Friedrich von Oppeln - Bronikowski Anti - Semitism? An impartial examination of the problem Preface by the Author Parties must exist, even if every party platform has its shortcomings. The individually d eveloped person will easily find themselves at odds with certain points of these programs or their practical application, yet it would be absurd for that reason alone to refuse to belong to any party or to try and form a party of one’s own. The disastrous consequences of such disengagement have taken a terrible revenge, especially upon the bourgeoisie. Thus, it is a political duty to belong to the party whose principles most closely align with one’s own. But — without undermining party discipline — one also has the right to express dissenting opinions on individual points if one believes their party to be on the wrong path. Such disagreement is not divisive but stimulating and may, under certain circumstances, lead to a change in the party's direction. I am Ger man and national, a monarchist by worldview, not merely for reasons of expediency, and I believe I have served my party diligently in word and writing. But in one point I cannot follow the policy of its majority, and that is the handling of the Jewish ques tion. I am not biased through family ties or business relations with Jews; among my close acquaintances is only one gentleman of Jewish descent, oriented toward the right and belonging to the Christian religion. I therefore pursue no selfish ends with this writing; rather, I aim only to serve inner peace through it. I have passed through many human circumstances, have always endeavored to examine objectively the pros and cons of all human affairs, have come to know the customs and views of foreign peoples, have delved into the lessons of history, and possess the experience of mature adult years. I therefore deserve, in any case, to be heard. Berlin, early March 1920. Publisher’s Preface The author of the present pamphlet expressed the wish to publish his statements through our publishing house. We gladly undertook this task, as the author’s views on the question of antisemitism fully correspond to the general position of the publisher. We are all the more willing to publish this work as our st ance outside of party politics leaves no doubt that the publication of this pamphlet does not represent a party - political position on the part of the publisher itself. Responsibility for any party - political conclusions drawn from his views rests solely wit h the author. Charlottenburg, end of April 1920. The psychological precondition of the strong anti - Semitic wave sweeping through Germany today is clear to me. This wave is essentially only a counter - wave, a spiritual reaction. The power of the Je ws in the press, theater, and economy was its point of origin in peacetime. Its intensification during the war was contributed to by black - market dealing and war profiteering, in which the Jews also made no small contribution, as well as by the strong Juda ization of war - related companies; finally, since the revolution, the strong participation of Jews in government — and above all, the fact that Jews frequently appeared as leaders of the German and Russian revolutions, indeed all the more frequently the mor e radical the movement’s direction — culminating in the boundless ineptitude in the composition of the infamous investigative committee, before whose forum a Hindenburg was interrogated by a Dr. Cohn, subsidized by the Bolsheviks. All of this has produced an understandable and ever - increasing embitterment and has dramatically exacerbated the old division. People rightly ask whether the 615,000 German Jews and a number of immigrated Eastern Jews are the destined leaders of a nation of 60 million, speak of a Jewish yoke, and would prefer to expel the Jews from the country — or at least return them to the status they held before the French Revolution of 1789, as if the wheel of world events could be turned back! Indeed, this anti - Semitism as a whole does not o riginate from the political leaders; it is not carried “from above” into the masses, but rather rises elementally from the masses of voters themselves, particularly from the lower middle class, and compels the recognition of the leaders — unless they wish to lose their following. A few exceptions, such as the Wahrheit, whose specialty is the denunciation of Jewish parasites, mean nothing against this; for even this weekly publication presupposes the resonance of an anti - Semitic popular sentiment. The opinio n of the leaders or of the political intelligentsia of the D.N.V.P., however, is at least divided. There are many who wholly or partially reject anti - Semitism, as they recognize the errors in how the problem is posed and the harmful consequences, and also do not close their eyes to the actual conditions. My view, therefore, is by no means isolated — not like the Bolshevist special excursions of Professor Dr. Elzbacher, which have met with