The warrior's attack on the peaceful E-Book

Helmut Lambert

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 359

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Aristocracies and totalitarian dictatorships, in the name of religion or "science", must form the stupid and aggressive type of subject and, in times of crisis, stir them up against peaceful, tolerant minorities. For almost 2,000 years, these were mainly the Jews of the Diaspora. They were at the forefront of the development of "civil" values, the foundations of the Western world. This thesis, developed with the conceptual tools of Elias and Luhmann, is confirmed over the centuries up to the present conflict over Israel.

Leseprobe

Dedication

min hjertestjerne

Introduction

Preliminary remark

The book arose from the analysis of anti-Semitism from a sociological perspective and its examination in history. Over many stages of a broad historical overview, this led to the clear insight that it was a necessary instrument of power of the respective ruling powers, in the Christian West it was mostly the aristocracy.

The Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and the missile attack by Iran in April 2024 gave the topic an alarming topicality that called for consideration. Applying the knowledge gained up to that point no longer to a historical but to a hotly contested political field is inevitably tricky and must avoid small-scale considerations. However, the view spanning thousands of years could also offer more clarity here, both in relation to anti-Semitism and to our German, Western position.

The sequence of chapters with the gradual gain in knowledge, at the end of which the situation of Israel is dealt with, shows the explanatory power of the developed argumentation for the present and makes it possible to read in sections.

Overview

The numerous reasons given so far for anti-Semitism are unsatisfactory: Christianity does not explain Hitler's and Stalin's, the source in bourgeois society does not explain that of other forms of society, superstition does not explain the selection of Jews as objects, the Palestinian conflict does not explain Muslim anti-Semitism. The division into social, psychological and economic anti-Semitism also does not lead to the source, nor does primary and secondary anti-Semitism.

The analysis of anti-Semitism presented here traces it back to one main source: it is the attack of the aggressive military values and forms of behavior that prevailed in the aristocracies for thousands of years on the Jews, who were forced by their existence in the diaspora to develop peacefulness, equality and empathy - civil forms of behavior and sentiment. Today, they are the basic values of the Western world and of human rights.

Starting from the extreme form of the military canon of behavior and sentiment with the revival of anti-Semitism under Kaiser Wilhelm II, this thesis is confirmed by many examples. Georg Simmel sees a tendency towards peacefulness in the economy in general and in particular with the implementation of money, Karl Popper sees aggressiveness in the aristocracy, which is philosophically and religiously dressed up.

Neither we nor the Jews are aware of this special pioneering role of the Jews in the development of Western and global culture. The results presented here are therefore suitable for enhancing the reputation of Judaism and creating greater clarity in the current debate. They also make it clear why the fight against anti-Semitism is a fight for our freedom.

Display sequence

(1) In the beginning, there was the consideration that the Jews had developed a special form of social values and skills of peaceful coexistence in order to survive in their almost two millennia of existence in the diaspora under little legal protection and constant threat. In addition, Norbert Elias' "Studies on the Germans", in which he explained the catastrophic developments leading to the First and Second World Wars with the particularly militaristic ideology of the Wilhelmine Empire, which served to stabilize the faltering aristocratic rule in Germany against social and democratic forces. According to Elias, the mediation of ideology and the individual takes place through the shaping of a "canon of behavior and sentiment", in this case a military one, in which his values are reflected: Discipline, subordination, callousness and belief instead of knowledge. According to Elias, it was enforced through the invention of the "satisfaktionsfähige society"1, which made the attainment of leadership positions dependent on submission to the military canon by means of the beating bonds. This canon of behavior and sentiment was now quite obviously diametrically opposed to the peaceful, unwarlike nature of the Jews, which, however, corresponded to that of the democratic and social movements.

An examination of whether the common prejudices against Jews could essentially be explained by military values confirmed this thesis. According to this, the increasing anti-Semitism was a by-product of Wilhelmine militarism in a form that was still moderate compared to later excesses, even though the nobility needed the Jews for its economy.

(2) After the weakening of the religious motive, the resurgence of anti-Semitism sought new ways of confirmation and found them in the newly emerged "scientific" racial theory. However, in order to be able to classify it there, the pernicious characteristics of the Jews had to be located many millennia back, as otherwise a Jewish "race" could not have emerged. This "racial" justification made the progressive integration of the Jews into the majority society through adapted life, merit or conversion to Christianity impossible.

