From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (30 page)

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Authors: Bruce F. Pauley

Tags: #History, #Jewish, #Europe, #Austria & Hungary, #Social Science, #Anthropology, #Cultural, #Discrimination & Race Relations, #test

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Page 107

respects even more anti-Semitic than its sister paper, the
Reichspost
, editorialized in 1919 that it had always favored an alliance between antiSemites and Zionists against things Jewish. The
Reichspost
supported Zionism not to protect the rights of a minority, but to limit Jewish influence in the state. It backed Zionist demands for the separation of people "who don't belong together for the benefit of both." The
Reichspost
was opposed to Jews controlling Christian holy places in Palestine and doubted whether Palestine could ever accommodate more than 500,000 Jews. Nevertheless, on the eve of the Zionist Congress it remarked that Zionists were forthright in their goals and ought to be treated like any other political opponent. They were at least preferable to assimilated Jews. The Catholic and usually very anti-Semitic journal
Schönere Zukunft
was also favorably disposed toward Zionism, admitting that Jewish settlers in Palestine had proved that Jews could be successful farmers, miners, and construction workers.

13

The Roman Catholic church was far less favorably disposed toward Zionism than the Christian Social Party. For example, the
Katholische Kirchenzeitung
in Salzburg called a possible Jewish state in Palestine at best a headquarters for Jewish world domination, an idea frequently repeated in völkisch newspapers. And while the Zionist Congress was meeting in Vienna, the bishop of Innsbruck, Sigismund Waitz, organized a counter congress in the Tyrolean capital consisting of Roman Catholic academics from Austria and Germany who were warned by the bishop about the "world Jewish danger."
14
The
Arbeiter-Zeitung
was not openly hostile to the Zionist goal of establishing a homeland for Jews in Palestine, but regarded it as at best a bourgeois utopia that detracted efforts away from the class struggle. Moreover, like many Catholic periodicals it doubted whether such a state would solve the Jewish problem. No more than a small percentage of the world's Jews could live in Palestine and therefore the relationship between Jews and non-Jews in other countries would remain essentially unchanged. Just prior to the gathering of the Zionist Congress, the
Arbeiter-Zeitung
claimed that the meeting was being funded by a few Jewish magnates who had enough influence in the League of Nations, the United States, and Great Britain to prevent Austria from receiving loans.
15
The nationalist camp usually took a much less sanguine approach to Zionism and its goals. Ironically, nationalistic antiSemites in Germany and probably Austria as well gave serious consideration to the idea of a Jewish state long before a significant number of Jews did. Pro-Zionist statements were fairly common in Germany even before the First World War, being made by those

 

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people who wanted to expel the Jews.

16
In Austria the völkisch
Ostdeutsche Rundschau
remarked shortly before the end of the war that nothing would please Germans more than if all Jews would move to Palestine. It was a utopian idea, however, because Central European Jews were too used to making money. Only a few Jews from Russia would actually be willing to emigrate. Both
Der eiserne Besen
and the
Deutsche ArbeiterPresse
agreed that the migration of Jews to Palestine was an excellent idea in and of itself. However, they thought that Palestine would then become merely the first stage on the road to Jewish domination of the world. The
Deutsche ArbeiterPresse
expressed a common view among antiSemites that a Jewish state would never be realized because Jews could not create anything on their own and did not know the meaning of work. However, the paper loved to quote Zionists who said that assimilationist Jews were foolish to deny that the Jews were a race with specific characteristics. As the Zionist Congress approached, the attitude of the
Deutsche ArbeiterPresse
became increasingly belligerent. Zionism, it said, was only an advanced form of Judaism that did not differ in its essentials from Judaism in general. The building of a Jewish state in Palestine was a farce. Most Zionists wanted someone else to emigrate there.
17