rejection everywhere. Thus, this writing is not an odd aberration eit her, but corresponds with the views of an intelligent minority. The divided opinion on anti - Semitism is also reflected in the uncertain formulation of the Jewish question in the program of the D.N.V.P. The rowdy, extremist anti - Semitism is, of course, rej ected. Even the inclusion of Jews in the party is fundamentally acknowledged. On the other hand, however, the party must admit that the vehemence of its anti - Semitic propaganda inevitably drives Jews — particularly those who respect themselves, that is, men of character and not turncoats — out of its ranks. This programmatic point, therefore, is worth no more than many programmatic points of all parties; that is, it is a gesture of embarrassment, a theoretical compromise without practical significance. Now let one place oneself in the mindset of a simple party member who is unable to grasp larger contexts, and completely disregard the divided opinion of the intelligentsia. The ordinary party man sees all the foreground elements that I mentioned above as causes of the anti - Semitic wave of reaction. He sees “the Jews” “ruling” in Germany, and at the same time perceives the ring of “international Jewry” closed around Germany from the outside, as tightly as the ring of the Entente. In Russia, strongly Jewish Bolshev ism under Trotsky - Bronstein and his comrades is in power. In the Western democracies, Masonic lodges infiltrated by Jews form centers of anti - German propaganda. The Jewish press magnate Lord Northcliffe has unleashed the press of the entire world against u s. The representative of the Italian warmongers is the brilliant Jewish buffoon d’Annunzio - Rappaport, and so on. In this ring of hatred, Germany alone stood, the Hohenzollern monarchy stood like a rock of iron, until it was overthrown by the revolution, in particular by the Social Democracy, sworn to the doctrines of the Jew Karl Marx. Now Germany is fighting its death struggle against “international Jewry,” and it is the duty of every German not to despair in this fight, but to endure it with manly courage I have, for once, laid out this humanly understandable way of thinking in its full consequences. It contains a justified core of facts and is in many cases sustained by pure idealism, but it is full of errors in reasoning and exaggerations. The problem is not as simple as it appears in this abbreviated form! First of all, “international Jewry” is not a homogeneous, uniformly organized mass, but within it there are internal divisions just as profound as those found among the nations that enjoy a national state constitution and in which the Jews live as a “guest people,” to use an anti - Semitic expression. A chasm yawns between the economically and culturally low - standing Eastern Jewry, which takes a bloody revenge through Bolshevism for its centuries - long, terrible oppression, and the economically and culturally advanced Jewry of the Western democracies, which has amalgamated with the most diverse peoples and in part has fully merged with them. There can therefore be no talk of a unified Jewish “Entente” ai med at the destruction of Germany — no more than of an alliance between fire and water. In Germany itself, the central country, we find both varieties side by side, likewise separated by a chasm, which is filled with various intermediate stages, but no connecting links. Here, the propertied, long - established, partly assimilated, culturally ad vanced, and fundamentally state - preserving Jewry — especially in the western provinces (the Rhineland, Westphalia) and in southern Germany; there, the communist and “independent” agitators, who want to ruin property and education down to the ground, just as in Russia, regardless of whether this lies in Jewish or “Aryan” hands. Does one really believe that the Oppenheims, Bleichröders, and Mendelssohns have anything in common with a Dr. Cohn and his comrades? To be sure, there are exceptions, like the milliona ire Dr. Rosenfeld, who out of Führer vanity has taken the side of the Independents, or political actors like Maximilian Harden, who once appeared in Bismarck’s cuirassier boots and now has painted on the wrinkles of an old Independent. But that changes not hing about the general fact that Jewish property resists confiscation and taxation just as much as “Aryan” property does. It was precisely from the circles of the Berliner Tageblatt that the strongest protests were raised against Reich amateur Erzberger’s financially ruinous socialist policies, and it is only attributable to the complete lack of character of this party that it sacrifices its own vital interests on the altar of socialism as the sole source of salvation, for the sake of a “will to power.” Jew s are thus to be found in all political camps among us, including the German People’s Party, and they represent its interests. They would also be found in the ranks of the D.N.V.P., were they not de facto — if