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 THE AOL 0? EMANCIPATION AND ASSIMILATION
205
has been the most original and important political thinker of the Habsburg
Empsre in the i9th century—a Hungarian Tocqueville, as 1 once have said.2
CHAPTER NINE Jewish emancipation having been declared belatedly by the Republican
anti-Habsburg Government in July of ‘849, the cause of emancipation
fell
victim to the war between the Habsburg dynasty and the Hungarian repub
lic and ensuing repression. So flnally for Hungary too, the great year of
The Age of Emancipation and Assimilation: fully
completed legal equality was ‘867. 1 shall briefly return to questions
of Jew
Liberalism and Its Heritage* ish assimilation in the Hungarian half of the Dual Monarehy a little later.
Now why was the Austrian Fundamental Law on the General Rights
of the Citizens so important to the Jews of Austria? (1 shall call “Austria“
the non-Hungarian or “cisleithanian“ part of the Habsburg monarchy—a
usage whieh became increasingly common in the last decades of the
I9th
century.) 1 wouid like to mention some of the most important provisions.
n December 21, 1867, the emperor Francis Joseph signed a hill en
Q titled “Fundamental Law 011 the General Rights of the Citizens.“
Through the emperor‘s signature, the hill became a law, one of best known

Artiele 2 stipulated that all citizens were equal before the law and
eliminated any legal discrimination of Jewish citizens. Article stipulated
3
thus
that all public offices were equaliy accessible to all citizens—a rule
and most important laws of the last half eentury of imperial Austria and that
looked heiter on paper than in reahty, it should be said at once. Article
even beyond, because it remained in force from 1918 until 1934, and it has 6
stipulated the freedom of movement to and residence in every place
again been in force since 1945 up to the present day. lt is also the most cel of the
national territory (Staatsgebiet), and the unimpaired right to acquire
ebrated law in the history of Jewish emancipation in the Austrian part of real
property, as weil as the right to exercise any trade under the conditions
the Dual Habsburg Monarchy. Actually, it merely completed a process tbat laid down by the laws. In practicai terms this was the most important
had been in the making for a while, starting with the measures of Joseph part of the law for the Jewish population, though symbolicaily of course
II, making a huge leap toward legal equality in 1848/49 at least on paper, Articie 2 on the equahty of all citizens before the iaw was centrai to its
suffering grave setbacks in the i8os, gaining momentum again after j86o, emancipatory character. Article 14 guaranteed to everybody full
and culminating in the Staatsgrundgesetz, the Fundamental Law of 1867. liberty
of faith and conscience—“volle Glaubens- und Gewissensfreiheit.“
Be it added right away that exactly seven days later, on December 28, Arti
cle 15 stipuiated that every legally recognized denominatio n or “Religions
1867, Francis Joseph as king of Hungary signed the law article XVII of 1867
gesellschaft“ (an old-fashioned term not weh translated into English
which completed the proeess of legal emancipation in Hungary, stipulat by
“rehigious association,“ which included the Jewish communities)
ing that “the Israelite inhabitants of the country are declared to have equal enjoyed
the right of public worship as weil as the autonomous administration
rights with the Christian inhabitants for the exercise of every civil and of its
own affairs.
political right.“ In Hungary, Jewish emancipation had been a publicly dis 1 would like to add two clariflcations on this iaw which, as we shall
cussed issue since the 183os, and the most distinguished champion of Jew see in a moment, was praised by Jewish spokesmen above and beyond
ish emancipation, Baron Joseph Eätväs, published his booklet “The Eman any
other law affecting the Jews of Austria.
cipation of the Jews,“ written in German, in 1841.1 Be it said that Eötvös
pp. 57—35, here p. 21 )my transiation of the Cerman text). On Eörvös,
* rirst published in Österreich-Konzeptionen und jüdisches Selbstverständnis. Identitäta see Carharine Horrel,
Jods dc Hongrie 5825—1849. Prohlömes d‘assimilation er d‘ömaneipati
Transfigurationen im 19. Und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. by Hanni Mittelmann and Armin A. Wal on. Strashourg: Revue
d‘Europe Centrale ‘995, pp. 87—90.
las, Tübingen sons, pp. si—z8 (Conditio Judaica 35). This text was first given as a lecture at the
2. Gerald Stourzh, Die politischen Ideen Joseph von Eörvös‘ und
Hebrew University of Jerusalem on 29 Mareh, 2000. das österreichische
Staataproblem. In idem, Wege zur Grundrechtsd emokrarie. Studien
i. On law no. XVII/s867 see Wolfdieter Bihl, Die Juden Ungarns 1780—1914. In Studien zur Begriffs- und Inatitu
j tionengeschichte des liberalen Verfassungssraatea.Vienna/Cologne: Böhlau 1989
(Studien zu
zum ungarischen Judentum. Eisenstadt: Roetzer 1976 (Studio Judaica Austriaca vol.
III), Pshtik und Verwaltung, 29), p. 237.
204
 206 CHAPTER NINE
THE ACE Of EMANCIPATION ANO ASSIMILAT
ION 207
First, a misunderstanding ought to be done away with, which crops up because they felt that the Hungarian lands had obtained
time and again particularly in writings dealing with Jewish emancipation. a privileged treat
ment denied to the Bohemian lands. The Czech deputies
The Fundamental Law on the General Rights of the Citizens was not the were to lift their
boycott only 12 years later.
only Staatsgrundgesetz or Fundamental Law of ‘867. Rather, there was a The Jews of Austria, having achieved emancipation,
bundle of several fundamental laws that jointly made up the so-called Aus the essence of
which was legal equality—Gleichberechtigung, as the
trian December Constitution of 1867. Other fundamental laws concerned magic word went—,
expressed gratitude in often superabundant terms in
parliamentary representation, the executive powers, the judicial powers, two directions: to the
Emperor, on the one hand, and to the liberals, on the
and the institution of an imperial court, a kind of forerunner of a consti other.
tutional court. The rule of law, which indeed was institutionalized to a The Jews of Austria know and remember in boundless
- . .
gratitude
remarkable degree by the December Constitution, rested on the combined what the emperor of Austria has granted them
effect of several of these fundamental laws. From father.
tu son
. .
and in Jewish prayer-houses it is loudly proclaimed that
Second, it is worth noting that the Fundamental Law on the General Francis Joseph
the First made his Jewish subjects into real human beings
Rights of the Citizens originated in an initiative by the Parliament in Vi and free eid
zens (zu wahrhaften Menschen und zu freien Bürgern).‘
enna. lt has been held, in an interesting recent volume on Jewish life in
late imperial Austria by a young Austrian scholar that—with the excep Thus wrote the preacher and eventually Chief Rabbi
tion of 1848—the granting of equal rights to the Jews was the result of Adolf Jellinek, one of
the great personalities of Vienna‘s Jews and exponent
orders decreed from above. of the reform wing of
Vienna‘s Jewish community, sixteen years later, in 1883.