In order to further increase the alleged danger emanating from the Jews, the Jews' main field of activity, trade, with its wide connections, was diabolized into a world conspiracy by means of its identification with the capitalism they allegedly controlled. Both were only possible if the entire development in Europe since pre-Christian times was not seen - as is generally the case - as an increase in insight and humanity, but as a steady decline towards the destruction of an alleged "Germanic culture". Yet this culture, with its opposing values - emotion, violence and profundity - actually deserved to lead the world. In order to systematically prove the wickedness of the Jews, one had to resort to increasingly arbitrary, irrational and misanthropic arguments. Of all things, a more liberal attitude towards homosexuality, as it is accepted by the majority today, was identified as a core aspect of the Jewish threat to Germanic master race.

(3) A further reason for the emergence of anti-Semitism can be found in Georg Simmel's "Philosophy of Money", in which he elaborated in detail on the economy with its inherent tendencies towards equality, balancing of interests, peacefulness, flexibility and the urge for knowledge, i.e. the civil canon. These values were existentially important for the Jews as a merchant nation, and peacefulness in particular was reinforced by their insecure existence in the diaspora, which would not have been necessary in a state of their own. It is therefore a world-historical confrontation between the values of an aristocratic, or more generally stratified society based on oppression and exploitation, and a society of equals, concerned with peacefulness and social equality like the Western democracies ("open society"). The shift in power in the modern era associated with the growing importance of the economy was characterized by conflicts over the struggle for more rights (UK) and revolutions that were either defeated or successful (France, USA). In Germany, the defence of the power of the nobility in the 19th century against the driving forces of the era degenerated into increased repression and militarization and inevitably produced systematic anti-Semitism as a by-product - with monstrous consequences.

In 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany committed itself to civilian values in the Basic Law, after the military had twice led to terrible disasters.

(4) The more recent explanations of anti-Semitism in books by Michael Woffsohn and Götz Aly confirm the theses and allow for their further development and differentiation.

(5) The theses are tested on the basis of concrete phenomena through the eyes of contemporary witnesses:

Fontane closely followed the negative changes in Prussia in the 19th century and especially under Wilhelm II, including the spread of "Byzantinism" to the highest state offices. In the course of his life, Fontane's unreflected, traditional anti-Semitism was transformed into a pronounced appreciation due to his positive experiences with Jews.

Döblin describes his impressions of the Jewish quarter of Warsaw in 1926, with its cultural diversity, vitality and bustle, but also the hardship and alienation of the large numbers of Jews expelled from Russia.

George Orwell observes that, despite knowledge of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism continued to be reproduced in traditional stereotypes in Britain after the Second World War.

(6) Based on Karl Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies", the military canon becomes understandable as an instrument of oppression for the ruling class. It needs an ideology to justify the oppression of the majority. Philosophically, it has its origins in Plato's "The State" and was propagated by the ruling class in Christianity and by philosophers of the modern era (such as Hegel), always with new modifications.

(7) Reports from the diaspora complete the picture - on the one hand, the resulting wisdom for practical life from the Jewish tradition and, on the other, the vivid description of oppression in Arab countries, which is considered milder in the prevailing opinion. However, it makes it clear that it had to result in very practical rules of conduct for the Jews, for which there still seems to be a lack of systematic processing.

(8) Finally, the study of Jewish self-image in the Enlightenment and today shows that it is characterized exclusively by its position on religion. It has no view of behavior and sentiments that arise from practical life. This is a blank space that two Jewish sociologists - Kaplan and Wine - allude to but do not address.

(9) The Freemasons, as representatives of enlightenment and humanity, suffered similar discrimination, but were less easy to scapegoat as they were hardly recognizable as part of the majority society. The anti-Semites spared themselves differentiation and lumped the two together under the threatening term of the Masonic-Jewish conspiracy.

(10) H.A. Winkler's depiction of the Western world and its values over the past 2,000 years from a historical perspective can also be read as a battle between the two canons, thus confirming the new explanation of anti-Semitism.

(11) From the development of the 20th century analyzed by F. A. Hayek, with the formative dictatorships of Stalinism and fascism, their anti-Semitism results from the commonality of the collectivist character, which again needs obedient subjects and persecutes free people.

