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

From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (13 page)

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language schools, could enter all public educational institutions, and could practice any academic profession. They could also found factories, employ Christian workers, and engage in manual labor and any of the arts. Restrictions on their dress were removed, and they were encouraged to wear "Christian" costumes. In 1784 Joseph allowed Jews to practice law and forced them to give up their judicial autonomy. In 1788 he required them to relinquish their use of Yiddish and Hebrew in public and adopt German-sounding family names. In the same year he also required them to perform military service, thus making Austria one of the first countries in Europe to have Jewish soldiers.

¹⁶

Joseph's toleration of Jews was not all inclusive, nor did it make them equal citizens. (They had all the duties of citizens, but not all the rights.) Still less was it based on pure humanitarianism. Jews could not enter the civil service, could not own land, and had to pay ten thousand gulden for the right to settle in Vienna; in some other parts of Austria they were not allowed to reside at all. What it did do was to help fulfill Joseph's goal of increasing their economic and social value to the state by at least partially integrating them into Christian society. Joseph made Austria the first country in the world to grant Jews naturalized citizenship and to consider them permanent residents; it was also the first to allow complete toleration in religious affairs, thereby preceding even the United States and France. In sum, he was the first modern European ruler to lift the medieval restrictions that had hampered Jewish life.
¹⁷

Joseph's reforms received a mixed response from Jews. The more modern and secularized Jews of Vienna and the Bohemian crownlands were enthusiastic supporters. Elsewhere in the monarchy, however, the reaction was much cooler. Many Jews noted that although Joseph was offering them equal rights as individuals, his reforms did not ensure a bright future for Judaism as a religion. Indeed, their partial integration into Christian society later led to the gradual disintegration of their religious life. These changes eroded even more the Jews' sense of national identity.
¹⁸

Among Catholics the reaction to Joseph's Jewish policies was almost uniformly negative. The government of Lower Austria reacted with barely concealed hostility. Roman Catholic bishops thought the admission of Jewish children to Christian schools would cause conversions to Judaism. Their attempt to get Joseph's brother and successor, Leopold II, to revoke the Patent of Toleration, was refused, however.
¹⁹

The death of Joseph II in 1790 followed by that of Leopold II in 1792 marked the beginning of reaction in the treatment of Jews in Austria that would completely reverse the country's leading role in the emancipation of Jewry. By 1848 the monarchy was the only major European power west of Russia

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that still imposed medieval restrictions on Jews. Franz II (known as Franz I after Napoleon deprived him of his title as Holy Roman emperor in 1806) was undoubtedly traumatized into becoming a reactionary by the French Revolution, by the Reign of Terror, and especially by the conquering armies of Napoleon, which crisscrossed Austrian territory several times between 1797 and 1813. Like earlier Austrian rulers he still valued the Jews' economic usefulness to the state; but he was unwilling to acknowledge that they had rights. Whereas Leopold had refused a demand by the municipal council of Vienna to revoke Joseph's Patent of Toleration, his son Franz issued no fewer than six hundred decrees that limited Jewish rights guaranteed in the Patent. After 1795 toleration was merely for three years, not for life; and after 1807 it was only for individuals, not for families. Jews who were not tolerated could spend no more than one month at a time in Vienna. Acquiring toleration also required an ability to practice a skilled trade. Whereas foreign Christians could be naturalized after fifteen years, Jews were always considered foreigners.

²⁰

Despite these renewed restrictions, Jewish integration into Austrian and especially Viennese society continued during the reign of Franz I. In the course of the Napoleonic Wars Jews proved themselves to be especially patriotic and willing to make sacrifices; 35,000 of them fought in the Austrian army in all its branches. Jewish money was needed to help finance the wars. Jews were also beginning to play an important role in supporting the cultural life of the Austrian capital. The salon of Fanny Arnstein was the scene of frequent balls and concerts as well as a place of relaxation for international peacemakers during the Congress of Vienna in 181415. Arnstein, who socialized with ladies from the highest Viennese circles, also played a leading role in the establishment of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (the Society of the Friends of Music).
²¹

The Jewish community of Vienna had managed to grow numerically and economically during the reign of Franz I, which did not end until 1835. By 1811 the community was large enough to build a prayer house; the following year the first Jewish school was founded. In 1826 a synagogue was built in what is today the Seitenstettengasse near the center of Vienna in the first district. By 1830 there were approximately sixteen hundred Jews living in Vienna who had established various social and charitable institutions for Jewish children, sick people, and widows. Most Jewish men were engaged in small-scale trade as Christian artisans did not want to hire Jewish apprentices. Excluded from the civil service, young Jewish men sought an advanced education in order to pursue careers in law, journalism, literature, and especially medicine, the only professions where Jews faced no restrictions. Some of them had already

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become successful in these fields even before the Revolutions of 1848. Others were finding jobs in handicraft industries such as textiles and leather.

