From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (31 page)

Read From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism Online

Authors: Bruce F. Pauley

Tags: #History, #Jewish, #Europe, #Austria & Hungary, #Social Science, #Anthropology, #Cultural, #Discrimination & Race Relations, #test

 

Page 113

all marched from the Votiv Church next to the University of Vienna to the Karlskirche (Charles Church) where they heard Walter Gattermayer boast that the anti-Semitic movement had cut expected attendance at the Zionist Congress from 30,000 to 4,000. AntiSemitism, he continued, must be spread to the proletariat so that it would understand that its greatest enemy was the bestial international capitalist Jew. After the crowd approved of a resolution stating that the public life of Vienna was becoming more and more "jewified," the demonstration ended with the participants singing Germany's national anthem.

31

Although no Christian Social organization was involved in the violent anti-Semitic demonstrations of 17 August, and few of the party's members were arrested, the party's leadership and official organ, the
Reichspost
, as ever fearful of losing one of its most effective political weapons to its rivals, felt compelled not to condemn the violence but to defend the demonstrators and use the Zionist Congress as an excuse for venting its anti-Semitic feelings. In an official communiqué the party's leadership in Vienna said that the recent demonstrations were
caused by the deep excitement of the Viennese population which did not start with the Zionist Congress. The antiSemitism of the native population [was] not directed against the strivings of Zionist Jews, but instead against that part of Jewry which, through its insidious agitation in cultural affairs and its arrogance in economic and political areas, and the excesses in the press which it leads, undermines the morals and economy of our people. The leadership in this righteous defensive struggle, which the Christian Social Party has resolved to continue with every legal means, cannot be turned over to irresponsible groups.
32
Christian Social newspapers were unanimous in blaming everyone except the anti-Semitic rioters for the violence. The
Wiener Stimmen
, far from denouncing the demonstrations, said the violence was the work of "Jewish and Communist provocateurs" who had tried to provoke the crowds against their own "blood brothers." According to the paper, the population of Vienna was outraged not by the violence of the antiSemites but by the actions of the police who were to blame for discouraging some of the expected 60,000 to 70,000 participants of the congress from coming to Vienna.
33
The
Reichspost
traced the violence to the deep bitterness that had been growing within the Christian population as a result of month after month of Jewish arrogance and provocations in the press, and by the terroristic acts of the Jewish leaders of the Social Democratic Party. These leaders had been treated too leniently by the au-

 

Page 114

thorities. The honor of upright men who had given valuable service to the state was ridiculed every day by the depraved Jewish press. The morals and beliefs of the Christian population were being attacked by impudent posters and publications. All this had strained the patience of the Viennese population and had caused the biggest demonstrations in six years. The Zionist Congress and the exaggerated concern about it by the authorities was simply the last straw. People from all walks of life had taken part in the demonstrations, not just Nazis. There would have been no violence if the authorities had permitted a legal demonstration on 17 August, the
Reichspost
concluded. When the final anti-Semitic demonstration accompanying the Zionist Congress took place peacefully on 22 August, the
Reichspost
used that fact as proof that had the demonstration planned for 17 August been authorized by the police there would have been no violence.

34

Whereas the
Reichspost
did its best to excuse and explain away the violence of the anti-Semitic demonstrations, the independent and liberal
Neue Freie Presse
, probably Austria's only newspaper with an international circulation and reputation, unequivocally condemned the violence. It noted that the same kinds of people took part in the violence of 17 August as were involved in the murder of Josef Mohapl near the Praterstern three weeks earlier. It was
intolerable that a few hundred people [
sic
, actually several thousand] led by a few dozen agitators could put their stamp on the city's reputation, disturb the peace . . . and hurt completely innocent bystanders and cause losses to businessmen. [It was also intolerable] that it was necessary to pay millions . . . for security forces which, according to the police president, had the strength of a brigade. During the last years we have experienced enough unrest and several times Vienna has been the site of excesses; but at those times there was at least a certain excuse because the demonstrators were people who were suffering from material need of the first postwar years and had nerves that had been strained by hunger and cold. There is no longer any question of such circumstances today. And the excitement surrounding the meeting of a great international congress in Vienna has been artificially created by men who wanted to satisfy their personal ambitions. . . . In the long run it will not help to mobilize the police. . . . It is not their duty to eradicate the evil. . . . It is the task of the political parties.
35
The
Arbeiter-Zeitung
had surprisingly little to say about the Zionist Congress apart from its strictly factual reports concerning the riots. One article, however, did say that the Christian Social government of Chancellor Ramek