(12) The state of Israel creates a new situation in world history. Here the conflicts of the transition from a 6,000-year-old class society (stratified system) to a free social system come together with the end of almost 2,000 years of diaspora existence. Archaic Muslim anti-Semitism meets a modern state. This inevitably changes some of the specific characteristics necessary in the diaspora, especially peacefulness. But the civilian orientation remains, as do its enemies, who now have another, but no longer easily suppressible, target in Israel. Large parts of the Muslim world are fanatically fighting this as representatives of modernity with war, terror and propaganda, while at the same time presenting themselves as victims of the West. This view is also having an effect in insecure circles in the Western world, endangering our freedom.

Conclusion

The realization that the Jews were pioneers in the development of a canon of civil values that became the foundations of the Western value system is something neither we nor they are aware of, but it increases their esteem, can contribute to their non-religious self-image and makes their opponents stand out more clearly as representatives of unfreedom and violence programmed by the rulers.

The study thus also contributes to a clarification of the global conflicts between lack of freedom (military canon) and freedom (civil canon), in which autocratic rulers fight for land in the old aristocratic manner without regard for people and the latter is concerned with the welfare and freedom of the people. The difference between diaspora and state is also made clear. The extreme peacefulness, sometimes also the enforced subservience, over two millennia was a special historical case. A state cannot afford this if it wants to survive. It must exercise power both internally and externally.

1 The warrior's hatred of the peaceful

Anti-Semitism under the instruments of Norbert Elias

1.1 Overview

Anti-Semitism is a phenomenon that has existed for thousands of years and has not disappeared even after the unprecedented crimes of the Holocaust, not even in the state of the perpetrators.

Anti-Semitic acts cause reactions of indignation and condemnation, but beyond that little or no examination of the deeper sources of anti-Semitic attitudes.

However, if one does this, as outlined below, one comes to the conclusion that Jewish culture, due to the peculiarity of its development in almost 2,000 years of diaspora, has developed a very unusual level of civilization of peaceful coexistence, and that anti-Semitism is fed by aggressive ideologies that served to maintain oppression in aristocratic societies.

In the terms of Norbert Elias: because some were subject to a "military", others to an (extremely) "civilian canon of behavior and sentiment".

The aristocracy had to rely on oppression, hierarchies, command and obedience to secure its position of power. The people should be raised up ignorant and religious. Knowledge could create entitlements and call rule into question.

In civil social interaction, however, especially in trade, people treat each other as equals. Differing opinions are argued out and compromises are reached. Education, knowledge and creativity are helpful for this.

The conflict between these opposing value systems over almost two millennia gave rise to the peculiarity of anti-Semitic stereotypes in comparison to the usual social exclusion of groups.

This is explained in more detail below and demonstrated using examples.

1.2 The improbability of Jewish culture

1.2.1 Peacefulness as a form of survival

After their expulsion by the Romans in the first century AD, the Jews never had a state and therefore no state organization that could protect them internally and externally. In their Christian "host countries", they were usually a minority that was not welcomed by the majority for religious reasons alone and could expect little justice from the authorities, let alone support. Even when rulers had brought them into the country, their favor was uncertain; there were always arbitrary taxes and curtailments of their few rights. They remained among themselves in their own safe neighborhoods (ghettos), which, in addition to their religion differing from that of the majority, stood in the way of integration.

In their dealings with the locals, they therefore had to adopt a pleasing, peaceful demeanor in order to earn a living. They had to anticipate conflicts as early as possible, avoid them, develop evasive strategies, e.g. wit, and always be alert. They were denied traditional professions such as farmer and craftsman; they could only become traders and moneylenders, neither of which had a good reputation.

Some negatively perceived characteristics can also be easily explained by these circumstances. Their alleged desire to argue is probably the result of their upbringing and complex view of the world and the attempt to formulate their interests by argument rather than force. Their persistence in pursuing their goals can easily be understood as a consequence of economic necessity.

Aggression as the basis of aristocratic rule

All states were aristocratic, i.e. characterized by a small ruling class and a majority of subjects with fewer rights. This required coercion internally and constant conflict externally. The values conveyed for this were reflected in detail in a warlike, Norbert Elias says "military canon of behavior and sentiment", 1 . This was stronger among the nobility, but also had an effect on the non-noble social classes, where it was even understood and disseminated as a role model. 2

In such a social environment, forms of behavior based on non-violence could only develop within narrow limits.

For the Jews in the diaspora, on the other hand, this was precisely the prerequisite for their survival as a group and it developed there in a very distinctive form as a "civil canon of behavior and sentiment". It was opposed to the military canon and represented a latent threat to it, as it demonstrated an alternative form of society that required different skills.

