jewish continent" and that "Americanism is distilled Jewish spirit."40 Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn's belief that Jews and non-Jews could live peacefully together is dismissed as an idle fantasy. The emancipation of the Jews in Germany did not result in the Jews becoming Germans, but in the Germans becoming infected with Jewishness. Conservatives made the cardinal mistake of accepting converted Jews as Christians and agreeing to an alliance with Rome. Liberals, by accepting the principals of democracy, surrendered to Jewry.41
Unable to find any factual basis for such assertions, the Handbook's authors resorted to the wildest conspiracy theories. The fact that there were a few Jews among the leadership of the Young Turks, for example, is taken as proof that the movement was a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. The same sinister forces were behind the revolutions in Russia in 1905 and 1917. The Prussian spirit of Bismarck's Reich, regardless of the Kulturkampf, was demoralized by an alliance between Jews and Catholics. The same sinister combination of theocratic Catholic and capitalist democratic Jewish ideologies led to Germany's defeat in 1918.42
After these intemperate outbursts our attention is brought back to the bible and the depiction of God. It is confidently averred that the Jewish God was humanized. He is moody, capable of error, vengeful, dishonest, and brutal. As the private God of the Jews he is a materialistic liar, a cheat and a thief. He condones promiscuity, he is sly, anti-social, and cruel.43 After pages of such blasphemous invective, we are treated to an equally grotesque and offensive treatment of the Talmud. This vast body of Jewish argumentation is reduced to nothing but a concentrated attack on Jesus and on all Gentiles, that is full of gross obscenities and reduces non-Jews to animals.44 The familiar claim that Jacob ben Asher's Choshen Mishpat provides ample evidence for a world Jewish conspiracy is once again trotted out. Similarly, Joseph ben Ephraim Karo's Shulchan Aruch is charged with calling for strict apartheid between Jew and Gentile.45 Was this not something that was devoutly propounded throughout the Handbook?
The erroneous view that the renunciation of vows in the Kol Nidre applies to all forms of vows, oaths, and pledges is unashamedly affirmed. Although murder is forbidden in the commandments, and in spite of biblical injunctions against the consumption of blood, the charge that ritual murders were regularly performed is once again leveled against Jews. The orientalist Erich Bischoff's claim to have found proof of this in the Thikunne Zohar is gleefully presented along with a claim that reference to ritual murder was expunged from the Babylonian Talmud because it had become an embarrassment.46
The practice of misquoting from an impressive pile of Jewish law, homiletics, Biblical, Talmudic and Mishnaic regulations, philosophy, and polemics was first systematized in the more than 2,000 pages of Johann Andreas Eisenmenger's Judaism Unmasked (Entdecktes Judenthum), published in 1700.47 He was the first to produce a mound of spurious Talmudic and Rabbinical literature in support of the startling claim that many a child had been slaughtered in order to meet ritual exigencies. For Eisenmenger biblical injunctions against the Amalekites and the seven nations of Canaan now applied to Christians and ultimately to all non-Jews.48 Supported by an overload of quotations taken out context, this provided rich humus out of which many toxic offshoots could flourish.
It is hardly surprising that at this point we are presented with that magnum opus of antisemitism-The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Although The Protocols are given praise, more emphasis is placed on Jakob Brafman's two volume Book of Qahal, published in Saint Petersburg in 1869.49 It was based on a study of the minutes of the Jewish self-governing community (Qahal) in Minsk between 1794 and 1833. The work is peppered with tendentious annotations, mistranslations, and deliberate errors, in an effort to prove the existence of a world Jewish conspiracy. The Jewish community in Minsk is presented as just one link in a worldwide network whose headquarters were the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris. In this fantasy world, Jewry and France were combined in an effort to dominate the world, thereby completing Napoleon's work when he convened the Grand Sanhedrin in 1806.50
The Alliance Israélite Universelle was formed in Paris in 1860 as a response to the ritual murder charges in the Damascus Affair of 1840 and the kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara in 1858.51 Its motto "All Jews bear responsibility for one another" was taken by conspiracy theorists as clear indication of its sinister intent.52 We are spared an analysis of how other Jewish defence organizations such as B'nai B'rith or the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith fit into this ominous network.53
The Handbook pays little attention to French antisemitism. Édouard Drumont is praised en passant., but his La France Juive: Essai d'histoire contemporaine, published in 1886, is largely ignored. Just like the Handbook, it is a compendium of Christian, liberal, and socialist forms of antisemitism, spiced with Wilhelm Marr's obsession with the "Jewish conquest" of native civilization and Ernest Renan's denunciation of the morally irredeemable and culturally inferior Jewish race. Contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, Drumont insisted that Jews who converted remained Jews. By means of all manner of spurious arguments and with sublime disregard for the truth, he skilfully attributed all the problems in contemporary society to noxious Jewish influence. A solution to the "Jewish Problem" would thus provide a panacea to all of society's ills. Drumont's influence reached its apogee during the Dreyfus Affair, but for all the success of his writings the net effect of his work was minimal.54
The Handbook concentrated on German affairs and never thought in terms of forming an antisemitic international along the lines of their socialist rivals. Internationalism was after all a Jewish aberration, and the French could hardly be taken seriously. Proust's Swann was a member of the Jockey Club and Drumont and his confederates were happy to grant Jews the satisfaction of fighting duels. By the same token, Drumont's successors, Charles Maurras and Léon Daudet, were ignored. Prominent antisemites like Karl Lueger in Vienna and Gyözö Istoczy in Budapest were discounted. In part this was due to Fritsch's belief that for the moment little could be done to counter Jewish influence. With vast amounts of capital at their disposal, and their control of much of the press, Jews were virtually unassailable.55
Early editions of the Handbook held a positive view of Zionism as a convenient way of ridding Europe of its Jewish population. However, by 1933 it claimed that there was no future for the Jews in Palestine and all that zionism had achieved was to earn the undying hatred of Arabs. Far richer pickings were to be found at home. Jews had full control over the vodka monopoly in Russia.56 Jews are charged with making hay during the Berlin stock exchange crash in 1873 and the Portuguese bankruptcy of 1892. The widely held belief that the Bolshevik Revolution was financed by Jacob Schiff and Kuhn, Loeb & Co. is presented as gospel truth. The Weimar Republic was dismissed as a "Jewish grifters' republic" in which slippery swindlers such as Iwan Baruch Kutisker, the Barmat brothers, and the Sklarek clan had a field day.57
This approach continues in a brief survey of German history beginning with the undermining of Moroccan policy by the Alliance Israelite Universelle.58 Alfred Hermann Fried, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1911, is held responsible for undermining Germany's will to fight with his pacifism, his enthusiasm for Esperanto, and his Freemasonry.59 High praise is heaped on Wilhelm Meister (Paul Bang) for his Judas' Register of Debt (Judas Schuldbuch. Eine deutsche Abrechnung) for pointing out that the "Jewish election" of 1912 resulted in the defeat of the antisemitic splinter groups. The Social Democrats (SPD) became the largest party in the Reichstag, resulting in a "Jewish war," a "Jewish victory," a "Jewish revolution," and "Jewish domination."60 The League of Nations was of course a Jewish construct based on Isaiah's ludicrous prophecy that swords would be turned into ploughshares.