not de jure — excluded there. But now the truly r efined ones come and say: these facts may be accurate, but they are only the foreground. Behind the seemingly fragmented Jewry stands the overarching Jewish idea as the “triumphant demon of decay,” to use Richard Wagner’s words. Jewry wants to corrupt and subjugate the world, and for that purpose, it employs various methods depending on the circumstances, all of which lead to the same result. Its motto, they claim, is: “March separately, strike together.” While the propertied Jewry seizes power from above a nd dissolves the national spirit through the middle strata, the Bolshevist Jews undermine the states from below. In addition, Jews of all directions know how to profit from any upheaval and increase their power. So even if there is no deliberate collusion here, there is still said to be an instinctive precision of aim — a perhaps unconscious but nevertheless real working hand - in - hand — and the result, in any case, is the same. — I must confess that I cannot go along with this mystical nonsense. If such a claim were true, then the German propertied classes would also have to be secretly in league with the German revolutionaries, and they would have to drive the rabbits into their own kitchen. And then: does it really look as though the strong national states of t he Entente are merely “Jewish” helots who, at their core, align with the Russian Bolsheviks? Or do not, rather, the Jews there serve national interests? This mysticism — which one can actually read in print — is therefore nothing more than “mysticism”! Se condarily, the anti - Semitic reaction is conditioned by war profiteering and black - market dealing. But hand on heart: if we were to go by this criterion, how many members of our poor, degraded people would then not count as “Jews”? I do not even dare to ima gine the number. One will not combat this new German species (which also exists in other countries) by holding “the Jews” responsible for it, but by tearing the mask from its face — regardless of whether a Jew, a privy councillor, a disloyal official, or som eone else is revealed beneath it. A strange, false, yet widespread notion is associated with this idea — namely, that all Jews are “rich.” Just as the “worker” has created a caricature of the “capitalist,” regardless of whether he has an income of 5,000 or 100,000 marks, as long as he does not “work” with his hands at a machine or plow — so, too, is “the Jew,” in the naive popular imagination, considered “rich.” Indeed, the concepts of “capitalist” and “Jew” often merge, and the epithets of the “well - fed bourg eois” and the “bloodsucker” are applied interchangeably to “the Jew” and “the capitalist.” How absurd this view is hardly needs to be proven. Jewry has its proletariat just as it has its aristocracy; Meyrinck has nicely portrayed this in his The Green Face . And if one does not believe it, one need only go to North Berlin. But even if one confronts an anti - Semite with this, he is not disarmed. He then declares that although not all Jews have attained wealth, they still possess, due to their “Jewish acquisiti ve instinct,” the ability to do so — and what the father fails to achieve, the son will accomplish. This claim would then lead us back to the “capitalist” notion. According to this logic, every Jew would be an actual or potential “capitalist” in the sense of Karl Marx’s doctrine (Marx himself being a Jew!), and there would have to come a day when all Jews reached this “ideal”! This claim is unaffected by actual knowledge. The “Jewish acquisitive instinct” may indeed be highly developed — but not only among Jew s. On the other hand, every expert knows that there are also among Jews many impractical and desperately poor idealists, descendants of the old Talmudic scholars, who live in their ideas and go hungry for them — or who, as writers, dwell in attic rooms just like the typical “German poet.” I have personally known such poor literati — Ludwig Jacobowski, Leo Berg, Samuel Lublinski; their number could be endlessly increased. This also provides the answer to the accusation of “Jewish materialism,” which usually appe ars alongside the charge of Jewish “capitalism.” Capitalism and materialism are results of the modern economic process; they apply to both Jews and non - Jews, with materialism even extending in a terrifying degree. Now to the war companies! They are nowher e held in high regard, not even by the Social Democrats, to whom we owe the entire exaggerated command economy. In the past, people liked to lay the blame at the feet of the “damnable” old regime, particularly the “Junkers,” who truly had nothing to do wit h it. Today, suddenly, it is supposed to be “the Jews” who bear the guilt! Nowhere, however, have these “chaotic economic bureaus” been so fiercely ridiculed as in the Jewish Berliner Tageblatt. “Jewish solidarity” should have forbidden that! Why didn’t it ? Because it does not exist in that sense! That Jews