1.3 Dividing societies into established and outsiders

According to general life experience, certain exclusions of groups are part of everyday life in every society. Be it foreign dialects, hair color, clothing or habits, everything can become a reason for exclusion even in less differentiated societies.

Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson examined these social processes in more detail in "Established and Outsiders" 3 using the example of a small suburban settlement in the Midlands of England, which they called "Milton Prava" in code, and derived general insights into these processes.

1.3.1 General social laws

There is a tendency in societies to set themselves apart from other groups. According to the findings in the Winston Prava study area, this did not require any major ethnic, religious or cultural differences. The difference between slightly older and younger parts of the city was enough. 4

In Winston Prava, this problem was particularly acute because most of the usual explanations for power differentials - social class, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or level of education - failed here. In fact, the only difference between the two groups concerned was the length of time they had lived in the square. 5

The population of the older part of the city belonged to the established people who held the positions of power in the community and deliberately prevented the newcomers from integrating, i.e. from participating in clubs, associations and informal gatherings in the pub. The associated sense of power resulted in a feeling of being "better" than the newcomers.

Among the inferior group of new citizens, the feeling that they too felt "worse" than the established citizens prevailed. Only a few young people expressed this belittlement in the form of provocative violations of rules and laws.

The uniformity of the pattern according to which powerful groups worldwide stigmatize their outsider groups - a uniformity across all cultural differences - may at first seem somewhat surprising. But the symptoms of human inferiority that a more powerful established group is most likely to perceive in a less powerful outsider group, that serve its members as justification of their supremacy and proof of their superiority, are usually generated in outsiders by the very conditions of their group position, by the humiliation and oppression associated with it. These conditions are in some respects the same everywhere. Poverty, a low standard of living, are among them. But there are others (...) such as being constantly at the mercy of capricious decisions and orders from above, the humiliation of exclusion from the "better circles" and inculcated attitudes of subservience. 6

In any case, one cannot understand the compelling power of an established-outsider relationship and the peculiar helplessness of the groups of people thus bound together until one recognizes that they are caught in a double bind. 7

1.3.2 Impact on the majority society

If such exclusionary tendencies were already evident in Britain in the 1960s under what we would today consider civilized conditions and with minimal group differences, it can be assumed that they were even more pronounced in earlier centuries.

In addition, the Jews were a foreign group that differed significantly in terms of appearance, customs, occupation and especially religion - in other words, in many respects - from the locals, who were predominantly farmers and craftsmen in the Middle Ages. On the part of the established, this reinforced the social tendency towards increased demarcation with the associated elevation of one's own position and the degradation of outsiders.

On the other hand, the feeling of one's own superiority through belonging to the more powerful group also requires strict submission to its rules. This also includes discrimination against outsiders. Otherwise you will fall down the status hierarchy and face exclusion.

The penalty for deviation, and sometimes even for suspected deviation, is a loss of power and a reduction in status.

However, the influence of a group's internal opinion on each of its members goes even further. In some respects, such a group opinion has the character and function of a personal conscience.

(...) His self-image and self-esteem are linked to what other members of his group think about him. 8

Under the conditions of aristocratic rule, the exercise of violence was one of the fundamental prerequisites, which was also reflected in everyday dealings in civil society, but was kept in check by laws and customs. This did not apply, or only to a limited extent, to the minority of Jews. They were defenceless.

The military canon of behavior and sentiment also shapes the civilian canon: little empathy, less argument than threat, limited recognition of merchants' values such as compromise, responsiveness to trading partners, imagination and the like.

1.3.3 Effects on the Jewish minority society in the diaspora

The devaluation described above, which followed the devaluation by dominant groups, did not take place among the Jews.

Here, exclusion was obviously countered by a sense of identity, mutual support and the assurance of a common religion and customs.

A violent reaction to humiliations suffered is practically impossible in the diaspora due to the small number of Jews and their extensive lack of rights. This imposes a tremendous effort of will on them to control their emotions in accepting injustice.

As Norbert Elias demonstrates in "The Process of Civilization", European societies have had to master a psychological task over centuries since the end of the Middle Ages within just a few generations: Peaceableness.

This is associated with different values than in the majority society: a special sensitivity for emerging delicate situations, early evasion, overcoming conflicts through compromise and humor, acceptance of current injustice with a view to longer-term goals, increased mutual help, arguments instead of violence, as well as education and knowledge.

