Louis Stern affair

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Louis Stern affair was the conflict over the conviction of the Jewish businessman Louis Stern from New York . Stern stayed in July 1895 with his wife Lisette, née Strupp, and their son Louis junior. in Bad Kissingen for a cure and was sentenced there to a fine and imprisonment for an alleged threat of violence. As a result, there were violent clashes with an anti-Semitic character.

The course of the affair

The "Reunion" in the Bad Kissinger Kursaal

On July 11, 1895, a reunion took place in the Kursaal in Bad Kissingen . The Louis Stern family from New York also appeared at this reunion. The Stern couple were accompanied by their 15-year-old son Louis. When he danced with his mother, other guests in the evening made the deputy bath commissioner (now the office of spa director) Friedrich Freiherr von Thüngen (1861–1931) aware of the presence of a presumed minor . Baron von Thüngen then wanted to expel the young star from the hall. There was a heated argument while Louis Stern threatened the bathroom inspector with a slap . However, there was no assault and the Stern family finally left the hall.

It cannot be proven whether von Thüngen acted for anti-Semitic motives. It is noticeable, however, that the actual bath commissioner Hermann von Mauchenheim, known as Bechtolsheim, was clearly trying to calm the affair. However, Bechtolsheim was absent on the evening of the incident because his wife had died shortly before. Thüngen, on the other hand, insisted on his rigid position and the demand for legal prosecution, even though Louis Stern apologized to him in a submissive letter on July 19.

The trial against Louis Stern

At the beginning of August there was a trial against Louis Stern in Bad Kissingen. Because of the great public interest, the hearing was moved to the town hall of the spa town. Stern's defense attorney was Dr. Max Bernstein . Stern was charged with the insult "You mean person!" And the statement "If we were outside, I would give you a few slaps in the face!" Continued resistance to state power. Louis Stern was sentenced to 14 days in prison and paid 600 marks. On August 22, 1895, the New York Times reported that the famous attorney Richard R. Kenney is said to have taken on the further defense of Stern.

Effects of the affair

Shortly after the incident in the Kissinger Kursaal, two journalistic camps had formed. On the one hand, the anti-Semitic publisher and later member of the Bavarian Farmers' Union, Anton Memminger , who published the Neue Bayerische Landeszeitung in Würzburg and had been anti-Jewish in it as early as 1893. His newspaper immediately launched a racial anti-Semitic smear campaign against Louis Stern and Jews in general. His unobjective tone led to the Memmingers newspaper being banned in the spa town:

Caricature postcard from 1895

So Herr Stern
I would like to
just tear us away
And stay out of it
And a the others
May wander
with us to America
Hallelujah!

On the other hand, liberal papers such as the Frankfurter Zeitung or the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums took a stand against the anti-Semitic mood surrounding the incident. American spa guests also tried to use these media to call for a boycott of the spa town. Among the supporters of Louis Stern was, for example, William Waldorf Astor .

The affair also caused violent diplomatic disputes. In May 1896 there was a “sharp exchange between Minister Olney and Baron von Thielmann ”: “Mr. Stern's punishment was revoked by an amnesty proclamation by the Prince Regent of Bavaria. But Mr. Stern, whose bail had been forfeited because he failed to reappear and serve his sentence, appealed to get his bail back. This complaint was not admitted. "There had also been a serious deterioration in German-American relations:" The diplomatic correspondence suggests that the different legal views of the two states of the gravity of the crime, but above all the publicity, the diplomatic Clarifying the case unnecessarily difficult. "

In a letter dated October 7, 1895, the US Ambassador to Germany, Theodore Runyon, informed Foreign Minister Olney that there were also attacks against the German public because of Louis Stern's Jewish faith. On the one hand, he quotes the German press, on the other hand he referred to debates in the Bavarian state parliament. It is noteworthy, however, that Runyon also used the term 'race' ( 'his race' ); however, the English term has a broader meaning and can generally mean a defined group of people without any biological or ethnological connotations.

Even in 1902, seven years later, when the brother of the German emperor, Prince Heinrich , was visiting the USA, the New York Times published a critical letter to the editor referring to the Louis Stern incident: “ While the people of America are going crazy at the moment receiving Prince 'Heinrich' of 'Germany', they seem to forget that there was not the slightest courtesy in receiving American citizens in Germany. We all remember how disgusting one of our most respected citizens of this city, Mr Louis Stern, was treated in Germany a few years ago. HB Sheffield, MD - New York, January 31, 1902. "

Literature & sources

  • Ruhstadt, Julius: Travel letter from Kissingen , in: Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums Leipzig, August 9, 1895.
  • Dewey, C. Frank: Quaint Kissingen Spa - An Interesting Place in Spite of the Ridiculous Management . In: New York Times New York, September 29, 1895.
  • detailed report in the Saale Zeitung of August 6, 1895 about the court hearing.
  • Memminger, Anton : Tateleben Stern and his youth . In: Neue Bayerische Landeszeitung Würzburg, July 29, 1895.
  • Pardon and amnesty for the merchant Louis Stern by the Prince Regent Luitpold (file no. 827 of the holdings "Bad Kissingen bathing commissioner (1821-1952)", State Archives Würzburg ).
  • Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1895 , I (1896) , pp. 454 ff.
  • Geck, Wilhelm Karl: Stern case . In: Dictionary of International Law (Vol. 3) Rapallo Treaty - Cyprus . Berlin 1962, page 376 f.
  • Künzl, Thomas: Scandal in the Kursaal: The Louis Stern affair . In: Main-Post (Bad Kissingen edition), July 9, 2009.
  • Working Group History of the Bad Kissingen Secondary School: The Louis Stern Affair , Bad Kissingen 2011.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Saale Zeitung of August 6, 1895 and the New York Times of the same day.
  2. ↑ The American consul in Bamberg reported on August 7th that during the trial he himself, Mr. Richard Heinrich Adams (New York), Mr. Heinrich Clausenius (Consul of the North German Confederation and Grand Ducal Baden Consul in Chicago), the hotel porter, Dr. Glaser (district doctor) and the 'hotel owner Panizza' (Bad Kissingen) testified for the reputation of Louis Stern. The Bad Kissinger Saale Zeitung reported on August 6, 1895 also about these exonerating witnesses and named Felix Panizza, a brother of the literary figure Oskar Panizza (see Foreign Relations of the United States , 1895, p. 464 f.).
  3. ↑ Ursula Gehring-Münzel: The Würzburg Jews from 1803 to the end of the First World War. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. Volume III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, pp. 499-528 and 1306-1308, here: p. 526.
  4. ↑ The "Landeszeitung" banned! , in: Neue Bayerische Landeszeitung , Würzburg, August 2, 1895.
  5. ↑ in: Neue Bayerische Landeszeitung Würzburg, July 29, 1895.
  6. ^ According to a letter from the Commissioner for Economic Affairs at the Consulate in Bamberg, Louis Stern (with the same name as Louis Stern in Kissingen!), To the US Embassy in Berlin on July 28, 1895.
  7. ↑ This “sharp exchange” can be researched in the online archive of the University of Wisconsin, cf. Web links.
  8. ^ New York Times , May 22, 1896.
  9. ↑ Geck, Wilhelm Karl, Stern Fall . In: Dictionary of International Law (Vol. 3) Rapallo Treaty - Cyprus . Berlin 1962, p. 377.
  10. ↑ Foreign Relations of the United States 1895 , p. 481 f. (It is also interesting in this letter that reference is made to the Fuchsmühler Holzschlacht )
  11. ^ New York Times , February 2, 1902.