George von Schnerer and the rise of Austrian anti-Semitism

George Ritter Von Schnerer

Von Schnerer's Growing Hatred for the Power Structures

Jews in Austria

Von Schnerer's Hatred of the Jews

Von Schnerer's Time as Representative

Von Schnerer and the Linzer Programm

Von Schnerer's Drift into Insanity

George Heinrich Ritter von Schnerer came from a family of engineers, inherited a purchased title, and aroused the petite bourgeoisie of Vienna and the German-speaking villagers of the Lumpenproletariat. He rose to public attention during a time when Austria was particularly vulnerable to the demands of Eastern Europeans, whose new-found power increased as the Habsburg monarchy lost control over its empire.

But for von Schnerer's influence on Hitler, he might have disappeared into the clouds of history after a few short years in the Austrian House of Representatives. Von Schnerer and Luger, the mayor of Vienna, awoke a movement in Austria that moved Hitler to copy their techniques, first in Bavaria, then in the rest of Germany. According to Hitler in Mein Kampf:

Was Lueger praktisch angriff, gelang in wundervoller Weise, was er sich davon hoffte, blieb aus. Was Schnerer wollte, gelang ihm nicht, was er befurchetete, traf aber leider in furchtbarer Weise ein...So haben beide M. nner ihr weiteres Ziel nicht erreicht. Lueger konnte sterreich nicht retten und Schnerer das deutsche Volk nich vor dem Untergang bewahren (Hitler, 1931)."

This paper deals with von Schnerer's time before and during his time as a representative for Zwettl in the Austrian Abgeordnetenhaus. It will seek to explain some of the cultural and personal forces which propelled von Schnerer to express his disdain the press and capitalists. Strangely, von Schnerer influenced a number of Jewish intellectuals early in his public career, but his fast descent into virulent anti-Semitism last him many of his followers. This paper will also analyse why von Schnerer's influence did not last longer than it did, and why he was unable to regain political influence after his relatively short stay in prison.

History

Little has been written about von Schnerer's childhood and early adult life. He was the son of an engineer who had built and financed a horse-drawn railway was built in Linz in 1828.

His ancestors were small farmers ("Kleinbauer") from Dietersdorf near Graz, and his grandfather a small landlord.

It was soon surpassed by steam-powered locomotion, and his father was unable to maintain his commercial enterprise, but he was able to succeed with an engineering bureau, then in transportation. His father was a strong personality who had travelled for his studies to England and America. Although the horse-drawn railway did not succeed for long, he created a freight business which did very well. In 1860, Emperor Franz-Josef gave von Schnerer's father the noble rank of "Ritter," or "Knight," in return for his work in developing the Empress Elizabeth Railway.

A von Schnerer's Family Tree (Pammer, 2002)

He was rebellious in school, known to be irritable and reclusive. He attended the Volksschule from 1849 to 1856, then high school in Vienna. He argued with his religious teacher, where he refused to learn his catechism. He was then sent to a private tutor in Dresden, then the university in Tubingen. His father, Matthias, bought some property in Rosenau, near Zwettl, and directed his son to focus on agricultural studies. During his university time, Georg worked on the farms of Prince Johan Adolf Schrwarzenberg in Lobowitz in Bohemia. During the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, von Schnerer met several Prussian officers, during which time he developed his pro-Prussian sympathies, which extended to Bismarck and Emperor Wilhelm I. Georg completed his studies in Hohenheim and Ungarisch-Altenberg, where he graduated with a degree in agricultural studies. His father, Matthias Schnerer, gave his son 120 hectares of land to farm after his graduation in Rosenau bei Zwettl in lower Austria, an area known as Niederoesterreich, about 130 kilometres northwest of Vienna. In 1867, von Schnerer had succeeded in developing the farm into a model of efficiency.

Von Schnerer's Growing Hatred for the Power Structures

What was the background of von Schnerer's hatred of the existing power structure in Vienna, and how did it turn from a hatred of those in power to hatred of the press, and specifically of Jews?

Von Schnerer's personal history can be seen from two perspectives: the rise of a new German nation, with the continued political and economic successes of the Germans on the battlefield and in a headlong rush to industrialisation. The second and contrasting view was that of a disintegrating Austria, which had failed to retain its empire, and had not kept pace with Germany and other countries in their rush to industrialise.

Von Schnerer worked as a Landsherr in a region which was wracked by vast immigration of people from the Czech, Polish and Eastern European countries. In 1860, the Vienna government issued an October Diploma, which decreed a federal structure to the empire; the subsequent February Patent of 1861 removed some aspects of this federalization, but the main concepts remained. As a result, several former Austrian vassal states created their own parliaments and restored their local cultures and language in what had previously been dominated by the German-speaking minority representatives of Vienna.

After the defeat of Austria in the Seven-Week's War of 1866, Emperor Franz-Josef negotiated a compromise with the restive Magyars, and split the Empire into the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Poles and the Czechs also tried to split their portions of the empire; they failed at that time in their attempts, but they were able to wrest additional cultural and linguistic freedoms away from the central government.

It was during the period after the Ausgleich (Compromise) of 1867 that Germanisation was stopped in many outlying areas. Von Schnerer's district lay near the current border of the Czech Republic, where ethnic Czechs attempted to assert their cultural heritage. The House of Representatives in Vienna, controlled by Liberals from 1867 to 1879, attempted to retain the Germanic nature of Austria itself while granting increasing powers to non-Germanic regions. Czech leaders at the time, called the Old Czechs, attempted to restore the old Kingdom of Bohemia, which would be partially independent in the same way as the Hungarian Kingdom had achieved in the 1867 compromise. They were partially successful in that in 1871 in they were able to convince the Emperor to agree to the Fundamental Articles; violent demonstrations from the German liberals ensured that the Articles were never promulgated.

1873 saw a market crash, which started in Vienna and spread to a number of other countries, including Germany, the UK and the United States (the "Panic of 1873"). The crash was reputed to have started due to speculation on land for the Vienna World Exposition. The speculation, which had started in 1867 and reached a fever pitch, resulted in the "Schwarzer Freitag" of May 9, 1873. At that time, most of the banks disappeared, as well as half the licensed companies (Maier, 1973). Although the economic harm did not last for more than four years, the psychological trauma affected the entire nation for much longer. Economic progress was affected in many countries, but in Austria the effects fell especially hard on the Liberals managed to hang on to power through 1879, but the faith in their capability to govern was shattered.

Jews in Austria

Emperor Joseph II created a "Toleranzpatent" for Jews which evolved into a full recognition of citizenship for Jews in Austria in 1867. This first issuance was part of more general reforms put in place by Joseph II, but it heralded a time of "Entmachung," or reduction in power, of the Catholic Church as a political pillar for what had been the Holy Roman Empire. Those who were not Catholic could for the first time engage in an aspect of religious freedom.

This Patent resulted in a mass immigration of Jews from Galicia, the Ukraine and points further East of Jews who had suffered from political and religious persecution for hundreds of years. Jews could, for the first time, attend high schools and universities, open businesses and pursue crafts. Because the Jews did not have to observe Christian/Catholic rules, they could open their stores on Sundays and religious holidays, and leave their houses before noon on Sundays.

More specific to Niederoesterreich, Jews were encouraged to come and create businesses and trades, but were not allowed to farm the land except in certain regions, like Galicia:

Auf dem offenen Lande in Niedersterreich zu wohnen, bleibt den Juden wie vorhin noch ferner untersagt; es sey denn, dass sie irgend auf einem Dorfe, in einem Markt, einer Landstadt oder allenfalls auf einem bis hieher noch unbekannten (den) Grunde eine Fabrik errichten oder sonst ein nutzliches Gewerb einfuhren wollten. In welchen F. llen sie immer um Erlaubnis bey Regierung anzusuchen haben; ihnen aber, nachdem sie so erhalten, auf dem Lande eben die Rechte und Freyheiten, wie ihre Religionsgenossen in der Residenz zukommen (Jeiteles, 1873)

The Staatsgrundgestz of December 21, 1867 gave Jews the rights of full citizens. They were referred to as a "tribe," and were3 given all the political and citizen rights, were declared to have no obligation to participate in (Catholic) religious practices and were allowed to practice their religion openly (Milchram, 2007).

Most of the Jews who had settled in the Austro-Hungarian Empire were in the hinterlands, and were as poor as their neighbours. In those provinces where Jews could own land, there was a requirement that the Jews live on and work their land -- in order to prevent land speculation. As a result, many Jews in Niederoestereich and around Linz, where von Schnerer and his family resided, were themselves farmers. Natural increases and immigration resulted in large Jewish populations in the Austrian Empire; it has been estimated that over 70% of all the Jews in the world lived in these areas in the late 19th century (Engleman, 1933) One can imagine that the entry of Jewish farmers created tension within the communities of rural Austria, as they competed in the marketplace for customers, and demonstrated their abilities to succeed through education and hard work. This contrasted with the Austrian "Bauern," who were relatively unproductive, due to customer and centuries of poor management.

One wonders why von Schnerer chose the Jews as his enemy. Understanding the history in Linz and Niederoesterreich, and the rise of the Jews in the countryside and the city of Vienna, one can understand that he sought non-Austrian, non-Germanic causes for his constituents' problems. This resulted in his extreme hatred of the scapegoats, the Jews:

Hinweg mit der von corrupten und judlichen Einflussen beherrschten Presse:

Hinweg mit dieser Pestbeule!

Hinweg mit diesen Fremdlingen in unserm heim:

Lassen Sie mit mir ertnen die Mahnung:

Ihr Machthaber, die ihr uber Zucht und Ordnung im Staate durch die Gesetzgebung zu walten berufen seid, befestigt im Volke den Glauben an Recht und Wahrheit, zertretet die volksfeindlichen Rattern und macht ein Ende dieser journalistischen Giftwischerei, damit das so hart bedr ngte Volk nich zur Selbsthilfe gezwungen werde.

Den judlichen und verjudeten Zeitungsschreibern aber rufen wir zu, und damit schliesse ich:

Und wenn Ihr sprecht von Recht, so seid gewiss, Recht soll Euch werden, mehr als Ihr begehrt!"

Von Schnerer's Hatred of the Jews

It is difficult to understand how von Schnerer could have translated his hatred for the Press, capitalism and Einwanderer to the Jews, particularly given the large number of hard-working Jews in his district. One must understand three aspects of von Schnerer before attributing the cause of his strong anti-Semitism: His call to earlier values, his hatred of capitalism, and his paranoid need to find demons.

Jews had been welcome in many parts of Austria as complementary to the skills and restrictions of the nobility. They were able to engage in assisting professions, such as teaching and medicine. When Jewish immigrants moved to the cities, however, they encountered the competition of the establish guilds and trades. Austria's late entry into the Industrial Revolution and the generally precarious state of the worker and petite bourgeoisie. Jews had been granted emancipation in the 1860's, before Austria had started its process of industrialisation and growth; this placed an additional competitive burden on their non-Jewish neighbours, who resented seeing some Jews rise in society and economic status.

If Jews had not existed, von Schnerer might have been forced to invent them. His rival, Vienna Mayor Karl Lueger, said "I say who is a Jew. (Kershaw, 1999)" for von Schnerer, Jews stood in for everything that he fought against: foreigners, capitalism, intellectualism, immigration, non-Aryan values. Von Schnerer saw Jews as gaining favour with the first Emperor Wilhelm, and gradually insinuating themselves into the core of Austrian society.