These are the values that are now enshrined in the Basic Law of Germany, but which were diametrically opposed to the values of the aristocracy. No wonder that discrimination against a peaceful culture was a social task under these conditions. We will encounter them again with anti-Semitic clichés.

1.4 The aristocratic ideology

1.4.1 Anchoring and amorality

The development of an ideology is a largely unconscious social process that is influenced by many powers. The opinion-forming groups of worldly and spiritual rule must harmonize their explanations for maintaining their rule with the changing external conditions as far as possible. Ideology then shapes a canon of inner values, emotions and patterns of behavior that become an inner need. For those in power, they stand in contrast to general moral values and become part of the conscience in the form of "honor". "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not rob, thou shalt not fornicate, thou shalt not lie..." did not apply to them.

Norbert Elias describes it as follows:

"The coercive apparatus and the laws of the state [...] are useful for maintaining order among the restless masses. But we, the warriors and the rulers, are the ones who maintain order in the state. We are the masters of the state. We live by our own rules, which we make for ourselves. These state laws do not apply to us." 9

1.4.2 The threat to aristocratic rule posed by democracy and the rule of law

With the advance of reason and humanism, the development of the modern era was also a development towards the abolition of aristocratic society and the attainment of more freedom, equal rights and social improvements. These trends had different consequences in the various European states, depending on the respective balance of power and socio-economic development. In England, the king had to give in to this pressure from below and make compromises due to his weak land army. In France, this rise could be avoided for a long time due to the strength of the central power, until the revolution occurred. In Germany, with its political fragmentation, the progressive forces remained politically weak. After the upheaval caused by Napoleon and the regaining of power, a special ideology emerged that opposed the political Enlightenment and ascribed a special role to German culture and the German character beyond reason. This was reinforced on the part of the aristocracy by emphasizing the military canon of values and behaviour, which was then adopted by an ambitious bourgeois upper class.

The position of the military and civil service aristocracy as the highest-ranking and most powerful stratum of society was not only preserved but strengthened by the victory of 1871. Not all, but a good part of the bourgeoisie adapted relatively quickly to these circumstances. As representatives of a secondary class, as subjects, they integrated themselves into the social order of the empire (...) and adopted its models and norms. 10

In the 19th century, industrialization replaced agricultural production, which had previously dominated the economy. As a result, the economic basis of the aristocracy dwindled and new, bourgeois forces gained in importance. They represented different values than the aristocracy and thus became not only economically but also ideologically dangerous. The reaction:

One of the standard remedies when an establishment sees its position threatened is to tighten the constraints that its members impose on themselves and that they impose on the wider group of the ruled (...) 11

In Germany, this tendency manifested itself in a tightening of military values and behavior and in the emergence of the "stratif. society" as the leading social class with the duel as a compelling, unifying ritual.

(The duel) is a symbol of certain human attitudes, a socially regulated cultivation of violence. Students and officers were the main promoters of dueling culture. It brought with it the habituation to a strictly hierarchical order, i.e. an emphasis on inequality between people. 12

1.4.3 The rise of anti-Semitism in the German Empire

Contrary to the main currents of the time and in contrast to the reforms in neighbouring countries, which took them into account in various ways, a radicalization of the aristocratic mindset occurred in Germany. The associated struggle was directed against civil values in general and thus - to a certain extent inevitably - against their most typical representatives, the Jews.

The fact that the power of the bourgeoisie had increased in this new German society was not ignored. But the traditional conviction of the warrior nobility that a commercial occupation was not entirely honorable remained very much alive in the courtly society of the Empire and in aristocratic circles in general (...) the idea that a gainful occupation was not befitting a nobleman's status was still very much alive.

(...) Certainly, the courtly societies of the empire opened up to bourgeois people to a greater extent than before. But it was mainly high-ranking officials, including university professors and especially well-known scholars, who were brought in. 13

Certainly, the exponents of trade and commerce, as it was called, suffered from the traditional contempt of an establishment... Certainly, trade and commerce, merchants and factory owners grumbled (...) But wide circles of the upper middle classes, above all higher civil servants and academics, happily and often enthusiastically submitted to the military leadership of court and nobility. 14

The dilemma of the rulers was that the economically dominant forces in industry and trade simultaneously supported and threatened their rule. It was resolved by fighting against a small, exposed group that had been used as scapegoats in such conflicts for centuries: the Jews. It was fitting that they exercised increasing influence in the numerous new professions.

