The first appreciable blow to my antisemitism came from none other than Liebermann von Sonnenberg himself. We were sitting together after some election victory. At one previous meeting, a discussant had inquired about the actual nature of the antisemites’ scientific program, and I was embarrassed that I could only talk my way around the question by evoking some empty phrases about the lack of just such a program. I shared my pangs of conscience with Liebermann.
In his carefree manner, however, Liebermann laughed and said: “My dear friend, do not go gray with worry about it. First, we want to become a political power. Then, we want to find the scientific basis of antisemitism.”
I was utterly shaken. Science had always appeared the absolute pinnacle to me. With fervent effort, I had studied Karl Marx and [Karl] Rodbertus, Adam Smith and Schopenhauer, Darwin and [Eugen] Dühring; I was plagued with pangs of doubt. But now our leader told me: first power, then science! Gradually this opened my eyes. Soon I saw the horrible scientific wasteland that surrounded the antisemitic camp. We were capturing one constituency after another without really knowing what for. In the Reichstag elections in 1893, the antisemites had won 16 seats. But when they sat in the Reichstag in numbers large enough to be recognized as a parliamentary caucus, and when I expected deeds, I experienced nothing but personal squabbling and petty jealousies. Every last one of them, Liebermann von Sonnenberg, [Oswald] Zimmermann, Dr. [Otto] Böckel, Paul Förster, [Hermann] Ahlwardt, Köhler, etc., was practically a party on his own. One of them was in favor of medium-sized business, the other a friend of workers, one a nobleman, the other a democrat. One would call for a struggle against Jews and Junkers, the other went through thick and thin with the big landowners. In every single vote, the parliamentary caucus fell apart. Not a single substantial bill was introduced, especially not in the area that had formed the basis of the agitation: the Jewish question. In fact, as it became evident in the parliamentary caucus, no one was able to propose an anti-Jewish law because it was impossible to agree on a definition of the term “Jew.” Everyone concurred on one thing:
“What he believes is all the same,
It’s race that constitutes the shame.”
So what mattered was not religious creed but only race. But how should the term race be bracketed legislatively? This pentagram has caused mental anguish even to the greatest minds. And in the antisemitic parliamentary caucus one could only find people of very limited intellect. Since it proved impossible to agree on what a Jew was, the members continued to curse the Jews but failed to pass a bill against them.
My ethical frustration with the antisemites was just as great as my intellectual disappointment. In the people’s assemblies, these fine chaps lashed out at “Jewish immorality.” The seducers of Germanic virgins, the destroyers of the German family, and the carriers of Oriental lustfulness were pilloried to the cheering of the gathered crowd. Once the meeting was over, the participants went to Mr. Rieprich’s antisemitic bar of ill repute for a drink among German men. Soon each of the German moral watchdogs had one or, better yet, two barmaids around or all over him, whereupon the gathering would launch, in slight variation, into the Westphalian state song.
“Blissfully happy is he whose arm is wrapped
Around two maidens from Westphalian lands.”
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