From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (8 page)

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Authors: Bruce F. Pauley

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BOOK: From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism
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names as Sigmund Freud, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Arnold Schoenberg, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Arthur Schnitzler, Karl Kraus, and Gustav Mahler, to name only a very few, have immeasurably enriched the culture, not only of Austria, but also of the world. The expulsion of Vienna's Jews has, to some extent, provincialized the Austrian capital and lowered its cultural standards.

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Population statistics also tell us little about the nature or intensity of Austrian antiSemitism and the Jewish response. Neither phenomenon can be understood apart from the country's geographic, economic, and political status. Geographically, Austria was and is at the crossroads of Europe, where North meets South and East meets West. Hence, Austria contained proportionately more Eastern European Jewswho were highly conscious of their Jewish identitythan Germany and Western Europe, which helps to explain why Vienna was also the first city in the world to have a Zionist-dominated
Kultusgemeinde
(religious community). Nevertheless, the majority of Austria's and Vienna's Jews was thoroughly assimilated or at least acculturated, and very pro-Austrian. Austria's geographic location also exposed it to almost every kind of right-wing extremism from the generally pro-Italian and relatively mildly anti-Semitic
Heimwehr
(Home Guard) to the pro-German and racially anti-Semitic Nazi Party.
The country's economic and social status was similarly transitional. Something like a third of Austria's population lived in industrial centers during the interwar period: Vienna, Wiener Neustadt, the Mur Valley of Upper Styria, Linz, and a few other Austrian towns. Another third of the population made up the modern middle class consisting largely of civil servants and professional people, who were concentrated in Vienna and the provincial capitals. On the other hand, the remaining third of the population was comprised of traditional and usually strongly Roman Catholic peasants. These economic and social divisions were reflected in the country's three political camps: a staunchly anticlerical Social Democratic Party, which saw both Judaism and antiSemitism as bourgeois relics; the clerical Christian Social Party, which still espoused traditional Christian anti-Judaism (as well as socioeconomic antiSemitism); and the panGermans, who tended to support the more modern, "racial" form of antiSemitism.
Consequently, there was little agreement among Austrian antiSemites about which type of antiSemitism to pursue, and even less unanimity among the factious Jews on how to oppose it. The "genius" of the National Socialists, in both Austria and Germany, was to unify all forms of antiSemitism ideology and to implement many of the demands of the separate anti-Semitic

 

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groups, instead of merely talking about them, as earlier Austrian antiSemites had been more inclined to do.
Several disclaimers need to be made at the outset of this book. I have made no attempt in these pages to write a complete history of the Jews of Austria or even of Austrian antiSemitism. The history of the cultural contributions of Austrian Jews alone would fill many volumes. The internal politics and charitable work of the Viennese Kultusgemeinde likewise lie beyond the scope of this work, except to show how the sharp political divisions within the Jewish community prevented it from presenting the antiSemites with a common front. On the other hand, the scope of this book is not confined exclusively to Austria. Austrian antiSemitism was so influenced by antiSemitism in other countries and was itself so influential abroad that to tell its story is to reveal much about the European-wide phenomenon.
A number of excellent works have already been written about the Austrian Jews and antiSemitism during the Habsburg Monarchy. The same is true for the period following the "Anschluss," that misnomer commonly used to refer to the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich. However, no comprehensive scholarly studies have been made for the period between the start of the First World War and the German takeover of Austria. The twenty-four years between 1914 and 1938 will, therefore, be the centerpiece of this book. On the other hand, sufficient attention will be paid to the periods before the First World War and after the Anschluss to provide readers with a reasonably complete picture of the whole history of Austrian antiSemitism from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present.
Any study of antiSemitism, regardless of the country concerned, runs the risk of being exaggerated and distorted. Condensing several decades of anti-Semitic incidents and publications into a few hundred pages is bound to omit innumerable minute, but collectively significant, expressions of friendly or at least "correct" gentile-Jewish relations. Several interviews with Austrian Jewish refugees now living in the United Statespeople who certainly have no reason to be biased in favor of Austriahave revealed that at least some Austrian Jews were able to lead fairly normal lives without being seriously affected by Austrian antiSemitism, prior to the Anschluss.
In order to achieve a balanced view of Austrian antiSemitism between the world wars it is necessary to place it in an international context. The Austrian variety of Jew hatred was probably the strongest in Central or Western Europe prior to Hitler's takeover of power in Germany in January 1933. On the other

