Jewish Question in Germany Discussed in Rathenau Letters

A new series of letters by the late Walter Rathenau, in many of which he discusses the Jewish problem in Germany and elsewhere, has just been published by Carl Reissner of Dresden. In a letter to Von Jagow, dated Berlin, July 7, 1917, Rathenau discusses at length the Jewish problem as follows:

“I see the political side of the Jewish question in the following way. In Germany there live a little more than a half-million Jews, that is, less than one per cent of the population. These can be divided into three equal parts. One-third is thoroughly assimilated or, as I would rather say, regenerated, since a pure race does not breed new characteristics but rather repeats its original ones. Of this regenerated part you know several examples. You know that externally they hardly show any peculiar characteristics and that internally they are devoted and useful German citizens, and that they, as they themselves truly state, have done much more for the upbuilding of German culture and civilization than their number would indicate.

“The other third stands about on the same level as the German middle class, is a bit wealthier than the latter and has preserved a number of specific characteristics, which are spiritually akin to those of the Middle Ages. These people are temporarily getting on our nerves, since their unpleasant characteristics come to the surface while their good qualities are latent. Politically they are part of liberalism and cannot, as I believe, be regarded as harmful to the state. Economically they are indispensable to us.

“The last third is the Jewish proletariat, it too more prosperous than the non-Jewish one. Here one finds all medieval Jewish characteristics. They conduct their lives according to ritual and have something oriental in them. A closely-knit family, or clique, spirit keeps them together socially. In a political sense they are, insofar as they do not throw themselves into the arms of extreme radicalism, of practically no consequence, but in no wise anti-national, as the Danes, Poles and certain Alsatians.

“Anti-Semitism attacks all three groups, the first because all the faults of nouveau-riche can be ascribed to it, the second because of its competition in trade and the third because of its radicalism. But if one sums up all the negative characteristics of these three groups, one finds that a similar number of Poles carries with it greater civic and cultural dangers, and that it lacks the compensatory qualities which are of benefit to the country.”