Anti-Semitic Ideas

Anti-Semitic Ideas

Creation of Germany

Germany unified in 1871. German Jews granted full equality under the law but restrictions remained in the army, education and government.

Gobineau

Wrote ‘Essay on the equality of the Human Races’ which stated history was a race struggle. Aryans were a higher race, but had declined due to interbreeding with lower races.

Houston Stewart Chamberlain

Argued that the Jews were a degenerate, evil race, conspiring to attain world domination and were threatening German greatness. He saw the struggle between Jews and Germans as the central theme of world history. His book ‘Foundations of the Nineteenth Century’ became an immediate best-seller, drawing praise from Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Paul de Lagarde

In 1887 the philosopher described Jews as ‘vermin’ and asserted that there was a need for ‘surgical incision’ to ‘remove the source of infection’.

Richard Wagner

The composer wrote that Jews didn’t belong to any European community. He said in ‘Judaism in Music’ that they weren’t capable of true music, poetry or art.

Adolf Stocker

Was a member of the Christian Social workers Party, said in 1879 Jews were ‘a great danger to German national life…a people within a people, a state within a state…’

Charles Darwin

Outlined evolution in his book ‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859). He wrote about the evolution of humans from monkeys and described…