The German Peace Society (Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft) is condemned as a treacherous Jewish organization for revealing Germany's secret rearmament programme in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles and for propagating the "war guilt lie." The Society was closely associated with another Jewish organisation-the Social Democratic paramilitary organisation Schwarz-Rot-Gold.61
At this point the Masons appear once again on centre stage as the right hand of world Jewry, and the astonishing claim that the word "lodge" comes from the Hebrew is used to clinch the argument. Ludendorff is applauded for exposing an ominous Judeo-Masonic-Jesuit conspiracy, while Léon de Poncins, although regrettably a staunch Catholic, is given high praise for warning of the Jewish-Masonic menace. Alfred Rosenberg's associate Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch, a man who suffered from chronic paranoid delusions, made his contribution by writing about a Judeo-MasonicBolshevik conspiracy with links to Rudolf Steiner and the anthroposophists.62 Jews were not content with controlling the German press and therefore politics, subjecting the country to "interest slavery," and manipulating the legal system. They also combined with the Freemasons to form the League of Nations and supported Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi's Pan-European movement, which would have resulted in a Europe dominated by "Judeo-Masonic France." In the distant future, Pan-Europe would be populated by an "Eurasian-Negroid race, probably similar to that of ancient Egypt" with the Jews, as a "new aristocratic race thanks to their intellect," acting as the "leading nation."63
Successive editions of the Handbook are increasingly hostile towards Christianity. Catholics were always beyond the pale, but Protestants are all too often pictured as dangerously close to Judaism. Protestants might have slightly more licence than their Catholic counterparts, but they remain uncomfortably close to the "Jewish bible." They should take Treitschke's warning seriously and distance themselves from the "archetypically prurient Jewish dotard Abraham" and the "trickster Jacob."64 Both the Catholic and Protestant churches had become systematically undermined by Jews who had converted to Christianity. There are already 500 Jewish ministers among German Protestants, one of whom seduced a 17-year old girl in Gross Karzenburg in 1928.65
Alfred Miller-Alfred Rosenberg's expert on Christianity and the author of the relevant section in the Handbook-insisted that the greatest threat came from the Catholic Church. Totally ignoring the lamentable history of the Catholic Church's attitude toward the Jews and throwing logic to the wind, he argued that although both strive for world domination, both "Pharisaic sects" are in a symbiotic relationship.66 This can clearly be seen by the fact that the Code of Canon Law of 1917 removed all restrictions on dealings with Jews.67 In fact, no significant change was made in the Catholic Church's attitude to Jews until the charge of deicide was dropped in 1965 with the publication of Paul VI's Nostra Aetate.
Although the Catholic Church is severely reprimanded for not being sufficiently antisemitic, high praise is heaped upon the Jesuit bi-monthly magazine La Civilta Cattolica for a three-part article in 1890 on "The Jewish Problem in Europe."68 These articles, which are still regarded as benchmark texts in antisemitic circles, speak of the "Jewish invasion" and "Jewish arrogance." The battle against the Jews is said to be the "legitimate defence of Christian people against a foreign nation," because they are "the sworn enemy of [Christian] well-being." Jews should be "rendered harmless" by seizing their property and expulsion. Jews are described as a "depraved race" and the "enemy of mankind" who should be denied all civil rights. The "Judaic religion is profoundly corrupted" and seeks "world domination." Miller suggested that La Civilta Cattolica's was a lone voice, warning of the deadly danger posed by world Jewry. In fact, the journal was always very close to the teachings and directives of the Holy See.69
The Handbook was oblivious to the fact that there was a powerful group of Jesuits in Rome who were unreservedly antisemitic and pro-fascist. Included among them was the Jesuit Superior-General Włodzimierz Ledóchowski, Mussolini's enthusiastic supporter and architect of the Lateran Treaty. Pietro Tacchi Venturi and the Gregorian University theologian Gustav Gundlach railed against "assimilated Jews in international plutocracy and Bolshevism." They set out to frustrate Pius XI's intent to issue an encyclical denouncing racism. Their attempt failed and Pius XI's encyclical Mit brennender Sorge was read from all German Catholic pulpits on Palm Sunday 1937. The letter attacked racism and defended baptized Jews, but retained the charge of deicide.70 La Civilta Cattolica's editor Father Enrico Rosa, S. J., gave a favourable review to this edition of the Handbook, but felt that Nazi measures against the Jews, however justified, were too harsh.71
The mysterious death of the immensely wealthy financier and industrialist Alfred Loewenstein in 1928 was followed by the collapse of his highly leveraged empire. He was a devout Catholic who was eulogized by the Church, but for antisemites like Alfred Miller this was yet another example of the connivance between the Catholic Church and corrupt Jewish embezzlers, stock exchange confidence swindlers, and shady financial moguls.72
German Jews who converted to Catholicism found their political home in the Centre Party (Zentrumspartei ). In 1928, Chancellor Wirth let the cat out of the bag when he announced that Germany needed the Jews because of their international connections and their devotion to the cause of peace. This was precisely what the antisemites thought was wrong with them.73
Charles Taze Russell and the Jehovah's Witnesses are anathematized for announcing in 1879 that God's favour had been restored to the Jews. His favour had been transferred from Jacob to Jesus, but was returned to Jacob in 1878 in what Russell called "Christian Zionism." Jews should no longer be permitted to convert to Christianity, because God had called upon them to return to Palestine, which was their exclusive territory and would become God's kingdom on earth. The year 1914 marked the end of the earthly authority of the Gentile nations. The Jehovah's Witnesses described the Catholic Church as the "great whore" and the "mother of all whores" opposed to this mission, which Miller claimed was financed by "Judeo-Masonic" groups.74 Similar treatment is meted out to the Salvation Army, which was also an underhanded part of a seditious Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. William Booth, with "his head like Aaron, his nose like Elijah," was contrary to all evidence, a fabulously rich Jewish Mason. The fanciful claim is made that John Wilkes Booth was his brother and the murder of Lincoln was thus also part of a Jewish-Masonic plot.75