“Equal rights were decreed!“3 Yet this was not so in 1867. The Fun The attachment to, or even the adulation of the
damental Law on the equal rights of citizens had not been submitted to Habsburg emperor has
been strikingly illustrated in the memoirs of my
Parliament by the imperial government. lt was the initiative of the liberal immediate predecessor at
the University of Vienna, Friedrich Engel-Janosi.
majority of the Parliament, where the memories of the constitutional ideas Professor Engel-Janosi de
scended from a family of Hungarian-Jewish industrialists
of 1848/49 were quite strong. The German liberals and their allies created who bad moved
tu Vienna. Writing of the pre-19r4-years—Friedrich
this fundamental law, thereby exercising a kind of constituent power, and Engel-Janosi was born
in 3893—, he recalled that bis father had no interest
the crown accepted it. The government needed the support of the liberal in polities at all. “Loy
alty had stepped into the place of polities.“ Engel-Janosi
majority in Parliament badly for the approval of the compromise settle also recalled his
father saying repeatedly, “If a decree were to enjoin
ment with the Hungarians, whereby the dualist structure of what now be on every Austrian to
wear black-yellow stockings, 1 would walk that very
came to be known as the Austro-Hungarian monarchy had been created.4 day in the streets with
black-yellow stockings.“ Black-yellow were the imperial
Yet one must note that at the time one very important ethnic com colorsP
There had, of course, been a second source of emancipatory
ponent of the Habsburg state was absent from Parliament in Vienna. The legislation—
the liberals. Adolf Jellinek, in the article just
Czechs, of whatever political persuasion, boycotted the Parliament in quoted written for the
Neuzeit, the periodical which most faithfully
Vienna in view of the German-Magyar dominance in the monarchy, and expressed the affinity
5. Adolf Jelltnek, )Arescle) Jüdssch-öseerrejchjsch. In Die Neuzeit 23
3. Als hätten wir dazugehört. Osterreichisch—jüdische Lebensgeschichten aus der Hab, 1883, pp. 225—26. The English
(a88), Issue of ‘s June,
burgermonarchie. Edieed by Albert Lichtblau. Vienna/Cologne: Böhlau 1999, pp. 41—42.
eranslation is taken trum Robert 5. Wiserich, The [ews of Vienna
in the Age of Franz Joseph. Oxford: Dxford Universiey
4. Dn ehe creaeion of the “December Constitution“ in general and the Fundamental Law
Press 5989, p. 164. The German original
15 quoeed in Klaus Kempter, Die Jelhneks 1820—1955.
on ehe General Rights of the Citizens in particular, see Gerald Seourzh, Die österreichische Eine familienbiographische Studie zum
deutach/udis chen Bildungaburgertum. Düsseldorf: Droste t998
Dezemberverfassung von ‘867. In idem, Wege zur Grundrechtsdemokratie (note 2), pp. 239—58, (Schriften des Bundesarchivs,
viil. z(, pp. 227 and 228.
and, with an extensive edition of the sources. Barbara Haider, Die Protokolle des Verfassung
— 6. Friedrich Engel-Janosi,
. aber ein stolzer Bettler. Erinnerungen aus einer
sausachusses des Reichsrates vom Jahre 1867. Vienna: Verlag der Dsterreichischen Akademie
.
verlorenen
.
Generation. Graz: Styrsa 5974, p. 22. The
der Wissenschaften 5997 (Fonees rerum austriacarum, 2/8 8). Engel-Janosi family eomh 00 the Dbblinger Friedhof
j in Vienoa is very dose tu Theodor Herzl‘s original
grave.
 208 CHAPTER NINE
between the Jewish “generation of ‘867“ and political liberalism, did not
forget it. “The Jews of Austria also cannot forget,“ so Jellinek continued,
that it was the central Parliament, representing the whole of Austria,
which voted for the Bill of Rights, thanks to which all earlier laws of
exception were abolished and Jews attained the precious possession 01
civil equality.1
Jellinek in his numerous writings represents the compatibility of Juda
ism, liberalism, acculturation to the German “Bildungswelt,“ and of deep
loyalty to the Austrian dynasty and state. lt is not quite wrong to speak
of “Juden-Liberalismus,“ Jellinek wrote in his necrology for the Aus
trian liberal politician Eduard Herbst, one of the makers of the December
Constitution of 1867: “Judaisrn is liberal, on its banner there shine the
words Liberty, Equality, fraternity [Brudersinnj, equal rigbts and equal
duties.“5
1 should add tbat the great significance of Adolf Jellinek—whom Pe
ter Landesmann has called a tragic figure in view of the ultimate failure
of his high hopes 5—has been more fully tban before thrown into relief
by the work of Wolfgang Häusler, Robert Wistrich, Peter Landesmann and
most recently Klaus Kempter.‘° May 1 also say in passing that though 1 am
aware of changing interpretations given to the term “assimilation,“ and
tbough 1 am also aware that political correctness is asking its dues, which
1 am not willing to pay, 1 do not think that assimilation is identical with
“absorption.“ “Assimilation“—“as a process of adaptation and adjustment
on a continuum,“ to quote tbe brilliant and moving book by Leo Spitzer
on assimilation and marginality in Austria, Brazil and West Africa, re
mains an employable term.“
Jellinek, Jüdisch-österreiehiseh in Wistrich, The Jews of Vienna (note 5), p. 564.
.
8. Quoted Kemprer, Die Jellineks (note 5), p. 225, note 82, from Die Neuzeit 32 (1892),
pp. 263—64 (my transiation).
9. Petet Landesmann, Rabbiner aus Wien. Ihre Ausbildung. ihre religiösen und nation
alen Konflikte. Vienna/Cologne: Böhlau 1997, p. a66.
io. Wolfgang Häusler, “Orthodoxie“ und “Reform“ im Wiener Judentum in der Epothe
des Hochliberalismus. In Der Wiener Stadttempel 1826—19 76. Edited by Kurt Schubert (Stu
dio fudaica Austriaca, VI, ‘978), pp. 29—56, particularly pp. 41—45; Wistrich, fews of Vienna
(note (‚ chap. 8 on “Adolf Jellinek and the Liberal Response,“ pp. 238—69; Landesmann, Rab
biner aus Wien (isst note), pp. io6—to, pp. 264—71; Kempter, Die fellineks (note 5), passim, yet
particularly 537—54.
ss. Leo Spitzer, Lives in Between. Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil. West
Afnca 1780—1945. Cambridge: Cambridge Universiry Press ‘989, p. 28. 1 wouid siso hke 10
THE ACE 01 EMANCIPATION AND ASSIMILATION 209
The affinity to political liberalism, the admiration and gratitude for
those liberal politicians who had established civil equality for the Jews,
is illustrated in that magnificent source book on Vienna in the last third
of the ipth century, Sigmund Freud‘s Interpretation of Dreams—with ac
knowledgments to Robert Wistrich‘s work on the Jews of Vienna, where 1
got the cue, though 1 will elaborate on it a bit.‘2
Freud tells us that as a boy of II or 12, around i868, he was taken
along by his parents to a restaurant in the Prater, someone told him that
one day he might become a government minister—it was a versifler go
ing from table to table to produce little rhymes and getting small tips for
it. Freud remembers having been impressed by that expectation, and he
adds: “lt was the time of the Bürgerministerium“—the liberal govern
ment appointed by the emperor at the end of 1867. Bürger must be under
stood in the double sense of this German word, as cftoyen as weh as bour
geois! But the most interesting detail supplied by Freud is yet to come.
