Antisemitism: Part One of the Origins of Totalitarianism
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11 The myth that Pétain’s anti-Jewish legislation was forced upon him by the Reich, which took in almost the whole of French Jewry, has been exploded on the French side itself. See especially Yves Simon, La Grande crise de la République Française: observations sur la vie politique des français de 1918 à 1938, Montreal, 1941.
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12 Cf. Georges Bernanos, La grande peur des bien-pensants, Edouard Drumont, Paris, 1931, p. 262.
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13 Waldemar Gurian, Der integrale Nationalismus in Frankreich: Charles Maurras und die Action Française, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1931, p. 92, makes a sharp distinction between the monarchist movement and other reactionary tendencies. The same author discusses the Dreyfus case in his Die politischen und sozialen Ideen des französischen Katholizismus, M. Gladbach, 1929.
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14 For the creation of such myths on both sides, Daniel Halévy, “Apologie pour notre passé,” in Cahiers de la quinzaine, Series XL, No. 10, 1910.
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15 A distinctly modem note is struck in Zola’s Letter to France of 1898: “We hear on all sides that the concept of liberty has gone bankrupt. When the Dreyfus business cropped up, this prevalent hatred of liberty found a golden opportunity.... Don’t you see that the only reason why Scheurer-Kestner has been attacked with such fury is that he belongs to a generation which believed in liberty and worked for it? Today one shrugs one’s shoulders at such things...‘Old greybeards,’ one laughs, ‘outmoded greathearts.’” Herzog, op. cit., under date of January 6, 1898.
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16 The farcical nature of the various attempts made in the nineties to stage a coup d’état was clearly analyzed by Rosa Luxemburg in her article, “Die soziale Krise in Frankreich,” in Die Neue Zeit, Vol. I, 1901.
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17 Whether Colonel Henry forged the bordereau on orders from the chief of staff or upon his own initiative, is still unknown. Similarly, the attempted assassination of Labori, counsel for Dreyfus at the Rennes tribunal, has never been properly cleared up. Cf. Emile Zola, Correspondance: lettres à Maître Labori, Paris, 1929, p. 32, n. 1.
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18 Cf. Walter Frank, Demokratie und Nationalisms in Frankreich, Hamburg, 1933, p. 273.
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19 Cf. Georges Suarez, La Vie orgueilleuse de Clémenceau, Paris, 1930, p. 156.
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20 Such, for instance, was the testimony of the former minister, Rouvier, before the Commission of Inquiry.
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21 Barrés (quoted by Bernanos, op. cit., p. 271) puts the matter tersely: “Whenever Reinach had swallowed something, it was Cornélius Herz who knew how to make him disgorge it.”
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22 Cf. Frank, op. cit., in the chapter headed “Panama”; cf. Suarez, op. cit., p. 155.
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23 The quarrel between Reinach and Herz lends to the Panama scandal an air of gangsterism unusual in the nineteenth century. In his resistance to Here’s blackmail Reinach went so far as to recruit the aid of former police inspectors in placing a price of ten thousand francs on the head of his rival; cf. Suarez, op. cit., p. 157.
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24 Cf. Levaillant, “La Genèse de l’antisémitisme sous la troisième République,” in Revue des études juives, Vol. LIII (1907), p. 97.
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25 See Bernard Lazare, Contre l’Antisémitisme: histoire d’une polémique, Paris, 1896.
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26 On the complicity of the Haute Banque in the Orleanist movement see G. Charensol, op. cit. One of the spokesmen of this powerful group was Arthur Meyer, publisher of the Gaulois. A baptized Jew, Meyer belonged to the most virulent section of the Anti-Dreyfusards. See Clemenceau, “Le spectacle du jour,” in finiquité, 1899; see also the entries in Hohenlohe’s diary, in Herzog, op. cit., under date of June 11, 1898.
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27 On current leanings toward Bonapartism see Frank, op. cit., p. 419, based upon unpublished documents taken from the archives of the German ministry of foreign affairs.
