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Otto Glagau, The Stock Market and Founding-Era Swindle in Berlin (1876)

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We can learn something from the Jews. From the baptized minister to the Polish scrounger, they comprise a single chain; joined tightly, they put up a united front against the Christians whenever the opportunity arises. Prince Bismarck, as his countless libel and slander suits demonstrate, has a very sensitive character and is certainly a powerful man. Yet you may insult the Reich Chancellor ten times more often than the shabbiest Jew. Just look askance at some Jewish junk dealer, and immediately the call resounds from Gumbinnen to Lindau, from Meseritz to Bamberg and Oppenheim: Israel is in danger! Mendel Frenkel, a Jew imprisoned in some Galician hole for fraud or theft, demands kosher meals in prison, and since he does not receive them, the entire European press clamors about judicial murder!

One Jew always takes care of the other; they incessantly promote each other in the most furious manner. Their writers and artists, their scientists and politicians are the talk of the town; they are paraded every day in the newspapers, showered with honor and rewards. If a Christian had put forth Lasker’s “revelations,” they would have received little attention, would have been forgotten quickly. But this way, the Jews put little Lasker on a pedestal the size of Mont Blanc; they praised and celebrated him as the personification of unselfishness and courage; they made him into a Jewish saint. Mr. Lasker, however, does not live on air but on a sinecure he holds through the city mortgage bond office. And before that, when he was merely an unpaid candidate for public service, he received a hefty editor’s salary from the National-Zeitung. Whether he still receives it I do not know. Eduard Lasker, too, just like the sun, is hardly free of spots. One spot, for instance, is his connection with Mr. Pelckmann, who betrayed his employer, Privy Councilor Wagener, to supply Lasker with the material for the “revelations,” and who is now behind bars because of misappropriation. Another spot is Lasker’s uncontrollable vanity, which he certainly shares with his entire people. Immediately after the “revelations,” he published Adventures of a Man’s Soul [Erlebnisse einer Mannesseele], in which he tells of his countless amorous affairs (!), and about which the publisher, Berthold Auerbach, said: “Compact and brief in form, noble and mature in content; these pages will, in my view, be of lasting value to German literature.” Nevertheless, the entire edition was bought back for 5-8 thalers per copy because Herr Lasker realized that he had seriously compromised himself as well as various families. In the Reich Justice Commission, Herr Lasker tried to draw attention to himself through such a marvelous petition that afterwards he was forced to leave this body “because he was overburdened with work.” Recently, he has rejoined the commission unnoticed.

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