Freud—writing at the end of century—recalls that before this trip to tbe
Prater his fatber had briefly brought home portraits of these “bürgerliche
Doktoren“—of these bourgeois doctors of law, we have to add, who were
now government ministers, and the Freuds‘ apartment had been illumi
nated in honor of these men. Freud adds: “There were even Jews among
them; every diligent Jewish boy, then, carried in his school-bag the port
folin nf a government minister.“ Freud, looking back in ‚899, recalls the
names, though he makes one mistake—if 1 may add a fnotnote for a future
critical edition of the Interpretations of Dreams. He recalls the names of
Herbst (Minister of Justice(, Giskra (Minister of Interior(, Berger (Minister
without portfolin( and Joseph Unger, eminent jurist and Jewish convert.
Yet Unger was not a member nf the Bürgerministerium, he was member
of a subsequent liberal government appointed in 1871, which incidentally
included a second Jewish convert, Julius Glaser, as well. So Freud‘s mem
ory blended recollections of the List Bürgerministerium of i868 with a
second liberal government after 1871, and his recollection that Jews could
becnme government ministers suppressed the fact (here the Freudian term
refer to tbe foliowing works: Assimilation and Community: The fews in Nineteenth-Century
Europe. Edited by Jonathan Frankei and Steven Zipperstein. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer
sity Press 1992, ineluding the essay by Marsha L. Kozenblit, Jewish Assimilation in Habsburg
V,enna, pp. 225—45, and 10 Paths of Emancipation: Jews, States, and Citizenship. Edited by
Pierre Birnbaum and Ira Katznelson. Prineeton: Prineeton University Press 5995, particularly
‚o the introduetory essay by the editors: “Emaneipation and the Liberal 011er,“ pp. 3—36 (see
espeeisily pp. 18—19).
52. Wistrieh, The Jews of Vienna (note 5), p. 546.
 210
CHAPTER NINE
THE ACt OF EMANCIPATION AND
ASSIMILATION
211
“verdrängen“ may be appiied to the inventor himseif) that
Unger (and Cia There were, in the liberal cra, sufficient exampies
serj were converts.‘1 of the effectiveness
of the new doctrine of equal rights or “Gleichberec
Be it said that in later governments as weil, in htigung.“ In 8869, the
Austri a and even more President of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce,
frequently in Hungary, Jewish converts were appoin Simon von Winterstein,
ted ministers; yet only was nominated by the government for a seat in the
one person of Jewish faith, Vilmo s Väzson yi, was appoin Chamber of Pairs, the
ted to the Hungar upper House of Parliament (“Herrenhaus“). While
ian government as Finanee Minister by King Charles in a Polish member of the
89 17) government, Count Potocki, raised objections in
Freud, writing his “Interpretation of Dreams“ view of Winter stein‘s
toward the dose of the Jewish faith, the majority of the government propos
century, felt himseif “taken back to the times of the Bürgen ed Winter stein‘s name
ninisterium, to the Emperoi stressing tbe argument of
fuil of hope“—“die hoffnungsfrohe Zeit des Bürgerminist equal rights on the basis of the
eriums.“ 15 lt fundamental law on the general rights of the citizen
must have been connected with the impressions of that s (“vom Standpunkte
cra, says Freud, der staatsgrundgesetzlichen Gleichberechtigung“),
that he planned to study law up to the very momen as is said in the mm
t of enrolling in the utes of the Council of Ministers. Winterstein was
University. The study of law was of eourse in indeed appointed by the
Austri a, as elsewhere, the Emperor a member of the Chamber of Pairs.‘
royal road for the politicaily ambitious, those strivin 7
g to devote them How long did the “golden years“ of Austro-Jewish
selves to the res publico. history last? Some
authors speak of a “golden decade,“ more or less
To coneiude on the Freud episode and its signifi identical with the era of
cance. Freud‘s father liberal political predominance, which actually
bringing the portraits of the “bürgerliche Dokto lasted a dozen years after
ren“ home and illuminat 1867, with a brief Interruption in 1871.
ing the apartment in their honoi his son remembering One might also say that there was
this scene more an even briefer “golden“ period, from ‘867 to the
than thirty years iater with nostalgic pleasure: there is great crash of 1873. But
a double pride in from a different point of view one may argue that
this scene. the whoie period from
1867 down to World War 1, was a “libera
First, pride that “bürgerliche Doktoren“ l period,“ indeed protected by the
had conque red the imperiai gov continuing framework of the 1867 Staatsgrundge
ernment, as it were. 1 need to add here that there is a strong setz, in spite of increas
anti-aristocratic ing antisemitism, and one of an astonishing “äpano
siant in this expression, visible to contemporaries, uissement“ of Jewish
lost to us: most ans creativity. Peter Pulzer has observed that “the econom
tocrats planning to enter government service compl ic and political in
eted their law stud fluence of the Jews during these decades paled beside
ies with a state certificate (“Staatsprüfungen“) , withou their complete domi
t the doctorate nation of Viennese cultural life in the genera
bestowed by the university; for the free profession tion before 8914.“ 111 And the
of a lawyer, a ciassic social democrat Julius Braunthal has written that
bourgeois occupation, on the other hand, the doctor in “the invigorating air
ate was required. of this remarkable cosmopolis, Jewish talent blosso
But there was also, second, the pride of a Jewish famiiy med as vigorously as it
assimiiated or did in Cranada under Moslem rule!‘ 19
rather acculturated to an environment that seemed to promis e new avenues 1 will single out two issues that were produc
of equal access even to public office via the liberal profess ts of emancipation and
ion of the law.‘6 assimilation, yet which in their beginnings anteda
ted the liberal cra and
certainiy outlasted it in their effects.