 

Page 115

had welcomed the congress as an opportunity to cultivate relations with international high-finance capital. The day after the worst rioting the
Arbeiter-Zeitung
published an editorial that was even more revealing about the general attitude of the paper and the Socialist Party in general toward the congress and antiSemitism as a whole. The headline read: ''Lies and Again Lies!" The column indignantly denied an allegation recently published in the
Wiener Allgemeiner Zeitung
claiming that the Social Democrats had held a secret meeting of their parliamentary deputies to plan strategies for the defense of the Zionist Congress. Moreover, all leaders of the party's paramilitary Schutzbund had been put on highest alert in case of trouble. Not one word of the report was true, according to the
Arbeiter-Zeitung
. The congress and the Nazi actions against it were solely the concern of the federal government, which was controlled by the Christian Social Party. That party had welcomed the congress as an opportunity to cultivate relations with international finance capital.

36

Austrian newspapers were far from being the only ones to report on the anti-Zionist violence. In England the
Times
, the
Morning Post
, and the
Manchester Guardian
all gave the story extensive coverage. In the United States the congress was front-page news in the
New York Times
, which reported that in one parade ten thousand men, women, and children marched down the Ringstrasse shouting "Clear out the Jews" and "Kill the Jews."
37
The New York paper also printed a telegram from an American member of the executive committee of the congress, Louis N. Jaffe, to President Calvin Coolidge complaining about the riots and asking the American government to issue a formal protest. An even more prominent American Zionist, Stephen S. Wise, one of the vice-presidents of the congress as well as the president of the American Jewish Congress, was also reported by the
Times
as having denounced the rioting, saying: "May Austria be spared the shame and curse of the reaction which would follow in the wake of antiSemitism triumphant."
38
The Austrian consul in New York, however, responded to these reports by saying that they were "grossly exaggerated" in the U.S. press.
39
Most of the blame for Austria's declining international reputation in 1925 must be laid at the doorstep of the country's political parties. Far from eradicating the evil of antiSemitism and political extremism in general, the political parties of Austria had either aggressively contributed to it in 1925 or had done nothing to stop it. Every violent incident during the year from the murders of Hugo Bettauer and Josef Mohapl to the anti-Semitic demonstrations accompanying the Zionist Congress was used by the parties and their presses (although not to the same degree) as an opportunity for holding their rivals

 

 

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responsible for the "underlying causes" that had led to the incidents. Gaining some momentary advantage over one's political opponents, or at least preventing that opponent from gaining an advantage, was seen as far more important than denouncing the violence and hatred in unambiguous terms.
Although the murder of Hugo Bettauer and the trial of his assassin, along with the demonstrations accompanying the World Zionist Congress, attracted a great deal of national and even international attention, these incidents did not permanently reverse the general decline in Austrian antiSemitism, which had set in at the end of 1923. The years 1926 through 1929 proved to be by far the quietest four-year period in the entire history of the First Austrian Republic not only with regard to antiSemitism but in other aspects of political life as well (with the notable exception of the burning of the Palace of Justice by a mob of enraged workers in July 1927). In part the political calm was due to a split in the Austrian Nazi Party, which occurred in 1926 between a faction loyal to Karl Schulz and another fanatically devoted to Adolf Hitler, a schism that was not overcome until the followers of Hitler gained the upper hand in 1930. Even more important, however, was the improving Austrian economy, which reached its apogee in the late 1920S, and the absence of any spectacular incident that could restore anti-Semitic passions.

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