Germany and the Jewish Question - Dr. Friedrich Karl Wiehe
Germany and the Jewish Question - Dr. Friedrich Karl Wiehe Germany and the Jewish Question By Dr. Friederich Karl Wiehe Published for the Institute for studies of the Jewish question, Berlin (1938) Contents: Introduction: The Jewish question – a two thousand year old problem The Jewish question in Germany before 1933 1. Population figures and the social structure of the Jews 2. The Jews in the German economic life 3. Jews and corruption 4. Jews in German politics 5. Jews in German press 6. Jews in German culture 7. The share of Jews in immorality 8. The share of Jews in criminality Conclusion: The Jews – an anti-social element. What should be done with the Jews? Introduction: “I was a Jew before I was an American. I have been an American all of my life, 64 years. But I have been a Jew for 4.000 years.” (Rabbi Wise in a speach in Cleveland in June 1938.) From the day, when the national socialist party took over the Government in Germany and thereby started to solve the Jewish problem in the country, the world public opinion has been increasingly occupied with the Jewish problem. Thereby the state of affairs in Germany have often been protested against and condemned, as if antisemitism were a German matter only, a national socialist invention so to speak, which is unknown to and not understood by the rest of the world. These foreign critics must admit to-day, that the Jewish problem is no longer limited to Germany, that it is very much an urgent matter for statesmen in many countries and that it has already lead to pronounced precautions against Jews. Whether these precautions are a result of Germany’s example, we shall not go into here. It is a fact, that the Jewish problem has at this time become acute. There is hardly any country, which does not have a need to contribute to the solution of this problem. When one is dealing with the German attitude to the Jewish problem, one is also dealing with an important theme in the international politics of to-day and one is therefore obligated to investigate this problem thoroughly and fully. I is a mistake to believe, that the Jewish problem has arisen during the last few decades and that it is only a matter for our modern age. It is neither a national socialist invention nor a result of racist-antisemitic currents, which began at the end of the past century. If national socialism can boast about any originality in this area, then it can only be, that it has drawn logical conclusions from historic facts. The German attitude is based on the experience of two thousand years in the Occident, experience, which especially in the case of Germany during the past few decades has become the cause of the greatest political disaster. The Jewish problem is actually about two thousand years old. Strictly speaking even older – as old as the history of the Jews itself. One can speak of it everywhere in the world, where Jewry as a popular-racial minority has collided with sedentary host-populations. These historic facts, which can be traced down through the ages, is admitted by Jewry itself. “Jüdische Lexikon” (Jewish Lexicon), the standard work of the German Jews (which was written BEFORE the take over of national socialism, mind you) testifies to the historic eternity of the Jewish problem in the following words (Vol. III, col. 421): “The Jewish question is just as old as the co-existence between the peculiar Jewish people, which is different from all other people, and the others.” One might call it a peculiar and basically inexplicable historic phenomenon, that Jewry has never really found itself a final home and a lasting room for the unfolding of political and popular life, but on the other hand it has never been absorbed in any of the numerous host-countries, which gave room for the scattered children of Israel. This strange Jewish fate incidentally progesses in large waves. There has been periods, where the Jewish problem seemed to have been solved, because the strangers seemed completely adapted and had erased their traces. During these golden periods of the history of the Jewish people, there did not seem to be a Jewish problem any more. But then it broke out again with full force. The illusion of peace and happiness disappeared and after the years of peace and quiet, Ahasverus had to take the wandering staff again. The first expulsions of Jews we find already in anchient Palaestinean history. Around 700 b.C. the Assyrian king, Sarrukin and after him in the year 586 b.C. king Nebukadnezar of Babylon forced the Jews to leave the country. Already the persecutions in Alexandria and the Roman’s destruction of the temple (70 a.D.) started an epoch with Jewish problems much like those of to-day. The time of the crusades, the expulsion from England under Edward I. (1290) and from Spain (1492) are other periods of the eternal Jewish wandering. Every century in history knows of expulsions of Jews. Every country in the West has tried to defend itself through progroms on the Jews. It is evident from the historic examples, that the sedentary people during all this time has considered the Jews strange and different, they did not stand out because of their religion only. Only under the conditions of the Aliens Acts were they granted hospitality. It may be significant, that where the state was weak and in debt, the limitations of the Jews were loosened and penetrated by special priviledges. Thus for example the very large number of Jews in Eastern Europe, which can be considered the reservoir of modern Jewry, can partly be explained by the centuries of weakness in the former kingdom of Poland. At the beginning of the socalled recent times, there has been a period of appearently definitive peace for the restless Jewry. It was the Age of Enlightenment with its belief in progess and human rights, and it was believed, that the Jewish problem could be solved through these ideals During this period the Jews were just followers of a religion, which had to be accepted along with other religions. Suddenly they were no longer the strangers, the peculiar ones. All differences between them and the sedentary host populations were annulled after the Frensh revolution in 1789, even if only in principle. They were cancelled in practice in the ongoing legislative process and the social order. The 19th century was completely dedicated to the emancipation and assimilation of Jewry. During this period everybody thought