53. Sigmund Freud, Studie nausga be. Edited by Alexan The first issue is that of higher education. 1 will
and James Strachey. Vol. a: Die Traumdeutung. Frankf
der Mitscherlich, Angela Richards bypass the role of the
urr/Main: 5. Fischer 1972, p. 204. Austrian Gymnasien for Jewish acculturation, on
54. Wolfdierer Bihl, Die Juden. In Die Völker
which excellent work has
des Reiches. Edired by Adam Wandruszka been published by Cary Cohen and Hannelore Burgei
and Perer Urbanitsch. Vienna: Verlag der Österre with the exception
ichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 5980
(Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848—19 i8, vol. lIli PP 880—948, here p. 94!. May ir he said that
this very comprehcnaive work by Professor Bihl—
with whom 1 shared my first visit tu Israeli
universities in r982—remains a firse rate referen 17. Cerald Stourzh, Die Mitgliedscha
ce work and a mine of information which dc ft auf Lebensdauer im österre ichisch en Herren
serves careful artention by non-Ausrrian scholars. hause, 1861—1918. In Mirteilungen des Institu
ts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung
(1965), fJ. 83, note 77. 73
s. Freud, Die Traumdeurun g (note 13), p. 204.
i6. The particular alant of Freud‘s refcrence to the i8. Peter Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-S
“bürgerliche Doktoren“ is rarher lost emirism in Germany and Austria (revised
by ehe English rendering “middle-class profesaional edition). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Universiry Press
men“ in Wiarrich, The Jews of Vienna 1988, p. t3.
(note (‚ p. 546. 19. Cired ibid. from Julius Braunthal,
In Search of the Millenium, with an inrroduction
H. 54. Brailsford. London: Gollancz 5945, hy
1 9. 17.
 212 CHAPTER NINE
of one point.2° 1 would like to stress that there was a truly remarkable
growth of Gymnasien in Galicia and Bukovina in the last two decades of
imperial Austria; thus the chances of the Jewish population in the east in
advance on the ladder of “Bildung“ were vastly enhanced—two universi
ties, that of Lemberg/Lviv, with Polish language of instruction, and that of
Czernowitz/Chernivtsy, established as “Kaiser Franz Josephs-Universität“
in 1875 and with German as the main language of instruction, were ready
to receive the increasing numbers of “Maturanten,“ of the graduates of the
Gymnasien.2‘
Now to university education. The phenomenal progress of Jewish stu
dents through the Austrian universities from the r86os down to the eve
of World War 1 has been shown by Albert Lichtblau in his book Als hätten
wir dazugehört—°As if we had belonged“—published in 1999. There was a
massive increase in the percentage of Jewish students studying at the Aus
trian universities during the seventies and early eighties, from 12.4% in the
academic year 1873/74 to 29.9% in 1883/84, the most considerable increase
during this decade taking place at the University of Vienna, from 22.5% fO
2873/74 to about 33% in 2883/84. The breakdown for individual universi
ties is most interesting. Virtually shunned by Jewish students were the
universities of Innsbruck, Graz and the Czech University of Prague. Apart
from Vienna, the universities most frequently attended by Jewish students
were the German University of Prague and the universities of Lemberg
and Czernowitz, much less that of Cracow. In Lemberg the percentage
of Jewish students increased steadily, reaching about 27% in 1912/13; in
Czernowitz the percentage was 33% in ‘893/94 and reached an all time
high with 40.5% in 1902/03, slightly declining tO 37% fl 19r2/13. The de
velopments in Lemberg and Czernowitz reflect of course, as pointed out al
ready, the growing infrastructure of Gymnasien in the east of cisleithanian
Austria.22
20. Gary B. Cohen, Education and Middle dass Society in Imperial
Austria 1848—1918.
West Lafayette, md.: Purdue University Press 5996, and Hannelore Burger, sprachenrecht
und
Sprachgerechtigkeit im österreichischen Unterrichtswesen 1867—19 18. Vienna: Verlag
der
Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1995.
21. On the Bokovina, see also Hannelore
Burger, Mehrsprachi gkeit und Unterrichtsw esen
in der Bokowina 1869—1918. In Die Bokowina. Vergangenheit und Gegenwart.
Edited by Ilona
Slawinski aod Joseph P. Strelka. Bern et ah: Peter Lang e995, pp. 93—127, particularly diagrams
showing the (very high) proportion of Jewish popils in the Gymnasien of the Bukovina, ibid,,
pp. 122 and 123.
22. Lichtblau, Als hdtten wir dazugehört note 3), pp. 71—76, particolarly p.
ahle also Cohen, Edocation and Middle Glasa Society (note 20), pp. i6—68.
74. Very valu
THE ACE 05 EMANCIPATION ANIS ASSIMILATION
213
The second issue 1 have singled out is a much more difficult, a more
delicate one, since it reaches very deeply into the realm of emotions. lt
is the issue of conversion, or at least of leaving the Jewish community,
the Kultusgemeinde, for the status of “konfessionslos“—being free of any
religious denomination or affiliation, as “konfessionslos“ is rendered a bit
awkwardly in English. Connected with this was the issue of mixed mar
riages, if not in a legal, then in a cultural sense, of connuhium between
persons of Jewish and of non-Jewish origin.
These problems have been subject so far to more thorough scholarly
treatment in Germany than in Austria, as in Kerstin Meiring‘s book on
Christian-Jewish mixed marriages in Germany from 2840 to 1933.23
From r868 up to and including 1917 approximately r8,ooo persons
left the Vienna Kultusgemeinde, many of whom converting to either
Protestantism or Catholicism, some remaining konfessionsios—the lat
ter group going to increase after 2928.24 On motives—love and marriage,
career advancement, spiritual conversion, much has been written, and
1 shall not add to it except one revealing illustration pertaining to the
career aspect.
Hans Kelsen, the famous jurist, was born in i88i and in 1905 decided
in favor of (catholic) baptism, quite frankly in hopes of better chances for
an academic career. In 2908 he was offered a post in the administration
of the University of Vienna. Visiting bis future office, he was told by the
higbly embarrassed director of the university administration, Karl Brock
hausen, that in view of the constant contacts with German-nationalist
and anti-Semitic student groups which of the position wbich Kelsen was
supposed to fill, he could not assume the post in view of his Jewish an
gins. The director, a noted legal scholar himself, expressed bis regrets that
he originally bad raised false hopes with Kelsen—wbo eventually was to
obtain a full professorship at this University.‘5
Now permit me to make the following points an the problem of con
verts and mixed marriages.
23. Kerstin Meiring, Die chnstlich-/ödische Miachehe in
Deutschland 1840—1933. Ham
burg: Dölling und Galitz 2998 (Studien zur Jadischen Geschichte,
4).
24. 1 am very grateful to my doctoral student, Ms. Philomena
Leiter, for ehis as weh as a
number of additional informations . The lollowing chapter will develop
the theme of mixed
narriages in greater detail and will present additional bibliographical references,
including
I the important doctoral
25.
dissertation by Dr. Leiter.
Rudolf Aladär Mdtall, Hans Kelaen. Leben und Werk. Vienna: Franz Deuticke
1969,
 214 CHAPTER NINE
First, these phenomena had a much larger significance in Vienna than
elsewhere in the Habsburg monarchy, and larger also than in the rest of
Europe, only to be compared perhaps to Berlin.