were amply represented in these war companies can, of course, not be denied. Jewry, by its entire past, is oriented toward commerce, so it is not surprising that it was more strongly represented in these war companies than, for example, agriculture. One had, after all, to select people from professional groups familiar with the matter. That nepotism and favoritism also played a role is certainly not being denied — but we now see the same flourishing in the non - Jewish Social Democracy, which feeds its “comrades” at the state trough as long as anything is left in it. And under the old regime — especially during the war — favoritism surely flourished elsewhere and in other areas, even if not with such cynical openn ess! So it is a nasty human weakness to which not only “the Jews” fall prey. With all this, I by no means intend to speak in favor of the war companies. The best thing they could do would be to disappear into oblivion as quickly as possible. But it is unj ust to place the entire burden for them solely on the Jews. The error lay in the entire state - socialist system, which the helpless Bethmann Hollweg allowed himself to be forced into by the Social Democrats. It even had a certain justification; only in its overextension was it misguided. Moreover, the war companies are not to be envied! The stigma of shirking service — whether justified or not — rests on them, albeit particularly on the Jews. Here again, an actual core of truth has been exaggerated beyond all m easure. Jews are often afflicted with organic ailments, which our younger, more numerous, and thus less weakened - by - inbreeding people do not suffer from. These individuals were, in any case, more effectively utilized in the war companies, in offices, in th e rear areas, etc., than they would have been at the front, where they would only have filled hospital beds, whereas here they at least served the state through their intelligence and labor. The same applies to a number of Jews who, over the two - thousand - y ear path of suffering of their people, have completely lost the soldierly instincts of their Old Testament forefathers To be sure, there were also shirkers among them, just as there were among the "Aryans." But it is unjust to generalize this accusation w ithout evidence, and any such proof is nearly impossible. What remains, then, is only the defamatory suspicion, which unfortunately is the stigma of our entire collapsed nation. No wonder that Jewish publications justly emphasize that Jews, too, paid their blood toll, earned decorations for valor before the enemy, and shed their blood for Germany’s victories. These brave individuals deserve the fatherland’s gratitude; a party on the political Right, in particular, must honor and respect them There is, to d ate, no reliable statistic on the percentage of Jewish soldiers killed, wounded, and decorated — especially as religion, the most dependable criterion, is not definitive. Anyone who has followed the often fierce newspaper polemics on this topic has seen only two sides battling with numbers, each presenting "its own" figures — Jewish sources larger ones, opponents smaller. The absolute numbers must, of course, remain small, given the low percentage of Jewish population. Footnote: As I subsequently see, Otto A rmin has just published a book by Deutscher Verlag in Munich: The Jews in the Army: A Statistical Study Based on Official Sources. Author, publisher, and the Talmudic leitmotif — "When you go to war, do not go first, but last, so that you return first" — indic ate the völkisch attack tendency. According to this statistic, which I do not dispute, as of early 1917 there were 27,515 Jews on active duty at the front, 4,752 in the rear, and 30,005 in the occupation forces. Of a further 16,000 discharged Jews, over 7, 000 had been deferred on appeal. Therefore, about 10 percent of Jews were in military service, compared to nearly 20 percent of Germans. The same 1:2 ratio applies to Jewish war volunteers and Jewish casualties. Since this statistic is based on the only so mewhat reliable criterion — Jewish religion — it naturally omits the many baptized Jews of the higher ranks who served as officers, civil servants, or war volunteers. From a racial standpoint, the ratio would thus shift in favor of the Jews — but by how much, ca nnot be determined. Be that as it may, I already stated above that today Jews often no longer possess the physical and mental war fitness of their Old Testament forebears. In addition to this, anti - Semitic sentiment in the officer corps and the mockery of Jews by the enlisted men certainly did nothing to increase Jewish enthusiasm for war service. Our brave field soldiers generally knew how to handle rifles and hand grenades better than pens — but work in offices and on telephones, and partly in shelters, wa s also very necessary. Without doubt, some quick - witted and quick - handed Jews were more useful there than in the trenches, where they might not