The tensions and conflicts between subjects and masters, between oppressed and oppressor, become inner tensions and conflicts of the ruled and oppressed themselves, hands that would otherwise have easily risen against the masters are paralyzed.

(...) The main arena of the struggle shifts from the interpersonal to the intra-human field. Towards the oppressor, the conflict now makes itself felt in an intensification of the reverse gesture, in "desire for submission". 15

The "lust for submission" became "lust for attack", hatred against people who are socially inferior and weaker or who traditionally appear to be so. The primary means used is what Elias calls "scolding". This is followed by disparagement in the media, from the pulpit and at work in the form of anti-Semitic clichés. The latter also make it clear that they are directed against the values we hold dear today and thus expose themselves as tools of the oppressors.

1.5 Anti-Semitic clichés

A few selected examples illustrate this trend and offer the opportunity to review the theses developed. We follow the compilation of contributions by many authors in:

"Anti-Semitism - prejudices and myths"

Publisher: Julius Schoeps and Joachim Schlör, Verlag 2001, 1995

(Quotations in italics.)

Peter Dietmar: The anti-Jewish representation

Since the 15th century, therefore, Jews have increasingly become the subject of deliberate pictorial presentation such as pictorial polemics. The physical appearance receives increased attention, primarily in painting (...)

If you look at the depictions of Jews (in the "Bilderbogen") against this background, they clearly fall outside this world view. Their money and profit motives are the dominant theme. They are depicted as junk dealers and peddlers or small traders and established people in their upwardly mobile behavior, which is inadequate to the new circumstances. The physical, often denunciatory characterization is always part of the picture. (S.44 - 46).

(...) The Jews appear as usurers, as moneyed aristocrats, as subversives, as powerful or treacherous, as a force that withdraws from the social consensus or only fits into it to maximize its own profits. The genus of the haggling Jew mutates into that of the financially powerful world ruler (...) Part of this process is the distortion of external appearances (...)

They can be found in pronounced form on pages that present themselves as a humorous genre. They are those that depict the alleged cowardice of the Jews, exemplified by their inability to perform any form of military service.

From bad experience, the avoidance of conflict among Jews is understandable; today, however, it is generally considered civilized behavior to avoid physical confrontation, although today, unlike the Jews in history, we could resort to the police if necessary. The former warrior has become a citizen in uniform.

Freddy Raphael: "The Usurer"

The role of the usurer is a constant that the West has imposed on him since the Middle Ages and up to the present day.

It was only the prohibition of lending money at interest issued by the Church in the 12th century that created the close link between this form of money-lending and the Jews, turning the term usurer into a term of shame. The Jews (...) (had) gambled away their salvation once and for all; they were therefore destined to practice this disgusting and dishonorable trade. While the memory of Christian moneylenders such as the Cahorsiens and Lombards faded over the years, the stereotype of Judas Iscariot, who had become a traitor for 30 pieces of silver, became an image for the essence of Judaism itself (...)

The usurer, because he seems to make an inanimate thing like money "fruitful", is regarded in the Middle Ages like a magician (...) because, as Thomas Aquinas said, "Coins do not beget coins, money does not multiply".

(...) He perverts the vocation of man to earn his bread "by the sweat of his brow" and forces his fellow human beings to work for him. (103)

This reflects the lack of understanding of economic interrelationships in all societies as well as the disparagement of economically productive activity that also prevails in all feudal states. Religious justifications for this behavior were provided by the church, which also failed to understand the interrelationships. It was clear to the princes that without the money from trade and banking, they would not have been able to lead their lavish lifestyles or wage their numerous wars.

Even an economic sociologist, Werner Sombart, joins in the murmur:

"The Jews "recognize the world with the mind, not with the blood (...)

In his innermost nature, the Jew is averse to all knighthood, all sentimentality, all chivalry, all feudalism, all patriarchalism. Nor does he understand a community that is built on such relationships" (p. 112)

Today we can see what nonsense - with dire consequences - the talk of blood was and are also averse to "feudalism and patriarchalism".

For Heinrich von Treitschke, the citizen must be a warrior (!) who is "prepared to sacrifice himself for the state" and for the maintenance of the unity of the people. The Jews, on the other hand, whose only interest is profit, are the spearhead of the attack that liberalism and materialism are waging against the state, which is the sacred bond between the generations. (113)

Treitschke represents the military canon of behavior and sentiment in full bloom.

The citizen must be a warrior. Why is that?

Liberalism and materialism have led to a world of freedom and prosperity.

