Anti-Semitism galvanized all of this criticism and discontent. The term,
coined by the German sociologist Wilhelm Marr in 1879, had a racial and
political dimension. The racial dimension combined the modern nationalist
division of humanity into groups based on language and culture with the
social Darwinist notion that, like species, races and nations are in a constant
state of competing for survival – some surviving only at the expense of others.
Thus, Friedrich List had argued that the survival of the German people was
threatened by the cultural superiority of peoples to the west and by the
numerical superiority of the Slavic people.
In a similar vein, anti-Semites claimed that the presence and prosperity of
Jews were antithetical to German national development. Jews, they argued,
corrupted German culture. This was ironic, given that Jews tended to be the
most loyal, ardent German patriots. The notion of Jews corrupting German
culture had been pioneered by the composer Richard Wagner. In an essay enti-
tled “Jews in Music,” Wagner attributed the inability of enlightened
individuals such as himself not to detest Jews to the “be-Jewing of modern art.”
Interestingly, Wagner originally published his essay anonymously in 1850. As
his daughter Cosima recalled in her diary, he was initially afraid to publish it
openly because the music publishing industry was run by Jews, and most music
critics were Jews, not to mention that such sentiments were politically incorrect
in 1850 – the high point of liberalism in central Europe. By 1869, the climate
had changed to the point where Wagner could publish his essay openly.
The political dimension of anti-Semitism was rooted in a paradoxical
conclusion drawn from the revolutions of 1848. Jews figured prominently
among the liberal revolutionaries, particularly in Vienna, where the revolu-
tion was led by two Jews, Adolf Fischhof and Joseph Goldmark. After
1848, Jews were stereotyped as the ultimate liberal revolutionary. At the
same time, the defeat of these revolutions by revamped royal and imperial
forces was made possible by the financial assistance of the Rothschilds;
thus, the image emerged of Jews as the ultimate conservative counter-
revolutionaries. By the end of the nineteenth century, therefore, it was
possible to stigmatize Jews from either the left or the right wing of the
political spectrum. For socialists, Jews were Rothschilds; for conservatives,
Jews were Fischhofs.
Right-wing anti-Semitism was easier to comprehend. Conservatives were
at the forefront of the discontent with the changes of the nineteenth century.
Their politics tended to be crude and parochial, and appealed to ignorance,
prejudice, and fear. Conservative anti-Semites defended Christian values and
tradition, and denounced anything novel. They blamed all social problems on
Jews, a strategy that bore results at the end of the nineteenth century. In the
German election of 1893, anti-Semitic parties received 293,000 votes. More
dramatic was the election of Carl Lueger, who campaigned on an anti-Semitic
platform, as mayor of Vienna from 1895 to 1910.
Anti-Semitism and Jewish responses, 1870–1914 181