have made a good impression and would have been mocked as “foreign bodies.” Moreover, the Jews did not seek out these positions of their own accord; they were assigned to them by their non - Jewish superiors. The responsibility thus lies with those superiors. They selected personnel as they were best suited — and that was the right thing to do. Honorable mention to the statistics, but they only present facts and do not examine the underlying reasons, and according to the reader’s political viewpoint, very different interpretations can be drawn from those facts. I do not believe that, considering the aforementioned circum stances, these figures incriminate the Jews to any great extent. In any case, it is certain that Jews still produce brave soldiers and good officers today, just as they did in their old heroic period. Even before the World War, there were such examples — som e, like General von Moßner and a well - known general staff officer who held a high position in the Orient during the war, even attained leading ranks. That there were not more of them is due, first, to the anti - Semitic attitude prevalent in our officer corp s, and second, to the fact that the commercial class in our society traditionally contributed fewer candidates to the officer path than agriculture and civil service did. Even in the days of Frederick the Great, the upper middle class was known to be exemp t from military service so it could devote itself entirely to commerce and civil administration, while the officer class — except for hussars and artillery — was drawn from the landed nobility. Such traditions tend to persist, even when the structure of the na tional body has changed. In Bavaria and Austria - Hungary, where this tradition did not exist, there were many Jewish officers — whether to the benefit or detriment of the army remains an open question. But this at least shows that the Jewish population did no t shirk officer service where that career path was open to them. Another patriotic contribution of German Jewry during the war is, finally, mostly entirely overlooked: I mean financial donations. I am not even referring to the war bonds, to which Jewish c apital contributed very significantly. One could, to be sure, object along with Herr Scheidemann that it is no patriotic deed to invest one’s capital in safe trustee securities at 5%. Or one might say that the Jewish population had the “damned duty and obl igation” to contribute to the war effort at least in this way, since it was so sparsely represented at the front. Nevertheless, if the successes of the war bonds were so often praised by the press of all political directions as national acts, then the Jews deserve a considerable share of that recognition as well. But as I said, I am not insisting on this point. What I mean are the enormous donations for all manner of wartime welfare purposes, the lists of which could, for example, be read in column after co lumn in the Berliner Tageblatt, and in which Jews were often prominently and generously represented. But if money is, as the anti - Semites claim, the supreme value for Jews, then they separated themselves here from their dearest possession — and often more wholeheartedly than others who would have been just as capable of doing so. These donations therefore deserve the nation’s recognition in the same measure as the blood toll that Jews paid. And rightly they ask themselves today: Is all that to be forgotten, and only our account of guilt left standing? That brings me to the accusation that the Jews took a very active part in the Revolution. Unfortunately, this accusation is the most well - founded. The Jews usually justify themselves by saying that they had be en excessively disadvantaged under the old regime, and that it is therefore humanly understandable that they hoped for an improvement of their situation through political upheaval, and thus joined — and in part even led — the revolutionary movement. In this ex cuse, truth and falsehood are mixed. It is true that the Jewish population was largely excluded from higher civil service. In return, however, they had a strong presence in parliament, in the press, in the legal and medical professions, on the stock exchan ge, in industry, trade, and commerce. Many large banks, major shipping companies (Ballin), and vast industrial conglomerates (A.E.G.) were in Jewish hands. Even in heavy industry, where Jewry did not visibly appear on the surface, financing was mostly hand led by Jews. With this influence — which naturally could, and indeed did, exert an impact on the government — the German - Jewish citizen could actually be quite content and had no need to promote a disruptive revolution just to gain entry into higher state post s, especially since the exclusion was not airtight. Just as we had Jewish officers, so too did men like Simson and Dernburg hold high public offices, and their number would surely have increased under the parliamentary system already introduced