Second, as far as mixed marriages are concerned, Ivar Oxaal has con
vincingly argued that Marsha Rozenblit has underestimated “the other
type of mixed marriage—where the Jewish partner departs from Juda
ism altogether prior to marriage.“26 Yet this type of mixed marriage was
important in Vienna, and this has to do, more than scholars so far seem to
have investigated it, with the intricacies of Austrian marriage law, which
down to 1938 was very much centered on marriage to be contracted before
religious authorities. There existed no “obligatory civil marriage“ (obliga
torische Zivilehe) as in Germany since 1876 or in Hungary since 1894, only
an “emergeny civil marriage“ (“Notzivilehe“) involving persons with no
denominational affiliation. The Austrian Civil Code of i8ii provided that
marriage contracts between Christians and persons who did not confess
the Christian religion had no legal validity. The pecularities of Austrian
marriage legislation27 seem to be closely related to the fact that Vienna‘s
conversion rate was the highest in late nineteenth-century Europe.28
The marriage of Adolf Jellinek‘s son Georg—the famous jurist—is a
most interesting case story. Georg feil in love with Camilla Wertheim,
Catholic daughter of the physician Gustav Wertheim, who himseif de
scended from the Jewish family of Samson Wertheimer, and had converted
to Catholicism (in 1859) only in view of his marriage with his non-Jewish
flance, because of the non-admissibulity of Christian-non-Christian
marriages just mentioned. In the case of the marriage of Georg Jeilinek
with Camilla Wertheim—who must have been an absolutely wonderful
person, she later got deeply involved in the legal protection movement
for exploited women and girls in Germany—, Camilla Wertheim quit the
Catholic church and became “konfessionsios“ (“without religious affili
26. Ivar Oxaal, The Jews of young Hitler‘s Vienna. In Jews, Antisemitism and
Culture in
Vienna. Edited by Ivar Oxaal, Michael Pollak, and Gerhard Botz. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul 1987, pp. 55—38, here p. 32, with reference tu Marsha L. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna 1867—
1918: Assimilation and Identity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press 1983, 129.
p.
27. The excellent monograph by Ulrike Harmat, Ehe auf Widerruf? Der Konflikt um das
Eherecht in Osterreich 1918—193 8. Frankfurt/Main: Klostermann 1999 (los Commune—
Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte Frankfurt am
Main, Sonderhefte: Studien zur Europöischen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 121), has an extensive
introduction dealing
with pre-t918 development s in the Habsburg monarchy.
28. Addendum zoo6: Current research by Anna L. Staudacher (Vienna)
on conversions
shows that the motive “love and planned marriage“ seems to have been far more frequent than
career considerations.
THE ACE 01‘ EMANCIPATION AND ASSIMILATION
215
ation“), before Adolf Jellinek in 1883 accomplished the marriage rites for
Georg and Camilla—not in the Stadttempel, but in the apartment of an
uncle of Camiila‘s. In the marriage notice in the Neuzeit nothing was said
about the religious (non-) affiliation of Camilla Jellinek, hut only that she
was a descendant of Rabbi Samson Wertheimer.29
A brief word on the socio-cultural reievance of mixed marriages. We
know very little, because little research has been done so far for Austria
about the non-Jewish partners in mixed marriages and their family back
ground. If mixed marriages were an important phenomenon, as 1 believe
they were, and if anti-Jewish prejudices were as important in Austrian
society as unfortunateiy 1 think they were, we should know more about
the social, intellectual and spirkuai background of those who commftted
themselves to mixed marriages. In 1939 there were about i5,ooo persons in
Vienna, one of whose parents was Jewish or of Jewish origin, and one who
was not.3° Ilse Aichinger, the well-known writer, was one of them, and her
novei Die größere Hoffnung is a most poignant testimony to the existence,
and to the torments, of this group of persons.—Most of these persons did
survive, many of them and their children and grandchildren live in Aus
tria. Why do 1 say this? Because in Vienna there is a not so small group of
persons mindful of this history, thoughtful about their own history. They
form a socio-cultural ingredient of Austrian post-1945 society, too seldom
thought of, yet quite resistant to those anti-Semitic tendencies whose con
tinuing existence is so rightly and frequently deplored.
Third, the phenomenon of the converted Jews and their families was
by no means exciusively, yet importantiy, an upper middie dass or upper
dass phenomenon—, of industrialists, of the upper bureaucracy, of the free
professions, medical doctors and lawyers, of the “Bildungsbürgertum.“
As such it was a socio-cultural phenomenon of considerable importance
in late I9th and early 2oth century Vienna. Its scholariy analysis is not
easy, and opposite tendencies have been apparent. On the one hand, the
jewish converts have been considered as apostates,3‘ which of course they
were when seen from within the Jewish community; and the “Konfession
29. On Georg Jellinek‘s courtship and wedding and the problems
attached to it see the dis
cernmg and detailed account in Kempter, Die Jellineks (note )‘ pp. 204—206, pp. 239—40.
30. In the Nazi terminology of the period so-called “Mischlinge ersten Grades“;
the figure
is taken from reports of the scatistical department of the municipal administratio
n of Vienna
for the year 5940 and quoted in the unpublished report by Dr. Georg Weis
“Bericht über das (ü
d;sche erblose Vermögen in Osterreich“ December 1952); copy in the possession of the author.
J The corresponding figure for all of Austria is slightly under 17,000, as will
detail in the ensuing chapter infra, pp. 245—46).
be shown in greater
31. As in Marsha Rozenblit‘s book referred to supra
note 26.
 216 CHAPTER NINE
siose,“ too, have been receiving bitter comments, couched in the words of a
dialogue in Arthur Schnitzler‘s Weg ins Freie between the Jewish patri
arch Ehrenberg and the “konfessionslose“ Nürnberger who says that he
never felt like a Jew. Schnitzler lets Ehrenberg say rather rudely to Nürn
berger: “When they will beat on your top hat on the Ringstraße because
you have, with respeet, a slightly Jewish nose, you will feel being attacked
as a Jew, depend on it“32 On the other hand, famous converts like Gustav
Mahler or other renowned personalities of even partly Jewish descent like
Hofmannsthal have been claimed, witb pride, for the significance of Jew
ish culture in late r9th and early 2oth century Vienna.33
History, and historians, are often said to be on the side of the stronger
battalions. May 1 say that in today‘s historiography and in today‘s memory
culture, the converts or the assimilated “Konfessionslosen“ are not with
the stronger battalions—unless they are very famous.
Let me return, in the concluding part of this paper, to my point of de
parture, the Staatsgrundgesetz on the General Rights of Citizens of 1867.
