Wagner |
| I had hoped to conclude this survey of Volkism with a brief glance at Richard Wagner. He represented many of the trends of his time, and provides a symbol of the period. On doing a little research, however, I found that there is something of a controversy around two aspects of Wagner's thought and its relationship to the Third Reich. One of them has to do with the extent to which Wagner was truly anti-Semitic; the other has to do with the extent to which he influenced Hitler. Before looking at these questions, an overview of some of Wagner's thought is in order. Incidentally, I am not a Wagner scholar and have no desire to be. Should my summary prove in some way to be inadequate, I welcome correction - after all, correction in some detail will not detract from my main thesis that the Holocaust was the result of a secular ideology unique to modern Germany. Concerning those of Wagner's ideas about which there is little or no dispute, one historian asserted that in trying to understand the 19th-century origins of National Socialism it was better to concentrate on trends and ideological presuppositions than on individuals such as Wagner and Nietzsche. This same author then proceeded to give many descriptions of much less significant personages in order to exemplify the trends he considered significant - why should greater and more interesting figures be passed over? Trends and ideological presuppositions are important - but they are expressed by individuals. Thus we can look at Wagner as a great representative of significant trends that later found expression in National Socialism. If minor and now forgotten editors, educators, and professors can be used as examples of powerful social trends, why not a composer as well? There has been perhaps a tendency to overestimate the significance of Wagner, but there is no need to go to the opposite extreme and deny his very real importance. Wagner, along with Haeckel and Nietzsche, articulated ideas that are at the very heart of National Socialism - even if none of them of course had the prescience to see what use their ideas would eventually be put to. Fortunately, it will not be necessary to write an entire book on the subject of Wagner. It will not even be necessary to discuss his music, or elaborate on Hitler's well-known obsession with Wagner's opera. Wagner was also a prolific writer, and left behind a substantial body of political, pseudo-philosophical, and anti-Semitic writing which sums up and expresses to a remarkable degree the secular trends we have been considering. Wagner had the by now familiar idea of God as a mystical force synonymous with Nature itself. This mystical force was actualized in or found its expression in the German Volk, through which it worked. Man, hindered by such unnatural concepts as Christianity (with its confining doctrines), democracy, liberalism, capitalism, and bourgeois materialism was now out of touch with the basic life force pulsating through the cosmos. Hence a destruction of the decadent old society was necessary. Simon Weil's useful analysis, Wagner and the Jews, [http://members.aol.com/wagnerbuch/intro.htm], documents a surprising degree of hostility and violence in Wagner's rhetoric. Some defenders of Wagner may want to assert that it was only rhetoric and he didn't really mean it - but that was said about Hitler's radical statements too. Getting back to Wagner's confused ideas, since the cosmic force, or "Nature" was working through the German people, individual members of the Volk found greater freedom by being one with the Volk, by rejecting such atomizing forces as democracy, liberalism, capitalism, and individualism. These alien concepts estranged the individual from his true freedom as a member of the mighty collective. When the Volk was sufficiently unified and at one with Nature, it would be possible to draw on the Volk's collective unconscious will and use it in the violent destruction of the corrupt and confining bourgeois system. Those looking for elaboration or documentation are referred to the first chapter of Weil's online book, "The Most Terrible and Destructive Revolution." Furthermore, Wagner felt that the Volk needed a great leader, a man of Providence and Destiny, who as the authentic mouthpiece of the Volk could lead it forward without the cumbrance of divisive parties and other democratic entanglements. These were in fact alien elements from which the Volk needed to be purified. Finding their deepest freedom and inner fulfillment as members of the Volk in obedience to their leader, the German people could smash the old order and rise to new heights of pathetic and worthless human glory. Naturally this would require the purification of the race soul, its cleansing not only from the aforementioned alien elements, but also from Judaism. The leader incidentally was more than a mere mortal, but was a personification of the Volk and a unique agent of the life force, or God, or Nature, or Providence, or Destiny. |
| Not surprisingly, Wagner was hostile to Christianity. Like Nietzsche and many others, he felt that Christianity was an oriental Semitic import that had ruined the proud, fierce, and warlike Germans of pre-Christian days. His concentration on Germanic themes in his operas was part of an attempt to revive old pagan values. Parenthetically, one reason that serious music (as opposed to ignorant pop music trash) is so compelling is that it does represent in some way moral and spiritual values. The clear, calm, deep spirituality of Bach's music, which shows real joy and peace, was not attractive to the Nazis. Not only was his Christianity an anathema to them, but even his secular or strictly instrumental religious music had a spirituality that repelled them. Wagner, on the other hand, was much more to their liking. Another passage from Viereck on the effect of Wagner on his audiences speaks volumes: The revival of the Nibelungen-Siegfried legends began with the early romantic school, despite Goethe's prophetic warning of their barbaric ancestors. Not until Wagner's operas did these legends become familiar to the mass of ordinary Germans. Wagner it was who almost single-handed steeped all Germany in the tales of Siegfried, his wonderful sword, the horrible capitalistic dragon, the not quite Aryan little dwarfs with their hoard of corrupting gold...During the first years of the German Republic, when Versailles still kept Germany partially disarmed, opera audiences went wild with enthusiasm over the symbolic scene where Siegfried forges the German sword [pp. 138-9]. As to the spiritual quality of Wagner's music, it would be presumptuous of me to comment on it, as I have listened to Wagner's music only a few times. I could say that I heard Stuka dive bombers in it, but that could easily be dismissed. Thomas Mann, in a magazine article cited by Viereck [p.92], said "I find an element of naziism not only in Wagner's questionable literature; I find it also in his 'music'." Frank Johnson writing in "The Spectator" recently referred to Wagner's "prolixity, kitsch, bombast and pretentiousness," which (if true) would help qualify him to be the favorite Nazi composer. |
Wagner's antisemitism |
| When it comes to this subject, I personally think Wagner was a blind fool, and I have no interest in searching through the yellowing and dusty pages of his pseudo-intellectual mutterings. Fortunately, Simon Weil has done that for me. In the aforementioned website he presents more than adequate proof that Wagner had an ugly and evil soul when it came to the Jews. If anyone wants to examine the second chapter of Weil's work ("The Jews in Wagner's Revolutionary Philosophy") they will find ample documentation for the assertion that Wagner detested Jews (himself being a lofty and superior man). He described his hatred of Jews in a letter to Liszt, and in his antisemitic Judaism in Music described Jews as ''repellent." He also insisted that the German Volk instinctively hated Jews, and approved of the pogroms in Russia, meaning he supported physical violence. Weil examines the roots of Wagner's antisemitism. One objection of Wagner's - wholly in keeping with the Volkish tendency to see life in terms of dynamic development - was the fact that orthodox Judaism had not changed for many centuries. Thus, it seemed to him to be decayed, void of life, enthusiasm, and feeling. He describes a synagogue service in the most negative possible terms, using such words as "repugnant," "revulsion," "horror," "travesty," "senseless," "cackle," and "absurd." Thus Judaism is inherently contrary to nature, contrary to the mystic life force that pulsates through the cosmos and finds its earthly expression in the German people above all other peoples. This means of course that Jewish music must also be worthless - it is out of harmony with Nature, and opposed to Nature. Weil also documents Wagner's belief that the Jews controlled all modern art, including music. He asserted that Jewish composers were like worms, and these worms only flourish in a dead carcass, not in a healthy living organism. So Jews are like maggots. Hitler used a similar analogy in Mein Kampf. Weil attempts to link this to Christian antisemitism - unsuccessfully I