before the revolution The accusation that the Jews nevertheless supported the revolution thus remains valid. However, even here, Jewry must not be viewed as a homogeneous mass and held collectively responsible. Individuals like Ballin or Rathenau were undoubtedly as unpleasantly surprised by the revolution as non - Jews were. To suppose that such men had promoted an upheaval by which they were as severely struck as non - Jewish property owners would be absurd. Jewish radicalism, as we have already seen, is separated from these groups by a wide gulf — just as non - Jewish radicalism is. What stands between them — the partly Jewish democracy of the Berliner Tageblatt and the Frankfurter Zeitung, which once presented itself as monarchist and now is more republican than the Social Democrats — has indeed prepared the ground for the revolution through its corrosive influence, from which no god can absolve it, and expected to gain political advantages from it, which, for the moment, it actually did — but as we already saw, it had to pay fo r them with the surrender of its own vital interests. This was quite a foolish and shortsighted affair; the party has already half stumbled and will fall entirely in the next elections. Furthermore, many of its supporters would have been quite satisfied wi th the parliamentary system under the monarchy. Some neither hoped nor believed that it would "come to this"; they themselves have been frightened by the spirits they summoned. Their republican conviction, therefore, is not always as pure and genuine as th e loudest agitators claim; many secretly long for the “damnable Hohenzollern regime” to return — and, as we have already seen, there has been no shortage of attacks on the current system of government from this so - called “government party”! One is fully enti tled to call them, just like the Center Party, opportunists who turn their coats with the wind and, depending on the political climate and expediency, are either monarchists or republicans... From the fact that numerous Jews participated in the recent Ger man and Russian revolutions, the conclusion has been drawn that “the Jews” instigated the revolution — and from this, an argument for anti - Semitism has been derived. This, however, is a gross exaggeration and one of those cheap catchphrases by which people t ry to gloss over a complex problem. It remains disputed to this day to what extent revolutions can actually be “made,” and to what extent they are merely the final link in a chain of developments. Without question, no revolution or counter - revolution proce eds automatically, for they are carried out by people. When the time is ripe, human hands artificially assist in the final steps, accelerating the birth. In our case, though, Herr Scheidemann and Prince Max of Baden certainly contributed just as much as “t he Jews,” and the revolution would have taken place even without their involvement. In the English Revolution of 1642, and the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1830, Jews certainly did not play any influential role. Nevertheless, these revolutions broke out and followed their natural course — from moderate to radical, then to dictatorship and restoration. I therefore do not absolve either the crypto - revolutionaries of certain democratic newspapers or the socialist or Bolshevik Jews from their share of guilt or leadership — after all, where would we be if we declared all human responsibility ended precisely here? But I have already shown, and shall demonstrate even more fully, that many Jews condemn this activity just as much as the “Aryans” do. This claim, then, s hould be dropped, and the door opened to non - revolutionary Jewry. Then spirits will part cleanly, and democracy — though not radicalism — will lose many a Jewish fellow traveler. The question is different when it comes to the extent to which the Jews contribu ted to preparing the revolution — that is, what intellectual influence they exerted over the German or Russian people in support of upheaval over a number of years. Here again, anti - Semitism typically lumps all Jews together and claims they were the principa l bearers of all subversive tendencies. To what degree and for what reasons this is true has just been briefly but aptly clarified by a strictly nationalist and Christian man, Dr. Fritz Gerlich, in his profound work Communism as a Doctrine of the Thousand - Year Reich. There is hardly a more damning condemnation of the Marxist false doctrine than this book, which is most warmly recommended to all nationally minded readers. This condemnation is all the more devastating because it is entirely objective and root ed in intellectual history, towering far above all partisan squabbles. I would therefore like to briefly reproduce here the most important passages from it that deal with the relationship between Jewry and communism: "Some of our contemporaries, to be sur e, do not see the destructive effect of Marxism as a