Otto Boeckel, who wrote about the Jew as the "cause of economic misery" and
insisted that German's salvation demanded a "Jew- free" Germany was elected to
the Reichstag in 1887.
In 1891, the "Universal German League" was founded, which later in 1893 changed
its name to the "Pan-German League" . It called for racial and cultural kinship
among Germans and prohibition of immigration.
In 1924, the "National Socialist Party", which had become the chief organ for
political anti-Semitism in Germany managed to win 6.7% of the vote and send 32
delegates to the Reichstag. As the economy improved their representation
decreased but after the world wide crisis in 1929 their popularity increased
once again and in 1930 they won 18.3% of the vote and sent 107 delegates to the
Reichstag.
The composer, Wagner had considerable influence over Hitler's ideas. Hitler
said,
"At every stage in my life, I come back to Richard Wagner,"who wrote: "The
Jew is a plastic demon of the decline of mankind. I consider the Jewish race
the sworn enemy of man and all that is noble in him. That we Germans in
particular will be ruined by them is beyond dispute."
Karl Lueger (1844-1910) who was called the greatest mayor of all time by Hitler
said of the Jews, "It makes no difference whether one hangs them or decapitates
them."
Many Jews were going through a severe identity crisis during this period and
sought acceptance by their Christian countrymen by rejecting their Jewish
heritage. The reform Jewish Movement was established and had its greatest
successes during this time. Many chose to reform their customs while still
others chose to renounce their Jewishness altogether much as their forefathers
had done during the time of the Seleucid Empire.
Herman Cohen aptly described the Jewish attitude:
"We love our Germanness Duetschtum, not only because we love our homeland
as a bird loves its nest, but because .. we have drawn our intellectual
culture...from the treasures and mines of German spirit, ... the spirit of
classical humanity and of true cosmopolitanism. What other people has a Kant?..
And, what people has this spiritual unity of poetic heroes such as have
enlivened our spiritual history through Lessing and Herder, through Schiller
and Goethe? What people has ever had this unity of classical poetry and
philosophy? The German intellectual are all of them prophets of humanity. It is
really natural that we German Jews feel ourselves integrated as Jews and as
Germans.. I read Faust not only as a beautiful poem, but my love goes out to it
as a German epiphany. I feel the same way about Luther..Mozart and Beethoven
and Friherr von Stein and Bismarck."
It was during this time also that Herzl, who had, like Marx previously
considered assimilation the solution observed an intense AntiSemitism in Europe
and concluded that the Jew could not be assimilated into a Christian society
(then or now).
The so-called liberal Jews of Austria and Germany resented the immigration of
more Eastern Jews (who were mostly orthodox) into their society.
Meanwhile as Jews argued among themselves over immigration, the Germans were
blaming them for Germany's defeat in World War I, the Versailles Treaty, the
economic collapse of Germany, insecurity, inflation, unemployment, political
chaos and for being Bolshevists and in Russia, Stalin was accusing the Jews of
being counter-revolutionaries.
During his stay in Landsberg prison, Hitler established ideas that he
considered Moses the first Bolshevik and the message of the Apostle Paul was
that Germany was the only bulwark between Western Capitalism and Jewish
Bolshevism.
Continued:
MORE: http://pnews.org/ArT/WaR/ArY.shtml