think, since Wagner's views were based on distinctly 19th-century concepts. Wagner was not concerned about the death or the rejection of Christ; if he even mentioned this somewhere (which I doubt), it can only have been for purposes of propaganda. He certainly never manifested any awareness of the teachings of Christ and the apostles that all have sinned and are in need of God's forgiveness; that what is needed is repentance, not crazy racial ideas. Returning to Wagner's opinions of the Jews, he saw the German Volk as having a heart, full of love and the human passions of honor, sincerity, etc., while the Jews were heartless and manipulative, seeking nothing but their own advantage. Moreover, money is the dominant force in the world, and the Jews control the money (at least according to Wagner) - hence they control the very center of civilization. The purpose of the coming revolution is to destroy the power of money, which necessitates destroying the power behind the money. Wagner had some crack-pot economic theories and was something less than a half-wit in this field. Finally, Wagner openly called for the disappearance of the Jewish race. There was no place for them among the Volk, or in his imaginary utopia that was supposed to materialize after the violent revolution. The Bolsheviks also sought to establish a utopia that somehow failed to materialize. Wagner's cruel fantasies are documented by Weil in the first chapter, "The Most Terrible and Destructive Revolution." The disappearance of the Jews was to be effected by assimilation - or so Wagner said - but Weil suspects (with good reason I believe) that Wagner was not being fully candid on this point, and in fact had something much more drastic in mind. Citing (and duly footnoting) passages from Wagner's autobiography and other prose writings, Viereck also documents Wagner's feelings about Jews [pp. 108, 118-119]. In these writings Wagner exposed the Jewish plot to destroy Germany; asserted that the Jews controlled almost all of the newspapers and magazines; claimed that international Jewry was behind both Marxism and capitalism; and preached that the Jews were an alien influence which needed to be purged (along with French and Christian influences) so that the Volk would be healthy. He also repeated the standard Volkish argument that Christianity transformed the virile Saxon warriors of bygone days into weaklings preoccupied with guilt, sin, Jesus, and the afterlife. It is too much of an oversimplification I think to say that Wagner was the single most important source of Nazi ideology, as someone has claimed, but there are profound similarities between his ideas and Hitler's. However, there are some who want to defend Wagner - perhaps because they like his music and don't want to admit that one of their favorite composers could have been such a pitiful and deluded wretch. For example, one website had an article defending Wagner, and trying to minimize his antisemitism. The writer begins his hopeless task by admitting at the outset that Wagner made offensive anti-Semitic remarks, many of them. That should have ended the discussion right there, but the writer plods wearily on, advocating that Wagner never advocated the expulsion of the Jews - he only advocated their assimilation. Referring to a passage in Judaism in Music (also analyzed by Weil), the author says that Wagner in fact argued for coexistence between Germans and Jews. |
| Weil's analysis is much more accurate I think. Wagner felt that the Jews were a problem in German society, and that this problem was to be solved by their disappearance. This would be effected by the Jews abandoning their religion and becoming entirely assimilated. So, the Jews should disappear - and what if they refused to assimilate? What if they stubbornly and irrationally refused to abandon their faith and their culture? Then the Germans were left with three alternatives. These were not spelled out by Wagner, but they are inescapable. One alternative was to tolerate the defilement of the Volk with alien ideas and an alien presence. Another was expulsion. A third was extermination. Weil asserts (and he may be right) that given Wagner's many statements about the fundamental hostility between the life-affirming Germans and the life-denying Jews, his call for assimilation was disingenuous. Interestingly, Mosse refers to one Karl Paasch, who thought that the "simplest and most practical solution to the Jewish question" was to kill all of the Jews. But, Paasch "thought that it would probably be impossible to accomplish this in Germany and that therefore it might be best to intern the Jews and to ship them to New Guinea" [p. 138]. Perhaps Wagner was offering a solution that he knew the Jews would never accept only as a first step. Perhaps not - it isn't necessary to try and peer for too long into the fog of Wagner's disordered thoughts. His position is clear enough - but, Wagner's previously mentioned defender quotes him to the effect that if the Jews assimilate, then "we" will be united and one - "we" meaning no doubt the German people, once the Jews have disappeared. It is most definitely not a call for coexistence and mutual respect. But Wagner criticized another antisemite, Adolf Stoecker! So Stalin criticized Trotsky, and Trotsky was a communist - does this prove Stalin was not a communist? Stoecker was allied to the government of Bismarck which Wagner disliked - he may have approached the Jewish "problem" in a way Wagner disapproved of. But, his supporter continues, Wagner had many Jewish friends! Weil claims that Wagner could restrain himself in dealing with exceptional Jews - perhaps they were useful to him in some way. People can smile and be friendly and still hate you. Viereck asserts that Wagner's attack on the Jews, Judaism in Music, was "an ungrateful tirade against his friend and former patron, the Jewish musician Meyerbeer" [p. 105]. Earlier in life Wagner had been a supporter of democracy and internationalism, opposed nationalism, and admired France. In the 1840's he underwent a major change and veered in another direction. Perhaps it was in his earlier in life that he had Jewish friends - Viereck implies that when discussing Wagner's earlier period but does not state it directly. One other argument that has been made in Wagner's defense is, according to Weil, that Wagner was only theorizing! He got caught up in revolutionary rhetoric and said things he didn't really mean! Anything so they can listen to Wagner's music - they fail to see that he was a man ahead of his time, a visionary, a pioneer whose ideas would find fulfillment only after his death. People said that about Hitler too: "It's only political rhetoric, he doesn't really mean it." This is because they were too cowardly or too superficial to face the fact that Hitler meant what he said, and tried to wish the problem away. This is not of course to say that Wagner was identical to Hitler, or that Wagner caused the Holocaust. But Wagner does represent the culture out of which National Socialism emerged, and in which it flourished. Parenthetically, Viereck examines Wagner's early shift from left to right at some length. He links the young Wagner to the socialist materialism of Feuerbach's "Young Hegelians," and quotes Wagner to demonstrate his belief in internationalism and his admiration for France. He then cites Wagner's own description of his conversion to nationalism - "For the first time I saw the Rhine. With hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland" [p. 97] - and attributes Wagner's dramatic shift from internationalism to German nationalism to the fact that "rationalistic atomism would not satisfy his emotional needs, his lonely 'homelessness' " [ibid.]. If that was in fact the case, it would be a significant example of how right-wing politics in Germany derived not from the bible, but from the emptiness of modern secularism. People who feel that heaven is their home and who have the higher meaning and purpose in life provided by a true belief in Christianity have no need of excessive devotion to a Fatherland or any other earthly cause. |
Wagner and Hitler |
