Hate of Jew Forced Upon German People Writes Heinrich Mann

Hatred of the Jew was forced upon the German nation by means of unrestrained propaganda disseminated over a period of years. Germany was not originally and by instinct anti-Semitic.

This propaganda began to tell in the provinces sooner than it did in Berlin. National Socialism is a revolt of the less advanced elements of the population against the more civilized. No leading National Socialist comes from Berlin. Berlin has most Jews, even today. The Jews there are the bearers of the metropolitan spirit; but they are not the only bearers of it. The spirit of Berlin has always approximated that of other large cities rather than that of the Jew. The spiritual state of Berlin and of Paris were closely related, for similar sociological conditions prevailed. Skepticism, tolerance and irony lighten life in a crowd. They are always adopted where highly civilized persons live in close proximity. The province has labelled this Jewish, because it does not know Berlin.

Berlin will remain—actually is, secretly, today—great and human rather than National Socialistic. The wielders of power who came from the provinces forced the Berliners to put on old-German beards at a “solstice celebration.” At the same time the Berliners continued to use their own, none too German, language. It consists of witty turns, many of them of Jewish origin. Civilization as a form of external life will certainly spread abroad over Germany from Berlin as soon as the attack, the artificially produced attack, of barbarism lets up.

As a form of inner life, civilization is too firmly entrenched in the Germans, as in all Europeans, to be torn out by the efforts of insane blockheads. It consists, remarkable composition, of Christianity and Antiquity, of sympathy and Roman justice. That stands; and for the unfortunates who are mistaken about it, the lunatic asylums where they will end up are already being built.

Jewry is included in civilization as the forerunner of Christianity. He who would hate, in the last analysis therefore hates all civilization.

But most of those upon whom hatred of the Jew has been forced by every means known to propaganda naturally see very little connection and only rejoice to be rid of Jewish competition. Capitalism, indeed, free competition, as ever ! Enormous changes in ownership, uncertainty, existence full of anguish for nearly all—these are a well-established fact. “Marxism” has actually become a crime. Nevertheless the phrase is applied, and, in its most extreme connotation, the Communistic, to the Jews, and, in addition, to writers, thinkers, and all who love liberty. Such a combination of ways of persecution is flattering to the Jews and should give them hope for the future.—Die Wahrheit, Prague.