The XIVth World Zionist Congress
In the last few weeks before the opening of the Zionist Congress, anti-Semitic newspapers in Vienna returned to their favorite pastime of estimating Jewish numbers. As in the case of the Eastern European Jewish refugees, there was a kind of bidding war to see who could make the highest estimate. The
Deutsche ArbeiterPresse
, after remarking that Leopoldstadt should be made a ghetto again until all Jews were expelled from Vienna, stated that there would be 25,000 Jewish observers at the congress in addition to the 500 delegates. The Christian women and girls of Vienna would be in great danger with this horde of foreign Jews around. Three weeks later the newspaper raised that estimate to 50,000, a figure that also appeared on Nazi posters.
Der eiserne Besen
put the number of Jewish visitors at 50,000 to 80,000. The
Deutschösterreichische Tages-Zeitung
was more modest in estimating that only 30,000 Jews would attend the international meeting, but claimed that 25,000 of these would be from Eastern Europe. As many as 20,000 would use the meeting as a pretext to remain in Austria permanently in order to take control of the country. When in reality only 10,000 Jews came to the congress, the Nazis interpreted that figure as proof not that their predictions were grossly exaggerated but that they had

 

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discouraged the others from attending through their work of "enlightening" the Christian population of Austria about the dangers of the congress.

18

Nazis were not the only Austrians "alarmed" about the forthcoming "invasion" of congress participants. Three members of the Bundesrat, the upper house of the Austrian ParliamentLeopold Stocker, Theodor Berger, and Martin Drescherwarned the Christian Social chancellor, Rudolf Ramek, that allowing so many Jewish delegates to enter the country would create a "sanitation problem," would cause Austrian trains to get dirty, and would overcrowd Vienna's hotels, thus discouraging other tourists from visiting the country.
19
The attitude of the Austrian government and the police of Vienna toward the Zionist Congress both before and during the meeting itself can be described as "correct." After the
Deutsche ArbeiterPresse
had published a series of articles insulting the congress and threatening its participants with violence, Chancellor Ramek warned the Nazis against using terror and threatened to use vigorous countermeasures if his warnings were ignored.
20
At the same time Ramek also assured two worried Austrian Zionist leaders that his government would do everything possible to protect the congress. He would certainly find the means to keep "the few undesirable screamers away from the Congress." He was convinced that there would be no surprise attacks against the Jewish visitors because the government would find a way to render them harmless long before the congress began. At the end of the conference Ramek declared that he would write a letter to the Zionist state organization of Austria in which he would put these promises in writing. It would then be free to publish this letter abroad in order to dissipate any fears.
21
The same two Zionist leaders also visited Police President Johannes Schober, a member of the German National People's Party, who told them that he would defend the congress "at all costs."
22
True to his word, Schober met on 15 July with a group of representatives of völkisch groups calling itself the Verband deutschvölkischer Vereine (League of German Völkisch Clubs) and also including the chairman of the Austrian Nazi Party, Karl Schulz, and advised them of the importance of the congress to the Austrian economy. They in turn promised not to hold any demonstrations against the congress. On the contrary, they would influence their followers to allow the meeting to take place undisturbed, a promise they soon utterly ignored.
23
Ramek and Schober publicly repeated their support for the congress shortly before it met. On 8 August Ramek said that his government had no reason to limit those people attending the congress to elected delegates as many antiSemites had demanded. He did not fear any sanitation problems. The next

 

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day Vienna's police headquarters explained to the public the importance of the congress for Vienna's economy and international reputation. The congress would establish worthwhile contacts for the future.

