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Authors: Bruce F. Pauley

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From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (21 page)

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Page 60
munity, they were not numerous enough to threaten its existence. Austrian Jews were still not well integrated into Christian society; they tended both to work and socialize with each other. These circumstances helped sustain their sense of Jewish identity even if that consciousness was undoubtedly weaker than seven decades earlier. AntiSemites who claimed that Jews did not cease being Jews merely because they were baptized or attempted to assimilate were not entirely wrong, even though this assertion was to a large extent a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Even at the University of Vienna, where antiSemitism had flourished from the late 1870s to the 1890s, a new spirit of tolerance prevailed after the turn of the century. Whatever the private feelings of gentile faculty members toward Jews may have been, they did not prevent Jews from being promoted, especially in the Medical College. The influence of the Burschenschaften was waning and even the infamous Waidhofner Principle was revoked a few days before the outbreak of the world war.

58

Knowing what we know today about the catastrophe that was about to engulf the Jews of Austria, it is easy to say that they were living in a fool's paradise in 1914. Yet our knowledge should not blind us to the very real progress toward civil equality Austrian Jews had achieved since 1848 and especially since 1867. One Jewish historian in the United States has recently noted that, ''the history of the Jews in Germany from 1870 to 1930 represents the most spectacular advance any branch of Jewry has ever achieved."
59
Much the same could be said of the Jews in Vienna. As for the Jews of the Habsburg Monarchy as a whole, another American historian has recently concluded that "nowhere else in the world has the large-scale transformation of eastern Jewry taken place so relatively peacefully, indeed so relatively without major violence."
60
The shots that killed the heir apparent to the AustroHungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, on 28 June 1914, brought an almost instant end to the golden age of Viennese Jewry. They proved to be as catastrophic for Austrian Jews as they were for the monarchy as a whole and far surpassed the consequence of the demise of Liberalism. The more than four grueling years of war and famine revived Austrian antiSemitism to its greatest intensity since at least the seventeenth century. Although the war helped awaken Jewish selfconsciousness as well, the combination of increased antiSemitism and growing Jewish awareness resulted in less, not more, unity within the Jewish community.

 

Page 61
5
A World Collapses
Jewish Support for the War

Although it is easy today for the historian to see in the First World War the catastrophe that ended the golden age of Viennese Jewry, there was no sense of forboding in the Jewish press (as distinguished from Jewish-owned or edited newspapers having both gentile and Jewish readers) when the war broke out. Nor, for that matter, did Jewish journalists have much anti-Semitic news to report before about the last year and a half of the war. On the contrary, with the exception of the iconoclastic writer, Karl Kraus, and Friedrich Adler, the son of the Socialist leader, Viktor Adler, nearly all Austrian Jews, including the Zionists, supported the war enthusiastically as an opportunity to prove their loyalty to the Habsburg dynasty and to the AustroHungarian state. For assimilationist Jews in Austria (and Germany) it was also a chance to complete their integration into society. A victory would be "the start of a new centuries-long era of peace and work."

1

Moreover, the war was widely regarded as a chance to disprove one of the oldest anti-Semitic allegations, namely that Jews were cowards.
Die Wahrheit
, the organ of the liberal and more assimilated Viennese Jews, thought that "the worst enemies of the Jews . . . would be shamed into silence by the long lines of Jews" volunteering for service in the AustroHungarian army.
2
The monthly newsletter of the Austrian-Israelite Union expressed these views succinctly in its JulyAugust issue of 1914: "In this hour of danger we consider ourselves to be fully entitled citizens of the state. . . . We want to thank the Kaiser with the blood of our children and with our possessions for making us free; we want to prove to the state that we are its true citizens, as good as anyone. . . . After this war, with all its horrors, there cannot be any more anti-Semitic agitation in Austria. . . . We will be able to claim full equality."
3
Although nearly all the AustroHungarian nationalities supported the world war, especially at the outset, it was particularly easy for Jews to do so. For

 

Page 62

them Russia, home to more than half the world's Jewish population and by far the worst and most powerful oppressor of their coreligionists, was the instigator of the war and the monarchy's principal enemy. Jewish newspapers even held the Russian government responsible for the murder of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Princip, the assassin, and the Serbian government were no more than tools of the Russians.

4
When the Russian "steamroller" swept through most of Galicia in the fall of 1914, it was interpreted not so much as a defeat for Austria-Hungary as it was proof of Russia's preparedness for an invasion.
5
Rumania's entry into the war in August 1916 merely reinforced the war's legitimacy and gave Austrian Jews another opportunity for revenge against a country that had always denied Jews equal rights.
6

Support for the war effort remained unwavering among most Jews until the end. In January 1917
Dr. Bloch's Oesterreichische Wochenschrift
declared that "we have the knowledge that Austria-Hungary's cause is just; the cause that our army and the armies of our allies have served has brought our fatherland glorious successes. To be sure, there have also been setbacks, which in a great war are unavoidable and which must be endured with strong hearts. The result, however, is more than favorable for our weapons. . . . Except for the diplomatic cabinets of the Entente governments, there is probably no one who does not want peace."
7
The same newspaper was puzzled, however, by the outbreak of war between Germany and the United States in April, stating that there had been no political or economic conflicts between the two countries or even any tradition of enmity. The paper rejected the contention of panGermans and anti-Semitic newspapers that American Jews were anti-German and offered as proof a recent meeting of Jews in Philadelphia that protested the U.S. entry into the war. Anti-Germanism in America had been provoked by the aggressiveness of panGerman propaganda, not Jewish agitation.
8
Jewish Soldiers in the First World War
Austrian Jews supported the AustroHungarian war effort not only verbally and financiallythrough their heavy subscription to war loansbut militarily as well. Even before the war Jews had been overrepresented in the army among its officers, especially its reserve officers because of the need for educated young men with linguistic skills. Whereas Jews made up only about 4.5 percent of the Dual Monarchy's population, they comprised 8 percent of the army's officers in 1900 and nearly 19 percent of its reserve officers, making Austria-Hungary