| This leads us to the debated question of Wagner's direct influence on Hitler. Some, like Mosse, tend to minimize this. His already cited The Crisis of German Ideology barely mentions Wagner at all. Mosse asserts that ideological presuppositions are more important than individuals such as Wagner. Yet, curiously, he states: "The Wagner circle, led after the composer's death by his widow Cosima, and, above all, the Pan-Germans were significant proponents of racial views founded partly on Gobineau's writings" [p. 91]. He also describes a member of the Wagner circle, Ludwig Schemann, in some detail, as if a member of the circle were more significant than the founder of the circle itself. I suspect he is reacting against those who take the opposite view and argue (like Viereck) that Wagner was "the single most important fountain head of current Nazi ideology" [p. 91 - Mosse's and Viereck's comments are both coincidentally on p. 91]. As to the extent to which Wagner's widow "led" the circle, Mosse might have mentioned that the most significant expounder of and elaborator on Wagner's views, the one who provided them with a facade of intellectual respectability and "scholarship," was H.S. Chamberlain. General trends and presuppositions are important of course, but they are represented and articulated by individuals. Wagner to a remarkable extent summed up and expressed many of the trends of his day, and merits some attention at least. It is also necessary to pay attention to Haeckel and Nietzsche as well, but if Viereck's assertion is true, that the Nazi Party's Twenty-five Points "without exception coincide with Wagner's Bayreuth program" [p. 137], that is surely significant. I am not going to spend many dreary hours sifting through Wagner's rubbish to see how far that assertion can be substantiated. I am also not going to research the same author's assertions that in some of his rhetoric Hitler "is repeating Wagner almost word for word" [p. 141]. Viereck even detects stylistic similarities between Wagner's style of writing and Hitler's (in addition to mere repetition), and makes the plausible if unproven (but not disproved) assertion that Wagner's prose was Hitler's favorite reading. He does footnote Hitler's biographer Konrad Heiden here [p. 134]. To me, Viereck's view is more plausible than Mosse's, particularly when you consider that Hitler had prolonged and repeated contact with the Wagner circle. This cozy little group of embryonic fascists ( like a nest of baby snakes) included not only Wagner's widow Cosima but also his son Siegfried and his son-in-law, the racial "scholar" H.S. Chamberlain. Other members were Dietrich Eckart, Joseph Goebbels, and Hitler. It was Chamberlain who identified Hitler as the coming saviour of Germany when the fledgling fuhrer was still a minor figure with no apparent chance of success. It is inconceivable that Hitler could have spent so much time in the Wagner circle, be in such close contact with Wagner's most well-known disciple, and be oblivious to the fact that Wagner's ideas were on so many fundamental points identical to his own. This is not to say that Hitler was a normal person who read Wagner's writings and was transformed into an anti-Semite, but what if Hitler came across Wagner's writings and was encouraged in his already existing tendencies? But, to what extent can a direct link between Wagner and Hitler be proven? It would seem that, given the above-mentioned well-known facts, further proof would not be necessary - yet some defender's of Wagner continue to insist there is no real evidence; or maybe they are trying to guard against overly simplistic explanations of the origins of Hitler's "thought." One historian claimed that there was no evidence that Hitler ever read Wagner at all - but there are indications that he did, and no evidence to the contrary either. There would be no evidence that Hitler had ever read Lagarde or Fichte if a small portion of his huge library had not been brought back to the states. A large part of it was taken back to the Soviet Union - possibly containing well-read volumes of Wagner with much underlining and marginal notes. |
| It has been argued that Hitler never ascribed his views to Wagner - but I have little confidence in the speculations of those who do not even understand the fact that Hitler considered himself to be, and constantly presented himself as, something more than an ordinary mortal. He would have been lowering himself to the status of a common person if he had said "I was deeply influenced by Wagner," or "I got a lot of my ideas from Lagarde and Nietzsche, and I really like Fichte." Even if Hitler had been deeply influenced by Wagner, or by anyone else, he would not necessarily have wanted to say so publicly - though he might have made an occasional comment to someone in his inner circle. A Man of Destiny like the Fuhrer would have considered himself to be far above youthful influences. It has also been argued that Hitler rarely mentioned Wagner in public - but one occasion when he did spoke volumes. During his trial for treason in 1924 Hitler said, "When I stood for the first time before Richard Wagner's grave, my heart swelled with pride...." This quotation is taken from Viereck, who goes on to say in the same context, "In Hitler's list of the three greatest Germans 'nearest to the heart of the Volk,' the sole modern he names is Wagner" [p. 143]. Lest it seem that I lean too heavily on Viereck, he cites three sources in a footnote here, one of them Konrad Heiden (author of Hitler: A Biography), and the other an account of the Hitler trial put together by a German newspaper. It is safe to say that the origin of the "myth" that Wagner's writings were Hitler's favorite reading material has not arisen solely from the groundless assertions of one or two biased and unreliable historians. Of course, if it could be proven that Hitler did like to read Wagner's writings, it might only mean that Wagner stated what Hitler liked to hear. Two first-hand sources that, if reliable, would directly prove a causal link between Wagner's writings and Hitler's ideas are not unquestionably accepted. One of them, Hermann Rauschning, wrote a book called Hitler Speaks. Purporting to contain Hitler's conversations with Rauschning, it has a quote used by Weil demonstrating the powerful effect Wagner had on Hitler. But, the reliability of the book has been greatly diminished as it appears some of Hitler's alleged conversations were in fact taken from other sources, including Hitler's speeches and the writings of Nietzsche. But, if Rauschning needed more material to have enough for a book, and did borrow material to flesh out his manuscript, it does not necessarily invalidate every comment in the book. It is also asserted that Rauschning only met with Hitler four times, and then only engaged in small talk - but I don't see how anyone can determine exactly who Hitler talked with 365 days a year and what it was they talked about. But, if the work should be proven to be a total fraud, it would not affect the question of Hitler's relationship to Wagner in the least. Another source is August Kubizek, who was Hitler's friend before WW I, and published a book, Young Hitler, The Story of Our Friendship. Kubizek claimed that Hitler not only had a deep fascination with Wagner's music (I don't want to use the word "love" in this context), but that Hitler also read Wagner's essays. He furthermore claimed that it was after or while viewing an opera of Wagner's that Hitler had a premonition of his future calling, and was inspired with a desire to be the saviour of Germany (which was a common theme in Volkish circles and no doubt the idle dream of some other youthful German nationalists as well). Frank's account of this is intriguing and I will cite it at length - but it must be repeated that even if Hitler may have had an adolescent dream of doing great deeds to save his country, it does not explain the origin of the Holocaust, or of Hitler's unique ideology: In the Winter of 1906, Hitler and Kubizek attended an opera of Wagner's Rienzi. The story is set in fourteenth century Rome and tells the story of a man of the people, trying to free them from the oppression of the upper classes. The privileged make an attempt to kill Rienzi but are overpowered and after violating their oath of submission are exterminated. Rienzi rises to the position of dictator and in one scene the trumpets blare and the people shout: "Heil, Rienzi. Heil the tribune of the people." Hitler was completely enthralled by the music and by the character of the rebel Rienzi who had been goaded to political action after witnessing the death of his younger brother. Rienzi in the end, however, is stoned and burned to death by those who never really wanted the freedom he offered. The long opera was not over until after midnight and Hitler, quite out of context, showed a side of his personality that Kubizek had never seen. After the performance Hitler talked for over an hour about politics. Like many young thinkers of the lower middle class he was beginning to develop a hard attitude against the upper echelon--"the social order which made everything dependent on whether or not you had money," as he put it.* Because of those persons of quality he was first exposed to in high school, he appears to "have acquired a tenacious 'class consciousness.'"* His turn of mind was no doubt compounded by the fact that Stefanie and "her society," as he put it, were out of his reach. Undoubtedly influenced by the writers of the time, the seventeen year old Hitler also began to believe strongly in destiny. The fact that two of his brothers died before he was born, and another was born and died after him, caused him to wonder why he was spared. He confided to Kubizek that he believed in fate and that even he could be called upon someday by the people "to lead them out of servitude to heights of freedom."* (This at first appears to be one of Kubizek's exaggerations or recollections borrowed from others (including Mein Kampf), however, Adolf Hitler would tell more than one person that the "beginning" of his success began the first time he saw the opera Rienzi. It would be hard to deny that the first time he saw the opera was with Kubizek.) Years later Hitler would comment to another friend on the story of Rienzi: "Listening to this blessed music as a young man in the theater at Linz, I had the vision that I too must someday succeed in uniting the German Empire and making it great once more."* He believed that he was destined for a "special mission"* [I.3]. |
