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The Learned and the Popular Discourse of Anti-Semitism in the Catholic Milieu of the Kaiserreich

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Helmut Walser Smith
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Extract

Historians of the Second German Kaiserreich have increasingly identified the Catholic milieu as a tightly woven subculture easily as dense and symbolically rich as the social-democratic milieu. But while we have detailed and excellent studies on the alternative culture of the workers, we still know comparatively less about the Catholic milieu: its literature, its patterns of reading and ideological dissemination, its complex world of popular beliefs, attitudes, and symbols.

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Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 315 - 328
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1994

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References

1. With the possible exception of Blessing, Werner K., Staat und Kirche in der Gessellschaft (Göttingen, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, there is, for example, no book on the Catholic milieu to complement Lidtke, Vernon, The Alternative Culture. Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany (New York, 1985).Google Scholar For provocative suggestions in this direction, see Anderson, Margaret Lavinia, “Piety and Politics: Recent work on German Catholicims,” Journal of Modern History 63, no. 4 (12 1991): 681–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Of the newer studies of Catholic anti-Semitism in imperial Germany, the most important are Blackbourn, David, “Catholics, the Centre Party and Anti-Semitism,” in idem, Populists and Patricians. Essays in Modern German History (London, 1987), 168–87Google Scholar, who strongly emphasizes the social origins of Catholic backwardnes often to the detriment of popular religion; and Blaschke, Olaf, “Wider die ‘Herrschaft des modern-jüdischen Geistes’: Der Katholizismus zwischen traditionellem Antijudaismus und modernem Antisemitismus,” in Loth, Wilfried, Deutscher Katholizismus im Umbruch zur Modern (Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, 1991), 236–63Google Scholar, who offers a functional interpretion: anti-Semitism as antimodernism. Of the older studies, Tal, Uriel, Christians and Jews in Germany. Religion, Politics and Ideology in the Second Reich, 1870–1914 trans. Jacobs, Noah from the 1969 Hebrew edition (Ithaca, 1975), esp. 85–96, remains the most insightful.Google Scholar see also Lill, Rudolf, “Die deutschen Katholiken und die Juden in der Zeit von 1850 bis zur Machtübernahme Hitlers,” in Kirche und Synagogue. Handbuch Zur Geschichte von Christen und Juden, vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1970). 370–420;Google ScholarHeinen, Ernst, “Antisemitische Strömungen im politchen Katholizismus während des Kulturkampfes,” in Geschichte in der Gegenwart. Festschrift für Kurt Kluxen, ed. Heinen, Ernst and Schoeps, Hans Julius (Paderborn, 1972), 249–99;Google Scholar and Greive, Hermann, Theologie und Ideologie. Katholizismus und Judentum in Deutschland und Österreich 1918–1935, (Heidelberg, 1969), esp. 9–31.Google Scholar Finally, there is a consderable amount of material in Lehr, Stefan, Antisemitismus—religiöse Motive im sozialen Vourteil (Munich, 1974)Google Scholar, but it is not presented in a differentiated analysis.

3. From a vast and expanding field, the best recent introductions are Berding, Helmut, Moderner Antisemitismus in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main, 1988);Google ScholarVolkov, Schulamit, Jüdisches Leben und Antisemitismus im 19. u. 20. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1990);Google Scholar and Rürup, Reinhard, Emanzipation und Antisemitismus. Studien zur “Judenfrage” der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, 2nd ed. (Göttingen, 1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. For essays emphasizing the social aspect of Catholic anti-Semitism, see especially Blackbourn, “Catholics, the Centre Party and Anti-Semitism”; and Blaschke, “Wider die ‘Herrschaft des modern-jüdischen Geistes.’”

5. For a succinct definition, see Fredrickson, George M., White Supremacy. A Comparative Study in American and South African History (New york, 1981), xii.Google Scholar

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7. See, for example, the otherwise detailed and excellent acount of Lill, “Die deutschen Katholiken und die Juden,” 393: “Racial anti-Semitism was decisively rejected by all the responsible representatives (berufenen Sprechern) of German Catholicim.” For the balance of racial to other kinds of prejudice in the columns of three Catholic newspapers (Germania, Kölnische Volkszeitung, Augsburger Postzeitung) and one Catholic journal (the Historisch-politische Blätter), see Haase, Amine, Katholische Presse und Judenfrage. Inhaltsanalyse katholischer Periodika am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts (Pullach, 1975), 125–26.Google Scholar

8. Der Mauscheljude (von enem, deutschen Advokaten), 2nd. ed. (Paderborn, 1879), 5–6.Google Scholar

9. On anti-Semitism among Austrian Catholics, see most recently Pauley, Bruce, From Prejudice to Persecution. A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (Chapel Hill, 1992), 38–44.Google Scholar For (Vienna, 1972). For telling statistical evidence suggesting that at least in the twenties anti-Semitism was much more important to the Austrian than to the German. Catholic milieu, see Hannot, Walter, Die Judenfrage in der katholischen Tagespresse Deutschlands und Österreichs 1923–1933 (Mainz, 1990).Google Scholar

10. Deckert, Joesph, Kan ein Katholik Antisemit sein? (Dresden, 1983), 88 n.Google Scholar

11. ibid.

