Before the nineteenth century, anti-Semitism was largely religious, based on the belief that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. It expressed itself later in the Middle Ages in persecutions and expulsions, economic restrictions and personal restrictions. After Jewish emancipation during the Enlightenment, or later, in the 19th century religious anti-Semitism was slowly replaced by racial prejudice, arising from the idea of Jews as a distinct race. In Germany theories of Aryan racial superiority and accusations of Jewish dominance in economics and politics, along with other anti-Jewish propaganda, led to the rise of anti-Semitism. This growth in anti-Semitic belief led to Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the eventual extermination of nearly six million Jews in the Holocaust of World War II. Jewish emancipation in Germany dates back to 1867 and became law in Prussia on July 3, 1869. Despite the importance that Jews had managed to gain in commerce, finance, politics and literature during the first decades of the century, It is from the brief rise of liberalism that the rise of the Jews in German social life can be traced. For it is with the rise of liberalism that the Jews truly flourished. They contributed to its founding, benefited from its institutions and were under fire when it was attacked. Liberal society ensures social mobility, which led to disgust among those who had acquired a place in some kind of hierarchy. While many were, not all anti-Semites were anti-liberal, but most anti-Semites opposed liberalism's entire concept of human existence, which involves a lot of equality. One of the first writers to express racial anti-Semitic views was Wilhelm Marr, who is believed to have invented the word “anti-Semitism.” He, like other Germans, resented Jews on the grounds that a universally successful Jew had excluded them from getting good jobs. Marr himself was fired from his job as a journalist at a Jewish-owned newspaper. He wrote “Der Sieg des Judentums uber das Germanentum”. In other words, the Jew was not contrasted with the Christian, from a religious point of view, but with the German, from a racial point of view. In 1879 he founded the Antisemiten-Liga, the aim of which in short was to bring together all non-Jewish Germans in a common union that strives to save the Fatherland from Jewish influence. Marr was the first to appreciate the possibility... of middle of paper... of finishing more successfully in a factor that religious anti-Semitism has never managed to accomplish as well. That is, being able to gain the full support of the masses through mass propaganda, which appealed to the people's discontent, something that the religious movement has never come close to. EndnotesPeter Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany & Austria (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964), 5-8.Ibid.p.50Durhing, Die Judenfrage… p18. As cited by Pulzer.Frantz, Ahasverus, oder die Judenfrage, p20, 35. As cited by Pulzer.Meyer, Was heisst Konservativ sein? Reform or restoration? p.17. As quoted by Pulzer.Lagarde, Uber die gegenwartigen Aufgaben der deutschen Politik, p41. As cited by PulzerPulzer, p.81Ibid. p.84Ibid. p.86Ibid. p.88Stocker, An die Wahler Berlins. p.127. As quoted by PulzerStocker. Speeches of May 27, 1881. As quoted by PulzerHenrici. Was ist der Kern der Judenfrage?p.4. As quoted by PulzerPulzer. p.90-95Ibid. p.95Ibid. p.106-107Ibid. p.112Ibid. p.113Ibid. p.119Schultheiss, Deutschnationales Vereinswesen. P.72. As cited by Pulzer p.225Pulzer. p.227-228Ibid. p.282Fritsch, Neue Wege, p.287-288
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