In Wilhelm Marr’s “The Victory of Judaism over Germandom”, he calls upon his countrymen to recognize and extinguish the threat of Jewishness in Germany in 1879. He argued Germans had willingly given up control of Germany by allowing the Jewish held daily press and financial industries to build up Germany as “western New Palestine”, or a Germany completely devoid any German identity. (Marr) Although his pamphlet blamed the Germans, his words resonated with them and validated their angry feelings stemming from Revolutions of 1848. Ultimately, Marr’s pamphlet effectively projected his underlying personal issues with the Jews onto Germans who then used it to retaliate against the Jew, thus opening them up to discrimination and scrutiny while living …show more content…
in Germany. Despite being the man who coined the term Anti-Semitism, Marr has had an odd relationship with relationship with Jews throughout his life. He supported emancipation of all minority groups in Germany, including Jews. Out of his four marriages, three were to Jewish women. “When he finally married at the age of thirty-five, he married a Jewish woman, after her he had two more wives of Jewish origin.” As a journalist, he worked alongside them. Anytime he made a critique in them he was accused of being a Jew. Marr simply could not avoid contact with the very people he hated. According to him, the same could be same said for Germany, “German culture has proved itself ineffective and powerless against this foreign power”. (Mendes-Flohr) However, his argument appears hypocritical when he blames Germans for letting Jews infiltrate its ranks when he has “gotten to know the Semitic Race in a thorough manner, in its most intimate details….” (Zimmerman) Throughout the document, Marr, 60 at the time of this pamphlet’s publishing, seems like an old man warning the young of his past faults hoping for them to not repeat them, because only he knows how much pain it has caused him. “These developments left their marks – direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious – on the people who had participated in them, and Marr is most representative of this.” (Zimmerman) The young being the generation of idealistic Germans that came after the Revolution of 1848, and those who did not participate in the democratic movements he supported. To this generation, as Zimmerman described, “the revolution had failed, and it did not receive political legitimatization or sympathy in the official German histories.” The popularity of movements like the Young Germans waned. This was a collective of intellectuals and writers who advocated for liberal reforms such as the emancipation of Jews, the separation of church and state, and feminism, ideas which Marr ardently advocated for prior to the revolution (Laquer). When the political ship began sinking as result of the failure of the revolution, Marr jumped ship and abandoned these increasingly unpopular views his in favor of more conservative views, including leading the fight to overturn Jewish emancipation in 1871. In one of his essays, Marr writes “I was a rebel a ‘rebel’ when I fought on behalf of Jewish emancipation…and I remained one today, when I fight against it.” In 1879, in his second anti-Jewish essay, Marr called himself a fighter against Jewish emancipation.” (Zimmerman 88-89) Zimmerman concludes this chapter in Marr’s life, “a revolutionary democrat, [he] viewed it until his dying day more than half a century later as the climax of his life”. In other words, Marr’s political leanings and life went downhill from there. Marr’s challenges in marital life seemed to have further aggravated and helped him establish his fierce position against Jewish people in The Victory of Judaism over Germanism. In addition, Marr laments on this in his auto-biography, “…and I warn against the mingling of Aryan and Semitic blood.” It all began with his first marriage, to Johanna Bertha, which he abruptly ended in 1879 with divorce. This was odd because Marr distinctly told his father he would not get married until he found “his millionaire.” (Zimmerman 10) Likewise, Marr lived comfortably but because of the divorce, he “lost an allowance of 1,000 talers” and afterwards lived “in increasing financial straits.” (Zimmerman 71) He left his first wife, after twenty years of unhappy marriage, to marry a younger pure-blooded Jewish Helene Behrend who was “who was not rich, not young, and not pretty.” Unfortunately for him, within a year of marriage, she died soon after giving birth to a premature baby, “in the arms of her husband.” (Zimmerman 71) Her death deeply troubled Marr and he subsequently “published a eulogy for his wife” (Zimmerman 71). Through fan mail of his memoir of his deceased wife, he found a new one. He married is third wife, Jenni nee Kornick, a half-Jewish widow. Although they quickly fell in love through correspondence, what came afterwards to be otherwise, “Marr’s life with his new wife was sheer hell.” By the time, he divorced her in 1877, Marr had had a son, Heinreich, with her, and had to support him. From this marriage, Marr, had concluded that “that pure racial characteristics (his second wife) were preferable to mixed race (his first and second wife).” (Zimmerman 71). This sentiment seemed to have translated into “The Victory of Judaism over Germandom”, where he introduced the racial component of the Jewish question and defined Jews never being able to be fully German, despite assimilation. Conversely, I believe he had learned his lesson by time he married his fourth wife. He married a pure Aryan in 1878 a year before the publication of the Pamphlet. Marr was clearly a different man at this time, deeply emotionally scarred by his failed marriages and resorting to blaming himself for these failures. With his new wife, she was burdened with the emotional baggage that he carried with him. Zimmerman illustrated their marriage as parasitic at best, “During the course of the next twenty-five years [up to his death], she would bear her husband…already poor, aging, and becoming progressively sicker, on her frail shoulders.” Consequently, “The Victory of Judaism over Germandom” was the culmination of his frustration he had stemming from the years of disappointment with Jews, whether directly or indirectly, in his personal and political life.