consequence of the system itself, but rather as a result of the participation of Jews in its leadership. As untenable as this view may be, it still deserves a few words here, for the agitation against ou r Jewish fellow citizens threatens to become a public danger and to further strain the bonds of our nation and state. It cannot be denied that the Jewish element has found strong representation through leading figures in the Marxist and, more broadly, in t he internationalist movement. Let us take a closer look at these Jewish circles. The purely pathological and criminal elements may be excluded... For us, only those Marxists count whose engagement is based on reflection and conviction. Here we see that, in a religious sense, most of the Jews among them are no longer Jews. Believing Judaism, both among us and in Russia, is generally a sworn enemy of Bolshevism. For those German Jews who have lost their faith, the situation is this: they seek their hold in the life - idea of the German national spirit. However, that is the philosophy of chiliasm." Footnote: Chiliasm is the religious doctrine of visionary sects concerning the Thousand - Year Kingdom (hence the title of Gerlich's book). The author devotes a large part of his research to philosophical chiliasm in Germany, particularly the theories of pro gress developed by Lessing and Herder, as well as the philosophy of history shaped by Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, with their “universal - human,” i.e., supra - national or simply international tendencies — tendencies which, unfortunately, fit so well with the Germa n national character, indeed can only be explained by it, and in turn reinforce it. The latest — and hopefully last and most extreme — example of this kind was the “case of Nietzsche.” Gerlich’s analysis is of groundbreaking novelty and will henceforth be indi spensable to historians of German intellectual and literary history. " And Marxism is, in turn, the final representative of this chiliasm. Jewry everywhere displays the characteristic of aligning itself with the dominant intellectual current of whatever pe ople it lives among — provided that it is granted participation in communal life. Among peoples with a strongly developed nationalism, the Jew is thus also nationally oriented, as shown by the examples of England, France, and Italy. Exceptionally nationalist ic Russia confirms the rule precisely by its exception, for there the Jew was excluded from communal life. In Germany, however, the dominant life - idea among the masses is not nationalism, but internationalist - oriented philosophical chiliasm. I therefore co nsider it only natural that within German Jewry — even among those not inclined toward Marxism — there is such a strong tendency toward internationalism. It is a matter of adaptation to the strongest dominant force in the environment... Even among national - minde d peoples, the pull of the intellectual milieu often guides Eastern Jews toward their own ethnic - national life - idea... In Germany, however, the intellectual milieu, for instance the literature of our classical authors, often supports the transition toward ph ilosophical chiliasm, especially as Jews are so deeply involved in literary pursuits. The Marxist idea — to bring about freedom and equality among all human beings by overthrowing all existing conditions so that all people are equally respected brothers — hold s an especially strong attraction for Judaism for another reason. Eastern Jewry lived in the most oppressive political, social, and economic conditions in the ghettos... The devout Jews found consolation and support in their religion. But what about the non - believers among the Eastern Jews? Must not a doctrine which holds out the hope of liberation from persecution, contempt, and lack of rights have a magical effect on them?... The old messianic hope of traditional Judaism may well continue to resonate as the y transition into the Marxist religion of salvation. And German Jewry also still lives in a kind of ghetto. It may no longer be a legal or factual one, but it is a moral ghetto — one that weighs no less on the cultivated Western Jew and also awakens in him a longing for redemption... It therefore does not seem necessary to me to look for insincere motives behind the involvement of so many Jews in the Marxist - Communist movement." Very similar conclusions are reached in the valuable essay “The Role of the Jews i n Bolshevism” by Elias Hurwicz, published in the right - leaning Deutsche Rundschau in December 1919. Among other things, he quotes a statement from Trotsky to the Jewish cadet leader Winaver, who had reproached him on behalf of Russian Jews. Trotsky replied : “Go to your Jews and tell them that I am not a Jew and have nothing to do with Jews.”Recently, the right - wing press has been publishing lists of Bolshevik leaders with Jewish names — sometimes even accompanied by Jewish self - congratulatory commentary on th is fact. One