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Authors: Bruce F. Pauley

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From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (53 page)

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Page 232
so harsh a conclusion, however, it should be remembered that Jewish writers, and, for that matter, other Austrians and Germans, did not have the benefit of our hindsight. Almost no one, Jew or gentile, in his wildest nightmare foresaw the coming Holocaust.

Moreover, the Nazis themselves had not outlined any clear-cut policy toward the Jews prior to their takeover of power. Although some regional Nazi leaders like Julius Streicher had made frightening statements about the future of German Jewry, top Nazis often made relatively mild comments. For example, in the early months of 1930 an American journalist asked Hitler to describe his antiSemitism. The Führer answered that his party had no plans to deny Jews their rights; it used anti-Semitic slogans only because the voters expected to hear them. And despite the sharp increase in verbal antiSemitism after the First World War, direct physical assaults on Jews were comparatively rare in Germany, especially after the early postwar years. Except for the Viennese Hochschulen, the same was also generally true in Austria.

3

The Jewish Press and the Rise of the Nazis
References to Nazis, Austrian or German, were infrequent in the Jewish newspapers of Vienna prior to 1930.
Die Wahrheit
did mention Nazi participation in the public demonstrations of the early 1920s as well as Nazi activities in Viennese colleges and institutes throughout the decade. In December 1925 it commented that "the mentality of these boys, some of whom have hardly outgrown their childhood, is truly frightening. Shooting, shouting, marching, and destroying appear to be their real purpose in life." However, as late as October 1929 it referred to the Austrian Nazis as being "finished."
4
Already in July 1930, several weeks before the German Nazis won their stunning electoral victory in the Reichstag elections of September,
Die Wahrheit
expressed concern over Nazi victories in local German elections. Jews had to recognize that hatred of Jews was the most important part of the Nazis' program. However, the paper took some comfort in noting that the Nazis' gains had come mostly at the expense of other anti-Semitic parties, especially the German National People's Party. Moreover, Hitler's domestic program, especially as it concerned Jews, was simply utopian and would be catastrophic and doomed to failure if actually implemented. Nazism was one of those phenomena that grew stronger as long as it was fought, but which would fall apart as soon as someone tried to put its program into practice.
5
Die Wahrheit
was slightly less optimistic in late August. It noted an increase

 

Page 233

in antiSemitism among state officials in Germany, in the right-wing bourgeois parties, in the Ministry of Justice, and in the economy and society of Germany. The Center Party and the new State Party were acting responsibly, but not the German National People's Party and the German People's Party. The German government was also not doing anything to counteract the Nazis' pogrom-fostering propaganda. Austrian Jews could eventually be affected by developments in Germany.

6

The German elections in September 1930, when the Nazis suddenly became the second largest party in the Reichstag and won 6.4 million votes after having received only 810,000 two years before, shocked the Jewish newspapers of Austria.
Die Wahrheit
thought the elections showed that Germany was suffering from a sickness caused by the continuing humiliation of its national consciousness by the Versailles peace treaty and reparations. The younger generation was filled with despair and hopelessness. The elections had sent a message to the Western democracies to abandon their spirit of revenge and to think in pan-European terms regarding economic matters. The German Jews were also guilty of displaying a regrettable spirit of confusion and division.
7
The prognosis of the Zionist-Revisionist
Neue Welt
regarding the Reichstag elections was much gloomier than that of
Die Wahrheit
. Half of the German population had voted for anti-Semitic parties. The children of the intelligentsia had voted for the Nazis, which meant that the next generation would be anti-Semitic. The idea that 60 million Germans had to fight 500,000 Jews had triumphed. The German Jews had tried to fight antiSemitism with lofty words, as though it were a temporary phenomenon. Instead of considering themselves Jews, the Jewish leaders in Germany wanted to be considered Germans.
8
The year 1931 was a relatively quiet one politically in both Germany and Austria because no major elections were held in either country. Nevertheless,
Die Wahrheit
was aware that the Austrian Nazis had gained in popularity recently even though they were still well behind their German comrades in that regard. The paper did not think that the Austrian Nazis were as fanatical as their counterparts in the Third Reich, but correctly noted that their methods were the same, especially their propaganda techniques.
9
By 1932 the Nazis in both Germany and Austria had grown enormously and had to be taken seriously. Commenting on the Prussian Landtag elections of 24 April, when the Nazis won 36 percent of the vote,
Die Wahrheit
noted that the Nazis now represented a real danger to Jews in the Reich. However, the Nazis could not form a government because the Catholic Center Party would not agree to forming a coalition with them. There also remained the hope

 

Page 234

that, if the Nazis should eventually come to power, their bite would not be as bad as their bark. If the Nazis wanted to be considered capable of governing they would have to become more moderate.
Die Neue Welt
thought that the election results in Prussia and those from regional elections in Austria on the same day proved that Jews could rely only on themselves for help and not on any predominantly Christian party.

