Anti-semitism in Europe (1879-1914): Lines of inquiry, conception and objectives of the research seminar at the center for anti-semitism research

As current controversies about anti-Semitism in Europe show, anti-Jewish sentiments and views are not limited to single nations but represent a European-wide phenomenon. The paper presents a research seminar at the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism at the Technical University Berlin regarding the emergence and the development of anti-Semitism in Europe from 1879, when the term itself was first coined, up to the First World War, i.e. the formative phase of anti-Semitism as a social and political movement. This seminar consists of eleven individual research projects regarding different European countries and regions. The paper describes the leading questions of this research seminar, presents its main objectives and intentions, determines the underlying term of anti Semitism, and gives an overview of the individual studies

The Image of Antisemites in German and Austrian Caricatures

Antisemitic caricatures had already drawn broad attention from one attentive contemporary observer and passionate collector – Eduard Fuchs, who had published in 1921 a huge volume on Jews in cartoons. Already in 1901, he had published what remains to this day the most extensive history of caricatures of the European people. The term ‘caricature’ goes back to the cartoons, the “ritrattini carichi”, literally “loaded portraits”, of Annibale Carracci in 16th century Italy.3 But not before the mid-18th century were caricatures used as a medium for political messages

German Jewish Intellectuals and the German Occupation of Belgium

In August 1914 the majority of German Jews expressed their patriotic approval of the war and their loyalty to the German state. They identified with Germany, and a large number signed up voluntarily for military service at the front. The Jewish population in Germany affirmed the war not least because it was directed against Russia, the harshest adversary of the Jews. This paper concentrates on the first acts of war conducted by the German military forces during the German occupation of Belgium; it examines whether and in what way German-Jewish Intellectuals perceived Germany’s violation of Belgian neutrality and the new feature of war as a war against a civilian population. The first part examines autobiographical sources to reconstruct the experiences and the perception of German Jewish soldiers, German military rabbis, and other German Jewish witnesses to the war. The second part then analyzes the coverage of German Jewish newspapers regarding the warfare against Belgium; and, finally, the third and last part scrutinizes the commentaries of German Jewish intellectuals and socialist Jews [Jewish socialists?] regarding the German war against Belgium

Arnold Zweig, Bilanz der deutschen Judenheit, 1993

Arnold Zweig, Bilanz der deutschen Judenheit, 199