The German press was firmly under Jewish control, which was proof that they were intent on dominating the entire country. The national liberal press such as the Frankfurter Zeitung, the Berliner Tageblatt and the Vossische Zeitung were all under the aegis of ominous Jewish financial interests. Ullstein, Germany's foremost publishing house was Jewish. So was its closest rival Mosse. The Social Democratic and Communist presses were also firmly under Jewish control.76 The Catholic press spread a toxic "Roman-Jewish" ideology and even accepted advertisements from Jewish firms. The Press agency Wolffs Telegraphisches Büro (WTB) was totally Jewish, while Hugenberg's Telegraphen-Union (TU) was "indifferent towards the Jewish question." The one notable exception to this lamentable state of affairs was an obscure journal Heimdall that described itself as "a magazine for Germanic purity and Pan-Germanism." Things at last began to change in 1933 with the dismissal of Jews from the Hugenberg press and the UFA film studios.77 In order to show that Jews controlled the press throughout the world, Northcliffe and Beaverbrook are made into honorary Jews. The Corriere della Sera was "particularly friendly towards Jews" and the Soviet press was firmly under Jewish control.78
The section on Jews and finance begins with Deuteronomy 15:6, "If Yahweh your God blesses you as he has promised, you will be creditors to many nations but debtors to none: you will rule over many nations, and be ruled by none." Although the bible gives us ample examples to the contrary, we are assured that Jews were never farmers or manual workers but from the outset a parasitic race that even managed to exploit their Egyptian and Babylonian captors. The entire capitalist system is merely "Mosesism in practice." Jews realized from the outset that real money is made in banking and the stock exchange not in industry, which is anyway controlled by Jewish banks. The false statement that the Berlin stock exchange is closed for the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur is ample proof that it is wholly in Jewish hands.79
Overlooking the uncomfortable fact that neither Printemps nor Karstadt were Jewish, it is asserted that department stores were a Jewish monopoly.80 This claim was made to add extra weight to the Nazi Party's programme that called for the "immediate conversion of the big department stores to public ownership and letting them at low rents to small businessmen." In 1933, there were a series of attacks on department stores, regardless of whether or not they were Jewish-owned. Oscar and Leonard Tietz's department store chain was "Aryanized" in 1933 at bargain basement prices, enabling major German banks to make windfall profits and businessmen like Georg Karg and Josef Neckermann to reap spectacular benefits. The result was the formation of the Kaufhof and the Hertie chains. The Wertheim stores were "Aryanized" in 1937, the Schocken chain in the following year, and their names were changed to AWAG and Merkur. How exactly these differed fundamentally from their "Jewish" antecedents remains a mystery. The Handbook informs us that department stores forced suppliers to lower their prices and cut their employees' wages in order to meet the horrendous costs of elaborate buildings, decorations, and lighting. Furthermore, they exploit women by inducing "department store hypnosis." No claim is made that "Aryanization" did anything to change this unfortunate state of affairs.
The nefarious machinations of Jewish department stores were apparently a modern form of the countless Jewish robber bands that roamed throughout Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries. They specialized in robbing churches and used part of the swag to decorate Torah scrolls. The fact that there is precious little supporting evidence for this contention is attributed to the deliberate destruction of almost all books on the subject.81 Excluded from the guilds, denied residence permits, and subject to limitless restrictions, hordes of Jewish beggars (Betteljuden) joined the swarms of other vagrants common at that time. By contrast, the stereotypical Jewish crooks (Schacherjuden) were dishonest moneylenders and merchants.82 The claim made here that German criminal slang derived exclusively from Yiddish is equally false.83 One of the wildest assertions in this unpardonable book is that the depression-era Chicago gangsters were a bunch of Jews. Alas, even Hymie Weiss was a Catholic, who was never seen without a rosary and a bible.84 Elsewhere it is claimed that Jews are far too cowardly to indulge in violent crime. Fearing bodily harm they specialize in unlawful financial dealings. The wild claim that both Jews and Blacks have an exceptional proclivity for criminal activity is taken as ample proof of the similarity between the two.85
Richard Wagner is predictably presented as the key witness for the evil influence of Jews on music, but we are given little indication of his convoluted musings on the subject. Mendelssohn is given credit for reviving Bach, but admonished for causing the "Jewification" of music academies and musical journals.86 Meyerbeer was merely a second-rate copycat. Mahler had a certain talent, but his work is tainted by his habit of sneaking Hassidic melodies into compositions.87 Hindemith and even Stravinsky, in spite of his antisemitism, were influenced by Jews. Operetta is an inferior Jewish art form. It was not difficult for Dr. Erich H. Müller to produce pages of distinguished Jewish musicians and composers, but he hardly needed to include Arthur Sullivan and Erik Satie among them. Nor was he able to show how they differed from their non-Jewish colleagues.
Max Reinhardt and his fellow Jews dominated the theatre in Germany, where they produced degenerate, perverse, unhealthy, and disgusting works. Noses are held at the mention of Arthur Schnitzler, Georg Kaiser, Ernst Toller, Carl Zuckmayer, and Franz Werfel. Frank Wedekind is included as a titular Jew.88 The movie industry is also exclusively Jewish: Hollywood is owned by Jews; Eisenstein is made out to have controlled Sowkino and Amkino; and cinema chains and distribution companies are Jewish-owned. To top it all off, the "Jewish-Masonic B'nai B'rith" managed to censor Cecil B. DeMille's "King of Kings."89 Jews also have excessive influence over radio in Germany.