The fundamental laws of the 1867 constitution, with the Staatsgrund
gesetz on the General Rights of Citizens in the center, remained for the
Jews of Austria the most precious piece of Austria‘s legislation protecting
the rights of the Jewish Cftizens. One Jewish voice put the fundamental
laws into the very definition of what it meant to be an Austrian: “To be an
Austrian means to hold high the fundamental laws“—“Österreicher sein
heißt, die Staatsgrundgesetze hochhalten.“34
The Austrian Jews‘ constant praise of the Gleichberechtigung guaran
teed by the fundamental laws of 1867, almost an incantation sometimes,
actually ought to be seen as a text within a double context.
One context was the fact that the Habsburg Empire bordered, along
hundreds and hundreds of miles, on those two states which continued te
maintain discriminatory, non-emancipatory legislation directed against
the Jewish populations: the kingdom of Rumanla, and the Tsarist Empire.
In Rumania, the constitution of i866 had limited citizenship to Chris
tians. Great pressure was brought on Rumania during the Berlin Congress
32. Ruth Klüger, uer Weg ins Freie—Juden in Wien. In Theodor Herzl Symposion, Wien.
ion Jahre “Der Judenstoat,“ 17.— 21. März 1996, Wiener Rathaus. Der Bericht. Vienna:
Ideen-
agentur Austria 5996, pp. 15—22, here pp. 21—22. 1 am discussing Ruth Klüger‘s epochal
auto
biography weiter leben. Eine Autobiographie as one of the most important accounts
of the
Shoa in Gerald Stourzh, Begründung und Bedrohung der Menschenrechte in der europäischen
]
Geschichte. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften aooo, pp. 14—15.
33. Steven Beller, Vienna and rhe Jews 1g67—1938: A Cultural History. Cambridge: Cam
bridge University Press 1989.
34. Quuted by Steven Beller, Vienna and the Jews (note 33), p. s8r, note 122.
THE AQE OF EMANCIPATION AND ASSIMILATION 217
of 1878 by the powers with the exception of Russia to drop this exclusionary
discrimination. Rumania finally consented to modify the constitution
and accept in principle tbe naturalization of Jews, yet every single natural
ization required the approval of both chambers of Parliament! Within the
1 following 38 years merely 2,000 Jewish persons were naturalized. The rest
of the Jewish population (between about 267,000 and 240,000, the decrease
due to emigration), was submitted to the arbitrary discrimination of for
eigners until the end of World War L25 The Jewish press in the neighboring
Dual Monarchy reported about developments in Rumania, and even more
closely on what went on in Russia.25
The pogroms in the Tsarist Empire in r88t had a very large echo in the
Habsburg Monarchy, also beyond the Jewish communities and the Jewish
press. Brody on the Austro-Russian frontier became the center of aid to ref
[
ugees from Russia, non-Jewish committees of aid were established in Vi
enna, Brünn/Brno and in Budapest.27 The emperor Francis Joseph received
the Lemberg Rabbi Dr. Löwenstein and expressed bis sympathy with the
plight of the refugees and with the aid initiatives that had come under
way.35 There was, in other words, a contemporary and comparing aware
ness of what went on beyond the borders of the Habsburg monarchy that
quite often, 1 think, is not shared anymore by some historians whose fields
of specialization often are quite narrow. By referring to Russia or Rumania
1 do not defiect from developments within the Habsburg monarchy.
1 have spoken of a text within a double context. The text—the incanta
tion, as lt were, of the Staatsgrundgesetz of 1867 antI its guarantee of equal
tights—has, of course, also to be seen, and above all to be seen in the sec
ond context: developments within the dual monarchy and more particu
larly within the cisleithanian half of it.
There is an uncanny symbolism in the fact that even before tbe begin
nings of the “golden years“ or the “golden decade“ or the “golden period“
of Jewish history in the Habsburg lands, the first signals of sinister things
1
35. Victor Karady, Gewalterfahrung und Utopie. Juden in der europäischen Moderne.
Frsnkfurt/Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 1999 ‚ p9. soS—‘ 2.
36. Helene Feuchter, Die Reaktion in der altösterreichischen jüdischen Offentlicbkeit auf
die Pogrumwellen in Rußland vor dem s. Weltkrieg.
Master‘s Thesis, University uf Vienna,
1992. An excellent general survey is given by Manfred Hildermeier,
Die jüdische Frage im
Zareneeich. Zum Problem der unterbliebenen Emanzipation. In Jahrbücher für Geschichte
‚ Oateuropas 32 (1984), pp. 321—57.
37. Feuchter, Die Reaktion (last note), pp. 49—55.
38. Adolf Kessler, Die Juden in Osterreich unter Kaiser Franz Joseph 1. Doctoral Disserra
tien, University uf Vienna 1932, p. 543.
 CHAPTER NINE
THE ACE 05 EMANCIPATION AND ASSIMILAT
ION 219
to come were detected. As early as r865—two years before the Staatsgrund-
gesetz!—no one else hut Adolf Jellinek expressed his fear that “a new Jewish
1 Juden in Österreich of r886). On the one hand, Jews
or attack from opponents of German dominance, notably from
came under criticism
question“ was beginning to develop, which would touch the Jews much the Czech;
on the other hand, they suffered from anti-Semitic attitudes
more deeply than the old Jewish question of legal and political equaliza developing
among the Austrian Germans themselves.° An analog ous situatio
tion. A new scientific discourse, Jellinek observed with bitterness, had n, mci
dentally, can be observed in Hungary. The pro-M agyar option
been introduced, and he referred particularly to Ernest Renan, who in his of the over
whelming majority of Jews in Hungary particularly after 5867,
work on the life of Jesus had employed the term “race“; Jellinek noted that many of
whom thus passing through a second acculturation—from Yiddis
a sharp, quasi-biological contrast had been established—one had creatcd h to Ger
man, from German to Magyar—, was apt to fuse the anti-Magyar
“einen scharfen, gleichsam naturgeschichtlichen Gegensatz“—betwcen posture
of Hungary‘s ethnic minorities with antisem itic sentim ents.
Aryans or Indo-Europeans on the one hand and Semites on the other. This This is the moment, though, to briefly reflect on differences
new biological way of thinking was, so Jellinek, “a much more important between
developments in the two halves of the Dual Monarchy. 1 am
Jewish question“ than the older anti-Jewish prejudices of Christian origin, much obliged
to the brilliant analysis of Jewish assimilation in Austria-Hung
because,—and 1 quote Jellinek first in the original German, and then will ary by the
late Peter Hanäk.41 In Hungary, acculturation and assimi lation
render the text in English: did occur
and endure to a higher degree than in the cisleith anian half of the Monar
chy. One critical period in the early eighties, connected with
Es wird der Jude wieder in ein Ghetto verwiesen, wo er im Namen der the name of
the anti-Jewish polemics of Gyözö Istöczy and the Tiszaeszlär
unerbittlichen und unabänderlichen schaffenden Natur bleiben muß trial, was
resolutely met by the Hungarian Prime Minist er Kälmä n Tisza, defending
(. . .1. Hier, in dieser neuen Judenfrage handelt es sich nicht für die Juden and affirming the equal rights of Hunga rian citizen
um ein größeres oder geringeres Maß an politischen Rechten,
s of Jewish faith. From
sondern thc sixties onward, there developed an unwritten alliance, as
it were, be
um den ganzen Menschen, um sein innerstes Wesen.39 tween the ruling elites of nobility and gentry and the Jewish
, particu
1 The Jew will be anew expelled into the Ghetto, where he is to remain the urban Jewish population willing to assimilate with the Magya
larly
rs. The
in the name of an implacable and unchanging crearive nature (. ruling stratum could not dispen
.j.
