but the Jews dont count.
during the first world war the german peoples banded together to help one another survive. they actively chose to rely on one another rather than the government. someone, though they were apart of this coming together of people, the Jews became further ostracized. more and more they were differentiated from being "true" germans
how this logic makes sense escapes me. much like many of the decisions that the German population seems to have made socially, politically or militarily. (disregarding a few people of course, who seem to have been radically sane from their bretheren).
somehow, before/during/after the war this feeling on antisemitism began to take hold on the country. but why? why was it more socially acceptable to have anti-semetic views now than before? where does the beginning of this shift lie?
Of course, the Jewish nation has been the pariah of every country since practically the start of history. their persecution is not novel, but it is still terrible. and i am always amazed at the hatred mankind can have for one another. and this hatred does not even have valid grounds!! I digress.
Germany had previously been a center for Jewish persecution (during the 1500's i believe. if you are interested, look up the myth of ritual murder. its fascinating what people can come up with... basically they accused the Jews of stealing children to sacrifice their blood and use their bodies in grotesques rituals. another aspect of this was the desecration of the host: the Host would be stolen and tortured until it became a small child (Christ symbol. someone had a rampant imagination). It seems that they just really really wanted to bring it back. But i dont understand how being a Jews makes you not suffer as much as anyone else, or not stand in line as long, or even look different than the average German. The Jews were not exempt from the Burgfrieden. Can someone please explain to me how on earth the German population cam to the point where the majority did not like the Jews?
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First of all, I can't explain how the majority of the German people became negative towards the Jewish group. It makes no sense to me either, but apparently it made sense to the Germans. I feel that if it hadn't been the Jews it would have been another group. I feel as though they had some need to single someone out as the reason for their problems. I'm not sure if they had any religious grounds for objecting to the Jewish people, but as far as I know the majority did not. Like I said, I feel as though the majority of Germans may have just been looking at the Jews as the villian that they had been led to believe was the cause of all of their woes.
ReplyDeleteExplaining the roots of Anti-Semitism is always complicated and fraught with error. I would argue that some of it is tied to a particular vision of Germany as the land of the Protestant Reformation and Luther. Some of it is tied to the rise of capitalism and the success of many Jewish Germans in the capitalist economy and their willingness to seize the opportunities for education and advancement offered by the Imperial State. Some of it stems from the 'differentness', especially of Orthodox Jews. Some of it comes from efforts of Jews to assimiliate and changes in ideas aboy Jewishness (as it went from being a religious to a racial identity.) Some of it comes from associations of Jews w/ Communism (some prominent Communist leaders were Jewish.) BUT, as we talked about in class, Germany was a land of tolerance as well as of Anti-Semitism. Frederick the Great welcomed Jews; the liberals of 1848 sought to emancipate the Jews from legal restrictions, many in Weimar mocke and derided those who peddled Anti-Semitic views. There is no simple, easy answer because the causes and extent of Anti-Semitic views varied from place to place, depending on conditions.
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