Political anti-Semitism in Germany, 1871-1914 (1 of 5): politics in the Kaiserreich

Paul Massing's Rehearsal for Destruction: A Study of Political Anti-Semitism in Imperial Germany (1949) was one of five volumes in the Studies in Prejudice series sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and conducted under the direction of Max Horkheimer, one of the leading figures in the Institute for Social Research, aka, the Frankfurt School.

More than half of Massing's book emphasizes on the last quarter of the 19th century:

The years 1875-1895 were the formative period of all German political anti-Semitism. In the economic transformations and political conflicts of these twenty years anti-Semitism was established as a quasi-automatic group reaction as well as a consciously used instrument of power. The conditions of its growth and its inherent explosive forces had become discernible a generation prior to the Nazi ascent to power. [my emphasis] (p. 109)

Otto von Bismarck, the dominant figure in German politics in the 2nd half of the 19th century

Massing focuses separately on two different varieties of organized anti-Semitism, which he distinguishes as "political anti-Semitism" as distinct from "racial anti-Semitism." It’s not an entirely sharp distinction, because the "racial" anti-Semites were also active in politics and had political goals. Perhaps a more helpful way of framing the two groups would be between conservative-Christian anti-Semitism and racist anti-Semitism. The former wound up functioning largely as a cynical tactics used by Conservatives – and by the Iron Chancellor Bismarck – to gather voting support for their parties and programs.

Here a word is in order about the nature of German politics. The average American news consumer may well have the impression that democracy first appeared in Germany in 1945, sprung full grown out of the brows of Allied generals. Those with more familiarity with 20-century history will recognize that there was a German democracy from 1918-33 known as the Weimar Republic.

The nature of German politics in the 19th century up through the First World War is even more confusing for American readers who haven’t given some special attention to German history of that period. Three basic factors that have to be kept in mind are:

• Germany was first unified politically under a single sovereign authority with the founding of the Kaiserreich (Empire) in 1871 after Germany’s defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71; prior to that “Germany” was more a general sense of identification of language and custom among many smaller political entities of kingdoms, duchies, principalities and what-not.

• Germany, like much of western and central Continental Europe, experienced a major democratic revolution in 1848, which included the establishment of a national revolutionary Parliament in Frankfurt; the revolution failed to create a German republic, but also made it clear to the conservative rulers that more popular representation would have to be recognized.

• During the last half of the 19th century, Germany functioned under a system largely run by a Chancellor appointed by the Kaiser (Emperor); but there was a Parliament that had some power and influence, which meant that political parties were carrying on election campaigns and the various functions that democratic parties do, even though the structural weakness of Parliament and a system of representation that gave the wealthy a representation far disproportionate to their vote made the system highly undemocratic in quality.

One of the features that historians of Germany commonly emphasize is the political weakness of the German capitalist class (bourgeoise) in comparison with its counterparts in France, England and the United States. Massing describes how that played out with the political party alignments in the mid-1800s:

When Germany began her late rise as a modem industrial nation, she retained the essential structure of a caste society. The middle classes represented the liberal forces of industrialism but ranked below the topmost level of the social hierarchy. The lowest ranking group, the workers, had at first supported the Liberals in the struggle for constitutional rights. But they had asked in return that the Liberals join them in a program of democratic reforms in which the abolition of the discriminatory class franchise figured prominently. The Liberals refused to commit themselves with regard to the workers' demand for general, equal, direct, and secret suffrage. They were lukewarm about the question of the freedom of the press, and unwilling to accept the workers' associations into their own political organization, the Nationalverein (founded in 1859). They had likewise turned down, in the name of laissez-faire philosophy, the workers' demands for social reforms. The fruitless negotiations between the nascent workers' associations and the liberal parties finally convinced the workers that the middle class could not be trusted as an ally in the fight for basic democratic rights. ...

After Prussia's victorious wars against Denmark and Austria the liberal opposition crumbled. Democracy had suffered another defeat, hardly less severe than the one inflicted on it in 1848. The antagonism between labor and the middle classes remained characteristic of their relations throughout the history of imperial Germany. The workers never forgave the parties of the bourgeoisie for their betrayal of democracy. They despised them and rarely missed an opportunity to discredit them for the equivocal role they had played and were destined to continue playing in the involved political drama of modern Germany. Before Germany's national unification in Bismarck's Kaiserreich, the Liberals were indeed in a difficult position. Their two great political aims were unity and liberty. But unity under Prussia's leadership — there was, short of a nationwide revolutionary upheaval, no other power capable of bringing it about—required the sacrifice of basic democratic rights. The middle classes preferred to make the necessary concessions rather than risk the dangers of a social revolution which might not have stopped at the destruction of a system of conservative rule. Fearing the necessary though dangerous alliance with labor, the middle classes relinquished their claims to political leadership at a time when they had become strong enough to overthrow the old powers. It was the price Germany paid for being "late" on the European scene. (pp. 151-2)

Massing describes the more prominent role that intellectuals began to play in German social struggles than in England and France:

Up to the [eighteen-]sixties, the intellectual Mittelstand [middle class] had played a part in Germany's political life similar in nature to that of the liberal middle classes in France and England. In view of the weakness of the German middle class it had devolved upon the intellectuals to liberalize the old state, to work for national unification, and to transform the subject into the citizen. Professors of history and law had been leaders in the National Assembly of 1848. "These academic and intellectual auxiliaries of the middle class" [quote from Arthur Rosenberg] turned away from a bourgeoisie that gave up its own position. (p. 140)

This meant that traditional groups rooted in more feudal, anti-republican political traditions shared power with the liberal (capitalist) groups, with the traditionalists generally having a dominant position. The long Chancellorship of Otto von Bismarck, from -1871 in Prussia and then 1871- in unified Germany brought a shifting series of political alliances as the goals of the "Iron Chancellor" varied over time. The most important parties from 1871 were the Conservative Party (dominated by landed wealth), the Free Conservative Party, the National Liberal Party, the Progress Party (left liberal), the Catholic Center Party, and the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Without some grasp of the positions of those parties, reading a history of Germany in the 19th century can be confusing. Historians talk about what the Prussian Junkers did, or large landowners did, or the peasants or the capitalists/bourgeoisie or the urban workers or the lower middle class, they are basing it in large part on the positions and actions of the parties and other organizations representing those groups, and on the positions of leading spokespeople identified with them. Massing does an exceptionally good job of focusing on the leading anti-Semitic trends while making careful distinctions among various political factions and putting it all in a meaningful context. He divides up the political periods he is considering into a liberal era (1871-78), a era of conservative-clerical reaction (1879-86), the Caprivi era (1890-94) after Bismarck's successor as Chancellor, Leo von Caprivi, and the imperialist phase (1895-1914). The 1886-90 period he calls the period’s of "Stocker’s decline," referring to the most important leader of organized anti-Semitism in 19th century Germany.

Continued in Part 2.

Tags: anti-semitism, deutsche politik, frankfurt school, frankfurter schule, german politics, paul massing, rehearsal for destruction