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  • Essay / Anti-Semitism in Germany from the 18th to the 20th Century: A...

    From the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, Europe experienced a plethora of changes. These changes supported industrial development, economic growth, government reform, education reform, and military reform. Germany was one of the biggest beneficiaries of these changes and its economy grew drastically. Yet despite all the new social ideas and freedoms, the German national religion remained Protestant and Jews remained a small minority. Cases of anti-Semitism have been demonstrated through political, social and economic means. Large cities saw the emergence of anti-Semitic groups, alienating the Jewish population with their articles published in newspapers distributed throughout Germany thanks to the industrial revolution. All the new ideas of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution took time to reach rural agricultural towns that remained deeply traditional in their ways of life. German and Prussian nationalism influenced the population to adopt Protestantism as a solitary religion, which reinforced the segregation of minorities, causing a major disconnect between traditional ethnic beliefs and progressive political decrees. Christian alienation from Judaism dates back to 1150 with the first documented accusation of Jewish ritual murder (Smith 91). These tales of Jews ritually killing Christians quickly began to make their way into Christian folklore long before they sprouted in Germany and Prussia. According to Helmut Walser Smith in his book The Butchers Tale, he believes that "these accounts, and similar ones about other groups, provided a solid basis for a newly constructed society of persecution" (Smith 93). Smith believes that this alienation and persecution began in the middle of the Empire. The situation worsened when the mysterious murderer could not be found. Christian residents took to the streets shouting anti-Semitic slurs such as “Jews out” and “Beat the Jews to death” (Smith 179). In the case of Konitz Smith, "it was not the Jews but their Christian accusers who committed the ritual murder", it was the Christian residents who made history, the Christian residents revolted in the streets with batons and Christian residents incited the government to intervene using the army. force. Meanwhile, the Jewish community, as usual, remained silent, without any retaliation to the comments made by the Christians. The culprit of the crime was never found, Smith writes: "But even if we do not have the 'absolute certainty' of hanging a man, we can see that in this West Prussian town, even if he did not There was only one corpse, there were more. more than one crime” (Smith 206).