It is both revealing and frightening how an expert on history is so constrained by an ideology of those in power that he even propagates it with radical and quite unreasonable arguments against the great forces of the time - enlightenment, freedom, equality, fraternity.

Sander L. Gilmann: "The Jewish Body"

In his book Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (Jews and economic life), written around the turn of the century, Werner Sombart provides a clear picture of the Jewish body as a sign of its adaptability (its inherent immutability):

"His single-mindedness is of course the driving force that allows the Jew to pursue the imagined goal of adapting to any situation he deems advantageous for reasons of expediency with real persistence and perseverance (...)

And finally, his mobility provides him with the external means to achieve his goal.

It is amazing how flexible the Jew can be when he has a specific purpose in mind.

It is important to realize that without tenacity and perseverance, many Jews would not have been able to earn their existence in the diaspora. And intellectual agility, inventiveness and creativity are among the most highly prized values in society today.

Sombart does not assign the characteristics to an upbringing, which would make them changeable, but to the body, which makes them characteristics of a "race".

Jeanette Jakubowski: "The Jewess"

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Grattenauer (1773 - 1838), a notary and judicial commissioner from Berlin, was (...) a representative of early racial anti-Semitism and probably the most aggressive critic of modern intellectual Jewish women.

The jurist polemicized against the "unfeminine" high level of education of salon Jewish women, which only aristocratic women were entitled to. For Jewish women, on the other hand, it was an artificial "finish", acquired in a "capitalist-materialist education business", in which their "femininity... was destroyed".

And in his ironic allusion to Isaiah 3:16, he again implies that Jewish women are prostitutes. (S. 200)

The military ideology is directed against education for the people as well as against equal rights for women - and with what arguments:

In a climate of economic and political depression during and after the French occupation of Germany by Napoleon and the subsequent wars of liberation, anti-Semitic resentment intensified. The rise of the Jewish-German Rothschild banking family from the Frankfurt ghetto was a point of attack, as was the contrast between the (...) bourgeois ideal of the educated, by no means scholarly housewife and mother and the Jewish woman who usually helped out in the business of the Jewish small trader and merchant. (S. 201).

An ideal today: educated working women are both housewife and mother. This is certainly often an excessive demand due to the abundance of tasks and interests, both in the past and today.

In 1877, the Berlin court preacher and politician Adolf Stoecker (1835 - 1909) (...) suspected an economically independent Old Testament type of woman in German Jewish women.

(...) For him, Jewish girls embodied the (...) old topos of the "typically Jewish" lower intellectual abilities and the alleged "Jewish" atheism he (...) fought against in the schools. (S. 202)

One considers Jewish women to be too intellectual, the other stupid. However, they both expose themselves as deluded. Court preacher Stoecker unintentionally reveals the reason for the hatred: it is about not allowing any new points of view in religious education, which metaphysically justifies the rule of the nobility. Hence the rejection of education.

The position of women shows the extreme difference between the civilian and military canons of behavior and sentiment. It also shows most clearly how far our society has come in the last 100 years from the military to the civilian and how far the social values of Jewish society were ahead of those of German society.

Volker Ullrich: "Shirkers"

That Jews were "cowardly by nature" and therefore unsuitable for military service - this prejudice from the arsenal of anti-Semitic stereotypes was still effective in the second year of the First World War, even though the attitude of German Jews since the beginning of the war had disproved it many times over.

(Although,) as Jakob Segal has noted, (...) the German Jews participated in both sacrifices and contributions to the war as a whole "in a manner at least equal to the average".

Nevertheless, the stigma of "shirking" remained attached to the Jews alone.

When, at the end of September 1918, the supreme army command was forced (...) to admit the military defeat of the Kaiserreich, the agitation against "Jewish shirkers" and "war profiteers" was combined with the stab-in-the-back legend - i.e. the claim that the German army had been decisively weakened by the work of the "left" and "the Jews" at home and cheated of the fruits of victory. With this historical lie, the social ruling classes, who had plunged the empire into ruin, sought to evade their responsibility (...) (pp. 216,217).

The warrior caste is unfaithful to its own standards of courage and straightforwardness out of cowardice and opportunism.