can imagine the conclusions being drawn from that. At the same time, however, other publications report on dreadful persecutions of Jews, expulsions, and pogroms in which especially wealthy Russian Jews and Zionists (i.e. Jewish nationalists) fall victim. And it is not only the Cossacks under Denikin — who, one may say, retaliate for the Jewish role in Bolshevism — who take part in this violence, but also the very Bolsheviks governed by Jews themselves. If the much - praised “Jewish solidarity” truly existed, such things would be unthinkable. But this fact once again shows that the Bolshevik Jews, to use Trotsky’s own words, are no longer Jews, but have dissolved into all - Russian Bolshevism, and therefore either rage against their own kin or at least do nothing to stop the raging. From the above, it follows that the participation of a fraction of the Jewish population in communism is not to be fought by holding “the Jews” as a whole responsible and inciting hatred against them, but rather by combating the false doctrine of Marxism and strengthening one’s own ethnic nationalism — while at the same time dismantling the Jews’ moral ghetto status and giving them the opportunity to engage nationally, as they do in the Entente countries. Strong nationalism wit hout an anti - Semitic taint — that is the solution to the riddle, and also the guiding purpose of this writing. For what anti - Semitism fights against in the Jews is, for the most part, the product of its own making. A striking piece of evidence in support of the above statements is provided by a letter from the 'Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith', which appeared on November 22, 1919, in the Bund, the organ of the 'Citizens’ Council of Greater Berlin', but was almost universally ignored by the daily press. It is therefore reproduced here: “In response to your kind inquiry, I have the honor of informing you that the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith, which represents more than 200,000 German Jews [In Germany, there are approximately 615,000 Jews of all ages and sexes by religion.], fundamentally takes the position that its members are nationally German in orientation. In the more than 25 years of its existence, the Central Association has pursued national politics in the best sense of the word by, in accordance with § 1 of its statutes, strengthening its members in the steadfast cultivation of German conviction. An explicit disavowal of Bolshevism appears to it as undignified as if one were to demand such a disavowal from the People’s Association for Catholic Germany or from the Evangelical Union. The Central Association has declared often enough that Jewish Germans reject any association with Bolshevik elements — regardless of whether they are Jews or non - Jews. Jewish teach ing condemns anti - state activities in the strongest terms. Jewish life is built more conservatively than subversively, as anyone knows who has had even the slightest insight into Jewish families. If in the past year a number of Russian and German Jews (for the most part overzealous literati) have stood out in the movement, the Jewish community is all the less to blame, since the gentlemen in question have for the most part long since left Judaism. (signed) Dr. Holländer.” One can go further and say that such an association not only condemns Bolshevism, but also the stance of certain democratic newspapers such as the Berliner Tageblatt, which to outsiders may appear to be typical “Jewish papers,” th ough in truth they are neither in terms of their orientation nor their staff. If one looks more closely, one finds that Michaelis, Vorst, Dombrowski, Gaedke, Persius, and others on the editorial staff of the Berliner Tageblatt are not Jews — let alone Moraht , von Ardenne, Count Monts and Montgelas, Prince Lichnowsky, etc. — whereas in other democratic newspapers that are largely led by Jews, a far more national stance [In fairness, it must be emphasized that even the Berliner Tageblatt and related papers took a strong stand against signing the disgraceful Versailles peace treaty and the extradition of Germans to the Entente, and that ministers aligned with these papers resigned because they did not wish to sign this peace.] and a decent, objective tone can be o bserved. To make “the Jews” responsible for a number of harmful Jewish individuals, who are themselves repudiated by their own fellow Jews, would therefore be just as unjust as holding the German nobility responsible for a few black sheep whose sins are us ually recounted in democratic papers at epic length. Just as the nobles in such cases object to the outcry — “Of course, another nobleman!” — so too can the nationally minded Jew rightfully object to having a noose fashioned for him out of the Berliner Tagebla tt and similar phenomena. All in all, German Jewry is therefore not a politically organized "state within the state" like the Center Party, but its majority is united only in one la