| A footnote indicates that the other friend referred to at the end was Speer. Citing a certain author (one W. Daim), Viereck writes that Hitler repeated this to Wagner's widow as well, saying (referring to Rienzi), "In that hour, it [the Nazi dream] began" [p. 125]. Yet, Kubizek's account is also questioned. H. Trevor-Roper is cited by Viereck as accepting Kubizek's account, and other historians have accepted it as well. Kubizek had ample proofs, and the fact of his youthful friendship with Hitler is not questioned, but some historians will knowingly dismiss such accounts from the start, automatically assuming that it is impossible for someone to write an accurate account of his friendship with a man who later became great. This is not necessarily the case, however. One writer finds it suspicious that a version of Kubizek's book published under the Nazis in 1944-45 omitted the Rienzi incident, which was included in the post-war version. He suggests that the material was added later by a ghost writer - but what if it was first deleted by a censor? An account of Hitler's youth by someone who knew him would have undergone the closest scrutiny for anything contrary to the Fuhrer image, likely even by Hitler himself. He may very well have thought that such an incident was not suitable to his demi-god status, as if the Man of Destiny should have been influenced too much by youthful enthusiasm. Historians are far too inclined to confuse their suppositions and hunches with fact. Whatever the case, it is incontestable that Wagner's views were the same as Hitler's on many fundamental points - thus Wagner stands at the very least as an important symbol. However, without the defeat of Germany in WWI and the political and economic crises of the Weimar period, Wagner's ideas would never have found their realization in Hitler. As Mosse states so aptly, referring to the Volkish thought of which Wagner was a shining example, "The ideology, of course, had been widely disseminated before the war...it was after the war that National Socialism emerged to translate what had been a utopian vision into a ruthless reality" [p. 237]. |
Chamberlain |
| It is necessary at this point to say something about Wagner's son-in-law, Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1927). Fortunately, it isn't necessary to say much. He was hostile to democracy, big on Aryan racial purity and supremacy, thought the Jews were trying to take over the world, and was an enthusiastic admirer of Hitler. It has been said that Chamberlain expounded Wagner's ideas to Hitler, but Hitler was not one to sit at someone else's feet and may have done most of the talking. Chamberlain was recognized by the Nazis as an intellectual forerunner (if I may use the word "intellectual" in this context), and wrote a useless book called Foundations of the 19th Century. This attempted to give an aura of profundity to racial supremacy theories and other eccentricities of the period. One writer asserted that entire passages in Mein Kampf were borrowed from Chamberlain, but gave no examples or documentation. One point about Chamberlain merits a little consideration. Along with Lagarde, he contributed to the development of "positive" Christianity. This included hostility to and rejection of the Old Testament as Jewish; hostility to the established Christian church; the belief that Jesus was an Aryan (Galilee was an island of Nordic settlement, and the Galileans were not Jews); and hostility to the apostle Paul. Paul was considered to have corrupted the simple socialist message of the fighting Aryan Jesus and introduced a lot of Jewish rules and dogmas. Nietzsche had a similar view of Paul, as will be seen later. Much more could be said about Chamberlain's ideas and influence - however, in the interests of brevity, it suffices to say that Chamberlain summarized the general trends we have discussed - sort of like a Thomas Aquinas of 19th-century Volkish ideas. His writings today lie in well merited oblivion. |
Modern German antisemitism |
| It has been said that centuries of "Christian" antisemitism created a deep reservoir of hostility toward the Jews that Hitler tapped into. However, it is not explained why antisemitism in Germany in the approximately four centuries from the Protestant Reformation to WWI was so mild - nor is it explained why the intensity of modern antisemitism increased exactly as Christianity declined and was replaced by a new paganism. It is common to point to the Crusades, the Inquisition, and medieval or more recent Eastern European pogroms to show the innate violence of Christianity toward the Jews. But, apart from what should be obvious facts which have already been referred to - that such things occurred a thousand years and more after Christ, are totally contrary to all New Testament standards of personal conduct, and are in no sense inherent in Christianity - apart from all of this it needs to be pointed out that in the 400 years of German history preceding 1914, there were no Crusades. There were no pogroms. There was no Inquisition. The Jews in Germany were restricted in some ways, and denied certain rights, but in the 18th and 19th centuries the Jews felt quite at home in Germany. They not only felt at home, they were proud of their German culture. Furthermore, in all of the countries where the results of the Protestant Reformation were evident, in Denmark, Sweden, Holland, England, and America among other countries, the Jews (as has already been said) were and have been well treated. No pogroms, inquisitions, or crusades - if such things really were inherent in Christianity the persecution of Jews should have been more intense in these countries before the modern era, and it should have lessened as the forces of modernism increased. This is not to say that there were no problems in those countries. We have referred to the Hep riots in Germany - but it is significant that Christianity is so quickly and lightly blamed, while the forces of secularism are so quickly and lightly exonerated. It is not surprising that the finger of blame is so consistently pointed in the wrong direction - some people have a special talent for criticizing Christianity but are oblivious to the real roots of the Holocaust. Bible believing Christians should have no use for any nonsense about racial superiority. Nationalism is not of great importance to them (though of course it is natural to feel some affection for one's native land). Jesus and the apostles spoke to people under the occupation of a foreign power, and they did not whip up the forces of nationalism and patriotism to inspire resistance. Their message was that these matters are ordained by God. What 19th-century Christian was telling the German's under French occupation that they should cooperate with the French in every way, and not be perturbed by the outcome of earthly battles? Who was saying that the destiny of the soul after death was more important than earthly political considerations? Such Christians would have been despised and reviled as traitors, weaklings, and cowards by the Fichtes and the Jahns and their disciples - but now the noble patriots have all died. All of their fiery passions have faded away to nothing, and it will be seen at the judgement seat of Christ who were the wise men with their eyes fixed on eternity, and who were the fools that philosophized and speechified in vain about their useless and empty nationalistic vanities which profited them nothing. Modern antisemitism is something that has no biblical basis. Ultimately its origin is in Satan himself. He hates the Jews with an invisible and unshakeable spiritual intensity that has had devastating earthly consequences. He hates the Jews because they have been used of God to shed the light of truth into the world. The Jews are therefore targets of children of the Devil who are slaves to their evil passions and unknowing instruments of higher unseen forces. This is why people who treat Jews in an evil way also treat non-Jews in an evil way. Something has been said already about this spiritual dimension of the problem. There is a secular philosophical dimension as well. When the God of the bible was rejected by the German "philosophers" (including of course the vastly overrated Kant and Hegel), man's innate need for God was diverted to pseudo-philosophical phantoms. These mental phantoms, lacking the power of truth to sustain them, sank yet lower. As the result of a law of spiritual gravity which inevitably compels men without the grace of God to sink lower and lower, the concept of the divine decreased from vague intellectual ideas to the nation. In the nation, or in the Volk, there was something tangible and real, yet also large enough to serve as a substitute that would meet man's innate need for something larger than himself to believe in. The concept of evil necessarily declined along a parallel line. There is evil in the world. The bible offers an explanation, both in higher spiritual powers of darkness, and in original sin which makes us by nature averse to truth and given over to sin. This biblical concept being rejected, the lost and wandering soul seeks for some peg to hang a concept of evil on in order to explain the many ills of life. Marx, groping in darkness, stumbled upon the concept of private property and capitalism as the origin of the world's evils. Eliminate them and you will have paradise. The German nationalists, finding nothing more important in life than the nation, stumbled on the Jews - and there was some perverted but recognizable logic in their choice. |
