The Fatherland and the Jews

Alfred Wiener

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781783786220
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia judía

Two works examining antisemitism and the scapegoating of minorities by the founder of the world's oldest institution dedicated to studying the Holocaust.

The inaugural title in a collaboration between the Wiener Library and Granta Books.

These two pamphlets, "Prelude to Pogroms? Facts for the Thoughtful" and "German Judaism in Political, Economic and Cultural Terms" mark the first time that Alfred Wiener, the founder of the Wiener Holocaust Library, has been published in English. Together they offer a vital insight into the antisemitic onslaught Germany's Jews were subjected to as the Nazi Party rose to power, and introduce a sharp and sympathetic thinker and speaker to a contemporary audience. Tackling issues such as the planned rise of antisemitism and the scapegoating of minorities, these pamphlets speak as urgently to the contemporary moment as they provide a window on to the past.

Alfred Wiener

Prelude to Pogroms?

FACTS FOR THOUGHTFUL PEOPLE.

1919

Verlag ‘Gabriel Rießer’
Berlin SW 68 Lindenstr. 131

A MIGHTY ANTISEMITIC storm has broken over us, a storm that has not come about according to the laws of physics, but rather by means of unlimited funds in the hands of skilfully led organizations, which have stimulated and promoted it and are zealously seeking to further it. People are keen to spread the fairy tale of monstrous Jewish wealth. The money raised on the Jewish side of this debate, however, has never matched the sums the antisemites now spend on their dark machinations. Dark machinations! It may be that our ‘decent antisemites’ disdain to solve the Jewish problem with shotguns and cudgels, but what does that matter to the ‘men of action’ who state more or less openly in leaflets – and quite fearlessly at secret meetings – that they envy the Poles and Romanians their pogroms, and who work systematically to imitate them in our dear fatherland? This is why we should describe the antisemitic rabble-rousing of our day as agitation for pogroms.

I The Authors of the Agitation

The breeding ground of these poisonous leaflets is the Committee for Public Enlightenment [Ausschuss für Volksaufklärung] in Berlin W9, Köthener Straße 45, which was launched with the well-known red leaflet The End of Militarism – The Beginning of Jewish Rule. It has since produced more than twenty different leaflets and, in addition, has organized frequent meetings to which ‘Jews are not admitted’, at which it ‘enlightens’ its followers in the most vile tones. Its valiant helpers are the German-Völkisch2 League [Deutsch-völkische Bund] in Hamburg 6, the Community for German Renewal [Deutsche Erneuerungsgemeinde] in Leipzig, the Reich Hammer League [Reichshammerbund] in Hamburg 36 and – recently established and among the most active – the German Protection and Defiance League [Deutscher Schutz-und Trutzbund]. This is now also located in Hamburg, and its executive director, the former captain Alfred Roth, comes from the circle of Westphalian heavy industry.3 These associations, with a few others, have united to form a working group with Alfred Roth at its head. Together they are flooding Germany with leaflets, pamphlets, handbills and stickers. In addition, antisemitic leaflets of the most terrible character have been distributed by the ‘Director of Forestry’ Max Beyer, of Berlin Wilmersdorf, Günzelstraße 36; the businessman Fellechner, Berlin Wilmersdorf, Parezer Straße 10, the farmer Friedrich Sähring from Saugarten in the March of Brandenburg, and the commercial judge (not sitting) Robert Christ.

Apart from the leagues, a number of daily newspapers work diligently to see that the antisemitic seed is widely sown and nurtured. Anyone who follows these daily newspapers with a professional interest gains the strong impression that some central source has put out the word to agitate vigorously against the Jews. Taking the lead is the Deutsche Zeitung, which has always been on first-name terms with antisemitism – who doesn’t know Friedrich Lange? – and which now rails unscrupulously and obscenely against the Jews to stoke up pogroms.4 Close on its dubious heels is the Deutsche Tageszeitung, the worthy organ of the League of Farmers, whose editorial office has a close relationship with the Reich Hammer League. In it the grim Pan-German Count Reventlow – married to a French woman – and our ‘old friends’ Richard Nordhausen and Philipp Stauff work more assiduously than ever to throttle the Jews, the former in the political section and the latter in the feature pages.5 We must also not forget the Tägliche Rundschau, and provincial newspapers such as the Hallesche Zeitung and the Stuttgart Süddeutsche Zeitung, which ensure that no part of the Reich misses out on the ‘antisemitic enlightenment’.

In Berlin, a new antisemitic weekly paper, the Deutsche Wochenblatt, has emerged into the dull light of this poor world. The editor is Richard Kunze, formerly general secretary of the Conservative Party, who plays first fiddle at the meetings of the Pogrom-Antisemitic Committee for Public Enlightenment.6 Meanwhile, his paper – well, dear Wilhelm Bruhn, you old ‘Fighter for the Truth’, forgive us everything we heaped on your head!7 Truly, your ‘Truth’ is nobly written in comparison to the ‘lovely’ tone taken by the Deutsche Wochenblatt and the incitements in almost every one of its issues. The Münchner Beobachter is similar, although at least it believes that it is not only the Jewish spirit, but also the Jesuit one, that rules Germany now.