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28 Jacques Reinach was born in Germany, received an Italian barony and was naturalized in France. Cornélius Herz was born in France, the son of Bavarian parents. Migrating to America in early youth, he acquired citizenship and amassed a fortune there. For further details, cf. Brogan, op. cit., p. 268 ff.
Characteristic of the way in which native Jews disappeared from public office is the fact that as soon as the affairs of the Panama Company began to go badly, Lévy-Crémieux, its original financial adviser, was replaced by Reinach; see Brogan, op. cit., Book VI, chapter 2.
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29 Georges Lachapelle, Les Finances de la Troisième République, Paris, 1937, pp. 54 ff., describes in detail how the bureaucracy gained control of public funds and how the Budget Commission was governed entirely by private interests.
With regard to the economic status of members of Parliament cf. Bernanos, op. cit., p. 192: “Most of them, like Gambetta, lacked even a change of underclothes.”
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30 As Frank remarks (op. cit., pp. 321 ff.), the right had its Arthur Meyer, Boulangerism its Alfred Naquet, the opportunists their Reinachs, and the Radicals their Dr. Cornélius Herz.
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31 To these newcomers Drumont’s charge applies (Les Trétaux du succès, Paris, 1901, p. 237): “Those great Jews who start from nothing and attain everything ...they come from God knows where, live in a mystery, die in a guess.... They don’t arrive, they jump up.... They don’t die, they fade out.”
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32 See the excellent anonymous article, “The Dreyfus Case: A Study of French Opinion,” in The Contemporary Review, Vol. LXXIV (October, 1898).
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33 See Luxemburg, loc. cit.: “The reason the army was reluctant to make a move was that it wanted to show its opposition to the civil power of the republic, without at the same time losing the force of that opposition by committing itself to a monarchy.”
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34 It is under this caption that Maximilian Harden (a German Jew) described the Dreyfus case in Die Zukunft (1898). Walter Frank, the antisemitic historian, employs the same slogan in the heading of his chapter on Dreyfus while Bernanos (op. cit., p. 413) remarks in the same vein that “rightly or wrongly, democracy sees in the military its most dangerous rival.”
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35 The Panama scandal was preceded by the so-called “Wilson affair.” The President’s son-in-law was found conducting an open traffic in honors and decorations.
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36 See Father Edouard Lecanuet, Les Signes avant-coureurs de la’séparation, 1894 1910, Paris, 1930.
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37 See Bruno Weil, L’Affaire Dreyfus, Paris, 1930, p. 169.
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38 Cf. Clemenceau, “La Croisade,” op. cit.: “Spain is writhing under the yoke of the Roman Church. Italy appears to have succumbed. The only countries left are Catholic Austria, already in her death-struggle, and the France of the Revolution, against which the papal hosts are even now deployed.”
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39 Cf. Bernanos, op. cit., p. 152: “The point cannot be sufficiently repeated: the real beneficiaries of that movement of reaction which followed the fall of the empire and the defeat were the clergy. Thanks to them national reaction assumed after 1873 the character of a religious revi
val.”
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40 On Drumont and the origin of “cerebral Catholicism,” see Bernanos, op. cit., pp. 127 if.
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41 Cf. Herzog, op. cit., under date of January 21, 1898.
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42 See Lecanuet, op. cit., p. 182.
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43 See above, note 10.
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44 The Jesuits’ magazine Civiltà Cattolica was for decades the most outspokenly antisemitic and one of the most influential Catholic magazines in the world. It carried anti-Jewish propaganda long before Italy went Fascist, and its policy was not affected by the anti-Christian attitude of the Nazis. See Joshua Starr, “Italy’s Antisemites,” in Jewish Social Studies, 1939.
According to L. Koch, S.J.: “Of all orders, the Society of Jesus through its constitution is best protected against any Jewish influences.” In Jesuiten-Lexikon, Pader-born, 1934, article “Juden.”
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45 Originally, according to the Convention of 1593, all Christians of Jewish descent were excluded. A decree of 1608 stipulated reinvestigations back to the fifth generation; the last provision of 1923 reduced this to four generations. These requirements can be waived by the chief of the order in individual cases.
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46 Cf. H. Boehmer, Les Jésuites, translated from the German, Paris, 1910, p. 284: “Since 1820 ...no such thing as independent national churches able to resist the Jesuit-dictated orders of the Pope has existed. The higher clergy of our day have pitched their tents in front of the Holy See and the Church has become what Bellarmin, the great Jesuit controversialist, always demanded it should become, an absolute monarchy whose policies can be directed by the Jesuits and whose development can be determined by pressing a button.”
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47 Cf. Clemenceau, “Le spectacle du jour,” in op. cit.: “Rothschild, friend of the entire antisemitic nobility ...of a piece with Arthur Meyer, who is more papist than the Pope.”
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48 On the Alsatian Jews, to whom Dreyfus belonged, see André Foucault, Un nouvel aspect de l’Affaire Dreyfus, in Les Oeuvres Libres, 1938, p. 310: “In the eyes of the Jewish bourgeoisie of Paris they were the incarnation of nationalist raideur... that attitude of distant disdain which the gentry affects towards its parvenu co-religionists. Their desire to assimilate completely to Gallic modes, to live on intimate terms with our old-established families, to occupy the most distinguished positions in the state, and the contempt which they showed for the commercial elements of Jewry, for the recently naturalized ‘Polaks’ of Galicia, gave them almost the appearance of traitors against their own race.... The Dreyfuses of 1894? Why, they were anti-semites!”
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49 Cf. “K.V.T.” in The Contemporary Review, LXXIV, 598: “By the will of the democracy all Frenchmen are to be soldiers; by the will of the Church Catholics only are to hold the chief commands.”
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50 Herzog, op. cit., p. 35.
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51 Cf. Bernanos, op. cit., p. 151: “So, shorn of ridiculous hyperbole, antisemitism showed itself for what it really is: not a mere piece of crankiness, a mental quirk, but a major political concept.”
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52 See Esterhazy’s letter of July, 1894, to Edmond de Rothschild, quoted by J. Reinach, op. cit., II, 53 ff.: “I did not hesitate when Captain Crémieux could find no Christian officer to act as his second.” Cf. T. Reinach, Histoire sommaire de l’Affaire Dreyfus, pp. 60 if. See also Herzog, op. cit., under date of 1892 and June, 1894, where these duels are listed in detail and all of Esterhazy’s intermediaries named. The last occasion was in September, 1896, when he received 10,000 francs. This misplaced generosity was later to have disquieting results. When, from the comfortable security of England, Esterhazy at length made his revelations and thereby compelled a revision of the case, the antisemitic press naturally suggested that he had been paid by the Jews for his self-condemnation. The idea is still advanced as a major argument in favor of Dreyfus’ guilt.
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53 Herzog, op. cit., under date of 1892 shows at length how the Rothschilds began to adapt themselves to the republic. Curiously enough the papal policy of coalitionism, which represents an attempt at rapprochement by the Catholic Church, dates from precisely the same year. It is therefore not impossible that the Rothschild line was influenced by the clergy. As for the loan of 500 million francs to Russia, Count Munster pertinently observed: “Speculation is dead in France.... The capitalists can find no way of negotiating their securities ...and this will contribute to the success of the loan.... The big Jews believe that if they make money they will best be able to help their small-time brethren. The result is that, though the French market is glutted with Russian securities, Frenchmen are still giving good francs for bad roubles”; Herzog, ibid.
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54 Cf. J. Reinach, op. cit., I, 471.
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55 Cf. Herzog, op. cit., p. 212.
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56 Cf. Max J. Kohler, “Some New Light on the Dreyfus Case,” in Studies in Jewish Bibliography and Related Subjects in Memory of A. S. Freidus, New York, 1929.
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57 The Dreyfus family, for instance, summarily rejected the suggestion of Arthur Lévy, the writer, and Lévy-Bruhl, the scholar, that they should circulate a petition of protest among all leading figures of public life. Instead they embarked on a series of personal approaches to any politician with whom they happened to have contact; cf. Dutrait-Crozon, op. cit., p. 51. See also Foucault, op. cit., p. 309: “At this distance, one may wonder at the fact that the French Jews, instead of working on the papers secretly, did not give adequate and open expression to their indignation.”