the Jewish problem best solved by speaking of it as little as possible and by removing all existing barriers. Jewry, especially in the Western European countries were inspired by a strong desire to become one with the host populations. Breach of religion and mixed marriages were the preferred means by which the Jews, in the words of the Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, acquired “a ticket to the European culture” and thereby also the expectation of leading positions in the political, cultural and economic life. Many of these assimilated Jews have had an honest intention to put aside their Jewishness like a narrow mantle and to mingle with the host population without calling attention to their descent. The height of this assimilation period has been the last three decades. Israel had become king everywhere. But there can be no doubt, that this epoch is now at an end. The brightest minds of Jewry have recognized already decades ago, that the counterreactions would soon have to set in with irresistible force. Already forty years ago, Dr. Walther Rathenau in his writing “Listen, Israel” questioned the assimilation. There he says of his fellow Jews, who were in the process of taking over the last, decisive positions in the public life of their host countries: “They have no idea, that only an age, where all natural use of force has been supressed, can protect them from that, which their forefathers have suffered.” That the bulk of Jewry has not listened to the numerous warnings from their own, is one of the many proofs, that the children of Israel in the course of the millenia have never been willing to learn and have at all times made the same mistakes and errors. It is typical, that even a man as brilliant as Walther Rathenau has not himself taken the consequences of just that realization. Only a relatively small part of Jewry has found its way back to a level-headed composure after decades of assimilation-turmoil and have tried to find a way of countering the flash-back awaiting with historic necessity. We are thinking of the Zionist movement. Its founder, Theodor Herzl, under the impression of the Dreyfuss-process and the increase of antisemitism in France, in the year 1896 gave his fellow Jews the slogan: “Back to Palaestine” with the book “The Jewish State”. His words and his plan, which he sought to put into action with much energy and great personal idealism, was in its time and at the height of the assimilation epoch an unheard-of daring venture. The response, which Herzls slogan got from his own fellow Jews, was therefore only strong among the masses of Eastern Jews in the enormous Jew reservoirs in Poland, Lithuania and Romania. These azkenazi Jews had no part in the emancipation and assimilation. Their professional and social situation was mostly poor and also their political situation furthered their wish for a state and a country of their own. However, that part of Jewry was in spite of its numerative superiority poorly equipped for the realization of Herzls plans. They had no prerequisites for living up to the economic and political demands and give them weight. Jewry in Western Europe and America would be able to do that. But precisely these Jews did not want to understand the seriousness of Herzls words. Blinded by the glamour of an appearently golden age, they all but ridiculed Zionism and fought it with all of their might. Also during the following decades, they settled for economic support for the Palaestine-project and contributed only with small groups of practising Zionists. On the other hand Herzls plans of giving Jewry a “homeland” soon generated intense interest in one of the Western European host countries. Through colonial minister Joseph Chamberlain, England handed the Zionist congress in Basel already in 1903 a large Jewish settlement project in British Uganda. The realization thereof was however in conflict with the attitude of the Zionists, as they insisted on a settlement in Palaestine. Thus England has with its project acknowledged the existence of a Jewish problem and the acute necessity of solving it at a time, when there was an unshakeable faith in the blessings of assimilation. In 1917 Zionism was promised by England that it would support “with the greatest efforts” the striving towards establishing a Jewish homeland in Palaestine in the form of the Balfour-declaration. Immediately after the end of the World War the realization of this project was started. To-day, when the Jewish question has become acute all over the world and antisemitism arises in one country after the other, large parts of Jewry in the Western European countries and North America profess to Zionism. But already now after about 20 years, one can not deny that the Palaestinian experiment and thereby the whole of Herzls plan is unrealistic and has in actual fact already failed. We see this already now by inspecting the bloody encounters, that take place at the moment in Palaestine. They are not the first of their kind; after the Jewish colonization there has not been peace in that country. The basic objections, that reveal that Zionism is a pipe dream, will remain even if the present difficulties should be overcome. Briefly it is the following facts: Jewry in the mandate of Palaestine is completely dependent upon the mandatory power. It is at the mercy of this state, a factor which is affected by world political events. 1. Until now Zionism has successfully settled around 400.000 Jews in Palaestine. Against them stand 900.000 Arabs, who have lived in that country for over a thousand years. They contest the Jewish claim to Palaestine and insist on a greater right. On their side are 32 million Arabs in Asia Minor and Egypt. Whatever one may think of in order to limit the rights of both parties – it is hardly realistic, that a Jewish state of any degree of stability can be established in Palaestine under such circumstances. 2. The Jews left Palaestine 2.000 years ago. Now they come from all parts of the world, but have no personal relationship to the land, on which they want to found a state. 