It is regrettable that such a widely distributed Catholic weekly as the Leo of Paderborn goes along with this. It does not shy away from dishing up in almost every issue stale antisemitic lies that have been disproved a hundred times. Even Germania, the leading organ of the Centre Party, completely fails to arrive at a fair assessment in its essay about Jews and Spartacists (morning edition of 1 July).8

We must not overlook ‘scientific elucidation’. Its pioneer is the monthly Deutschlands Erneuerung, edited by Privy Councillor G. von Below, H. St. Chamberlain, H. Claß, Prof. R. Geyer-Wien, Privy Councillor M. von Gruber, Privy Councillor Prof. Dr Dietr. Schäfer, Dr G.W. Schiele, Chairman of the Regional Council v. Schwerin, Privy Councillor R. Seeberg.9 It was published in Munich by J.F. Lehmann, a committee member of the German Protection and Defiance League, alongside the Münchner Medizinische Wochenschrift and well-known medical handbooks.10 The most salacious essays from it are distributed widely in pamphlets, particularly Liek’s sorry effort ‘The Role of the Jews in Germany’s Decline’.11 This has been brilliantly refuted by Georg Davidsohn (Im Deutschen Reich, May issue, 1919, page 196), but the pamphlet still shines out in bright red from many booksellers’ windows, and is touted enthusiastically in Berlin’s streets.12 To present the host of other antisemitic pamphlets of recent months even briefly would require an essay dedicated to nothing else.

II The Activities of the Agitators

The antisemites focus on targeting two social classes: the workers and the military. And from their viewpoint, this is logical. For, as long as the pogrom agitators fail to take in the mighty army of workers in Germany, as long as the overwhelming majority of them do not salute the reactionary flag, the antisemitic efforts will find no ground in which to take root. And naturally, the agitators must pay close attention to the military. In pogroms one needs soldiers who will participate, or at least stand by without intervening.

The need for (and the advantages of) antisemitism is promoted in numerous leaflets of all colours, with and without illustrations. Yes, some who claim to be Social Democrats, but shamefully neglect to give their names, plead poignantly in print with their colleagues to shake off their Jewish leaders and, amid fanfare, to sign up to the cause of antisemitism, that alone offers salvation. Hundreds of thousands of these leaflets have been distributed, and in recent months have been sent in the post to the workers’ councils in thousands of factories. Aside from this, in large factories, antisemites in workers’ clothing are active, coming down hard on their colleagues. Paid agitators are travelling around the Reich, currying favour with those who are respected among the workers (those in workers’ councils, etc.) and by these means spreading their poison.

And then the military. Of course, the Minister of Defence has prohibited any party-political agitation in the barracks. What do the antisemites care about that! Are there not officers who think antisemitism is so self-evident to the nobility that it’s no different from wearing a monocle or speaking with the nasal drawl of the guards! And such gentlemen do not shy away from smoothing the path for these filthy leaflets in the course of their duties. It is particularly bad among the Border Defence Force East, regarding which we have heard a number of cases.13 Still more officers make inflammatory speeches of the worst sort to their subordinates (instances from the firing range in Gruppe, near Graudenz, Frankfurt a. M.). Others do not think it necessary to remove pogrom posters from their barracks. Ten posters were proudly displayed in the barracks of the 116th in Giessen – where the well-known Jew-baiter and ‘war hero’ Professor Werner-Bußbach held a huge rabble-rousing meeting, as he did in Frankfurt and Marburg.14 One of the posters showed a gallows and below it the words ‘This is how you do it’, and another the slogan ‘Throw them into the Red Sea!’.

The crowning glory, however, is that Herr Joseph Knauer, formerly chief executive of the German-Völkisch League of Berlin-Schöneberg, one of the most shameless apostles of pogroms, serves in the Educational Service of the Lettow-Vorbeck Brigade.15 His ‘education’ is all of the same kind. So much so, that at a meeting of representatives on 10 July of this year a Christian sergeant lashed out against Knauer’s bloodthirsty hate speech.

Aside from the workers and soldiers, skilled workers are to be recruited into the antisemitic army. Leaflets are sent systematically to the homes of skilled workers in city after city. They are sent by the German-Völkisch bookshop of Frau Warthemann (Berlin W66, Mauerstr. 91), which is an active associate of the German-Völkisch League’s and the Committee for Public Enlightenment. These unexpected communications are prefaced with seemingly mild words: ‘Your address was given to me by someone close to the Federation of Skilled Manual Workers…’

The ‘enlightenment’ of teachers and clergy has also been undertaken enthusiastically. A special Headquarters for Enlightenment [Hauptstelle für Aufklärung] (Berlin SW11, Bernburger Str. 19 II, which since 20 May has been located at Berlin W9, Köthener Str. 45 III16), chaired by E. Foerster, has distributed 200,000 copies of a pamphlet, On the Poisoning of the German People, to teachers and clergy; with an introduction by a certain Dr Hoffmann (?) [sic]. Accompanying it is a vile flyer, presumably the intellectual property of Herr E. Foerster.

Aside from the teachers, we must not forget the pupils. Dr Dinter’s Rays of Light From the Talmud, the work of an ‘expert’ who does not know a word of Hebrew, let alone Aramaic, is intended to enlighten schoolchildren (for example in Frankfurt a. M.) about Jewish writings.17 In numerous locations (Berlin, Breslau, Kolberg among others), student associations are producing propaganda inciting violent antisemitism.18

German-völkisch lawyers and engineers have formed special unions and are spinning their webs more or less silently. German-völkisch Women’s Unions...