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Antisemitic Elements in the Critique of Capitalism in German Culture, 1850–1933, by Matthew Lange. German Life and Civilization Vol. 46. Bern: Peter Lang, 2007. 348 pp. $83.95.
In the second half of the 19th century, from the point of view of modernization theory, Germany has primarily been confronted with two problems: on the one hand nation and state building and on the other hand industrialization. Both problems are to be seen in an international framework: within the European system of states on the one hand and within the increasingly global economy on the other hand. Today historians talk about the “first globalization.” Georg Simmel, the great sociologist and theorist of monetary economics, in his essay Das Geld in der modernen Kultur (1896), illustrates this economic globality with his statement “that in Berlin I can achieve earnings from American railways, Norwegian mortgages and African gold mines. This ‘tele-controlling’ form of possession, which we take for granted today, has only become possible since money—separating and connecting—stepped between possession and possessor.”
The situation of the Jews in Germany has been problematic on both counts: in regard to nation building and to global economics. The internationality of the Jewish diaspora, but also the idea of the one “Jewish Nation,” was not compatible with the German form of “nation building” (and not only with the German one). The more the “delayed Nation” (Helmuth Plessner) wanted to be a “National Community (Volksgemeinschaft),” the more it rejected its Jewish population, especially after World War I. Racially charged antisemitism, which existed not only in Germany, had its effect of exclusion, too.
The main concern of Matthew Lange’s book reviewed here is Jews and economic development in Germany before and after 1900. The book, however, does not deal much with global economic interdependencies. The author has opted for “Capitalism” as his title, setting the focus on a term which, beyond Germany, has been shaped and established above all by Werner Sombart (since 1902). Lange’s book reports and documents the history of the coalescence of anti-capitalistic and antisemitic resentments in the period between 1850 and 1933. He demonstrates that in Germany antisemites constructed “the Jew” as homo oeconomicus judaicus (Sombart’s phrase) and denounced him as totally controlled by “capitalistic spirit.” It is noticeable that Jewish religious content played only a subordinating role in this context; but it is also noticeable that German Catholicism, which for its part, however, was involved in the Kulturkampf, fostered anti-Jewish/anti-capitalistic resentment and wanted to see the Kulturkampf move in this direction.
Nevertheless, it was not the capitalism of work and production, not industrial capitalism, but rather financial capitalism, the “commercial” capitalism of the banks, the stock exchange, and the shares, that fostered resentments. It was, in always new varieties, the “differentiation between productive (schaffendes) and grasping (raffendes) capital,” helping “to distinguish between ‘German’ and ‘Jewish’” (p. 28) and in doing so to outclass morally the Jewish part. It held true for the “Jewish economy,” as it was said antisemitically in 1878: “It does not itself work, but rather allows others to work for it; it trades and speculates with the intellectual products of others. Its center is the stock market…. As a foreign tribe it is opposed to the German people and sucks out its marrow” (p.108). In this, the ethnic-economic syndrome is obvious: the Jews are strangers, they do not work like we do, their “monetary economy” (Geldwirtschaft) is obscure, but they rip us off! Matthew Lange, speaking too generally about “capitalism,” has not elaborated sharply enough on this point. But in his book it becomes even more clear that it was the Gründerkrach, “the great swindle and the great crash” of 1873, which helped antisemitism to find open ears and a reception reaching a large audience.
In Lange’s study there are above all three particular issues. First: it proceeds strictly chronologically with the presentation of antisemitic/anti-capitalistic texts, among which the novel “Soll und Haben” by Gustav Freytag (1855) represents the main point of origin. The last novel the book is concerned with is Michael by Josef Goebbels (1929); out of that, Lange cites the memorable device (with view to the later concentration camps): “money enslaved us, labor will liberate us” (p. 291). In doing so it is—second—obvious that Lange relies on “the suggestive power of literature” and above all on “fictional literature.” He points to many anti-Jewish inflammatory pamphlets (Hetzschriften)—starting with Richard Wagner’s Das Judentum in der Musik (1850)—separately and successively; the novels, however, are prominent, as their presentation is granted extensive space and Lange retells them in relatively great detail. And third: the book has a highly narrative character. Yet its analytic value is due to its oppositional construction of “Jewish” and “German”; the author reproduces this construction always anew especially on the basis of the novels. All things considered the book may be used as a handbook of antisemitic literature in Germany before 1933. However, the index of the book shows failures. If one—as a sociologist—searches for Max Weber, one will be guided to “Arthur Richard Weber (1841–?)” on p. 141, and Werner Sombart is called “Sombert, Werner.”
Two final comments on Lange’s book are necessary. On the one hand there is a lack of systematization of the extensive text corpus. More than occasional cross references—the death of a literary character is reminiscent of the death of a figure in an earlier novel—are actually not to be found. On the other hand the author presents rather cautiously the thesis that above all there have been two economic crises which have forced and quickened antisemitism in Germany: first the Gründerkrach in 1873 and the “great depression” which followed that, and then the crises at the end of World War I as well as the “second great depression” that began in 1929. In the meantime we are dealing with “the decline of political anti-Semitism.” The chronological logic of the book, however, does not seem to be the best format to accentuate this thesis. In fact, repeatedly short passages are inserted into the historical narrative which report the particular political/economical circumstances as well as the situation of antisemitic organizations. Apart from that, the author does not deviate from his chronological framework, which describes the antisemitic literature following the publication date of the particular scripts. Only here and there does he report on later editions and on periods of increased (or reduced) demand.
Hartmann Tyrell
University of Bielefeld
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