From the time that Innocent III evolved the diabolical plan to destroy the moral stamina of the Jews (the bearers of Spanish culture to the world of Christendom) by forcing them to wear a badge of shame on their garments, until the audacious kidnapping of a Jewish child from the house of his parents (which occurred under the government of Cardinal Antonelli) Papal Rome symbolizes an inexhaustible well of poison to the Jews. It is only with the drying-up of this source that Christian German Anti-Semitism will die from lack of nourishment (p. 35).
The great teachers of the knowledge of God were always Jews. Our people not only created the noblest religion of the ancient world, a religion which is destined to become the common property of the entire civilized world, but continued to develop it, keeping pace with the progress of the human spirit.
And this mission will remain with the Jews until the end of days, i.e., until the time when, according to the Promise of our Prophets, the world will be filled with the knowledge of God. The "end of days", so often spoken of by the Prophets, is not to be understood to mean, as some misinterpret it, the end of the world, but it denotes the period when the development and education of humanity will reach their highest point (pp. 47-48).
It seems that on account of the hatred which surrounds him on all sides, the German Jew is determined to estrange himself from Judaism as far as possible, and endeavours even to deny his race. No reform of the Jewish religion, however extreme, is radical enough for the educated German Jew. But the endeavours are vain. Even conversion itself does not relieve the Jew from the enormous pressure of German Anti-Semitism.
The German hates the Jewish religion less than the race; he objects less to the Jews' peculiar beliefs than to their peculiar noses. Neither Reform nor conversion nor emancipation throw the gates of social life open to the Jew, hence his anxiety to deny his racial descent (pp. 58-59).
To our educated German Jews, the feeling of hatred toward the Jews displayed by the Germans has always remained an unsolved puzzle.
Was not the entire effort of German Jews since the days of Mendelssohn directed toward becoming wholly Germanized, to thinking and feeling as Germans? Have they not striven carefully to eradicate every trace of their ancient nationality? Have they not fought in the "War of Liberation"? Were they not Teutomaniacs and French devourers?
Did we not chant but yesterday with Nicholas Becker, "They shall not possess it, the free German Rhine"? 1
Did I myself not commit the unpardonable stupidity of sending a musical composition of this "German Marsellaise" to the author of this song? And yet I had to feel personally the same disappointment that German Jewry in general experienced after it had given repeated demonstration of its patriotic enthusiasm. I also had to experience the sad fact that the German to whom I, glowing with patriotic emotion, sent my manuscript not only responded icily but, as if to fill the cup of bitterness to the brim, wrote in disguised script on the reverse of his letter the words, "You are a Jew."
I forgot then that Germans not only discriminated against the Jews after the War of Liberation but even persecuted their erstwhile comrades-in-arms against the French with the frequent cries of Hep, Hep.
I, on the other hand, mistook Becker's Hep Hep for a personal insult and wrote him a letter accordingly in undisguised script making a few unpleasant remarks, which this honest German passed over in silence, most likely feeling ashamed of his rudeness.
Today I could have apologized to this German poet for, as I see clearly now, it was by no means intended as a personal insult (pp. 71-72).
The Teutomaniac loves not the State but the dominance of his race in his love of the Fatherland. How then can he conceive granting equal rights to other races when equality is still Utopia for the masses of Germany? (p. 73).
First published in the Trierische Zeitung on 18 September 1840, "Der deutsche Rhein" immediately took the public arena by storm. According to Hagen Schulze, every German newspaper printed it within only one month. Conradin Kreutzer, a music director in Cologne, sold 1200 copies of his musical arrangement for the text in less than two days; other professional and amateur composers submitted hundreds of arrangements to competitions announced in the periodic press. Becker's poem inspired residents in his hometown of Geilenkirchen to organize a torch-lit parade in his honor, and the poem also accompanied numerous public occasions.
Lorie A. Vanchena. The Rhine Crisis of 1840: Rheinlider, German Nationalism, and the Masses, pp. 242-43. PDF available from KU ScholarWorks | http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu. Accessed 24 April 2024.
England with its industrial organization represents Humanity's "nervous system" governing and regulating its digestive system; France represents social stimulation; Germany, brain power; and America the assimilation of all cultures into one (p. 124).
In Humanity`s framework no two peoples attract and repel each other more than do Germans and Jews, just as no two mental outlooks are more kin though diametrically opposite than the scientific-philosophical and the religious-moral (pp. 124-25).
The rigid crust of orthodox Jewry will melt when the spark of Jewish patriotism, now smouldering underneath, is kindled into a sacred fire heralding the arrival of Spring and the resurrection of our nation.
On the other hand, Western Judaism is covered by a long-lasting crust of debris from the first manifestation of the modern spirit, an extinct rational enlightenment. This crust will not be melted by the fire of Jewish patriotism, it can only be cracked by an external pressure under whose weight everything devoid of future must perish.
In contrast to Orthodoxy, which cannot be obliterated by an external force without endangering the embryo of Jewish Nationalism that slumbers within, the sturdy shell that covers the hearts of our cultured Jews will be shattered only by a blow from without, one that world events are preparing already and which probably will strike in the near future (pp. 176-77).
The age of race dominance is at an end. As soon as even the smallest nation, Germanic or Romance, Slavic or Finnic, Celtic or Semitic, advances its claims to a seat among the historical nations, it will find sympathy in the powerful civilized Western nations.
Like the patriots of other unfortunate nations, German patriots can attain their aim only by means of a friendly alliance with the progressive and powerful nations of the world. But if they (the German patriots) continue to conjure themselves, as well as the German people, with the might and glory of the "German Sword," they will only add grave new mistakes to the old unpardonable ones, they will only play into the hands of the reaction and drag all Germany along with them (p. 233).
Accepting his premises it can be stated that the Holocaust occurred because these three factors concurred: