Kantorowicz affair

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An anti-Semitic incident in Berlin in 1880/81 is referred to as the Kantorowicz affair .

On November 8, 1880, Bernhard Förster and Carl Jungfer , both high school teachers and well - known anti-Semites of the “ Berlin Movement ”, deliberately provoked Jewish passengers on a Berlin horse-drawn tram with anti-Semitic remarks. This led to an open dispute with the Jewish spirits manufacturer Edmund Kantorowicz , which ended in a scuffle. Förster and Jungfer reported Kantorowicz for assault. This responded with a duel demand , which was rejected by Förster because his opponent was not capable of satisfactory . He received support from the conservative and anti-Semitic press, which referred to alleged irregularities in Kantorowicz's business practices and referred to him as a “schnapps Jew”. On August 30, 1881, the trial against Kantorowicz ended with a guilty verdict and a one-month prison sentence. However, the court found that Förster and Jungfer had provoked the accused. In the appeal proceedings, Kantorowicz was then only fined 100 marks. Bernhard Förster - Friedrich Nietzsche's brother-in-law - and Carl Jungfer were dismissed from school because of their behavior, and Förster also lost his officer rank.

The Kantorowicz affair was given political importance against the background of the agitation of the “Berlin Movement” and the anti-Semite petition that ran in 1880/81 . It was discussed in the daily press, in the Berlin city council and in the Prussian House of Representatives and divided the public into two camps. The affair was symptomatic of the rampant anti-Semitism of the time . Through deliberately provoked scandals and affairs, anti-Semites such as Förster and Jungfer attempted to attack the Berlin establishment (especially the city ​​council with its left-wing liberal majority) , which they considered to be “Jewish” .

literature

  • Barnet Hartston: Sensationalizing the Jewish Question. Anti-Semitic Trials and the Press in the Early German Empire (Studies in Central European History, Volume 39), Leiden 2005, pp. 37-51.
  • Clemens Escher: Kantorowicz affair (1880) , in: Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus, Vol. 4, Veranstaltungen, Dekrete, Kontroversen, Berlin / Boston 2001, pp. 217f