The Handbook is particularly troubled by the increasing ence of in the world of sport. "Turnvater" Jahn, the founder of "German gymnastics" had insisted that the race should remain pure and that Jews should be excluded from sports, along with Poles, Frenchmen, priests, and aristocrats.90 The rot set in when Jews were admitted to the German Gymnastic Association (Turnverein) in 1848. The presence of Jews in sporting clubs rendered them colorless and un-German. It also seriously weakened the antisemitic cause. Austrians are praised for taking more rigorous measures to exclude Jews from various sports, such as skiing and mountaineering. Social Democratic sporting clubs were a particular problem in Germany, in that they were packed with Jews. High hopes were raised by the appointment of Hans von Tschammer und Osten as a sporting tsar in 1933, who immediately set about excluding Jews from sporting clubs and associations.
After this brief excursion into the world of sport the Handbook returns to literature. The systematic undermining of German literature by Jews apparently began with Lessing's friend Moses Mendelssohn. Lessing was an inferior writer and his creation Nathan was no wiser than Mendelssohn.91 Heine is dismissed as a minor writer who was in the pay of France. There follows a long list of minor Jewish writers until we get to Arthur Schnitzler, who at least tackled the "Jewish Question" but "lacked the courage to tell the truth."92 Heinrich and Thomas Mann are disqualified for having married Jews and whose Brazilian mother was written off as a "creole."93 Neither Jakob Wassermann nor Franz Werfel had anything to do "with our concept of art." Hugo von Hofmannsthal was "not without German blood," but merely embroidered the works of others. Stefan Zweig, Alfred Döblin, Walter Hasenclever, and Kurt Tucholsky are simply mentioned in passing. The literary historian Adolf Bartels' remark that "a Jew cannot be a German writer" is given enthusiastic endorsement. Jews, after all, are not interested in the truth; they simply set out to undermine the morals and culture of their host countries.94
In a desperate attempt to prove the lamentable influence of Jews on literature, it is claimed that Mark Twain was "obviously Jewish" as was Émile Zola. George Sand was "not without Jewish blood." The same was true of Gabriele D'Annuncio, Alexander Herzen, and Tolstoy. Alexander Dumas the younger was Black, George Eliot was married to a Jew, and George Bernard Shaw "has not yet been proven Jewish," but it is implied that he would soon be added to the list.95
The medical profession had become simply a business operation thanks to the pervasive influence of Jewish doctors. They pass their patients on to Jewish specialists so that it is impossible to escape from their clutches. Admittedly, Jews have made certain contributions to medical science, but no significant harm would be done were they to be excluded from the profession.96 Jewish influence is particularly noxious in the field of sex therapy, because Jews have a different attitude toward the topic than do Germans. Freud, for example, reduces human beings to their sexual organs. Jewish sex therapy aims to undermine German civilization, because Germans form the last remaining obstacle to Jewish world domination. Thus, Magnus Hirschfeld finds scientific excuses for homosexuality, and Max Marcuse preaches against monogamous marriage and sings the praises of free love. Jewish physicians are abortionists and encourage contraception.97
Some 50 pages are then devoted to listing prominent figures who made antisemitic statements: Seneca, Tacitus, Mohammed, Erasmus, Luther (a rich source), Giordano Bruno, Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa, Voltaire, Kant, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Napoleon, Fichte, Helmuth von Moltke, Ludwig Feuerbach, Bismarck, Gibbon, Schopenhauer, Wagner, Treitschke, Theodor Mommsen, Eugen Dühring, and Paul de Lagarde.98
The final section of the Handbook is devoted to the history of modern antisemitism, which was a response to the gradual emancipation of the Jews in the course of the 19th century, culminating in the law on religious freedom in the North German Confederation in 1869 and included in the German Constitution of 1871. Earlier forms of antisemitism are discounted because they were based on religious differences, not on "scientific" and "racial" grounds. There is some argument here as to who founded modern antisemitism.99 Was it perhaps the journalist and travel writer Johannes Nordmann in a book written in 1861?100 Or was Theodor Fritsch correct in claiming that the book was written by Bismarck's close associate Lothar Bucher, in conjunction with the conservative journalist Hermann Wagener?101 There are no such questions as to the authorship of Eugen Dühring's The Jewish Question of 1881, which soon gained canonical status among antisemites.102
The journalist Otto Glagau, who lost his shirt in the stock exchange crash of 1873, which he attributed to Jewish speculators leading him to adopt a radical antisemitic outlook, was far more influential than the stodgily academic Dühring, Paul de Lagarde, or Wilhelm Marr. He was a fiery publicist and practical organizer who coordinated the Second International Anti-Jewish Congress in Chemnitz in 18 8 3.103 In 1879, he coined the powerful slogan: "The social question is simply the Jewish question." Finding a solution to the "Jewish Problem" would solve all social problems, especially the challenge posed by Social Democracy. For Glagau, the "Jewish Problem" was not confined to their nefarious manipulation of the economic system, but also to their systematic undermining of autochthonous German culture.104 The works of his contemporaries, the philosopher Eduard de Hartmann and the orientalist Adolf Wahrmund were highly regarded by some, but remained obscure.105
Far more influential than any of these was Julius Langbehn's Rembrandt as Educator published in 1890, which soon became a runaway best-seller.106 Cultural pessimism reaches its nadir in this mind-numbingly confused rehashing of Nietzsche's early writings. Langbehn contrasts all that is wrong with the modern world- rationalism, science, materialism, liberalism, urbanization, and cosmopolitanism-with the mythical figure of Rembrandt, as symbolic of northern German racial purity. Theodor Fritsch was enormously impressed by the book and corresponded garrulously with the author. As a result, subsequent editions emphasized its antisemitic aspects. By contrast, Houston Stewart Chamberlain's dolefully influential The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, published in 1899, is only mentioned in passing, even though Fritsch was in regular contact with the sage of Bayreuth. The reason for this is probably because there were fundamental differences between them. Whereas Fritsch, and most other antisemites before him, made a clear distinction between the coarse and contemptible Jews and the noble and talented Aryans, Chamberlain was a trifle more ingenious. He asserted that each and every race had its virtues and its vices-everything depended on the racial mixture. The superiority of the Germanic peoples was due to a felicitous admixture. By contrast, the Jews were a bastardized people, the embodiment of the worst aspects of its component parts.107 Maybe Fritsch was jealous of the phenomenal success of this pile of specious pseudo-scholarship, the high praise offered to it by Kaiser Wilhelm II and the fact that Hitler and Goebbels paid homage to the great man shortly before he died.
