Anti-Semite petition

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Portrait montage of anti-Semites known around 1880. Middle: Otto Glagau, therefore clockwise Adolf König, Bernhard Förster, Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg, Theodor Fritsch, Paul Förster and Otto Böckel

The anti-Semite petition was a petition initiated by German anti-Semites of the Berlin movement in 1880/1881 to the Reich Chancellor and Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck , which demanded the withdrawal of essential equality laws for Jews .

The main initiators were the Leipzig physics and astronomy professor Karl Friedrich Zöllner (1834–1882) and Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg , Bernhard Förster , Paul Förster and Ernst Henrici . The well-known Berlin court preacher Adolf Stoecker , the Chemnitz publisher Ernst Schmeitzner (1851–1895) and the composer and conductor Hans von Bülow (1830–1894) were among the first to sign.

requirements

The anti-Semite petition demanded the restriction of the constitutional equality of the Jews that took place in 1869 for the North German Confederation and in 1871 for the German Reich . This was justified by the alleged economic exploitation and the alleged social and racial decomposition of the German national body by the Jews. Therefore, their advance into key social positions must be prevented. The following were specifically requested:

  1. Removal of Jews from civil service and the army, repression in the judiciary (especially the exclusion from judicial office)
  2. Prohibition of employing Jewish teachers in elementary schools, only in exceptional cases their admission to higher schools and universities
  3. Resumption of official statistics on the Jewish population.
  4. Restricting the immigration of Jews from Austria-Hungary and Russia.

Advice in the Prussian House of Representatives

At the request of the left-liberal MP Albert Hänel , the anti-Semite petition was debated on November 22nd and 24th, 1880 in the Prussian House of Representatives . Contrary to what had been hoped, the government did not condemn the petition. She only stated that she did not want to change the legal status of equal rights for religious denominations in terms of citizenship. It thus remained on the legal basis of the Prussian constitution and the federal law of 1869. It avoided commenting on anti-Semitic administrative practice as well as commenting on agitation by anti-Semites.

Apart from the left-wing liberals, no other parliamentary group represented in the House of Representatives condemned the anti-Semitic campaign. Although they mainly defended the legal emancipation of Jews , they attributed the agitation to alleged misconduct on the part of the Jews themselves. Stoecker's attacks on the Jews even came in handy for the majority of the central faction. Ludwig Windthorst , leader of the Center Party, who was aware of the disastrous consequences of political anti-Semitism for Germany's domestic policy and for the situation of the Catholic minority, could only speak “for himself” when he was cracking down on the Jews like it in that petition happened loudly disapproved.

The leader of the Conservatives, Ernst von Heydebrand , spoke sharply against the Jews. The free conservatives did not want to support the left-wing liberals and the national liberals were reserved.

Only Eugen Richter , then leader of the Progressive Party , turned directly against Stoecker and accused him of being a co-initiator of the petition:

“That is precisely what is particularly perfidious about the whole movement, that while the socialists only turn against the economically wealthy, racial hatred is nurtured here, something that the individual cannot change and which can only be ended by either is beaten to death or taken across the border. "

Signature collection and submission

The collection of signatures for the petition should, according to the will of its initiators, take place throughout Germany and have the character of a plebiscite .

Between August 1880 and April 1881 the anti-Semites had collected 267,000 signatures for their petition throughout the Reich, according to their own information (in fact there were probably fewer, but at least 225,000). The initiators of the petition did not have any party political organizations and could initially only rely on individual agitators to promote their concerns. However, thanks to the academic effectiveness of some university professors such as Heinrich von Treitschke, it was possible to activate many students in the anti-Semitism debate and to win them over to agitate in favor of the petition. The anti-Semitic agitation of the popular court preacher Adolf Stoecker had a similar effect. The book by Wilhelm Marr, The Victory of Judaism over Teutonicism , which was published twelve times in 1879, was also influential , prompting Marr to found his anti-Semite league. Since October 1880, committees have been formed at many universities to prepare this so-called plebiscite. The associations of German students were formed from these committees, for example at the beginning of 1881 in Berlin, Halle and Breslau .

The initiators benefited from the unclear attitude of the government and the parties, so that one could successfully suggest in rural-conservative regions of Prussia that the content of the petition was in line with government policy. While the dissemination of the petition in East Elbe was supported by conservative dignitaries , support and response in northern, western and southern Germany remained low.

