On the Sociology of German Anti-Semitism

Abstract

The cause of German anti-Semitism should not be sought at the level of individual attitudes but, firstly, in the context of German history and social development, and, secondly, in the changing social position of the Jews within that setting. During the Middle Ages, when the estates and guild-orders prevailed, there were severe tensions between Christians and Jews. These began to be moderated with the development of capitalism, as members of the Christian middle class became involved in a struggle to end traditional restrictions. In that context, independently of their attitudes towards them, emancipation of the Jews appeared to middle-class Christians as a precondition for the emergence of Jews as good German citizens, and Jewish merchants and bankers became welcome allies in economic expansion. However, once the struggle of the middle classes against the nobility had been won, the Christian sections of the newly dominant ruling class underwent a political u-turn; hostility against the Jews, who had become a middle class of second rank, increased. It increased still further with the loss of the First World War and the crises that followed it, especially among the most economically constricted strata. In that situation, the Jews were socially conspicuous but relatively powerless. They had few resources for struggling effectively against what had become, for them, a crippling social order. Better to fight for a home in Palestine, or at least to accustom themselves to behaving in a self-aware but unobtrusive way. [Translators' text.]