The most effective antisemite in Germany in the 1890s was Adolf Stoecker, but his long-term influence was minimal.108 The Handbook awards him the accolade "Father of German Antisemitism," but at the same time states that he was not an antisemite "in the conventional meaning of the term." Stoecker was a Protestant minister and arch-conservative, whose ideal was a Christian state, hierarchically ordered according to the estates. This was something that had no appeal to populist antisemites. Stoecker's view that the Jews should simply be knocked down a peg or two did not go nearly far enough for them. Finally, his outspoken criticism of Bismarck was widely considered to be unacceptable.109 Otto Boeckel, the "Farmer King of Hesse" waged a campaign against "Junkers and Jews" who rendered small farmers prey to big landowners, "Jewish usurers," and "Jewish cattle markets," but his success was only local. He soon came unstuck because of various scandals involving an illegitimate child and the misappropriation of funds.110
Stoecker's antipathy toward Jews was grounded in the Christian tradition that saw Judaism at "its most internal core an atrophied form of religion, a lower grade of revelation, an outlived spirit still to be revered but annulled by Christ and for the present no longer truth."111 The modern form of antisemitism was styled as a defence against the material, spiritual, and political menace of an alien and inscrutable race. Eugen Dühring, although still influenced by traditional Christian antipathy toward Jews, by emphasizing "race, morals and culture," was the major proponent of this view.112 He and his supporters demanded the revocation of Jewish emancipation and the introduction of draconic anti-Jewish measures. Dühring, the self-styled socialist, was the living embodiment of the claim, often attributed to August Bebel, that antisemitism was the "socialism of fools."113
In the Handbook's view, the principal weakness of the antisemitic movement in the pre-war period was that it concentrated on speeches and propaganda, thereby overlooking the importance of organization and the "scientific basis of antisemitism."114 It was here that Theodor Fritsch played a critical role. He announced that "mankind's mission is to trample upon the Jews," who formed a "foreign race" bent on world domination. A new era began in 1907 with the first edition of the Handbuch der Judenfrage.
The First World War was a disappointing time for antisemites and it was left to a few small groups to carry the torch.115 No mention is made of the "Jewish Census" of October 1916 in which the war minister, in response to widespread rumours and the antisemitism of the officer corps, ordered a counting of the number of Jews serving on the frontline. In spite of a considerable amount of fudged evidence, the result showed that the numbers were proportionally equal to non-Jews; but this evidence of Jewish patriotism was kept secret until after the war, so that rumours of Jews avoiding their duty to Kaiser and fatherland were widely believed.116
The section in the Handbook dealing with the Weimar Republic acknowledges Dietrich Eckart, Gottfried Feder, and Anton Drexler as pioneers who paved the way for Adolf Hitler, who in turn was ably assisted by Alfred Rosenberg, Hermann Esser, Julius Streicher, and Captain Göring. Gregor Strasser and Captain Röhm, both of whom were murdered in 1934, are also mentioned as staunch allies. Figures like Himmler and Goebbels were yet to win their spurs in the struggle against world Jewry.117
Since "scientific antisemitism" was an amalgam of harebrained notions, prejudice, and conspiracy theories, it proved totally inadequate as a litmus test to assess the relative merits of various antisemitic groups. There was no question that the German Aristocrats' Association (Deutsche Adelsgesellschaft), the veterans' association Stahlhelm, the paramilitary Wehrwolf, the Young German Order (Jungdeutscher Orden), and most youth groups such as the Wandervogel, were absolutely correct in excluding Jews from their ranks; but, it was a different matter when judging sundry extremist groups on the wilder shores of antisemitism.118 Some prominent antisemites, such as Bruno Bauer and Heinrich Class, are not even mentioned.
Theodor Fritsch, who was much smitten by Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels' "Ariosophy," which sought a religion appropriate for the Aryan race, had no quarrel with the various little groups such as Mathilde Ludendorff's German Association for Divine Knowledge (Bund für Deutsche Gotterkenntnis), Norbert Seibertz and Wilhelm Kusserow's Nordic Religious Working Group (Nordisch-Religiöse Arbeitsgemeinschaft), or Artur Dinter's Spiritual Christian Religious Association (Geistchristliche Religionsgemeinschaft), the latter calling for the "de-Jewing" of religion and the representation of Jesus as a "heroic Aryan."119 Two Jews, Otto Weininger and Arthur Trebitsch, were welcomed among the antisemites' ranks. Weininger's heterodox antisemitism and gynophobia may have impressed Ludwig Wittgenstein, but his definition of Jewishness as a state of mind instead of a racial or religious category did not appeal to the "scientific antisemites." Hitler was impressed by Trebitsch, but he did not heed his warning that Robert Ley, Hans Frank, Otto Strasser, Rosenberg, and Streicher were "smart-alecky Zionist snakes."120 But as the NSDAP grew to become a powerful political movement there was no place for such outlandishly bizarre notions and they were soon swept aside.121
Conclusion
Kurt Tucholsky's review of the vicious antisemite Adolf Bartels' two-volume History of German Literature applies equally to the Handbook. It is the work of a "Jew-sniffer," a Germanic caricature and a "Swastika-Pulcinella," who delights in showing his "lack of education, sloppiness and superficiality that is actually very un-German."122 Theodor Fritsch made the mistake of sending a copy of his Anti-Semitic Correspondence to Nietzsche. His masterly reply could also be used to describe the Handbook. He railed against "this nauseating craving of tiresomely boring dilettantes to join in the discussion of the value of human beings and races; this prostration in front of 'authorities' who are disdainfully rejected by anyone of a sound mind (i.e. Dühring, R. Wagner, Ebrad, Wahrmund, P. de Lagarde-who among them is the least qualified and the most biased in questions of morals and history?), these consistently absurd forgeries and primping of vague concepts such as 'Germanic,' 'Semitic,' 'Aryan,' 'Christian,' 'German,' etc.."123
"Scientific antisemitism," based on racial rather than religious grounds, as adumbrated in the Handbook confronted the intractable problem of defining a Jewish race. It had to admit that this was impossible and the assertion that Jews were a mixed race held together by a sense of cultural similarity and a "parasitical instinct" did not sound very convincing. As a result the Handbook's authors had to take recourse to familiar conspiracy theories that had no basis in reality. In Nazi Germany, institutions were founded to invent conspiracies ex nihilo. This included Rosenberg's Institute for Research into the Jewish Question (Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage) in Frankfurt; The Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question (Institut zum Studium der Judenfrage) under Eberhard Taubert, who was affectionately known as "Dr. Anti;" and, Section II/112 of the Security Service Main Office (SD-Hauptamt) under Reinhard Heydrich. The fact that this ill-defined menace was so hard to pin down made it all the more sinister and threatening. Jews were seen as a negative stereotype, representative of an unfocused feeling of disgruntlement and disquiet.124 Antisemitism became an essential component of anti-modernism, with Jews seen as the motive force behind capitalism, cosmopolitanism, socialism, and communism. Liberalism and democracy as offshoots of the French Revolution presented a bit of a problem. Not even the wildest conspiracy theorist attributed this to a Jewish plot. It was thus classified as an uprising of the racially inferior. The Handbook provides a foretaste of the antisemitism that would become part of the common sense of Hitler's Germany. It clothed antisemitism with a threadbare mantle of scholarship, and provided simple explanations for Germany's present woes, particularly the "stab in the back" that brought the country to its knees in 1918, and for the subsequent economic crises. It may not have made many converts, but it strengthened the convictions of those who had already seen the light. Although it offered no clear prescription for the future, it provided ample fuel for the murderous evil that was to come.