²²

The reign of Ferdinand I from 1835 to 1848 saw little change in the status of Austrian Jews. Discriminatory laws against Jews were at least administered more leniently than they had been under Franz. Moreover, Prince Clemens von Metternich, Austria's foreign minister between 1809 and 1848 and the most powerful man in the country during the reign of the feeble-minded emperor, Ferdinand, maintained good relations with Jews and generally did not express anti-Jewish sentiments; however, only the social and economic Jewish elite benefited from his policies.
²³

The Revolutions of 18481849

The revolutionary year of 1848 proved in some respects a repeat performance of Joseph II's revolutionary Patent of Toleration in 1782. Once again most of the barriers to complete civil equality were removed; but such equality proved to be brief. Ironically a discriminatory law helped Jews to play a prominent role in the revolution. The University of Vienna's Medical College was the only college in the city to which Jews could be admitted; moreover, free speech was more or less allowed during the 1840s. The Jewish students had the right to remain in Vienna indefinitely as long as they paid a fixed fee, thus giving them an incentive to remain students perpetually. Some of these perpetual Jewish students as members of illegal student fraternities helped organize the demonstrations that led to the overthrow of Prince Metternich and later to the enactment of Austria's first constitution.
²⁴

Jews were prominent in every phase of the revolution, more so than in any other country touched by the revolution. All three men who did the most to initiate the rebellion were Jews as was one of the first victims of the revolution, a student named Spitzer. In May 1848, when a committee of public safety was established, its chairman, Adolf Fischhof, was a thirty-two-year-old Jewish medical student. After the Kaiser's flight from Vienna that summer he became the most powerful political figure in the monarchy.
²⁵Hermann Jellinek, a radical revolutionary socialist and a Jew, was later executed by the counterrevolutionary military dictatorship for ridiculing religion in a pamphlet.
²⁶The prominent role played by many Jews in the revolution identified Jews with that episode in the eyes of many conservatives. Those people who opposed the revolution were likely also to oppose Jewish emancipation.
²⁷

Liberal Jews in Vienna saw the revolution not only as an opportunity to

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overthrow an unpopular and repressive regime but also to gain emancipation for themselves. They asked for no more in 1848 than what Joseph II had granted them in 1782, namely civil and political equality. The constitution of 25 April failed to resolve these issues. However, a newly elected Reichstag removed the special toleration tax on Jews in October. Finally, the new constitution of 4 March 1849 unambiguously declared that the enjoyment of civil and political rights was not dependent on an individual's religion. This meant that Jews could now also own property (except for mines), which in turn meant that they could enter any legal occupation. They were also allowed to marry outside their faith.

²⁸

Jewish academicians who were involved in the Viennese revolution of 1848 were struggling for freedom of press, speech, assembly, and scientific research for all Austrians and not just for their own freedom. Unfortunately, most gentiles were at best indifferent to Jewish emancipation and few non-Jews signed a petition demanding it. Meanwhile, opponents of emancipation were busy circulating a counterpetition and anti-Jewish pamphlets.
²⁹Jews, in fact, were now confronted for the first time with modern political antiSemitism, especially on the part of artisans who feared free competition. However, this antiSemitism was spontaneous and popular and not organized into a political party let alone a mass movementsuch developments would have to wait until the late 1870s and the 1880s.
³⁰

The Jews' new freedoms proved to be even more ephemeral than those granted them by Joseph II. On the last day of 1851, the young emperor Franz Joseph, under the influence of his reactionary mother, annulled the constitution of 1849. Once again Jews were forbidden to own landed estates, although they were allowed to retain those they had already purchased. The medieval law prohibiting the employment of Christian servants was reinstated, and Jews were not allowed to hold public office, including teaching positions. Many Jews were thus driven to baptism, which removed all legal barriers to career advancement.
³¹

Not all was lost by the Jews in the reactionary decade following the failed revolution. The Jews of Vienna were allowed in 1849 to establish an autonomous religious communal organization called the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde with its own elected officials. In charge of religious and charitable activities, it functioned continuously until it was dissolved by the Nazis in 1942.
Kultusgemeinden
were subsequently established in other Austrian cities during the next few decades.
³²

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Franz Joseph and the Jews

Despite his renunciation of the March 1849 constitution, Franz Joseph never entirely abolished the gains Jews had made in the revolution. In fact, during the course of his incredibly long reignnearly sixty-eight yearsJews made enormous progress in almost every aspect of their lives. Even at his most reactionary in 1850, Franz Joseph assured Jews that they would be treated with complete equality in his beloved army. He recognized no confessions in his army, only soldiers, and those who earned it were made officers, regardless of their religion. Moreover, Jews played an active part in the economy during the period of neoabsolutism in the 1850s. They established woolen factories in Bohemia and Moravia; in Hungary they founded the silk-raising industry. Throughout the monarchy they played an important role in the building of steel mills and railroads. Near Vienna they were instrumental in building factories that produced silk, cotton, woolens, laces, and leather, as well as the only factory in Austria that made chocolate. They also founded many of the capital city's more important banks.

³³

Austria's defeat by France in the Italian War of 1859 led to a series of constitutional reforms during the next eight years, many of which directly affected Jews. Franz Joseph's edict of 12 January 1860 again permitted them to own land, enter professions of their own choosing, settle in parts of the monarchy previously forbidden to them, testify against Christians, and employ Christian servants. Jewish manual laborers could now also become masterworkmen.
³⁴

All remaining laws that discriminated against Jews were removed by the new constitution of 21 December 1867, following Austria's defeat by Prussia and the creation of the Dual Monarchy with Hungary. The constitution confirmed the rights Jews had already obtained in 1860 and stipulated that all public offices including teaching positions were now legally open to all citizens of the state, including Jews. All citizens were now also free to practice or not to practice any religion and to establish cultural and educational institutions.
³⁵

Thanks in large measure to the new constitution of 1867 and the benevolence of Emperor Franz Joseph, Jews came to regard the last half century of the Habsburg Monarchy as a golden era in their history. Franz Joseph allowed no legislation harmful to Jews to be enacted after 1867. He ennobled twenty Jews and appointed several to the Herrenhaus (the upper chamber of the Austrian Parliament). He appointed one Jew to the highest rank in the army and another to be the chief officer in the army's medical staff. Some men of Jewish origins (although not practicing Jews) even became ministers of state. When anti-Semitic movements first reappeared in Austria in the late 1870s the em-

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