12. Rebbert, Joesph, Blick in's Talmudische Judenthum. Nach den Forschungen von Dr.Konrad Martin, Bischof von Paderborn, dem christlichen Volke enthüllt (Paderborn, 1876). 20.Google Scholar

13. Albrecht, Dieter, ed., Die Protokolle der Landtagsfraktion der bayerischen Zentrumspartei 1893–1914, vol. 2 (Munich, 1989), 105.Google Scholar

14. Rost, Hans, Gedanken und Wahrheiten zur Judenfrage. Eine soziale und politische Studie (Trier, 1907), 80.Google Scholar

15. See Staatslexikon der Görres Gesellschaft, 3rd. ed. (Frieburg, 1. Br., 1909), 1470.Google Scholar

16. Döllinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz, Heidenthum und Judenthum. Vorhalle zur Geschichte des Christenthums (Regensburg, 1857), 859.Google Scholar

17. Jörg, Edmund, “Zeitläufe. Die jüngsten Juden-Affairen und der christliche Staat,” Historisch-Politische Blätter 19(1847): 443.Google Scholar The authorial attributions to articles in the Historich-Politische Blätter are derived from the key to anonymously published articles in Albrecht, Dieter and Weber, Bernhard, Die Mitarbeiter der Historisch-Politischen Blätter für das Katholische Deutschland (Mainz, 1990).Google Scholar

18. Geertz, Clifford, “After the Revolution: the Fate of Nationalism in the New States,” in idem, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1972), esp. 240–42.Google Scholar

19. Smith, Helmut Walser, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870–1914 (Princeton, N. J., 1995), especially chapter 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Stolz, Alban, Kleinigkeiten, gesammelt vom Anfang bis 1872 in: Gesammelte Werke 2nd ed. vol. 8 (Freiburg i. Br., 1872), 291.Google Scholar For more detail on Stolz, see Smith, Helmut Walser, “Alltag und politischer Antisemitismus in Baden, 1890–1900,” Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 141(1993): 301–2.Google Scholar

21. Der Ipf, 19 August 1898.

22. Indeed, among the penny pamphleteers and hack editorialists of the Catholic subculture, only Hans Rost began to argue in this way. In a pamphlet entitled Gedanken und Wahrheiten zur Judenfrage, he put forth the view that “today all cultural peoples strive to keep the blood of their race pure… and that modern national consciousness finds its apex in racial conciouness.” Rost, Hans, Gedanken und Wahrheiten zur Judenfrage. Eine soziale und politische Studie (Trier, 1907), 79.Google Scholar He also argued (p. 66) that “Christianity and Judaism are in the same measure opposites as are Germandom and Judaism. ”Rost was a harbinger of ominous developments in the future; but for the Wilhelmian present, he was utterly atypical—at least for the Catholic milieu.

23. Germania, 26 August 1875.

24. Rohling, August, Der Talmudjude (Münster, 1871).Google Scholar Rohling borrowed quite closely from Eisenmenger. Hellwing, Der konfessionelle Antisemitismus, 118–34, juxtaposes passages from both books. Eisenmenger was protestant, not Catholic. I make the argument concerning relatively distinct Protestant and Catholic milieus for the period of the Kaiserreich and would not generalize it without important qualifications.

25. Langmuir, Gavin I., Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (Berkeley, 1990), 334.Google Scholar

26. On the discourse of ritual murder in Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see the fascinating work by Hsia, R. Po-Chia, The Myth of Ritual Murder. Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany (New Haven and London, 1988).Google Scholar

27. On Kopp's opposition, see Lill, “Die deutschen Katholiken und die Juden,” 378–79. Frank, Friedrich, Der Ritualmord vor den Gerichtshöfen der Wahrheit und der Gerechtigkeit, 2nd ed. (Regensburg, 1901).Google Scholar

28. Philipp, Franz-Heinrich, “Protestantismus nach 1848,” in Kirche und Synagoge, 312–15.Google Scholar

29. Jörg, Edmund. ”Zeitläufe. Die Bedeutung des Processes von Tisza-Eszlar,” Historisch-politische Blätter 92(1883): 376.Google Scholar

30. ibid.