In his masterly reflection on the Spanish Civil War, Joan Sales writes: "Our great-grandsons will laugh when they discover how we did the same as proletarians against bourgeois or Aryans against Semites: yet Stalin's and Hitler's concentration camps were created in the name of these empty derisory words . . . Point the hatred of the multitudes towards the villain and they will follow; what does it matter that villain is but a word? Aristocrat, bourgeois, priest, Semite, fascist, red, no matter! As he is the villain, he is to blame. To blame for what? For everything!"125 The mythical Jew of the Handbook is a paranoid chimeric construct, a code word that unlocks the secret sources of the ills that beset the modern world.126 Redemption can only come through its extirpation.127 We are confronted here with a book "about the insurmountable and sickening lie in which an entire people has become enveloped and which no analysis, no sacrifice, no amount of tenderness, no evidence can undo."128
Notes
1. See Thomas Irmer, "Das 'erste antisemitische Denkmal Deutschlands'-zur Errichtung eines Denkmals für Theodor Fritsch im kommunalen öffentlichen Raum in Berlin 1935-1943," in Gideon Botsch, Christoph Kopke, Lars Rensmann, Julius H. Schoeps, eds., Politik des Hasses. Antisemitismus und radikale Rechte in Europa (New York: Olms, 2010), 153-170; and, Peter Fasel, "Ein Vordenker der Judenhasser", Die Zeit (November 7, 2013).
2. The Königliches Technisches Institut was the forerunner of the present Technical University Berlin. A school-leaving certificate (Abitur) was required for admission.
3. He also wrote under a number of other pseudonyms such as the Nordic "Fritz Thor" or the upper-class "Ferdinand Roderich-Stoltheim."
4. In 1902, the second edition of Howard's book was entitled Garden Cities of Tomorrow.
5. Hans Rosenberg, Große Depression und Bismarckzeit. Wirtschaftsablauf, Gesellschaft und Politik in Mitteleuropa (Berlin, 1967); and, Shulamit Volkov, The Rise of Popular Anti-Modernism in Germany. The Urban Master Artisans, 1873-1896. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).
6. Wilhelm Marr, Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum (Bern, 1879).
7. "den Rassenkampf befeuern."
8. Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 17001933 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 242. For an excellent overview of antisemitism in Germany, the Handbook's main focus, see Shulamit Volkov, Die Juden in Deutschland 1780-1918 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994).
9. Richard S. Levy, The Downfall of the Antisemitic Parties in Imperial Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975); and, Günter Brunstädt, Adolf Stoecker als Antisemit, Part I and II (Walltrop: Spenner, 2004). For Schmeitzner's antisemitism and his relationship to Nietzsche, see Thomas Mittmann, Vom "Günstling" zum "Urfeind" der Juden-die antisemitische Nietzsche-Rezeption in Deutschland bis zum Ende des Nationalsozialismus (Würzburg, 2006).
10. For a balanced account of the fundamental differences between Judaism and Christianity, see Jacob Neusner, A Rabbi Talks With Jesus (New York, 1993).
11. Lange's views are summarized in his collection of essays Reines Deutschthum. Grundzüge einer nationalen Weltanschauung (Berlin, 1893). See Stefan Breuer, Die Völkischen in Deutschland. Kaiserreich und Weimarer Republik (Darmstadt, 2008); and, Dieter Fricke, "Der Deutschlandbund" in Uwe Puschner, ed., Handbuch der völkischen Bewegung 1871-1918 (Munich, 1999).
12. Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction, 306
13. Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens. Fritsch's books are Mein Beweis Gegen Jahwe (1911) and Der Falsche Gott (1916).
14. Hentschel had made a fortune manufacturing indigo, but lost it all in the First World War. He founded a rural community near Cuxhaven and the youth movement "Artamanen" to which Himmler and Walther Darré belonged. He was much admired by Ludendorff and Hitler (even though he resigned from the NSDAP in 1931.) See Uwe Puschner, "Hentschel, Willibald," in Wolfgang Benz, ed., Handbuch des Antisemitismus: Judenfeindschaft in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Vol. 2:1 (Berlin, 2009), 351-353.
15. Theodor Fritsch, junior, died in a Soviet internment camp on December 31, 1946. Gengler worked for the infamous Institut zum Studium der Judenfrage connected to the Ministry of Propaganda and also for the Security Service of the SS. He died on October 20, 1946, and was probably executed by the Soviets.
16. Handbuch der Judenfrage, 10. All quotes are from the 35 th edition of the Handbook published in 1933. The title and publication date of Eisenmenger's Judaism Unmasked (Entdecktes Judenthum) is quoted incorrectly.
17. Handbuch, 13. Dietrich Eckart, Der Bolschewismus von Moses bis Lenin. Zwiegespräch zwischen Adolf Hitler und mir (Munich, 1925). Hitler and Goebbels were to be faced with a dilemma on this issue. When "Karl Radek, etc." were placed on trial in Moscow they began to wonder whether Stalin was an antisemite. The Red Army was also strongly antisemitic. Goebbels, Tagebücher, 25 January 1937.