| If our meaning and self worth are derived from participation in the national group, then what could be worse than to be deprived of a nation? If participating in a nation is the greatest good, then to wander nationless throughout the earth is the greatest evil. Moreover, if, as the German Idealists (or Whimsy-ists) believed, some sort of nebulous cosmic force or world spirit was working through nations, but especially through the German nation, to guide mankind to ever more glorious heights of self-realization, then the Jews were in their essence profoundly alienated from the fundamental life force of the universe. Thus, they are detached from what is truly human. Someone might object that Christianity also detaches the Jews and sets them apart, but the Nazis came out of the philosophical and cultural tradition we are now examining, not from the bible. Furthermore, the bible teaches that not only the Jews, but all who reject Christ are alienated from God. Thus a Jew who rejects Christ is in the same position as a blond blue-eyed Aryan or a Chinaman who rejects Christ. Rejecting God's love and mercy to all, and the fear of the divine judgement which says that murderers and evil doers will not go to heaven, the new pagans rushed headlong down paths no serious Christian should ever set foot in. These early 19th-century fantasies (far removed from Roman Palestine I shouldn't have to add) were only the beginning of a chain of logic that culminated in the Shoah. Following next was the need for racial purity. Who needs an alien body in the midst of the Volk to hinder its progress and dilute its moral and biological purity? Biological considerations became more prominent after Darwin made his own unique contribution to modern paganism. The concept of social Darwinism, of life as basically nothing more than a pitiless struggle in which the strong survived and the weak died, allied with an already deeply rooted German militarism to produce the glorification of war so evident in the Kaiser's Germany - and what could have been more abject, pitiable, and useless, and less than fully human in the eyes of a militarist, than a people with no state and no army? Helpless against whoever might choose to raise a hand against them, the Jews really did seem like the scum of the earth. Many other factors enter into this highly complex equation. Mosse shows in great detail, with more than ample scholarly documentation, that Hitler was preceded by a long and deep tradition. The belief that the Jews were polluting the German race either with alien ideas, or biologically, or both (alien ideas including Christianity, a Jewish invention as we shall see when we discuss Nietzsche) was a key element of the Holocaust unheard of before the modern era. As a result of many false philosophical ideas, the Jews came to be seen as a symbol of everything that was contrary to life. In the end, everything that was bad (as, again, we shall see in Nietzsche), was attributed to the Jews or projected onto the Jews. Capitalism? Communism? Both from the Jews. The socialist worker's movement? The stock exchange? Democracy? A free press? Big department stores that ruined small shopkeepers? Bad modern art? All from the Jews. Whatever seemed negative to the crude and vulgar Volkish mind was attributed not to Satan; not to the sinful nature of man; but to the one physical embodiment of everything negative that was obvious enough to be seen by their metaphysically stunted vision - the Jew. These few brief comments are far from exhaustive. It is also true that some people (in the case of Nazi Germany many people) need someone to hate. It gives them a sense of well being to feel superior to others. This is a common human fault that should be totally destroyed by the cross of Jesus Christ. The knowledge of our sinfulness before a righteous and holy God leaves no room for false notions of superiority and inferiority. There is also the common tendency to project onto others our own faults and bad motives. This is especially true when we are imprisoned in the nasty little dungeon of self. Having no access to higher truth, those trapped in the quagmire of egotism are too inclined to think of others as themselves. A good example of this is found in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This (to some) appealing forgery purports to reveal the Jewish plot to take over the world. It describes the Jews as aspiring to world dominion, and using all forms of treachery, cruelty, violence, and deceit to reach that end - which of course is a perfect description of the Nazis themselves. What a quagmire of vice, folly, and stupidity the human soul becomes when left entirely to itself. Devoid of higher principles it inevitably sinks to lower ones. |
Voltaire and Jefferson |
| To a significant extent, hostility to Judaism is inherent not only in German philosophy and Volkish ideals, but also in the secular rationalist program itself. This is an overt and real hostility, not a Christian biblical "hostility" which states that Jews and everyone else who rejects Christ are alienated from God, but are still candidates for saving faith and need to be shown God's love. No, secular so-called rationalism creates an entirely different sort of hostility to the Jews, as can be seen in the writings of Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson. These men were not concerned about the crucifixion of Christ. They objected to Judaism because it was unreasonable - with a vehemence revealing something deeper at work than mere intellectual principle. For example, Jefferson, writing in his "Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, Compared with Those of Others," observed [www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/jeffbsyl.html]: II. Jews. 1. Their system was Deism; that is, the belief in one only God. But their ideas of him and of his attributes were degrading and injurious. 2. Their Ethics were not only imperfect, but often irreconcilable with the sound dictates of reason and morality, as they respect intercourse with those around us; and repulsive and anti-social, as respecting other nations. They needed reformation, therefore, in an eminent degree. Jefferson found Jews repulsive because he found the Old Testament God repulsive. This is not the view of a Christian, and Jefferson's estrangement from biblical Christianity is revealed in the same "Syllabus." He asserted that Jesus was only a moralist, did not even want to discuss Christ's participation in the Godhead, and asserted that the bible was not reliable: ...committing to writing his [Christ's] life and doctrines fell on unlettered and ignorant men, who wrote, too, from memory, and not till long after the transactions had passed...the doctrines he really delivered were defective as a whole, and fragments only of what he did deliver have come to us mutilated, misstated, and often unintelligible. Of course, America is very different from Germany, but this is a good example of a new kind of antisemitism that arose not from Christianity, but from the rejection of Christianity. Jefferson in a letter referring to the syllabus (on the same website) explicitly called himself a Christian, but meant that he accepted Jesus' moral system while rejecting the many other (to him) useless and unnecessary doctrines that are in fact at the very heart of Christianity. Voltaire also had an intense dislike of Jews, though he may have moderated it later in life. Quoting Chaim Potok's Wanderings (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1978), one website records the following statements [www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/christian_persecution_of_the_jew.htm]: "'They are all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and The Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race.'" Voltaire went on to condemn them for "'their stubbornness, their new superstitions, and their hallowed usury.'" Addressing the Jews directly, Voltaire wrote, "'You have surpassed all nations in impertinent fables, in bad conduct, and in barbarism. You deserve to be punished, for this is your destiny. '" Other comments are revealing: An example of Voltaire's anti-Judaism is seen in the following entry for "Juifs" in his Dictionnaire philosophique: In short, we find in them only an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred of every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched [www.flholocaustmuseum.org/history_wing/antisemitism/enlightenment.cfm]. |