31. For an important exception, see the Kölnische Volkszeitung, 10 February 1897. Cited in Pulzer, Peter, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass, 1988), 157.Google Scholar

32. See Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus (Hereafter MVZADA), 3 October 1900 ”Pressprozess gegen die Germania wegen Artikel über den Konitzer Mord.”

33. Cited in Blaschke, “Wider die ‘Herrschaft des modern-jüdischen Geistes,’” 243.

34. Janssen, Johannes, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelaters, vol. 1, (Freiburg i. Br., 1892). 412–22.Google Scholar For the sixteenth century, see Janssen, , Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, vol. 8 (Freiburg i. Br., 1894), 24–47.Google Scholar

35. ibid., vol. 1, 417, n. 1.

36. Schwab, Hermann, Jewish Rural Communities in Germany (London, 1956), 39.Google Scholar

37. Cited by Rohrbacher, Stefan in his excellent article, “Volksfrömmigkeit und Judenfeindschaft. Zur Vorgeschichte des politischen Antisemitismus im Katholischen Rheinland” Annalen des Historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein 192/193 (1990): 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. Meyer, Elard Hugo, Badisches Volksleben im 19. Jahrhundret (Strasbourg, 1900), 206.Google Scholar In the local dialect, the ditty runs as follows: “Mir hohnt der Jud am Sääli (Seil)/Am Sääli hommern (haben wir ihn) gewiss./Mir lont'n nimma laufa./ Biss d'Fasnat umma ist.”

39. See Blaschke, “Wider die ‘Herrschaft des modern-jüdischen Geistes,’” 245.

40. Cited in MVZADA, 17 April 1901.

41. see MVZADA, 17 April 1901 and MVZADA, 28 August 1897. There, in addition, two cases in Catholic towns in Germany before 1891: one in the village of Enniger, near Ahlen in Westphalia in 1873, the other in Skurz in West prussia in 1884. The original source of the First case is the anti-Semitic newspaper Das volk (13 March, 1892) making it difficult to confirm Wheater “the public condemnation was strong enough to drive away all the Jewish families except for one.” see strack, Hermann, Das Blut im Glauben und Aberglauben der Menschheit, 8th ed. (Leipzig, 1911), 150–51.Google Scholar The second case, In which the local Catholic butcher accused the local Jewish butcher of ritual murder, may have been a cover-up. From published sources, it is difficult to discern whether the local Catholic community belived him. See Frank, Der Ritualmord, 252–54.

42. MVZADA, 1 August 1900.

43. ibid. On rumors of ritual murder and the anti-Semitic sentiment that they fanned, see Rohrbacher, “Volksfrömmigkeit und Judenfeindschaft,” 139–44.

44. MVZADA, 1 August 1900. Case Number 107, Langendorf, Ober-Schlesien, April 1898.

45. For more detail, and for further references, see Rohrbacher, “Volksfrömmigkeit und Judenfeindschaft,” 139–42.

46. See ibid. See also Frank, Der Ritualmord, 258–59.

47. Rohrbacher, ”Volksfrömmigkeit und Judenfeindschaft,” 139–41.

48. Hellwig, Albert, Ritualmord und Blutaberglaube (Minden, 1914), 25.Google Scholar See also, Ritualmord, Frank, 298–99.Google Scholar

49. Rohrbacher, “Volsfrömmigkeit und Judenfeindschaft,” 141–42.

50. See, for example, Blaschke, “Wider die ‘Herrschaft des modern-jüdischen Geistes,” 247. Although Blaschke has undertaken the most thorough study of anti-Semitism in the print culture of the Catholic pious to date, his funtionalist conclusions that anti-Semitism both shored up “institutionalized fundamentalism” and served to integrate Catholic into the empire strike me as contradictory. Against the thesis that anti-Semitism served to integrate diverse Catholic positions in the twenties, see Hannot, Die Judenfrage in der Katholischen Tagespresse, 282.

51. Die Judenfrage im preussischen Abgeordneten Hause. Wörtlicher Abdruck der stenographischen Berichte vom 20. und 22. November 1880, (Breslau, 1880), 66.Google Scholar

52. PLB Nachlass Ernst Lieber, L60. Ernst Liber to August Rohling, 11 March 95.

53. See, for example, MVZADA, 23 October 1892 on the exchange between the Kölnische Volkszeitung and Der Rheinische Bauer.

54. Frank, Friedrich, Die Kirche und Kirche und die Juden (Regensburg, 1893).Google Scholar

55. Die Protokolle der Landtagsfraktion der bayerischen Zentrumspartei, vol. 2, 105.Google Scholar

56. Beyschlag, Willibald, Deutsch-Evangelische Blätter (1892): 430.Google Scholar