.
se, Hanäk has written , with assimila
Here, in this new Jewish question, it is not the question of a greater or tion in its effort quantitatively to strengthen the Hungarian
smaller measure of political rights for the Jews, but of the whole hu nation both
in respect of material weahh and of intellectual capacity. Politic
man being, his innermost being. al anti
Semitism in Hungary was subordinated to the lex suprem a, which was to
preserve the Magyar hcgemony and the integri ty of Greate r
This was written in r865! lt certainly is not possible to sketch the devel Hunga ry Jew
ish assimilation fitted into this political program which was
opment of the rising “new“ anti-Semitism, so-called. This has been done maintained
ontil the disintegration of the Habsburg monarchy.
many times, and very convincingly. 1 would like to refer briefly to certain In the Austrian half of the Dual Monarchy,
characteristics of that development in the Habsburg lands. things develo ped differ
ently. The increase of anti-Semitism, both of the Christian and
First, there is the problem or phenomenon of a “two-track“ form of the ethnic
variety—to be precise, one ought to use the untranslatable word
Anti-Semitism, of which Michael John has spoken in a paper on identity völkisch
variety—set in later than in Hungary, but it proved more perman
and ethnicity in Austria. The German acculturation of very many central ent. When
the recipient societies, Hanäk has written, arrived at the point
European Jews during the i9th century brought the Jews into a double pre of refusal of
assimilation, the assimilated part of Jewry had a number of option
dicament. Michael John has argued by taking his cue from Joseph Samuel s. Some,
Bloch, who rightly feared that the Jews were being caught between the
40. Michael John, “We Do Not Even Possess
fronts of the national quarrels (in his brochure Der nationale Zwist und die Our Selvei.“ On Identity and Ethnicity in
Austria, lBRo—1937 . In Austrian History Yearbook xxx 1999), 17—64, here p. 32.
45. ror the following cf. Peter Hanäk, Problems of Jewish Assimilation in Austria-Hungary
in ihe Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. In Fower
39. Adolf Jellinek, Eine neue Judenfrage. In Kalender für Israeliren i86/66. EdlIed by of tEe Post: Essay, for Eric Hobsbawm.
EdiIed by Pat Thane, Geoffrey Crossick, and Roderick Floud.
Simon Szanto. Quoted in Kempter, Die fellineks note 5), p. 534. Cambridge; Cambridge Univer
siIy Preis, and Paris; Editions de la Maison de l‘homme 1984,
pp. 235—49.
1
 220 CHAPTER NINE
1
particularly numerous in the free professions, transferred the older liberal
assimilationist attitudes to a commitment to Social Democracy. Victor
Adler obviously is the shining example for this shift. Robert Wistrich has
analyzed this process masterfully and in great length in his work on So
cialism and the Jews, hut he has also pointed out that the commitment in
the goal of the classless society was the secularization of the faith üf ihe
fathers and grandfathers.42
Those strata of the Jewish populations whose embourgeoisement
j
had been most advanced—apart from those who had left the Jewish
community—shrank away from de-assimilation. Yet a strengthening or re
assertion of Jewish interests definitely took place from the r88os onwards,
symbolized in the creation of the Österreichisch-Israelitische Union in
‘886. The stronger assertion of Jewish identity and the fight against anti
Semitism was represented by Joseph Samuel Bloch and his Österreichische
Wochenschrift.45 Soon, some intellectuals and politicians raised in the at
mosphere of acculturation and assimilation were to reassert the identity of
the Jews as a people in a new and infinftely stronger way, with the rise of
Zionism—stronger in the cisleithanian than in the transleithanian part of
the Habsburg monarchy—and also, around 1905 and the years following,
with the movement of Jewish diaspora nationalism in the Bukovina and
Eastern Galicia44
The attitude of those upper echelons of Jewish society who stuck in
German acculturation and Austrian dynastic and state patriotism is shown
in an exemplary way by Theodor Gomperz, Professor of ciassical philology
at the University of Vienna, Member of the Chamber of Pairs (“Herren
haus“), etc. etc. When in 1909 the champions of gabt nationalism in Czer
nowitz tried to get the Jews of the Bukovina recognized as an ethnic group,
to be represented as such in eleetions and in the Diet, Gomperz wrote an
article entitled “The electoral Ghetto.“ He warned of possible dire effects
of de-assimilation. Interestingly enough, he was not even aware of the dif
ference between gabt nationalism and Zionism. Also, hc does not seem
to have been aware that lower strata of the Jewish population in Galicia
or the Bukovina were perhaps only in the beginning stages of Polish or
42. Robert 5. Wisirjeh, Socialjsm and the fews: The Dilemmas of
Assimilation in Ger
many and Ausrria-Hun gary Rutherford, London: rairleigh Dickinson University Press, Asso.
eiated Unsversity Presses 5982 The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization), pp.
333—34.
43. ro rhe stury of inereasing Jewish sell-assertion, see Wistrich, The Jews of Viennaj—
(note 5), chap. IX—XIV.