Throughout this essay, he portrays Jews as successful conquers, akin to the “the proud Roman Empire”, in their conquest of Germany. He then blames Germans for letting this happen. Thus, effectively establishing an “Us vs Them” mentality which he tried fostering in the minds of the non-Jews who read this pamphlet. He acknowledges the Jewish influence as negative, pointing out that “through the Jewish Nation, Germany will become a world power”, but it can only happen “through the compliance of the [German] people….” Marr also implies that Germany and this New Western Palestine, cannot coexist, instead the German identity, at its then current state will give way to Jewish influence. He suggests that for Germany to become a world power, it should be on through German culture and nationalism, and the end product should be purely German. Even if it means that Germany must expel “this foreign power” or prevent from gaining notoriety through national movements such as “Social Democracy.” However, coming from the person who created the term “Anti-Semite”, and later founded the “League of Antisemites”, an organization solely based on anti-Jewish beliefs, his praise seems disingenuous and again, hypocritical. This, is referring to the fact that Marr had wedded three Jewish wives, fathered a child with one, and fought for Jewish people’s rights as citizens of Germany. Marr points out one such area, the daily press, which published opinions and critiques of German cultural spheres including the State and the Church. Marr, seeing these opinions as eroding German identity, dismisses the press as “which the Jews control” and therefore “irreverent”. He finishes this off with “We should not reproach” or Germans must adopt xenophobic view against the Jews already
living in Germany to ensure a future for Germany.
In March 11, 1900 in a German town called Konitz the severed body parts of a human were discovered. Almost immediately, the blame fell on the Jewish. As Smith points out, anti-Semitism had been on a steady decline, and the anti-Semitics were looking for ways to revitalize the movement. The murder was an opportunity for anti-Semitics revive their movement. After the identity of the body was discovered to be Ernst Winter, the Staatsburgerzeitung, an anti-Semitic newspaper, printed several articles focusing on Konitz. Using unverified accounts from people in the town, it claimed that the murder was a ritual murder that had been carried out by the Jewish. The use of fear mongering was affective because the paper was a Berlin based paper so distribution was wide, and news of the murder traveled far. A crucial facet of the rise of anti-Semitism was due to anti-Semitic newspapers taking stories such as the Ernst Winter murder and using them to promote their cause. One of Smith’s sources, the Preuβische Jahrbṻcher, had a printed article written by Heinrich von Treitschke who was an historian; in which one of his quotes was “The Jews are our misfortune.” His article was what later spurred the German population’s turn from liberalism a...
The Battle of Britain as a Turning Point in the Defeat of German in World War Two
When a young boy is found brutally murdered in a small Prussian town called Konitz, once part of Germany, now part of Poland, the Christians residing in the town lash out by inciting riots and demonstrations. Citing the incident as an act of Jewish ritual murder, better known as blood libel, Christians rendered blame on the Jews. Helmut Walser’s Smith, The Butcher’s Tale, details the murder account and the malicious consequences of superstitious belief combined with slander and exaggerated press propaganda. Foreshadowing the persecution of Jews which would take place three decades later, Smith analyzes and explains the cause and effect of anti-Semitism in Imperial Germany at the turn of the century. Utilizing Smith’s book as a primary source,
The book begins by giving a brief background into the setting of America at the onset of the war. It details an anti-Semitic America. It also explains most of the anti-Semitism as passive, which ordinarily would do little harm, but during a holocaust crisis became a reason for America’s inaction.