 

 

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hand, it was almost certainly weaker than in such Eastern European countries as Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, and Rumania. The foremost scholar of antiSemitism in interwar Europe, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, went so far as to say in 1935 that "the overwhelming majority of non-Jewish Europeans to-day are more or less anti-Semitically disposed."

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This Austrian scholar could have said the same thing of at least a large minority of Americans during the period covered in this book. The reception that Americans gave Jewish refugees of Russian pogroms before and after the turn of the twentieth century was nearly as unfriendly as that given to Galician immigrants in Vienna. During the 1920s the American Congress passed legislation excluding Orientals from both immigration and citizenship and sharply limited the number of immigrants from Eastern Europe, an action aimed to a large extent at Jews. Meanwhile, many of the forty-eight states approved laws forbidding racial intermarriage. These measures were closely watched and loudly applauded by Austrian antiSemites, but similar legislation was never enacted in the Austrian republic. Nor, of course, did anything resembling the relocation of 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent in concentration camps in 1942 ever take place in Austria while it remained an independent country.
Public opinion polls conducted in the United States between 1938 and 1942 revealed that 10 to 15 percent of Americans would have actively supported government-led anti-Semitic legislation and another 20 percent would have been sympathetic to such a policy. Only one-third of the population would have opposed it.
5
Between July 1938 and May 1939, as antiSemitism in Nazi Germany was entering its violent phase, other polls showed that 66 to 77 percent of the American public opposed raising the immigration quota to help Jewish refugees, even children.
6
AntiSemitism in the private sphere and in academic life was also by no means an Austrian monopoly. Whereas Jewish professors in the First Austrian Republic found it nearly impossible to attain promotions, American Jews were not even appointed to the faculties of some of the country's most prestigious universities, and the enrollment of Jewish students at these institutions was often unofficially restricted. Austrian Jews were sometimes excluded from summer resorts and sporting clubs, while American Jews were shut out of country clubs and business organizations. And, of course, independent Austria never experienced anything comparable with the lynchings of scores of blacks that still took place annually in the American South between the world wars, albeit in diminishing numbers.
All mitigating considerations aside, the hard fact remains that antiSemitism was a widespread ideology during the First Austrian Republic. Every major

 

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political party, as well as a great many paramilitary formations and private organizations, utilized anti-Semitic propaganda or excluded Jews from membership, or both. Differences of opinion arose mainly over what to do about the "Jewish problem," not about whether Jews were a negative influence on the Austrian state and society. Moreover, much of the discriminatory legislation against the Jews of Germany after 1933 and against those of Austria after the Anschluss had already been discussed, although usually not enacted, in early postWorld War I Austria if not before. There is also considerable evidence that Austrian antiSemitism influenced the German variety, although the reverse was also true. Moreover, it is almost inconceivable that Adolf Hitler would have approved of anti-Semitic legislation in
angeschlossenen
(annexed) Austria, the November 1938 pogrom (popularly known as "Kristallnacht"), and the deportation of Austrian Jews, if he had expected these measures to receive a hostile public reaction. The fact also remains that Austrians played a disproportionately large role in the Holocaust. Simon Wiesenthal, head of the Documentation Center of the Society of Nazi Victims in Vienna, has estimated that half of the crimes associated with the Holocaust were committed by Austrians even though they comprised only 8.5 percent of the population of Hitler's Greater German Reich.