| It will be objected that Luther also made hostile comments - the only major Protestant writer ever to have done so, showing this is not endemic to Protestantism - but Jefferson and Voltaire are as was just said examples of a different kind of antisemitism, and it was this brand of secular antisemitism that flourished in modern Germany - intensified of course by many factors we have referred to that were unique to Germany and of which Jefferson and Voltaire knew nothing. Nowadays secular antisemitism has been rendered thoroughly unacceptable by the horrors of the Final Solution, so it appears in the more acceptable guise of hostility to Israel. It affects a tender regard for the rights of the poor Palestinians that it shows for no other people on earth. This is either because Palestinians are more valuable than people in Tibet or Algeria or the Sudan, or because an affectation of moral concern is merely a tactic in the struggle against the Jews. An interesting contrast to the views of Voltaire and Jefferson is found in America's second president, John Adams. This shows that respect for the bible mitigates against modern bigotry (which is not to say that Adams was a Christian, but his respect for Christianity clearly defined his attitude toward Jews): Most "enlightened" American Christians such as Adams saw Jews as an ancient people who, by enunciating monotheism, laid the groundwork for Christianity. He also saw them as individuals who deserved rights and protection under the law. Like many of his peers, Adams venerated ancient Jews and thought contemporary Jews worthy of respect, but found Judaism, the religion of the Jewish people, an anachronism and the Jewish people candidates for conversion to Christianity. In an 1808 letter criticizing the depiction of Jews by the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, Adams expressed his respect for ancient Jewry. Adams wrote of Voltaire, "How is it possible [that he] should represent the Hebrews in such a contemptible light? They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern" [http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/adams_jews.htm]. |
German philosophy and antisemitism |
| A certain dislike of Jews can also be found in Kant and Hegel, but this does not need to be discussed in great depth - it is of the same so-called Enlightenment variety that was expressed by Voltaire and Jefferson, if not so vehemently. Also, the so-called Enlightenment is far removed from the Holocaust, though Hegel was related on an abstract level to the Volkish movement was said. To call Kant "the intellectual father of the holocaust" because he made some negative comments about the Jews is a great oversimplification. He lacked the racism, militarism, and pseudo-Darwinian ideology that were key aspects of the Nazi ideology. There may be an incipient totalitarianism in his concept of the state, but a much stronger and healthier moral, political, and social order confined his ideas to the realm of intellectual conversation. To the extent that antisemitism permeated all of German so-called Idealistic philosophy, including that of Fichte, this is not due solely to Kant or to Hegel. It is due to the inherent antipathy of secular "rationalism" to the Old Testament concept of God. As to Hegel, he also saw no place in the modern age for the Jews, and had disdain for Judaism as a useless anachronism. This also was based on modern principles, not on Christianity. Outwardly Hegel was a nominal Christian. He considered himself a Lutheran and preferred Lutheranism to other varieties of Christianity, but he did not believe in the doctrinal essentials of Christianity. He had respect for Jesus as a great moral teacher, and saw Christianity as a step forward in the advancement of mankind, but considered this to be merely one stage in an ongoing process of which he was on the cutting edge. Hegel rejected the heart of Christianity, including the biblical miracles and the death, resurrection, and deity of Christ. Obviously, if he had believed in those things, he would have seen the sad futility of his pitiful attempts at philosophy. |
The intensification of antisemitism |
| Kant and Hegel were men of an earlier era. The pressures of modernism had only begun to intensify, and the old world order was very much intact. That is why in the Hep riots of 1819, not only was the violence limited in time and intensity - we also see the forces of government fulfilling their proper function of keeping the peace and dispersing rioters. It was as the century progressed that the storm clouds of antisemitism began to gather and darken. Mosse gives some instructive examples: Historical evidence proves that the younger generation was more vehement in its refusal to have contact with Jews than were their elders, who remembered a previous age. Among them, anti-Semitic agitation found a receptive and fruitful soil. Student fraternities expelled Jews and refused fraternal Jewish societies satisfaction in duelling - after all, Jews had no honor to defend. In 1878, the Viennese fraternity Libertas began to exclude Jews on racial grounds, and by 1890, both in Germany and Austria, all fraternities declared themselves Judenrein [p. 135]. Another example from Mosse is found in a report of an anti-Semitic reform party: "In the 1850's schoolboys still maintained social contacts with their fellow Jewish students, and even with their parents. Now, a Jew sitting at the same table with a Gentile excites notoriety." Such pronouncements were no doubt exaggerated, but the basic trend is born out by historical evidence [ibid.]. Much more could of course be said about 19th-century German antisemitism. Heinrich von Treitschke could be discussed - he was an academic, a scholar who gave antisemitism a greater degree of intellectual respectability. Adolf Stoecker, Kaiser Wilhelm II's court preacher, is also a figure of minor interest. Apparently he saw antisemitism as a means of solidifying the old order - of course, if he had ever given the Kaiser a genuinely evangelical sermon he would have been instantly dismissed from his comfortable position as paid preacher to the court. He seems to have had no interest in the gospel of Jesus Christ. But, I think it is not necessary to study these or other minor figures in detail. The real reasons, I believe, for the intensification of antisemitism in Germany prior to 1914 are not far to seek. One reason was the deficiency of Volkish values as a substitute religion. Unable to find real rest for their souls in this false philosophy, the new secularists pursued it with a greater intensity as their spiritual hunger deepened. Seeking rest for their troubled souls they pressed farther and farther in the wrong direction. Going off into the darkness of modernism, away from God, they clung more and more to their Germanness as their justification for being and proof of self worth, and correspondingly had more and more dislike for the aliens in their midst who represented the antithesis of everything that their false Volkish values had given them to understand about life. A second reason was the heady wine of egotism and superiority. Being naturally sinful, they loved to imagine their superiority over someone else, in exactly the same way as racists love to imagine that they are superior to blacks. This was intensified by the great increase in Germany's political and military power as the century progressed. Increasingly puffed up with delusions of grandeur, they despised the weak and helpless among them even more - and behind all of this the invisible spiritual powers of evil were at work, leading the foolish Volkists to their ruin. As the bible says, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Of course, the humiliation of defeat and the political and economic woes that followed did not lead to soul searching and repentance and a return to God on the part of the Germans. On the contrary, the disasters only fanned the flames of hatred, and the conspicuous participation of Jews in Communist revolutionary activities, as well as in other left-wing and socialist activities, served to confirm a century of Volkish tradition that the Jews were fundamentally contrary to the German spirit. |
von Schonerer |