3. The people, who want to found this state, do not at all have the same culture any more. During the millenia, where they have wandered they have – except from the mutual religion, which however has been abandoned by hundreds of thousands of assimilated Jews – lost the cultural equilibrium and have instead absorbed the most varied elements. They do not even speak the same language any more. Only a few can still speak hebraic and even yiddish is spoken almost exclusively by Eastern Jews. 4. Their completely irrational, unhealthy social structure, their urbanisation, their lack of manual labourers and people, who can build up the country, can just be mentioned in passig in order to shed light upon the unrealistic conditions under which a state is to be founded in Palaestine. 5. Noone who will consider these fact can contest that the Palaestine project is a pipe dream. The whole of Jewry or just a small part of the 16 million Jews of the faith in the world can never find a home there. Herzls way out of the threat of antisemitism has remained impracticable. The Jewish problem has not been solved by his plan. Thus the assimilation process having lasted around 150 years has come to an end without the Jews having successfully met the counterreaction to be expected with historic regularity. This counterreaction, the antisemitism – there can really be no more doubt about that – is going in large waves all over the world. One look at the world press shows every day anew, that the responsible leaders in almost all countries to a greater or lesser degree are forced to take measures against this phenomenon. The foreign critics, who say, that antisemitism is merely a German matter, can be contradicted with some famous words from the English Zionist leader, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who in a heated debate said, that the world can be devided into two groups of countries: those, who want to expell Jews and those, who do not want to recieve Jews. Out of the first group we mention – just to give a few examples – aside from Germany first and foremost Italy. With extensive legislation they have started excluding the local Jews from the public life and to expell foreign Jews. There is furthermore Poland with more than 3 million Jews, which is more than 10 % of the population, there it has been stated more than a year ago, that the Polish Jewish problem can only be solved by emigration, certain parts of the economic life is already completely out of bonds for Jews. In Hungaria the Daranyi administration has a Jew law, which is now continued by Imredy and which limits the Jewish participation in the economic and the cultural life to a specific, low percentage. In Romania, where there is around 1,5 million Jews, the antisemitic currents have by no means disappeared after the fall of the Goga government, that is witnessed by the extensive measures taken to cancel citizenships, that were given to Jews, who immigrated to Romania after the end of the World War. The present exclusion of the antisemitic party Codreanus can not conceal, that antisemitism in Romania in a power factor, which will take hold of the country sooner or later. These are all countries in which already strong action has been taken against Jews on the part of the government. It would be going too far to count all the countries in which such action has not yet been taken, but where – as in Czechoslovacia, in Holland, France and also England – antisemitic currents and organisations get more and more influence on the public opinion. To the second group belongs the states, to which the Jews streamed, when the assimilation era was over and the antisemitism increased more and more. This was mostly over-seas areas, especially the South American states and The South African Union. These countries had at first readily opened up for Jewish immigration and offered room for building up a new existence. These hospitable countries have meanwhile long since regretted their attitude. Their high-minded immigration laws have been replaced by ever higher and stronger barriers and in actual fact there is hardly any country to-day, which is willing to give Jews lebensraum worth mentioning. This was demonstrated clearly at the Evian Conference in the summer 1938, which occupied itself with the Jewish immigration problem, but which did not arrive at any result, as none of the states that were represented there would declare themselves ready to recieve immigrating Jews. It has in the meantime been demonstrated clearly, that Jewry, fleeing from antisemitism, bring the germ of resistance to Jews themselves. It is a century old fact, of which history gives hundres of examples, that antisemitism is inextricably connected to Jews. They carry it with them themselves, wherever Ahasverus goes, they are themselves its carrier and its best propagandist. And that is why we see to-day in every country to which Jews immigrate, where antisemitism was unknown shortly before, strong feelings of hostility towards Jews awaken, which the governments can no longer ignore. He who studies the Jewish question, unique in its own right, with scientific sincerity and historically responsibly, far from matters of contemporary politics, can no longer maintain the opinion, that only Germany knows antisemitism, let alone that it should be a German invention. An objective view also disproves the opinion, that has been voiced now and then, that the increase in antisemitism should be only a result of the German example. In a way a fiever, that has taken hold of the whole world. To that one must ask the question: does anyone really believe, that it is possible, that an entire world is ceased by an ideology for which there is not already strong forces present, which are only waiting for an impulse coming from the outside? It is really not so strange that the German way of handling the Jewish question has resounded all over the world. Germany thereby suffers the same fate as everybody else who demonstrates courage and independence enough to stand up for a conviction, that changes the conditions of their era. All great human realizations have won acceptance through struggles and sacrifices. Anyone who stood up against an outlived dogma, has had to carry the heavy lot of the revolutionary. It was no different for the forerunners of the Frensh revolution, who overthrew the outlived dogmas of absolutism with the great slogans of liberalism. They had the united front of all of Europe against them. If one really want to understand the position of Germany in the Jewish question one must see it in the light of general realization, which national socialism has taken as a basis for a renewal of all of the German way of life: within the framework of the popular and racial view of history. That m… truncated (125,170 more characters in archive)