24

The Austrian chancellor and Viennese police president fulfilled their promises to protect the congress even though in doing so they had to turn Vienna into a veritable armed camp. The most important public buildings were surrounded by cordons of police. During the congress Ramek held a press conference in which he made an appeal for reason. A particularly inflammatory edition of the
Deutsche ArbeiterPresse
was also confiscated during the congress. Much to the disgust of the anti-Semitic press, a member of Ramek's cabinet attended the opening of the congress and greeted the delegates on behalf of the Austrian government. The whole attitude of the Austrian government caused the
Deutsche ArbeiterPresse
to claim that it was completely under the influence of Jewish world capital.
25
Anti-Zionist Demonstrations
Nazis and other antiSemites broke their promise to Schober not to demonstrate against the congress even before the congress officially began on 18 August. Already on 13 August, 10,000 demonstrators gathered in three halls to protest the congress, a rally that inspired some Nazis to break the windows of Jewish-owned coffee shops. A second demonstration and march planned by several völkisch and Christian Social organizations for 17 August was forbidden by police because no single organization could guarantee the peaceful behavior of members of the other organizations. The police also objected to the meeting starting at 7:00 in the evening, which meant it would not have ended until after nightfall and therefore would have attracted hooligans.
26
In order to make sure that the forbidden gathering did not take place, the police occupied the Freiheitsplatz (now called Rooseveltplatz) in front of the Votiv Church early in the afternoon of Monday, 17 August. People who approached the square were repeatedly warned that the demonstration was illegal, warnings that were ignored. At 6:15 a whistle sounded in the vicinity of the nearby University of Vienna, signaling the mobilization of the crowd that had already gathered. Ten thousand people listened to three speakers, two of whom were Nazis. One of the speakers, Walter Gattermayer, the leader of a Nazi trade union, used the occasion to appeal to the paramilitary Frontkämpfervereinigung, nationalistic gymnasts, and members of the Greater German People's Party to join the Nazis in opposing the Zionist Congress.
27

 

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Nazi poster announcing a demonstration on 13 August 1925 to protest
the Zionist Congress in Vienna. The chairman of the Austrian Nazi Party,
Karl Schulz, and Walter Gattermayer, among others, were scheduled
to speak on the topic "The Attitude of Aryan-Christian Vienna toward the
Zionist Congress." Every antiSemite, regardless of political affiliation,
was urged to attend. Jews were forbidden to enter. DÖW.

 

Page 112

At 8:00 the police, estimated by antiSemites to number 6,000, belatedly began to break up the rally. In groups of 100 to 150 the demonstrators, shouting anti-Semitic slogans, showered the police with stones and attacked them with sticks and even guns. Not until 8:30 did the crowd begin to disperse. About 1,000 of the demonstrators tried to march into the Leopoldstadt and the inner city, but were stopped by the police. However, the demonstrators remained masters of the Ringstrasse until about 11:oo and attacked Jews or suspected Jews in automobiles, streetcars, and coffee shops. Other demonstrators yelled anti-Semitic insults in front of hotels catering to foreign guests. Not until 12:30 did the city return to normal after 132 people had been arrested and later sentenced to eight to fourteen days in jail. However, 53 of these people were released after just two days as the result of the intervention of the Christian Social Party. All but 34 were released by 22 August. Altogether, 40 people were injured in the melee, 21 of them policemen; fifteen horses were also injured. In addition, $4 million in damage was caused by the rioters not counting the lost patronage of hotels and restaurants from delegates who had been too frightened to come to Vienna.

28

Tuesday, 18 August, proved to be considerably quieter than the preceding day, perhaps because the police took even greater precautions, especially around the Konzerthaus where the congress was taking place. The police allowed crowds to gather no closer than the Schwarzenbergplatz, one block away from the Konzerthaus; there antiSemites shouted "Juden hinaus" and sang the panGerman "Wacht am Rhein." This time only 73 demonstratorsmost of them young and many of them girlswere arrested and all of them were set free within three days.
29
Of the 202 demonstrators arrested on 17 and 18 August for anti-Semitic disturbances, 62 were Nazis, 41 came from various other völkisch organizations, 29 were members of the Social Democratic Party, 6 were Christian Socials (probably because the party's leadership had forbidden its members to take part in illegal demonstrations), just 2 were members of the Greater German People's Party, and 41 had no political affiliation, probably because they were too young to have any real interest in politics but were old enough to enjoy a brawl and an opportunity to plunder.
30
A final and this time entirely peaceful demonstration took place on 22 August. Among the approximately 8,000 people taking part in the rally were 2,000 members of the Vaterländische Schutzbund (Patriotic Protection League), the predecessor of the Austrian Nazis' Sturmabteilung; 800 uniformed members of the Frontkämpfervereinigung; 1,200 members of various gymnastic organizations; and 800 students wearing nationalistic colors. They

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