10

The fall of the federal government of Heinrich Brüning in June 1932 caused alarm in Jewish circles. But
Die Wahrheit
soon commented that the government of Franz von Papen did not appear to be paving the way for Hitler, as earlier feared. To the contrary, the Junkers were using Hitler for their own purposes. The conservative and democratic elements of Germany had not given in to Hitler, and the organized workers and the Center Party also strongly opposed him. Moreover, President Hindenburg had promised to uphold the constitution. Although these were dangerous days, they were no more so than those of the antiSemites Adolf Stöcker and Heinrich von Treitschke in the nineteenth century.
11
Even though the Nazis won a smashing victory in the Reichstag elections in July 1932, more than doubling their vote of September 1930,
Die Wahrheit
thought that Hitler had not won the victory that he had expected. The political fronts could not be changed any further because the Center Party had declared its absolute opposition to joining a Nazi-dominated coalition government. Jews could also take comfort in the Nazis' very slow growth since April. The Nazis, in fact, had probably already passed their peak strength. Parties that could no longer grow as a rule declined.
12
By September
Die Wahrheit'
s optimism was getting stronger. Although all the signs were not yet positive, it appeared that the Nazis were on the verge of a decline. Hitler had been foolish to turn down the recent offer of Chancellor Franz von Papen to be the vice-chancellor of Germany and the prime minister of Prussia. Papen had proved himself a better strategist than Hitler. Hitler's popularity with his own followers had been based on the belief that he would soon gain power. That no longer appeared to be the case, and his prestige had been hurt. The Nazis were now in an irreversible decline.
13
Die Wahrheit'
s super optimism seemed amply justified when the Nazis lost over two million votes in the November 1932 Reichstag elections. The Nazis' final collapse was now imminent. The day was perhaps not far off when Hitler's career would resemble that of some of his famous anti-Semitic predecessors such as Adolf Stöcker and Georg von Schönerer. Moreover, the Austrian Nazis, who had always been able to bask in the glory of the "great" Adolf

 

Page 235

Hitler, would lose their popularity as well now that Hitler's reputation had been so badly tarnished.

14

On the other hand,
Die Neue Welt
was much less cheerful following the November elections. Although the Nazis had indeed lost many votes, the outcome was not advantageous for Jews. The lost Nazi voters had simply gone to other anti-Semitic parties, such as the German National People's Party. The success of the Communists would also likely attract impoverished Jews away from the Zionist idea.
15
The largest of Austria's Zionist newspapers,
Die Stimme
, devoted relatively little space to anti-Semitic developments in neighboring Germany. It and other Zionist newspapers did, however, use the Nazi threat in 1932 as a rallying cry for Jews to join the Zionist movement. "Divided into parties we are nothing, united we are a mass which can influence our future in Austria. . . . We are up against a great danger. But nothing would be more dangerous than to give in to a fear psychosis. . . . We will outlive these difficult times despite Hitler."
16
In December, the paper added that "we will . . . outlive Hitler . . . if we can convince Jews that only the blue and white flag of the Zionists can lead to a better future."
17
The Austro-Jewish Press and the Third Reich
Hitler's relatively sudden reversal of fortune and appointment as chancellor at the end of January 1933 came as a terrible shock to Jewish newspapers in Austria.
Die Wahrheit
believed Hitler's chancellorship would be a real testing time for Jews. But it would also be a "testing time for the Nazis to see if they could actually put their theories into practice. . . . No radical party has ever been spared a contradiction between theory and practice when it took over power. . . . For us Viennese Jews the developments in Germany are nothing new. We went through the same thing during the rise of the Christian Social Party."
18
When the Nazis won nearly 44 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections of March 1933,
Die Wahrheit
remained unruffled. Hitler's victory had been expected because of the Nazi use of terror against opponents, which had prevented the latter from employing their propaganda and had intimidated weaklings. The Unionist organ expressed hope that the anti-Semitic measures of the new German government would be only temporary. Two weeks later, however,
Die Wahrheit
said that there was so much brutality taking place in

 

Page 236

Germany that it was hard to believe that such things could transpire in the land of poets and thinkers. Why did the German government want to attack Jews when they had rejected the Communist Party so vehemently? Nevertheless, Jews were being equated with Communists.

19

Just when things appeared bleakest for German Jews in the late winter of 1933,
Die Wahrheit
was greatly encouraged by statements regarding Jews by leading Nazi officials. The paper's hope that current anti-Semitic measures in Germany would soon moderate seemed confirmed by an interview Hermann Göring had with a Swedish newspaper. The Prussian prime minister said that if Jews remained loyal and went about their business as usual they would have no cause to worry. The Nazi government would merely not allow them to lead the Reich. Perhaps even more reassuring was an angry denial by the party's official mouthpiece,
Der Völkischer Beobachter
, that a pogrom was being planned.
20
A few weeks later
Die Wahrheit
was able to report even more encouraging news from Germany when Adolf Hitler himself was quoted as saying that he would treat all religions with justice provided only that all religious groups and races fulfilled their legal responsibilities. Göring also told a reporter that no one would be persecuted simply because he was a Jew. The remarks about tolerating the Jewish religion, however, were actually much less significant than they sounded. For years most racial antiSemites, including Hitler himself in
Mein Kampf
, had boasted that they were free of religious prejudice and only rejected Jews for their race, not their religion. However,
Die Wahrheit
chose to attribute this apparent change in attitude toward German Jews to the current international boycott of German exports. In reality, however, the boycott was not particularly effective because even many Jews around the world could not agree on its usefulness; they feared it would only lend credence to the idea that there was an international Jewish conspiracy and might harden Nazi policies toward Jews. They also doubted whether a boycott would be extensive enough to make any real difference.
21
Die Wahrheit
was much more cautious in interpreting the significance of Hitler calling off the boycott of Jewish shops in Germany just one day after it had been implemented on 1 April 1933. It disagreed with those optimists who thought that conditions would now improve for German Jews. The German government was trying to eliminate the Jews from the country's economic and cultural life, and this had already been largely accomplished. The early end to the boycott did nothing for those Jews who had already lost their jobs in national and local governments, medicine, journalism, teaching, and the arts.
22
The pessimistic mood of
Die Wahrheit
continued into the fall of 1933, when
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