| Returning to the period before 1914, Frank has an insightful portrayal of antisemitism in pre-war Vienna that speaks volumes. His comments about Georg Ritter von Schonerer, a member of the Austrian Parliament, bear repeating: ...Georg Ritter von Schonerer (1842-1921)... founded the German Nationalist Party in Austria. His family came from the Wooded Quarter where Hitler's family had its roots. Like anyone interested in the success stories of people from their birth places, Hitler took a keen interest in the life and policies of the aging Schonerer. He was to become Hitler's first political idol.* Schonerer won his first post to parliament as a Liberal before Hitler was born...He spent his early years fighting for wage and labor reform, universal suffrage, and the right to strike. He also fought for more rural schools and for the conservation of forests and streams. His ideas along with his avowed contempt for the liberals love of "untrammeled individualism" (which they called "democracy") earned him their undying hatred. Schonerer believed that uncontrolled individualism benefited the rich more than any other group. He saw liberalism and democracy deteriorating into republicanism (which stresses the rights of minorities) with eventual domination of the most powerful of all minorities--the rich. He understood that the wealthy and their money and newspapers had the power to silence most opposing values and he was soon arguing for legislation to curb the special favors which benefited the rich in not only capital but "opinion"...His demands for a more equitable distribution of wealth and his "aggressive anticapitalism" were, however, always subordinated to a passionate German nationalism.1 Because of the unsettled conditions that existed throughout the Empire, many of the minority groups sought avenues to further their ambitions. Many influential Jews, consequently, had joined the liberal fold and "liberalism ... had strengthened the grip of educated Viennese Jews upon the press and literary production."2 The Jews also had highly visible positions in banking, law, industry, and retailing. Schonerer, therefore, accepted the argument from many of his supporters that mass support against liberalism was impossible without a simultaneous campaign against wealthy and influential Jews. He began to see powerful "Jewish businessmen .... Jewish coal barons," and other "Jewish speculators" (with their close connections in the financial affairs of Europe) as the chief proponent behind liberalism. Because the Jews controlled nearly all the major banks in Vienna, Schonerer believed that they--with their large scale loans to government, railroad companies, and other large enterprises--had an excessive amount of influence on German life and opinion. He believed that most politicians and even (referring to the royal family) "higher factors," bowed to these rich Jews. He came to believe that the Jews, because of their "liberal and materialistic tendencies," were responsible for much of the economic gloom of the rural and working classes. Seeking "reform," his attacks against wealthy Jews became constant. He railed against "Jewish-liberalism," "Jewish influence," "Jewish individualism," and their "immoral and injurious" dealings.3 In 1885 he added another point to his nationalist program which read: "The removal of the Jewish influence from all sections of public life is indispensable for carrying out the reforms aimed at."4 |
| Like the students of Vienna a few years before, Schonerer made it clear that his attacks were not directed against the religion of the Jews, but against their "racial peculiarities"5 in favoring individual liberty over law and order, and liberalism over traditional German morals, values, and beliefs. Many eminent individuals and political parties (of both the Left and Right) throughout Europe shared Schonerer's beliefs and there had been subdued attacks against the Jews in Germany, France and Great Britain. In Russia, Romania, and Poland, however, the attacks were straightforward and often brutal. The large-scale immigration of Jewish refugees fleeing the eastern nations, and other "states" of the Austrian empire, for the more liberal Austrian zone, provoked Schonerer to demand a bill prohibiting Jewish immigration into Austria. What Schonerer was attempting to accomplish was not much different than what the "white supremacist and Anglo-Saxon" groups in the U. S. wanted.6 Between 1880 and 1884 the US Congress passed a series of laws, known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, which bared Chinese from entering America. Two years before Hitler was born, Schonerer took America's Chinese Exclusion Act, changed the word "Chinese" to "Jew" and submitted the Act to the Austrian parliament for approval. No doubt looking to the United States (and other European countries) for more inspiration, the following year, Schonerer opposed Jewish assimilation and wanted Jewish school students to be segregated from other students just as blacks were in the United States. To emphasize further that race was the issue and not religion,7 he also proposed that Jews, even if they had converted to Christianity, be barred from teaching school. Whereas, the Czech, Pole, and Hungarian states of the Empire had shut down Jewish schools, he proposed that the schools remain open but the teachers be "Aryan." Because Hitler admired him, Schonerer would later become known as the "most violent exponent of anti-Semitism" by some authors. His attacks, however, against the internationalism of the Roman Catholic Church, the Hapsburg Monarchy, Slavs and other "races" entering Austria were just as "violent." His "anticapitalistic anti-Semitism"8 was mild compared to other political groups outside or within the Empire. The Osterreichische Reformverein, for example, wore and sold silver effigies which they hoped would become the symbol of the anti-Semitic movement--a hanged Jew. One of their members went so far as to propose in the Austrian parliament that a reward be paid to anyone who murdered a rich Jew and a portion of the "victim's property be awarded to the murderer."9 Schonerer, in reality, was echoing many of the beliefs of German (and European) intellectual thought that stretched back to the days of Martin Luther [II.5]. |
| This profound analysis is defective as far as I can see only in its reference to Luther. The radical shift to secularism introduced many new concerns that were unknown to Luther, but that has been discussed already. Frank himself says in a passage quoted below that antisemitism was "an outgrowth of the nationalistic fervor that infected almost everyone during this period," and nationalism is not a biblical or a Reformation concept. Frank goes on to analyze Hitler's antisemitism. Quotes from Hitler are taken from Mein Kampf or from Hitler's Secret Conversations, also known as Table Talk (not to be confused with Hitler's Secret Book, an unpublished sequel to Mein Kampf). Obviously, in analyzing Hitler's antisemitism it is not possible to speak with scientific certainty, science being a limited form of knowledge incapable of dealing with such matters. But, Frank's views are well researched and more than merely plausible. Some of this has been mentioned earlier in the section dealing with Hitler's antisemitism, but it bears repeating in a more specifically 19th-century context. Continuing with Frank's analysis, we read: By the time Hitler arrived in Vienna, Schonerer had toned down his attacks against Jews, Slavs, and other non-Germans. He abandoned all hope of preserving the Austrian Empire.* With the backing of university intellectuals, he turned his main attention to the unity of Austria with Germany. Hitler, like most central Europeans, had no trouble accepting the ideas that the Slavs were a threat or the rich were greedy. But unlike the university students, Hitler refused to accept many of the racist beliefs. It was Schonerer's pleas for union with Germany that held Hitler's admiration, not Schonerer's anti-Semitic stance.* "Schonerer," Hitler would write, "recognized more clearly and more correctly than anyone else the inevitable end of the Austrian State."* But, Hitler also stated: "In Vienna, anti-Semitism could never have any foundation but a religious one. From the point of view of race, about 50 per cent of the population of Vienna was not German."* Hitler had no great love for anyone foreign, but he felt that people who railed against those who spoke, looked and acted German, did so for selfish reasons. To the young Hitler, a man who spoke and looked German was German* and he was filled with "distaste" when anyone singled someone out as a "Jew."* Concerning the Germanized Jews, he wrote: "I even looked upon them as Germans."* He thought that attacks upon them were made out of "jealousy and envy." He also stated: "in the Jew I still saw only a man who was of a different religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I was against the idea that he [or any other] should be attacked because he had a different faith."* As an acquaintance would later write, Hitler did not associate the word Jew with race and "believed every religion to be good and ... didn't care much about anti-Semitism."* As Hitler would later write in Mein Kampf (and Kubizek noted in his book), shortly after he arrived in Vienna, he began to believe the anti-Jewish rhetoric he heard and read. Consequently, he turned to handbooks and magazines to relieve his "doubts," and now for the first time in his life bought himself some anti-Semitic pamphlets. During Hitler's stay in Vienna, racist literature could be purchased almost anywhere, including the tobacco shop a few doors from where he lived...the idea of "pure racial stock" was already a fanciful belief to many; racialists books, pamphlets and newspapers were read by millions.* Hitler read many of these publications including the Schonerer movement's satirical magazine: Politics and Entertainment in Art and Life (which not only specialized in attacks on non-Germans, but also attacked the Church, members of parliament, and the decline of morals and the evils of alcoholism).