Joachim Schlömer: "The urban type"

"A specific feature of Jewish life is its almost exclusively urban character", writes the Berlin rabbi Joachim Prinz (...) On the other hand, accounts of the history of modern cities often speak of the "essential contribution" of Jews to the development of this or that city, to the formation of a certain urban character, even to the point of arguing that it was only the presence of Jewish merchants or bankers that gave a settlement its urban character. (229)

What should distinguish the "urban type", what makes him recognizable? It is the one (...) who can adapt to their movements, their speeds, their changing rhythms. It is the stranger who can deal with being a stranger, an unfamiliar person...he finds his way in every situation, he recognizes moments of danger faster than others and knows how to evade them in time, he knows how the city works (...) He doesn't sink, he always floats on top. He recognizes opportunities and seizes them immediately. He has his people everywhere (233, 234) 16

How could it be otherwise when the Jews were kept out of agriculture and many crafts and had to live largely from trade! Where does trade take place if not in the city? It is necessary and clear that over the centuries, in the combination of city and trade, different skills and characteristics developed than in the village. These made the urban representatives, certainly not only the Jews, inevitably superior to the people in the village in terms of knowledge, connections, inventiveness and much more. Envy and resentment were the consequences.

It should therefore be noted, according to Fritsch, "that ultimately the Jew who got the furthest was always the one who understood life as a guest in a foreign environment, i.e. who possessed the following abilities: empathy for the souls of others, a prudent manner, eloquence of speech, calculation of present and future circumstances, a kind of quick-wittedness and subtlety... A further key can be found if one considers the professions to which the Jew turned with preference. According to Lenz (Munich), these are professions in which responding to the respective inclination of the audience and directing it brings success. These include the following professions: merchant, trader, moneylender, newspaper writer, writer, publisher, politician, actor, musician, lawyer and doctor. (236,237)

A list of positive qualities that clearly sets the agility of the civilian Jew apart from the rigidity of the military.

"The Jews are hated today", writes Arnold Rose, "because they are first and foremost a symbol of city life".

(...) The City has taken away our masculinity. In return, we hate the symbol of the City, the Jew." (Gordon Allport: The Nature of Prejudice, Cologne 1971, page 219 f)

The chauvinistic, traditionalist type of man in particular has lost his masculinity and is deeply insecure as a result of progress. His aggression seeks out the type of Jew who can cope well with modern conditions and is therefore superior to him.

Ingeborg Nordmann: "The intellectual"

The matrix of the "German spirit" was not unambiguity, but ambiguity, which made it possible to oscillate between the opposing poles of the holistic or organic and the boundlessness that transcends any fixed position.

(...) Thomas Mann's "Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen", published in 1918, can be seen as a representative example of this attitude. There, the "democratization of Germany" is denigrated as "de-Germanization". (253, 254)

Avraham Bakai: "The Capitalist"

The identification of Jews with the capitalist economic and social order has been one of the stereotypes of secularized modern anti-Semitism since the middle of the 19th century. Alternately, either capitalism was decried as "Jewish" or Jews in general as "capitalists". The anti-capitalist argumentation directed against the Jews appeared in early socialist as well as conservative and völkisch propaganda. What these tendencies had in common was the rejection of liberal free competition as the cause of the insecurity and falling incomes of broad sections of the population.

The Jews served the ever-expanding field of professions outside agriculture, while the ruling feudal lords continued to draw their resources from their landed estates.

Friedrich Engels saw clearly: "But if capital destroys these classes of society, which are reactionary through and through, it does society (...) a good work, regardless of whether it is Semitic or Aryan, circumcised or baptized." (267)

1.6 Result

If one sees these anti-Semitic arguments against the background of the sociological findings of N. Elias and others, several things become clear:

It is obvious that there was bound to be friction between the locals, who had grown up with the military canon of behavior and sentiment and were under its rule, and the Jews, who felt and thought differently in many respects. This did not require any additional mean or fanatical attitudes.

Jewish behavior, developed over many centuries, is close to Elias's canon of civil behavior and sensibility and far closer to our attitudes today than to the attitudes prevalent 70 or 100 years ago.

Since the Enlightenment and especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Jews have played a special, indeed outstanding, economic and cultural role in the replacement of feudal society, because they were active in expanding economic sectors and their more enlightened way of life made use of peaceful forms of transportation.

In 19th century Germany, there was a discrepancy between increasing enlightenment with the dismantling of Jewish discrimination on the one hand and increasing anti-Semitism on the other. This can be explained by the traditional hostility towards Jews in aristocratic societies, but the predominance of the military in imperial Germany took on an outmoded, radical form. Nazi Germany, too, is based on the extreme elevation of the military canon to the brutal rule of a particular race.