German towns and cities with a history of medieval pogroms were likelier to support Fascism
cross‐posted from: lemmygrad.ml/post/691946
Do the Middle Ages have minimal relevance to modern history? Contrary to first impressions, maybe not. Research indicates that anti‐Jewish sentiment from the mediaeval period never fully faded away, and only made the NSDAP’s job of attracting support easier:
Churches from Cologne to Brandenburg displayed (and many still display) a Judensau, the image of a female pig in intimate contact with several Jews shown in demeaning poses. The same type of sculpture can also be found in Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, France, and the Low Countries.
[…]
Before turning to the regression results, we examine differences in various twentieth-century outcome variables between cities that did and did not experience Black Death pogroms. As Table IV shows, pogroms in the 1920s were substantially more frequent in towns with a history of medieval anti-Semitism.
Similarly, vote shares for the Nazi party (NSDAP) in 1928 and for the anti-Semitic DVFP in 1924 (when the Nazi Party was banned) were more than a percentage point higher—which is substantial, given that the average vote shares were (respectively) 3.6% and 8%.
Our three proxies for anti-Semitism in the 1930s also show marked differences for towns with Black Death pogroms: the proportion of Jewish population deported is more than 10% higher, letters to the editor of Der Stürmer were about 30% more frequent, and the probability that local synagogues were damaged or destroyed during the Reichskristallnacht of 1938 is more than 10% higher.
ETA: I would like to use this topic to talk more about premodern anti‐Judaism’s influence on Fascist antisemitism. One notable practice borrowed directly from the Middle Ages was forcing Jews to wear badges. Quoting Sara Jablona’s https://sci-hub.ru/10.1080/17543266.2014.960483:
Jewish badges, gone from Europe for more than a hundred years, were revived by the [Third Reich] in the twentieth century. [The Third Reich] began a formalised campaign of Jewish stigmatisation blaming Jews for [the Second Reich’s] loss in the First World War, a weak economy, and other societal ills. In 1941, the [Third Reich] ‘imposed on all Jews over six years of age the permanent wearing of a six‐pointed star, ‘Judenstern’, outlined in black on yellow cloth’ (Kisch, 1957, p. 124) (Figure 3).
This badge shaped as the Star of David, or Jewish star, was implemented in every country under [Fascist] authority including most of the countries that had forced Jews to wear badges during the Middle Ages. Once again a stigma symbol, the badge was used not only to humiliate Jews, but also to identify them so as to avoid ‘unlawful intercourse’ between Jews and non‐Jews (Kisch, 1957, p. 130).
The similarity of this badge to the medieval badge was not a coincidence. Kisch (1957) noted that ‘the key to the motives for [re]introducing the yellow badge officially and for [re]applying it to the entire Jewish population is readily found in Anti‐Semitism in the Late Middle Ages’, a book by Wilhelm Grau, the ‘[Fascist] expert on Jewish history’ (p. 127) and head of the Institute for Research on the Jewish Question (Raub und Restitution, n.d.).
Comparing the two eras, Kisch (1957) found many parallels but acknowledged that the [Third Reich] created a situation ‘entirely different from that in the Middle Ages’ (p. 124). Though virulently anti‐[Jewish], medieval Catholic clerics repeatedly warned Christians that Jews were not to be entirely eliminated (Shamir & Shavit, 1985). For the [Western Axis], however, their prime purpose was ‘to eradicate the Jewish community’ (Kisch, 1957, p. 124).
The badge laws of the Middle Ages were meant to segregate and discredit Jews in the course of normal social interactions, while those of the [Third Reich] were intended to identify those to be exterminated.
:::spoiler (Emphasis added. Click here for more.) The ancient theology, now thankfully less common, that ‘the Jews’ murdered J.C. lead to anti‐Jewish tales and serious accusations that Jews—who apparently had nothing better to do with their time—reenacted J.C.’s crucifixion on paintings, statues, figurines, effigies, hosts (consecrated wafers), and most infamously, Christian children. While the Fascists did not recycle accusations of image and host desecration (as far as I’m aware), image desecration almost certainly influenced blood libel, which the Fascists most definitely did recycle:
The European Fascists eagerly exploited the theology that ‘the Jews’ were to blame for J.C.’s death. The Chancellor hisself referenced it, and Julius Streicher claimed that ‘The murder of Golgotha is written on the foreheads of the Jews’ and that ‘The Jews betrayed Christ. They committed a ritual murder on Golgotha.’ A 1929 Der Stürmer cartoon featured a caricature saying ‘One can do anything to those Goyim. Our people crucified their Christ on the cross, and we do a great business on his birthday…’ Fascist children’s books such as https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/story14.htm and https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/fuchs.htm also disseminated this ancient accusation, even though it was already well entrenched:
[T]here was an SS man there, SS people, who had told me how they had come to do it voluntarily, compulsorily, it was certainly not simple to explain. In Austria, for example, people, young men, were brought into the SS during ’44 whose fathers had been killed in the camps, so that was going on too, you know. But the typical thing was a talk with an SS man who said, ‘Well, we grew up like that. The priest, that is the clergyman who gave us instructions, he said, ‘Well, it was the Jews who killed Christ, you know.’’ And so that stuck in our minds, of course, and for all the others too. That is not the explanation, but that was his, uh…
Justification?
…justification, that the others had told him that the Jews were guilty something, namely of the murder of Christ, although the people were really not at all pious, so you can’t say that was the reason for it, but that was an explanation for him. A justification for him.
Never mind the fact that the death was a self‐sacrifice (John 10:17–18), or that J.C. asked his father to forgive the assistants (Luke 23:34), or that the death lasted no longer than three days, or that without the death, there would be no eternal life for Christians anyway (which would arguably make any Jew’s rôle in it an honor rather than a dishonor). Never mind any of that. For Christian xenophobes such as the Crusaders and the many Fascists who took inspiration from them, any Jew’s involvement in J.C.’s execution supplied a handy excuse to persecute contemporary Jews who could not possibly have had anything to do with it.
The title Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud auf seinem Eid was itself a reference to a remark made by Martin Luther, a Protestant pioneer from the First Reich whose anti‐Judaism the Fascists eagerly exploited:
First, Luther told Christians to “set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn.”^9^ This advice was implemented by the [Third Reich] during the anti‐Semitic pogrom known as Kristallnacht, which will be elaborated on later in this paper. Second, he recommended that “their houses also be razed and destroyed.”^10^ Third, he advised that “all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.”^11^
Fifth, he urged that “safe‐conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews.”^13^ Sixth, he wrote that “usury should be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping.”^14^ This recommendation directly contradicted one of Luther’s earlier statements defending Jews in his treatise, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew, and was also taken by the [German Fascists].
Acting on this advice during the Third Reich, the [Axis] often stole money and valuables from the Jews, especially after they were sent to concentration camps. Seventh, he recommended “putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands […] letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow.”^15^ The [German Fascists] also took this advice when they implemented concentration camps, where Jews were forced into hard manual labor.
Finally, he wrote that “if we wish to wash our hands of the Jews’ blasphemy and not share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They must be driven from our country […] like mad dogs.”^16^ This also directly contradicted Luther’s earlier statement criticizing the Catholics treatment of the Jews. This advice was taken by the [Fascists] as well, but they took it a step farther when they implemented their “final solution.”
And so on and so forth. Although Luther once conceded that the hanged one was Jewish (as the Gospels strongly imply), never mind that either: most of the Fascists did not share that particular theology.:::
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