44. On diaspora nationalism see ehapter eight in this volume.
1
THE AOl 01 EMANCIPATION ANIS ASSIMILATION 221
Cerman acculturation or not even in the beginnings. Gomperz warned
of giving the “Zionists“—but actually it was the gabt nationalists—
the privilege of a Jewish “nationality“ in the Bukovina with special elec
toral lists, constituencies, deputies and group representation; such a privi
legitim favorabile, a positive privilege, might turn into a privilegium
odiosum, an odious special legislation, “Sondergesetzgebung“—Gomperz
actually used the word that would assume such horrible connotations a
few decades later! Gomperz warned that one might end where the Jcws had
been, before the powerful voices of Lord Macaulay and Joseph von Eötvös
bad been raised in favor of the legal equality of all citizens—“die Rechts-
gleichheit sämtlicher Staatsbürger.“45 So here we hear the authentic voice
of assimiiated Jewish liberalism, 42 years after the Staatsgrundgesetz of
1867.—There were also more progressive voices among the acculturated
Vienna Jews )apart from the Social Democrats) like the distinguished ju
rist Julius Ofner, often a helper to ilse poor and downtrodden.46
If we ask for the heritage of liberalism, the most precious one for the
Austrian Jews was no doubt the rule of law and ilse guarantee of equal
rights. From the i88os onwards, the legal aid bureau of the Österreichisch
Israelitische Union tried to mobilize the rule of law against discriminat
ing practices, because, as Marsha Rozenblit has rightly described a par
adoxical situation, “in the late j9th century all anti-Semites operated
within the context of a society ruled by law.“47 This holds also true für the
first decades of the 2oth century until 1938, though the tightening of anti
Semitic pressures was on the increase, even in the first Austrian Republic,
as shown in the racist overtones of ilse judicature of the Austrian Supreme
Administrative Tribunal (Verwahungsgerichtshof) in cases dealing with
petitions of Jews from Galicia, former citizens of the Austrian Empire,
in favor of the citizenship of the Austrian Republic,45 or on the occasion
45. Theodor Gumperz, Das Wahl-Ghetto. In Neue Freie Presse, 26 September 1909, re
printed in Theodor Gomperz. Ein Gelehrtenleben im Bürgertum der Franz-Josefs Zeit. Aus
wahl seiner Briefe und Aufzeichnungen. r869—1912. Erläutert und zu einer Darstellung seines
Lebens verknüpft von Heinrich Gomperz. Edited by Robert A. Kann. Vienna: Verlag der Ös
terreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 5974 (Osterreiehisehe Akademse der W,ssen
schaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Sitzungberichte; 295), p53. 445—48.
46. Emil Lehmann, Julius Ofner. Ein Kämpfer für Recht und Gerechtigkeit. Doctoral Dis
sertation. University of Vienna, 3932.
47. Msrsha Rozenblit, The Jews of the Dual Monarchy )Review articlej. In Austrian His
tory Yearbook XXIII (5992), pp. s6o—8o, here p. 176.
48. Fur this, see Ch. 6 of this vulume, “Ethnic Attribution in Laie Imperial Austria: Goud
Intentions, Evil Cunsequences.“
 222 CHAPTER NINE
of the introduction of a racist student government at the University of
Vienna in 1930, fortunately declared unconstitutional by the Constitu
tional Court one year later.49
Even during the authoritarian Schuschnigg-regime, the principle of the
equal rights of all citizens was invoked by a newspaper dose to Chancel
lor Schuschnigg (and presumably on orders by Schuschnigg), criticising an
antisemitic initiative by the Vice-Mayor of Vienna Kresse under the Slo
gan “Christians, purchase only in Christian stores,“ as has been shown
in an informative paper on Catholic Antisemitism during the Dollfuß
Schuschnigg dictatorship.5°
On January 14, 1938 there appeared in the pro-Zionist weekly Der
Jude—Organ für das arbeitende Palästina, published in Vienna, two in
teresting articles.
An article by the weh known statistician Dr. Leo Goldhammer on
the professional structure of the Viennese Jews showed on the one hand
the very small percentage of Jewish public employees (in the Service of the
federal government, the Länder and the municipalities, including teach
ers); there were about 682 Jewish public employees among a total of about
160,700. On the other hand, the continuing importance of Jews in the free
professions was apparent: In Vienna there were at the end of the year 1936
1 1,341 Jewish lawyers (62%) and 1,542 medical doctors (47.18%), the latter
not including the dentists (in Austria Zahnärzte with a full M. D.), namely
446 (62.72%). For the very rich information supplied on other professions 1
must refer the reader to Goldhammer‘s excellent article.51
In the same issue, the editorial invoked once more the hallowed prin
ciple of Gleichberechtigung against an anti-Semitic threat by the governor
of Lower Austria, Josef Reither. The Austrian constitution of 1934, the edi
torialist wrote, contained the guarantee that the Jewry of Austria would
be saved from those persecutions and discriminations that had become
the fate of the German and the Rumanian Jews. The present Austrian
constitution had taken over the principles of the Constitution of the
Monarchy of 1867, inspired by a liberal-democratic spirit; in the present
49. Brigitte Fenz, Zur Ideologie der “volksbürgerschaft.“ Die Studentenordnung der Uni
versität Wien vom 8. April 1930 vor dem verfassungsgerichtshof. In Zeitgeschichte (1977/78),
pp. 125—45.
o. Helmut Wohnout, Die Janusköpfigkeit des autoritären Dsterreich. Katholischer Anti
semitismus in den Jahren vor 1938. In Geschichte und Gegenwart 13 (1994), pp. 3—16, see esp.
pp. —6 and r5.
st. Leo Gnldhammer, Uber die Berufsgliederung der Wiener Juden. In Der [ode. Organ für
das arbeitende Palästina (1938), No. 2, 14 January, 1938, pp 2—3.
TUE ACE 01‘ EMANCIPATION AND ASSIMILATION 223
constitution, so the editorial, the principle of the equal rights of all ciii
zens was entrenched.52 Though surely the editoriahist of Der Jude presented
an overly generous interpretation of the constitution, obviously entreating
the powers of the day to abide by the principles they had proclaimed, it
was true that the magic Gleichberechtigung of all citizens was spelled out
in the constitution.
These two articies were pubhished, as already observed, on January 14,
1938. Two months later, everything had changed. No more Gleichberechti
gung, not even on paper. The last vestiges of liberalism and its heritage
bad vanished overnight. Instead, utter meanness and venom, greed for the
Jewish neighbors‘ properties, sheer sadism, reigned supreme. Carl Zuck
mayer has given in his autobiography the most authentic and horrifying
account of what happened:
What was let loose here was the tumult of envy, of jealousy [. . of
.]
blind and malicious vindictiveness. lt was a witches‘ Sabbath of the
rabble and a funeral of all human dignity.53
Zuckmayer expresses his own reaction of anger, abhorrence, desperation
and contempt. Among the dreadful scenes by now often described, Her
bert Rosenkranz bas on reliable testimony reported the words of the Chief
Rabbi of Vienna Dr. Israel Taghicht, brushing the streets and trying to im-
part courage to his fellow victims: “1 am cleaning God‘s earth. If it pleases
Cod, then ii pleases me.“54
In view of what happened then, and worse tbings to come, may 1 say
this: 1 stand in shame, inerasable. 1 stand in awe, reflecting on Dr. Taglicht‘s
words. And 1 stand committed to pass on to younger men and women my
conviction: This must not be allowed to happen ever, ever again.
52. Unsigned editorial, Eine neue Phase des Wirtschaftsanrisemieismus, ibid.,
p. s.
3. Carl Zuckmayer, Als wär‘s ein Stück von mir. Horen der Freundschaft. Frankfurt!
Main: S. Fischer 1966, p. 61 (my transiarion).
54. Herbert Rosenkrans, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung. Die Juden in Österreich
193 8—1945. vienna/Munich: Herold 1978, 9. 23.