Regional distribution of the signatures:

These figures were provided by the petitioners themselves and they probably need to be revised downwards. Details of other cities, states and Prussian provinces are not known.

No reliable information can be given about the social origin of the signatories. We only know that 4,000 students (19% of all students) signed. Stoecker signed the petition, although he had denied this in the debate in the Prussian House of Representatives, while Treitschke did not.

Follow the petition

In connection with the agitation for the anti-Semite petition , violent riots broke out in Neustettin . On February 18, 1881, a few days after Ernst Henrici's two speeches on February 13 and 14, the city's synagogue burned down and there were riots hostile to Jews. In 1883 a trial was initiated against several urban Jews who were charged with arson at their own synagogue.

In 1880, at the suggestion of the Mayor of Berlin, Max von Forckenbeck, 75 representatives of German intellectual life published a " Notable Declaration " against the petition . Theodor Mommsen , Johann Gustav Droysen , Rudolf von Gneist , Rudolf Virchow and others protested against the “revival of an old madness”.

On April 13, 1881, the anti-Semite petition with the signature lists compiled in 26 volumes was submitted to the Reich Chancellery. Bismarck, who had used the anti-Semitic movement to weaken the liberals at times, ignored them. The Vice President of the Prussian State Ministry, Count Otto zu Stolberg-Wernigerode , declared in the Reichstag that the government did not intend to change anything in terms of civic equality of religious denominations. Rudolf Virchow, one of the opponents of the anti-Semites, called this answer "correct, but cool to the heart". For the anti-Semites, the petition was still a partial success. They had succeeded in attracting widespread public attention and attracting around a quarter of a million signatories.

From 1884, Prussia pursued a targeted deportation policy in line with the petition: In the following two years 10,000 Jewish Poles and 25,000 other Poles were deported. The legal basis for this was the "blood law" ( ius sanguinis ), which had been introduced in Prussia in 1842. As a result, the deportees could not obtain Prussian and German citizenship , but remained foreigners under special rights.

This encouraged the initiators to form parties that achieved some electoral success during the strong anti-Semitic sentiments and campaigns in Wilhelmine society of the 1890s. The content of the anti-Semite petition formed the core of the respective party programs with regard to the “ Jewish question ”.

literature

  • Ernest Hamburger : Jews in public life in Germany - members of the government, civil servants and parliamentarians in the monarchical period 1848-1918, JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1968
  • Kurt Wawrzinek: The emergence of the German anti-Semite parties 1873-1890. Berlin 1927
  • Thomas Weidemann: Political anti-Semitism in the German Empire. The Reichstag member Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg and the north Hessian constituency Fritzlar-Homberg-Ziegenhain. From: Hartwig Bambey (Ed.): Displaced Neighbors. Contributions to the history of the Jews in the Ziegenhain Schwalmstadt district 1993 , pp. 113–184.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Norbert Kampe: Students and »Jewish Question« in the German Empire , ISBN 9783525357385 , p. 23, doi : 10.13109 / 9783666357381.23 .
  2. ↑ Uffa Jensen: Educated doppelgangers . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005, ISBN 3-525-35148-8 ( Digitale-sammlungen.de ). , P. 272.
  3. ^ The parliamentary treatment of the anti-Semite petition. In: Ernest Hamburger: Jews in public life in Germany - members of the government, civil servants and parliamentarians in the monarchical period 1848-1918, JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1968, pages 134-136.
  4. ↑ Walter Böhlich: Der Berliner Antisemitismusstreit , p. 255f.
  5. ↑ a b Werner Jochmann : Structure and function of anti-Semitism 1878 to 1914 , p. 113, in Herbert A. Strauss, Norbert Campe (ed.): Antisemitism - From hostility towards Jews to the Holocaust. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt 1985, ISBN 3-593-33464-X .
  6. ^ Karlheinz Weissmann: The national socialism. Ideology and Movement 1890–1933. Herbig, 1998, p. 80.
  7. ↑ The list of signatories from the Nationalzeitung, Berlin, November 14, 1880 is printed in Hans Liebeschütz: The Judaism in the German Historical Image from Hegel to Max Weber , JCBMohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1967, p. 341f.
  8. ^ Franz Goerlich (Ed.): The Jewish question in the Prussian House of Representatives. Verbatim copy of the stenographic reports from November 20 and 22, 1880 , Breslau 1880.
  9. ↑ Tobias Jaecker: Jewish emancipation and anti-Semitism in the 19th century. March 2002.