HIST 2509 A History of Germany

Lecture 11-1

Nationhood, But National Unity?

Announcement

Thursday Workshop on Effi Briest (last name A-L); next Tuesday same (K-Z)

-mini-lecture: Bourgeois Society in Wilhelmine Germany followed by workshop

-come with notes: one paragraph synopsis of novella -- to be handed in for participation credit

Today’s Main Themes

Reactions to Jewish Emancipation

So-called Verjüdung of society

From religious to cultural and finally racial anti-Semitism in late 19th century -- why?

“We were so German”

“We were so assimilated”

“We were so middle class”

1933: 600,000 population or 1%

Jewish Population by 1933

Assimilation and conversion

Heinrich Heine(1797-1896)

More German than the Germans

-examples?

-family, respect for law and order

-reverence for education

-morality and respectability

-in 1930s memoir: quoting Goethe at every meal

Reich Association of Jewish War Veterans placard 1920

Why Such Outsiders?

-historic isolation -- Judengasse to Judenviertel

-Teutomania and German nationalism“no fatherland and no interest in ours”

-fear of “mongrelization” of German ways

Why Such Outsiders?

-equation of Jews with liberalism and liberal ideas -- Hep Hep Riots of 1819 and 1848 revolution

-what does it mean to be German? (religion, masculinity, family)

Emancipation and its Discontents

With greater assimilation and emancipation -- new definitions to mark outsider status

Emergence of racial discourse in late 19th century

I. Emancipation in Real Terms

a. the Emancipation Edict of April 1871

-full citizenship rights: no more oaths

-no longer need for conversion

-could keep names

-access to free professions

-access to university education

Jewish presence in middle-class occupations by 1933

I. Emancipation in Real Terms

b. Verjüdung of society? (very bottom)

- ”judeification,” Richard Wagner 1850

I. Emancipation in Real Terms

c. political, social, cultural integration

-Industrial Revolution and changing society

-no longer Schnorrer (sponger)

and Betteljude (beggars)

I. Emancipation in Real Terms

c. political, economic, social, and cultural integration

-enterprise, banking, commerce: Deutsche Bank

-Georg von Siemens and Ludwig Bamberger

-Gerson von Blankröder

I. Emancipation in Real Terms

c. political, economic, social, and cultural integration

-publishing: Rudolf Mosse

Berliner Tageblatt

I. Emancipation in Real Terms

c. political, economic, social, and cultural integration

-business: Albert Ballin’s

Hamburg-Amerika Line

Ballin with Kaiser Wilhelm II

By 1914, world’s largest shipping line

I. Emancipation in Real Terms

c. political, economic, social, and cultural integration

-business: department stores

-Tietz, Wertheim, KaDe,We

-boycotts in 1933

I. Emancipation in Real Terms

d. integration, and then some: more German than the Germans

-Bildung (education) and Sittlichkeit (morality)

-Siegfried, Hedwig, and Helga

-Juedische Frauenbund (Jewish Women’s Association)

- “three day Jews”

-synagogues and cemeteries, Weissensee in Berlin

II. Political Anti-Semitism

a. Adolf Stoecker, Christian Social Workers Party

b. Wilhelm Marr, “The Victory of the Jews” 1879

c. Heinrich von Treitschke, University of Berlin

d. “Anti-Semites Petition,” 1880

e. Theodor Mommsen: moderation

III. The Rise of Science