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58 Cf. Herzog, op. cit., under date of December, 1894 and January, 1898. See also Charensol, op. cit., p. 79, and Charles Péguy, “Le Portrait de Bernard Lazare,” in Cahiers de la quinzaine, Series XI, No. 2 (1910).
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59 Labori’s withdrawal, after Dreyfus’ family had hurriedly withdrawn the brief from him while the Rennes tribunal was still sitting, caused a major scandal. An exhaustive, if greatly exaggerated, account will be found in Frank, op. cit., p. 432. Labori’s own statement, which speaks eloquently for his nobility of character, appeared in La Grande Revue (February, 1900). After what had happened to his counsel and friend Zola at once broke relations with the Dreyfus family. As for Picquart, the Echo de Paris (November 30, 1901) reported that after Rennes he had nothing more to do with the Dreyfuses. Clemenceau in face of the fact that the whole of France, or even the whole world, grasped the real meaning of the trials better than the accused or his family, was more inclined to consider the incident humorous; cf. Weil, op. cit., pp. 307–8.
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60 Cf. Clemenceau’s article, February 2, 1898, in op. cit. On the futility of trying to win the workers with antisemitic slogans and especially on the attempts of Léon Daudet, see the Royalist writer Dimier, Vingt ans d’Action Française, Paris, 1926.
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61 Very characteristic in this respect are the various depictions of contemporary society in J. Reinach, op. cit., I, 233 ff.; Ill, 141: “Society hostesses fell in step with Guérin. Their language (which scarcely outran their thoughts) would have struck horror in the Amazon of Damohey...” Of special interest in this connection is an article by André Chevrillon, “Huit Jours á Rennes,” in La Grande Revue, February, 1900. He relates, inter alia, the following revealing incident: “A physician speaking to some frie
nds of mine about Dreyfus, chanced to remark, ‘I’d like to torture him.’ ‘And I wish,’ rejoined one of the ladies, ‘that he were innocent. Then he’d suffer more.’”
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62 The intellectuals include, strangely enough, Paul Valéry, who contributed three francs “non sans réflexion.”
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63 J. Reinach, op. cit., I, 233.
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64 A study of European superstition would probably show that Jews became objects of this typically nineteenth-century brand of superstition fairly late. They were preceded by the Rosicrucians, Templars, Jesuits, and Freemasons. The treatment of nineteenth-century history suffers greatly from the lack of such a study.
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65 See “Il caso Dreyfus,” in Civiltà Cattolica (February 5, 1898).—Among the exceptions to the foregoing statement the most notable is the Jesuit Pierre Charles Louvain, who has denounced the “Protocols.”
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66 Cf. Martin du Gard, Jean Barois, pp. 272 ff., and Daniel Halévy, in Cahiers de la quinzaine, Series XI, Cahier 10, Paris, 1910.
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67 Cf. Georges Sorel, La Revolution dreyfusienne, Paris, 1911, pp. 70–71.
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68 To what extent the hands of members of Parliament were tied is shown by the case of Scheurer-Kestner, one of their better elements and vice-president of the senate. No sooner had he entered his protest against the trial than Libre Parole proclaimed the fact that his son-in-law had been involved in the Panama scandal. See Herzog, op. cit., under date of November, 1897.
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69 Cf. Brogan, op. cit., Book VII, ch. 1: “The desire to let the matter rest was not uncommon among French Jews, especially among the richer French Jews.”
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70 Immediately after he had made his discoveries Picquart was banished to a dangerous post in Tunis. Thereupon he made his will, exposed the whole business, and deposited, a copy of the document with his lawyer. A few months later, when it was discovered that he was still alive, a deluge of mysterious letters came pouring in, compromising him and accusing him of complicity with che “traitor” Dreyfus. He was treated like a gangster who had threatened to “squeal.” When all this proved of no avail, he was arrested, drummed out of the army, and divested of his decorations, all of which he endured with quiet equanimity.