* Hitler complained that these publications did not supply enough information on the Jewish question and added: "All began with the standpoint that the reader had a certain degree of information of the Jewish question or was familiar with it. Moreover the tone of most of these pamphlets was such that I became doubtful again because the statements made were partly superficial and the proofs extraordinarily unscientific."* One of the most prodigious racist writers at the time was a defrocked monk named Adolf Josef Lanz. His magazine, the Ostara, was a typical Viennese tabloid of the time. It damned assimilation, preached racial purity and looked forward to the day of a "German master race" led by a quasi-religious military leader.* To be sure the reader was of the right type himself, the magazine contained a question and answer section where one could find out where he fit within the great racial pool. A varied number of points were given for physical attributes such as color of hair, eyes and skin. One then added up the points and consulted the index to determine his "racial group." Naturally, the scoring was done in a. way that anyone who found the tabloid congenial emerged as one qualified to participate in the struggle against inferior races.* Featured articles like "The Sex and Love-Life of Blondes and Dark Ones"* boosted the Ostara's circulation for some issues to 100,000 in Austria and Germany. Although it "played down 'the Jewish Question,'"* it appealed to both the superiority of the Germans and their suspicion of the Jews, and also Slavs, Turks, Negroes, and other "dark ones." It contained material that urged the white or Aryan race to arm itself against "dark forces." In order to popularize the Aryan idea, racial beauty contests were even proposed. In its more malign moments it called for a systematic program of sterilization, deportation, or forced labor. By subjugating the dark races, the Ostara preached, the Aryans could rule the earth.* |
| Hitler, according to Lanz (in a 1951 interview), appeared at his home in 1909 and explained that he had read most issues of the Ostara, which he purchased at the tobacco shop near his place on Felber Strasse. Hitler wasn't able to obtain a few of the back issues and asked Lanz if he had them. Lanz claimed that Hitler looked so earnest but impoverished that he gave him the copies free of charge and also two kronen for streetcar fare home.* Even after additional reading on the subject, Hitler still wasn't convinced about the "Jewish danger" and would later state in Mein Kampf: "I returned to my old way of thinking."* (Hitler adds: "...for weeks and once even for months."* This addition was undoubtedly an attempt to cover his position as a youth. Hitler knew that there would be those who knew that he wasn't "anti-Semitic" in his youth and could expose him (as more than one acquaintance later did). By claiming to have moments of "indecision" he covered his rear--so to speak.) "Anti-Semitism" was an outgrowth of the nationalistic fervor that infected almost everyone during this period. Hitler undoubtedly made statements in his youth that could be interpreted as "anti-Semite." With the exception, however, of a few foggy statements that Kubizek remembered in retrospect, all reliable sources who knew Hitler personally during his youth agree that he was not an anti-Semite, but an outspoken nationalist [II.5]. Hitler did not appear out of nowhere. He was the result of over a century of secular modernist tradition. Recall if you will that to von Schonerer conversion and baptism were insufficient - the problem was racial, not religious. If only the clear light of Christ had been able to shine into their troubled minds. A striking example of the further result of the aforementioned tendencies is provided by Mosse: The pioneering work of Volkish racial thinkers played a central role in the creation of the anti-Semitic image. The stereotype of the Jew strove successfully to convey the image of a parasite. In Darwinian terms, the Jews were an arrested development in evolution, a fossil that lacked the strength or roots to nourish itself. The racial stereotype attributed so many grotesque qualities to the Jew that he was in essence dehumanized. Fritsch's work again demonstrates this ominous development, for in his Leuchtkugeln (Fireballs) (1881) he explicitly denied human status to Jews. Here he claimed that God had created the Jew as a buffer between man and ape. The Nazis assimilated this thought in their own propaganda when, in 1931, one of their speakers asserted that non-Nordic man occupied an intermediary position between Nordic man and the animal world. The non-Nordic was not a whole man, for he still shared traits with the apes. In 1932 another National Socialist speaker likened the Jews to bugs and called for their extermination. Interestingly, the speech was monitored by the secret police of the Republic, and their report pointed out that not the masses, but the "better bourgeoisie" of the Berlin upper-class district of Charlottenburg, had made up the gathering and joined in the "stormy applause." The Jewish stereotype had indeed eaten deeply into the fabric of German bourgeois society [p. 143]. Some ignore the entire context of 19th-century German culture, lightly attribute this dehumanization to Christianity, and do not want to consider more immediate sources, such as Wagner, Nietzsche, and Haeckel - not to mention the entire Volkish tradition that went back a century and more before Hitler. Also, they are reluctant to admit that their own secular presuppositions can have such disastrous consequences - it is much easier to point the finger elsewhere. |
Why the Germans? |
| This brief overview demonstrates, and further research should confirm, the overwhelmingly secular nature of modern German antisemitism - but it is still far from complete. A much deeper understanding of this modern ideological aberration can be gotten from a study of Nietzsche's remarkable book The Antichrist: A Curse on Christianity. Nietzsche felt that Christianity was nothing but a Jewish trick that served only to weaken the Germans and render them susceptible to Jewish domination. Before looking into that work, however, a few comments are in order as to why it should have been in Germany alone that nationalism, racism, militarism, and antisemitism should have reached such a feverish pitch, such an exalted degree. All of the western European countries (and their derivatives in the New World) experienced the same modernistic trends that Germany did, yet in none of them but Germany did totalitarianism emerge from the dark depths of the sinful human soul with such terrible intensity. One obvious factor is that the aforementioned countries did not experience the extreme dislocations that Germany went through as a result of its defeat in the Great War. There is something vastly greater and deeper at work here, however - something that is far beyond mere human psychology. Different nations have had at different times their periods of what we humans call "greatness." They rise, shine with the world's glory, and then lapse into a more ordinary status among the conglomeration of nations. The Romans, the Greeks, the Assyrians, the French under Napoleon, the British with their global empire - various nations have arisen and declined. Arthur Koestler I believe referred somewhere to this "wandering star of dominion" and asserted that it shone on various nations in an entirely random manner (if I remember his idea correctly). Christians who believe that God governs the nations, and see his hand in the events of world history believe that God is guiding human affairs to their final culmination. This does not mean of course that we know the "why" of all events - God's purposes are far beyond us. We do believe (or we should believe) that God's vast and all-knowing providence rules invisibly over the affairs of men. Thus, it was divinely appointed for the Germans to rise to a certain degree of dominance within the modern era. The French, the Mongols, all of the aforementioned nations reached their apogees in pre-modern times. Even the British laid the foundations of their empire long before the modern era. None of these nations had access in their rising to the overwhelming power granted by 20th-century technology - and, as has been said, were it not for this technology, the Holocaust could not have occurred. None of these other nations were obsessed in their rise to greatness with the strictly modern concept of racism, nor were they afflicted with modern education and glorification of science (or pseudo-science, such as Darwinism), which intoxicate the mind on a deep level, make it drunk with egotism, intensify its contempt of God, and then lead it off into the darkness vainly searching for spiritual substitutes. It is tempting to look for some secret element in the German character, some combination of western rationalism with eastern cruelty and obedience to authority or whatever. Different nations certainly do have different characters - the Japanese are, after all, in the aggregate, different from the French. There is some sort of a German character, but it was the influences of modernism on this character, not just the character itself, that led to such devastating results. |
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