One of the first writers to express the racial anti-Semitic view was Wilhelm Marr, who it is believed invented the word “anti-Semitism”. He, like other Germans had grievance with the Jews on the basis that a universally successful Jew had pushed them out of getting a good job. Marr himself was fired from his job as a journalist at a paper owned by Jews. He wrote “Der Sieg des Judentums uber das Germanentum”. In other words Jew was not contrasted with Christian, religiously but with German, racially. In 1879 he founded The Antisemiten-Liga, its purpose was in short to bring together all non-Jewish Germans into a common union which strives to saving the Fatherland from the Jewish influence. Marr was the first to appreciate the possibili...
“The modern German anti-Semitism was based on racial ideology which stated that the Jews were subhuman while the “Aryan” race was ultimately superior,” ("Nazi Propaganda"): (Goebbels)“I beg you and particularly those of you who carry the cross throughout the land to become somewhat more serious when I speak of the enemy of the German people, namely, the Jew, ("Nazi Propaganda"). “Streicher declared: "You must realize that the Jew wants our people to perish. That is why you must join us and leave those who have brought you nothing but war, inflation, and discord",” ("Nazi Propaganda"). “We know that Germany will be free when the Jew has been excluded from the life of the German people,” ("Ministry Of Public Enlightenment"). After Goebbels 's started to target the Jew’s with mean propaganda: It made blaming Jews a lot easier for Germany’s
The Change in Status and Position of Jews in Russia, France and Germany in the Years 1880-1920
...he So-Called Mischlinge.” The Holocaust and History. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998. 155-133.
Zusak’s portrayal of discrimination within the book delivered by the Nazis was shown to be extremely blatant and shameless, the author revealing and reinforcing the stereotypical German concept that the Jewish people were treated as bug-eyed cesspools...
Every religious group has suffered a time when their religion was not considered to be popular or right. Out of all of these religious groups that have suffered, no one group has suffered so much as that of the Jewish religion. They have been exiled from almost every country that they have ever inhabited, beginning with Israel, and leading all the was up to Germany, France, Spain, England, and Russia. Not only have they been exiled but also they have suffered through torture, punishment, and murder. Thus, because of the history of the religion, the Jewish people have become a very resilient people. They have survived thousands of years carrying their religion with them from one country to the next and never loosing their faith. They have traveled form Eastern Europe, to the United States and have finally managed today to settle comfortable all over North America. The Jewish religion has suffered tremendously throughout the centuries, and unfortunately it did not become any easier for them during the twentieth century.
The history of the Jewish people is one fraught with discrimination and persecution. No atrocity the Nazis did to the Jews in the Holocaust was original. In England in 1189, a bloody massacre of the Jews occurred for seemingly no reason. Later, the Fourth Lateran Council under Pope Innocent III required Jews to wear a badge so that all would know their race, and then had them put into walled, locked ghettos, where the Jewish community primarily remained until the middle of the eighteenth century. When the Black Death ravaged Europe in the medieval ages, many Europeans blamed the Jews (Taft 7). Yet, the one thing that could be more appalling than such brutal persecution could only be others’ failure and flat-out refusal to intervene. Such is the case with the non-Axis coutries of World War II; these nations failed miserably in their responsibility to grant basic human rights – even the right of life – to Jewish immigrants prior to World War II.
Marx, Karl. “Bruno Bauer, The Jewish Question, Braunschweig, 1843.” In Classics of Moral and Political Theory, edited by Michael L. Morgan, 1167-1182. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2011.
The Jews were different from the general population of the countries where they were. They had different customs, had a different religion and dressed different. Because they were grouped in the ghettos these differences were increased. However, when Germany became a nation in 1871, there was a halt in anti-Semitic laws. In 1900, Jews could buy houses, and while they were subject to restrictions, they were more comfortable under Ge...
The defeat of Germany in World War Two was due to many factors. All of these factors were influenced by the leadership and judgment of Adolf Hitler. Factors such as the stand fast policy, Hitler’s unnecessary and risky decision making in military situations, for example when attacking the USSR, and the declaration of war on the US. Plus other factors, like Hitler’s alliance with Italy, despite its obvious weaknesses, and the pursuit of the final solution, can all be attributed to the poor leadership and judgement of the Fuhrer, which would eventually lead to the downfall of the Third Reich.
“The War Against The Jews” by Lucy Dawidowicz explores a very dark time in history and interprets it from her view. Through the use of other novels, she concurs and agrees to form her opinion. This essay will explore who Dawidowicz is, why she wrote the book, what the book is about, what other authors have explored with the same topic, and how I feel about the topic she wrote about. All in all, much research will be presented throughout the essay. In the end you will see how strongly I feel about the topic I chose. I believe that although Hitler terrorized the Jews, they continued to be stronger than ever, and tried to keep up their society.