Assimilation als Königsweg?

Deutsche und französische Intellektuelle im Meinungsstreit über Judentum und Antisemitismus 1893 bis 1907

Abstract

This article compares the views of German and French intellectuals in four surveys on antisemitism and the »Jewish question« conducted between 1893 and 1907. Many Franco-German comparative studies have posited that the Third Republic made fewer demands on Jews to assimilate than the German Kaiserreich, owing to the former’s more liberal and inclusive concept of nationhood. According to this view, the conditions for banning antisemitism would therefore have been more favourable in France. An analysis of the surveys casts some doubt on this theory, however. The French model of national identity did not tend to moderate demands for assimilation, since French intellectuals also called for assimilation of Jews through integration. High demands for assimilation were not correlated with antisemitism in either country. On the contrary, most French and German intellectuals rejected antisemitism because they wanted Jews to assimilate and feared that antisemites could thwart this process. The acceptance of volkisch antisemitism among German intellectuals and the educated middle classes is explained precisely by the rejection of the assimilation paradigm and the shift towards ethnopluralism.