18. Handbuch, 14. The viciously antisemitic Klan is here spelled Cuclux-Clan.
19. Ibid., 22, 28.
20. Ibid., 26.
21. Ibid., 28.
22. Ibid., 30.
23. This section is based on Hans F. K. Günther, Rassenkunde des Jüdischen Volkes (Munich, 1930). From 1935 Günther ran the Institut für Völkerbiologie, ländliche Soziologie und Bauerntumsforschung at Berlin University. His views remained unchanged after the war, and he was a vigorous Holocaust denier.
24. Heinrich Wolf, Deutsche Geschichte. Eine Einführung in das Verständnis unserer vaterländischen Geschichte (Hannover, 1921) provides an excellent summary of his hair-raising ideas.
25. The extreme Right took up Theodor Körner's slogan "ex septentrione lux"-light comes from the north.
26. Handbuch, 42-45.
27. Ibid., 46. Based on Genesis 12 and 20.
28. Ibid., 46-50.
29. Ibid., 51.
30. The idea that the Jews sought world domination originates from Christian misreadings of Talmudic and medieval visions of the Messianic era. See Hanna Emmrich, Das Judentum bei Voltaire (Breslau, 1930), 144-146.
31. Handbuch, 54. The Moabites are one of the few peoples not destined for destruction in Deuteronomy 20:17.
32. Ibid., 59.
33. Ibid., 58.
34. Ibid., 63.
35. Ibid., 66.
36. Ibid., 80.
37. The words "and Removal" were struck out shortly after the foundation of the Institute for fear that tender souls might find it offensive.
38. Claus-Ekkehard Barsch, Die Politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus: die Religiösen Dimensionen der NS-Ideologie in den Schriften von Dietrich Eckart, Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg und AdolfHitler (Munich, 2002).
39. Jacob Katz, Jews and Freemasons in Europe, 1723-1939 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 18-19; 153-159; 219-220. This theme is also hammered home in Eduard Emil Eckert, Der Freimaurer Orden in seiner wahren Bedeutung (Dresden, 1852); and, Leo Meurin, La francmaçonnerie. Synagogue de Satan (Paris, 1893).
40. Handbuch, 82. See Werner Sombart, The Jews and Modern Capitalism (New York, 1913).
41. Ibid., 100. Even the liberal Theodor Fontane shared this concern about the noxious effects of Jewish emancipation. See Michael Fleischer, "Kommen Sie, Cohn." Fontane und die Judenfrage (Berlin: M. Fleisher, 1998).
42. Ibid., 100-108.
43. Ibid., 112-125.
44. Ibid., 129.
45. Ibid., 133.
46. Ibid., 141. Erich Bischoff, Rabbinische Fabeln über Talmud, Schulchan Aruch, Kol Nidre usw. Ein Gerichtsgutachten (Leipzig, 1922). The internet is cluttered with references to ritual murders, often referred to as JRMs. Human sacrifice is expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy 12:31 and 2 Kings 16:3 and in a number of other passages. The Torah forbids the consumption of blood in Leviticus 3:17 and 17:10, and in Deuteronomy 12:16.
47. Johann Andreas Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum oder Gründlicher und warhafftiger Bericht, welcher gestalt die versteckte Juden die hochheilige Drey-Einigkeit, Gott Vater, Sohn und Heil. Geist erschrecklicher Weise lästern und verunehren, die Heil. Mutter Christi verschmähen, das Neue Testament, die Evangelisten und Aposteln, die Christliche Religion spöttisch durchziehen, und die gantze Christenheit auff das äusserste verachten und verfluchen: dabei noch viel andere, bißhero unter den Christen entweder gar nicht oder nur zum Theil bekannt gewesene Dinge ...; alles aus ihren eigenen und zwar sehr vielen mit grosser Mühe und unverdrossenem Fleiß durchlesenen Büchern mit Ausziehung der hebräischen Worte und derer treuen Übersetzung in die Teutsche Sprach kräfftiglich erwiesen und in zweyen Theilen verfasset, deren jeder seine behörige, allemal von einer gewissen Materie außführlich handelnde Capitel enthält; allen Christen zur treuhertzigen Nachricht verfertiget und mit vollkommenen Registern versehen (Frankfurt, 1700).
48. Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction, 13-22.
49. Handbuch, 149. Das Buch vom Kahal was reprinted by Theodor Fritsch's Hammer Verlag with a new translation from the Russian by the Hamburg University "racial geographer," Dr. Siegfried Passarge. For a laudatory commentary, see Arno Franke, Staat im Staate: das Wesen des jüdischen Geheimbundes, auf Grund der Brafmannschen Kahal-Akten (Hammer Verlag, 1930).
50. For Branfman, see Wolfgang Benz, ed., Handbuch des Antisemitismus, vol. 2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009); and, Esther Webman ed., The Global Impact of the Protocols and the Elders of Zion: A Century-Old Myth (New York: Routledge, 2012). Branfman also appears as a character in Umberto Eco's The Prague Cemetery.
51. See Jonathan Frankel, The Damascus Affair: "Ritual Murder" Politics, and the Jews in 1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); and, David Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (New York: Random House, 1997).
52. Handbuch, 159.
53. B'nai B'rith was founded in the United States in 1843. The Zentralverein Deutscher Staatsbürger Jüdischen Glaubens was founded in 1893.
54. See Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction, 292-299; and Shmuel Almog, Nationalism and Antisemitism in Modern Europe, 1815-1945 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1990), 45-47.
55. Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction, 305.
56. Handbuch, 152.
57. Ibid., 170, 173, 180. Deuteronomy 6: 10-11 is quoted as a biblical sanction for such behaviour (152): "When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you-a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant-then when you eat and are satisfied." Stephan Malinowski, "Politische Skandale als Zerrspiegel der Demokratie. Die Fälle Barmat und Sklarek im Kalkül der Weimarer Rechten", Jahrbuch für Antisemitismus Forschung 5 (1996): 46-64.
58. Handbuch, 160.
59. Ibid., 198.
60. Ibid., 200. Wilhelm Meister (Paul Bang), Judas Schuldbuch. Eine Deutsche Abrechnung (Munich, 1919).
61. Ibid., 218.
62. Ibid., 220.
63. Ibid., 229-232. Coudenhove-Kalergi was doubly suspect because his mother was Japanese.
64. Ibid., 236.
65. Ibid., 239.
66. Ibid., 245.
67. Ibid., 249.
68. Ibid., 252. These articles are still widely reproduced by antisemitic groups.
69. For a detailed view, see David Kertzer, The Unholy War: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism (London: Macmillan, 2003).