 

Page 63

the only country in the world with such an overrepresentation. In fact, prior to the establishment of the Israeli Defense Force no army even came close to having as many Jewish officers in its army as Austria-Hungary.

9

The total number of Jews who served in the AustroHungarian army during the First World War cannot be determined because no census was ever taken during the war. Erwin Schmidl, an Austrian military historian, has estimated the figure to be 300,000 Jewish soldiers.
10
Furthermore, we know that 25,000 Jewish officers served in the war compared with only 2,000 for Prussia. All of the Austrian Jewish refugees interviewed for this book reported that many of their relatives had fought in the war. Nevertheless, it is entirely possible that Jews were underrepresented at least among soldiers who served and were killed on the fighting fronts. The simple fact is that most infantry soldiers were peasants in all the belligerent armies of the First World War, and peasants, for historical reasons described previously, were overwhelmingly gentiles. The urban population of Austria-Hungary, whether Jewish or gentile, was far more likely to be used in safer military jobs requiring training and education like transportation corps, construction units, or military administration. Jews were especially numerous among medical officers who played an indispensable role ministering to the wounded on the front. Nevertheless, 30,000 to 40,000 AustroHungarian Jews were killed in the war.
11
Although little information is available, antiSemitism does not appear to have been a serious problem within the AustroHungarian army during the war, in sharp contrast to the army of imperial Germany.
12
Fights between Christian and Jewish officers did break out in prisoner-of-war camps, however. Moreover, military authorities showed their mistrust of Jewish (as well as Czech and Italian-speaking) soldiers by not allowing them to guard prisoners of war after March 1917.
13
For the first few months of the fighting, Jewish hopes that the war would inaugurate a new and far more amicable era of Christian-Jewish relations seemed realistic. In October
Die Wahrheit
observed that "the earlier antipathy for Jews has quickly quieted down both within the government and within the Aryan masses of Middle Europe. Even the Viennese and Lower Austrian press . . . has since the start of the war maintained an honorable and objective tone vis-à-vis the Jewish population."
14
Moreover, the Jews' hope of refuting anti-Semitic charges about their alleged cowardice seemed to be realized during the war. Members of the imperial family as well as senior officers were lavish, both during and after the war, in their praise of Jewish bravery. Archduke Ferdinand declared that the Jews in his division had fought like heroes and that he was "very satisfied" with their

 

Page 64

performance.

15
Franz Joseph and his successor, Karl, who came to the throne in November 1916, repeatedly recognized Jewish patriotism and steadfastness both on and off the field of battle. Major General G. Glasser Edler von Jarten and Colonel-General Count Viktor Denkl stated after the war that they did not notice any difference in the fighting ability of Jewish and non-Jewish officers and soldiers. A member of the general staff, Colonel-General R. E. Allexin said he had witnessed numerous heroic and self-sacrificing achievements of both Jewish officers and soldiers. Field Marshal Edler von Kaltenborn praised both the bravery and reliability of the Jewish soldiers under his command.
16

Jewish optimism about the war causing a remission of antiSemitism, however, turned out to be pathetically naive and short lived. The trust that the military in general gave to Jews seems to have aroused the distrust of non-Jews outside the army. Gentiles accused Jews of acting as spies for the Russians. Occasionally wartime psychoses led people to take these stories seriously. As early as February 1915, the Austrian-Israelite Union's
Monatschrift
reported that Jews were accused by various types of people of being cowards and traitors.
17
In 1916 Galician Jews were charged with trying to avoid military service by pretending to be rabbinical students. An investigation at the time revealed that only a few Jews had taken advantage of the unclear qualifications that existed in the eastern part of the monarchy for becoming rabbinical students. The matter was quickly settled when the government and a committee of rabbis established new rules. These actions did not prevent antiSemites from repeating the allegations after the war, however.
18
As the war progressed and turned increasingly against the Central Powers in 1917, the government's censorship of anti-Semitic hate articles grew lax and verbal attacks against Jews became more frequent. At first they were done mostly by innuendo. But by 1917 and especially throughout 1918 they became increasingly frequent and vociferous. AntiSemites accused the Jews of cowardice, saying that only a few had been cited for bravery; the trenches, they claimed, were virtually "judenrein." Instead, Jews filled the comparatively safe Red Cross centers far from the front lines, worked in warehouses where they stole goods, or evaded military service altogether and became profiteers. Jewish physicians were accused of coddling Jewish soldiers while sending Aryans back to the battlefields prematurely. (After the war Zionists made inverse accusations against gentile officers.) By war's end Jews were being charged, as in Germany, with undermining the homefront and causing the defeat of the Central Powers.
19
BOOK: From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism
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