Karl Lueger's election to the Vienna Mayor's position was regarded with alarm by more than just the Emperor. The Viennese press corps despaired for Austria. When Lueger won in 1897, the Neue Freie Presse (the same newspaper that von Schnerer had raided nine years earlier) bemoaned the fact:

Well, the election is over. Vienna has been handed over to its arch-enemy...of freedom, intelligence, progress, the arch-enemy of Vienna's whole effort to become a major city. Or rather, the Viennese have themselves, all on their own, decided to plunge themselves into slavery (Whalen, 2007)

Von Schnerer despised capitalism and capitalists, despite his family's social rise due to capitalistic means. He saw himself as a nobleman; the taking away of his "Ritter" title during the time that he was in prison may have been a bigger blow than his conviction of violent acts. As a "Ritter" for Austrian Kleinvolk, von Schnerer saw himself as defending the Germanic farmer, the small Viennese craftsman, and the exploited Austrian factory worker.

Von Schnerer and the Linzer Programm

Austria had drifted economically and politically since the loss to Prussia in 1866 and the great speculative crash of 1873. The Austrian economy was shattered and unable to compete with other European countries in the deployment of capital or industrialisation. Many German-speaking Austrians saw a primary cause of their economic backwardness as their requirement to 'carry' other parts of the Empire which were not as advanced or productive as in German-speaking Austria (Pauley, 1981).

Von Schnerer honed his pro-Germanistic, anti-heterogenous Austria plans while in the Niederoesterreichischer Landtag. Frustrated with the undesirable eastern parts of the Empire, von Schnerer proposed strengthening the western part of Austria, which he called Cisleithian (Hofer, 1997). The Linzer Programm was a new proposed constitution for the new republic, which would be "nicht liberal, nicht klerikal, sondern national." It called for press freedoms, the freedom to assemble, and democracy. The declaration was socialist-oriented, anti-capitalist, and anti-Austrian (i.e. against non-Germanic Austrians).

The primary writers of the Linzer Programm were, in addition to von Schnerer, the politicians Victor Adler and Karl Lueger, as well as the journalist Engelbert Pernerstorfer and the publicist Heinrich Friedjung. All were to gain prominence in the coming decades in various parts of the Pan-German movement.

The most important part of the document was the proposed split of Cisleithanien and Transleithanien. Up to that time, western Austria had paid a series of subventions to Transleithanien (largely Hungary and Galicia, Bukowina, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzogovina). The Linzer Programm's writers proposed that a "Kingdom of Southern Slavs" be composed of the regions that later became Yugoslavia, including Dalmatia, Bosnia, Herzogovina and Croatia. This 'solution' would have rid rump-Austria of nearly all Slavs and eastern Jews (although not the 1 million Jews in then-Austria). Cisleithanian would have retained the Czech and Slovenian regions, as those were economically more advanced than the East (and there was a sizable minority of German-speakers in those regions). The eventual goal of creating this non-Catholic, Germanic and relatively better-off region would be to overturn Bismarck's earlier decision and include Cistleithanien in the German Empire.

The primary goal of the Linzer Programm's drafters was pro-Germanic and not anti-Semitic. Von Schnerer had made increasingly clear in his speeches that he viewed Jews as anti-German, capitalistic and subversive. He favoured excluding nearly one million Jews who were largely in Polish Galicia from the remaining Cistleithanien, as they were too culturally different and not capable of carrying their weight economically (these were the very poor Ostjuden -- or Eastern Jews -- who had emigrated from further East). Even Adler and Friedjung, both Jews, favoured this solution.