7

How was the growth of this hateful anti-Semitic ideology possible in Austria? Who were its principal exponents and why? How did it manifest itself? And how did the Jews respond to the insults, allegations, and threats with which they were confronted? These are just some of the questions we must now address.

 

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A scholarly work of any significant scope involves the combined efforts of a great many people. This is especially true of a study of Austrian antiSemitism, a topic of broad chronological scope that touches on both Austrian and Jewish history. One of the real benefits of doing the research for this book, which was conducted on three continents starting in 1979, was that it enabled me to meet numerous intelligent and extremely kindhearted people.
Several Austrian scholars were instrumental in launching my research into primary and secondary sources in Vienna. Special mention must be made of Professor Gerhard Botz of the University of Salzburg who introduced me to a number of specialists on the subject and who guided me to numerous archives and libraries in addition to finding suitable housing for me and my family while I was working in Vienna. Professor Erika Weinzierl, the director of the Institute for Contemporary History, gave me several useful articles; her own publications on Austrian antiSemitism are an indispensable starting point for anyone interested in the subject. Her assistants, Gustav Spann and Peter Malinar, were tireless in identifying doctoral dissertations and rare publications. At the Archives of the Austrian Resistance Movement, Director Herbert Steiner was equally helpful in recommending important documentary sources. Dr. Isabella Ackerl of the Austrian Administrative Archives also helped me locate several documentary collections. Equally accommodating were numerous individuals at the Austrian National Library, the library of the University of Vienna, the library of the Vienna municipal government, and the newspaper archive of the Chamber for Workers and Employees in Vienna. Professor Gerald Stourzh, director of the Institute of History at the University of Vienna, also loaned me several important dissertations that had recently been written under his supervision. Professor Anton Pelinka, professor of political science at the University of Innsbruck, graciously volunteered to read portions of the final manuscript.

 

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On this side of the Atlantic, Dr. Wolfgang Petritsch and Dr. Irene Freudenschuss-Reichl, both of the Austrian Press and Information Service in New York, provided me with the results of a recent public opinion poll in Austria and statistics on compensation by the Austrian government to Jewish victims of the Nazi persecution. The fact that this information was by no means all complimentary to the Austrian "image" is a good indication that the Austrian government is attempting to be more forthcoming on the whole question of Austrian antiSemitism.
Two seminars enabled me to place my topic in a broader historical context. The first, held in the summer of 1985, was "Fascism as a Generic Phenomenon," sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and conducted at Yale University under the masterful guidance of Professor Henry Ashby Turner, Jr. While in New Haven I was able to commute to New York where I could take advantage of the rare book collections on the history of Central European Jewry at the Leo Baeck Institute.
The second seminarthis one on antiSemitism and the Holocausttook place the following summer at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and research center in Jerusalem. The lectures and books of two of the seminar's speakers, Yehuda Bauer and Ezra Mendelsohn, were especially helpful in placing antiSemitism and the Holocaust in an international perspective. My thanks also go to Eli Dlin for coordinating the many details of the seminar and its accompanying field trips. Herbert Rosenkranz, himself a Jewish refugee from Austria and author of several extremely well-researched studies of the Holocaust period as it involved Austria, was kind enough to read portions of my manuscript and helped me uncover several useful documents in the Yad Vashem archives. While in Jerusalem I was also able to use the archives of the Vienna Kultusgemeinde now housed at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People. Its director, Dr. Daniel Cohan, cordially answered my many questions regarding the collections. Dr. Michael Heymann, director of the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, was equally solicitous.
My four research trips to Vienna between 1980 and 1989 as well as my journey to Israel in 1986 would not have been possible without the financial support of several grants. The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded me a research stipend for the summer of 1987. The University of Central Florida provided me with Quality Improvement Program summer research stipends in 1980 and 1982 as well as a sabbatical leave in the spring of 1986. My chairman, Professor Jerrell H. Shofner, was helpful in giving me a teaching schedule that took my research and writing program into account.

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