70. The encyclical states that "Jesus received his human nature from a people who crucified him." Thus Jesus' Jewishness is affirmed, but the charge of deicide remained.
71. He describes the Jews as "relentless and irreconcilable enemies of Christ" Civilta Cattolica (November 3, 1935).
72. Handbuch, 256.
73. Ibid., 262.
74. Ibid., 267. The charge that the Jehovah's Witnesses were financed by Freemasons and Jews became the subject of a libel suit tried in St. Gallen (Switzerland) in 1924. Dr. Fehrmann, who had made these charges, was awarded 1,313.55 francs in damages. Manfred Gebhard, Geschichte der Zeugen Jehovas: mit Schwerpunkt der deutschen Geschichte (Berlin, 1999), 145.
75. Handbuch, 269.
76. Ibid., 276.
77. Ibid., 281.
78. Ibid., 286.
79. Ibid., 288. The fact that Jews were forbidden to own farms or work on the land by decree in September 1933 suggests evidence to the contrary.
80. Handbuch, 295. For a more nuanced view, see Heidrun Homburg, "Warenhausunternehmen und ihre Gründer in Frankreich und Deutschland oder: Eine diskrete Elite und mancherlei Mythen," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 1 (1992): 183-219.
81. Handbuch, 307. One surviving book on the topic is the highly suspect Specification deren im Lande hin und wider herum vagierenden erzdiebische Judenbande (Mannheim, 1736).
82. See Amos Elon, The Pity of it All: A History of Jews in Germany, 1743-1933 (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2002), 29-31; and, Peter Trawny, Heidegger und der Mythos der Jüdischen Weltverschwörung (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 2015), 35.
83. See Hartmut Friesen, Räuberbanden. Diebestouren, Gaunerzinken und Bockreiter (Duisburg, 1992); and, Udo Fleck, Diebe-Räuber-Mörder: Studie zur kollektiven Delinquenz rheinischer Räuberbanden an der Wende vom 18. zum 19. Jahrhundert (Thesis, Trier, 2003).
84. Handbuch, 323.
85. Ibid., 407. Walter Pötsch, Die Jüdische Rasse im Lichte der Straffälligkeit: Zuchtstätten der Rassenminderheit (Vienna, 1932) is quoted as a reliable source for these allegations.
86. Ibid., 324.
87. This probably refers to the klezmer theme in Symphony No. 1.
88. Handbuch, 335.
89. Ibid., 342.
90. Ibid., 354.
91. Ibid., 363.
92. Ibid., 374.
93. Ibid., 78.
94. Ibid., 389.
95. Ibid., 391.
96. Ibid., 395-399.
97. Ibid., 400.
98. Ibid., 418.
99. Ibid., 508.
100. H. Naudh (J ohannes N ordmann, née Rumpelmayer (1820-1887). Die Juden und der Deutsche Staat (1861).
101. Wagener was the author of Das Judenthum und der Staat. Eine historisch-politische Skizze zur Orientierung über die Judenfrage (Berlin, 1857). For further details on Wagener and Nordmann, see Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction, 211-214.
102. Eugen Dühring, Die Judenfrage als Racen-, Sitten- und Culturfrage mit einer weltgeschichtlichen Antwort (1881).
103. The first such Congress, with Adolf Stoecker in the chair, was held in Dresden in 1882. See Paul de Lagarde, Juden und Indogermanen (1887); and, Wilhelm Marr, Der Sieg des Judentums über das Germanentum (1879).
104. Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction, 261-263.
105. See Eduard von Hartmann, Das Judenthum in Gegenwart und Zukunft; and, Adolf Wahrmund, Das Gesetz des Nomadentums und die Heutige Judenherrschaft (1900).
106. See Julius Langbehn, Rembrandt als Erzieher (1890). For a classic study, see Fritz Stern, The Politics ofCultural Despair (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961).
107. Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction, 307.
108. Günter Brakelmann, AdolfStoecker als Antisemit, 2 vols. (Waltrop, 2004).
109. Handbuch, 512.
110. Ibid., 514.
111. Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction, 264.
112. Eugen Dühring, Die Judenfrage als Racen-, Sitten- und Culturfrage mit einer weltgeschichtlichen Antwort (1881).
113. "Der Antisemitismus ist der Sozialismus der dummen Kerle."
114. Handbuch, 519.
115. Ibid., 521.
116. Michael Berger, Eisenes Kreuz-Doppeladler-Davidstern. Juden in Deutschen und Österreich-Ungarischen Armeen (Berlin: Trafo Verlagsgruppe, 2010).
117. Handbuch, 523.
118. Ibid., 536.
119. To this end, the Institut zur Erforschung (und Beseitigung) des Jüdischen Einflusses auf das Deutsche Kirchliche leben was founded in Eisenach in 1934. Hitler firmly believed that Jesus was an Aryan. See Werner Jochmann and Heinrich Heim, eds., Monologe im Führer-Hauptquartier 1941-1944 (Munich: Orbis, 2000), 99, 412.
120. Brigitte Hamann, Hitler's Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man (London: Tauris Parke, 2010), 230-233.
121. Dinter, the author of the best-selling 1917 antisemitic novel Sin Against the Blood (Die Sünde wider das Blut: Ein Zeitroman), broke with Hitler in 1927-a fact that is overlooked in the Handbook.
122. Kurt Tucholsky, "Herr Adolf Bartels," Die Weltbühne 18:12 (1922), 291-294.
123. Letter to Fritsch (March 29, 1887). Nietzsche told a friend that he had given Fritsch "a few friendly kicks."
124. Gavin Langmuir, "Prolegomena to Any Present Analysis of Hostility Against the Jews," in Michael Marrus, ed., The Nazi Holocaust, vol. 2 (Boston: De Gruyter, 1989), 133-171.
125. Joan Sales, Uncertain Glory (London: Quercus, 2016), 385.
126. On antisemitism as a code, see Shulamit Volkov, "Anti-Semitism as a Cultural Code," Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 23 (1978), 25-46.
127. Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I. The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 (New York: Harper, 1997), 73-112.
128. Jakob Wassermann, Mein Weg als Deutscher und Jude (Munich: dtv Verlag, 1994), 65.
Copyright Indiana University Press Fall 2018