The Linzer Programm followed von Schnerer's distaste for capitalists and foreigners. As a supporter of the Lumpenproletariat and the poor farmer, von Schnerer harkened back to nearly feudal, pre-capitalist days that called upon nobility and the common man to work together in harmony. As a nobleman from peasant stock, von Schnerer never belonged to the new middle class, the intellectuals, or the up and coming investor class which had caused the speculative bubble to burst in 1873. Von Schnerer hated the economic liberalism of the Liberal Party, seeing it as weakness which had undermined the Austrian Empire (Strauss, 1993). In the Linzer Programm's original text, he found in his co-writers kindred spirits; Victor Adler referred to the then-Austrian government as "ein durch Schlamperei gemilderter Absolutismus. (Johnston, 1972)"

According to Whiteside, von Schnerer had established pan-Germanism as Emotional indignation and intolerance, suspicion about the integrity of people who did not go along with the [Pan-Germans], and contempt for political parties...The movement's opponents -- the majority of people of Sch's day -- regarded it as a political aberration, the Pan-Germans saw themselves as the heralds of the future... (Whiteside, 1975)

Perhaps the best example of the socialistic tendencies of the Pan-Germanist movement were the policies put in place by Karl Lueger when he was Mayor of Vienna from 1897 to 1910. He put in place a municipal form of socialism, with the express purpose of protecting the petite bourgeoisie -- the tradesmen and shopkeepers -- from rapacious monopoly business owners. He invested in improvements in the city without raising taxes. When the Jewish-dominated banks of Vienna refused to finance his plans for taking over the city's gasworks, he went to Deutsche Bank in Berlin for the financing (Johnston, 1972). Lueger's form of national socialism, combining support of the petite bourgeoisie and the worker classes and extreme German nationalism, were picked up later by Hitler and Mussolini in the peculiar combination that became National Socialism.

Von Schnerer was not content to exclude simply the Ostjuden. In 1885, he reworked the Linzer Programm to make it more explicitly anti-Semitic. As a result of his efforts to remove "Jewish influence," von Schnerer split the movement from some of its founders. He insisted that no pro-Germanic or nationalistic movement could accept Jews as members. Adler and Friedjung, as well as many other German nationalists, decided to break with the Linzer Programm as rewritten by von Schnerer in 1885. Even Karl Lueger, who was to establish himself as a prominent anti-Semite as Mayor of Vienna, could not agree to these conditions and left the Linzer Programm at that time.

Von Schnerer's rewriting of the Linzer Programm involved more than "Judenhass." It also foresaw Anschluss with Germany. He called Bismarck a national hero, glorified Austria's loss at Sedan, and pushed for the dissolution of the Austrian Empire. In 1885, the Left broke up into two parts, the "German Austrian" group, which included those who supported the continuation of the Austrian Empire, but pushed for more rights for Germanic Austrians, and the "German" group, which sharpened its attacks on the Austrian government. Von Schnerer's group split into the third faction, called "National German Union," which pushed most strongly for union with Germany. In 1888, the German Austrians and the Germans combined to form the "United German Left," which fought against the Clericals and the supporters of the Emperor.

In 1893, the Prime Minister, Taafe, threw his support behind a reform bill which promised near universal suffrage. This would allow nearly everyone who could read and write to vote; despite keeping a house of proprietors and members of the Chamber of Commerce, those who supported socialism and workers parties would soon have a voice. The Liberals opposed this move, as they saw it as an opening to anti-liberal, anti-Semitic and socialist influences. Taafe failed in his attempt, and he resigned his office.

By 1897, anti-Semitism had become an important component of the parties of the left. The German Popular Party, the German Nationalists and the German Radicals all won seats in Parliament. Karl Lueger, who had won election four times to become Mayor of Vienna, had been refused that post by the Emperor. Upon the fourth election, the Emperor acceded to the wish of his subjects in Vienna and allowed Lueger to take office. Von Schnerer was elected along with four others in 1897, and he increased his group to 21 people in the next elections in 1901. With Lueger's accession, the Liberals had been completely routed from Vienna, and the whole country was in the hands of nationalists and extremists (Mabry, 2007)

Von Schnerer's Drift into Insanity

Hitler's judgment of von Schnerer was prophetic:."..Was Schnerer wollte, gelang ihm nicht, was er befurchetete, traf aber leider in furchtbarer Weise ein..." (Hitler, 1931). Von Schnerer moved quickly from his 'kleinkarrierte' concerns about his specific constituents to representing the under-represented and (in his mind) repressed Germanic majority in an ever more miscegnated state, where rights were being granted to all: capitalists, Jews, Czechs, Poles and Italians. He saw himself as the defender of the Volk against non-Aryans:

Es kommt mir das so vor, wie wenn man sein Hausthur gegen den ansturmenden Feind erfolgreich vertheidigen wurde, gleich darauf aber den zuruckgewiesenen Feind bei einer Hinterthur vereinl sst und sich mnit ihm zur vollbesetzten Tafel setzt, DH Das Nebereinkommen wird in etwas ver nderter Form bei der Hinterthur hereinkommen und an einer vollbesetzten Tavel schliesslich angenommen werden.

Von Schnerer was never diagnosed, but Freud must have been speaking of von Schnerer when he defined "Grssenwahn," or megalomania:."..ein psychotisches sich vor allem bei Paranoia und... progressive einer pathologischen ubersch tzung.." (Sterba, 1982). From a Landwirt representative of the town and surrounding area of Zwettl, von Schnerer developed into an increasingly violent man. His raid of a Jewish-owned newspaper office and assault on its employees in 1888 marked the top of his career. His four months in prison seemed to deflate him; he disappeared into a cloud of alcoholic stupor, and was not able to regain his popularity since that time. Although he was able to regain his seat in the late 1890's, he was by that time unable to move beyond hate speech and round up his fellow believers into a cohesive movement.

Conclusion

Von Schnerer was no Austrian patriot. If he had been born in Germany rather than Austria, he may not have risen to prominence at all. His insistence on union with Germany, and his admiration for Bismarck, Prussia and the German industrial accomplishments set him apart even from his confreres in the Austrian/German Left movements. His dislike of Jews, Slavs and Catholics set him apart from most anti-Liberal Austrians, who favoured some sort of split, but did not advocate a cultural cleansing of 'their' part of Austria.

Von Schnerer grew up knowing of Austria as only a weak and receding empire, forced to make concessions to minorities and Jews, capitalists and outsiders. As a 'false' noble, he may have felt the importance of nobility even more acutely than those who had inherited their titles hundreds of years earlier. He discovered that the same discontent he found in his seat in Zwettl was repeated elsewhere in Austria, and saw that he had a potentially far greater audience than his own constituency.

Although many intellectuals, including Jews, were willing to move with von Schnerer's ideas of Germanisation and cutting off the 'less productive' parts of empire, this was not enough for von Schnerer. Although a hazy, traditional socialist, von Schnerer broke with his friends on the left when he focused on race, and particularly against Jews. This separated him from both the noblemen and the intellectuals of Austria. According to Schorske, von Schnerer might have succeeded as a Prussian Junker, but never as an Austrian cavalier. For the Austrian nobiliar tradition demanded grace, a plasticity, and, one might add, a tolerance for the wrongs and ills of this world that were wholly foreign to von Schnerer's make-up (Lindemann, 1997)."

Von Schnerer's dip into insanity was soon matched by his fellow Austrians. The liberalism of Austria in the 1860's and 1870's had disappeared as the country continued to weaken. Karl Lueger's accession to the highest office in Vienna and the election of various extreme factions to the Parliament (including von Schnerer's own group) heralded the dissolution of any effective, truly national government. Even the major parties, such as the Christian Social Party, advocated a violent, racist form of socialism and authoritarianism which would have been shocking thirty years earlier. The Entmachung of the Habsburgs did not result in a Republic, it ended in a political maelstrom during which those with the most extreme views gained a podium.

It is ironic that von Schnerer did not have the support or presence of mind to capitalise on his success. His 'party' of 1901 did not advance further, and dissolved with his loss of a seat in 1907.

Von Schnerer's contribution to Austrian society, if one can term in so positive a fashion, is his insistence on the sovereignty and protection of "his" Germanic "Volk." If his ideas had been held by a more effective politician, he could have become Austria's Hitler.