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Friedrich Wilhelm Adolph Marr (November 16, 1819 – July 17, 1904) was a German agitator and journalist, who popularized the term "
antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
" (1881) hich was invented by Moritz Steinschneider


Life

Marr was born in
Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebu ...
as the only son of an actor and stage director. He went to a primary school in
Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
, then to a high school in
Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
. In
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
and
Bremen Bremen ( Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state cons ...
, he was an apprentice in commerce, then he joined his father in
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
, who had been engaged by the
Burgtheater The Burgtheater (literally:"Castle Theater" but alternatively translated as "(Imperial) Court Theater"), originally known as '' K.K. Theater an der Burg'', then until 1918 as the ''K.K. Hofburgtheater'', is the national theater of Austria in V ...
. There he worked as an employee in two Jewish firms. Later, Marr claimed that he had unjustly lost his job. In 1841, he went to
Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Z ...
, where he became acquainted with political émigrés (like
Georg Herwegh Georg Friedrich Rudolph Theodor Herwegh (31 May 1817 – 7 April 1875) was a German poet,Herwegh, Georg, The Columbia Encyclopedia (2008) who is considered part of the Young Germany movement. Biography He was born in Stuttgart on 31 May 1817, ...
,
Julius Fröbel Carl Ferdinand Julius Fröbel (16 July 1805 – 7 November 1893) was a German geologist and mineralogist, journalist, and democratic revolutionary already during the ''Vormärz'' era. He was active in Germany, Switzerland, the United States and S ...
, and August Follen), most of whom were members of the democratic or liberal leftist movements of the early 19th century. In 1843, Marr was expelled from Zürich under the accusation that he had furthered communist activities. He turned to
Lausanne , neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR ...
, where he joined Hermann Döleke and Julius Standau, the founders of the secret Léman-Bund, which belonged to the " Junges Deutschland" (Young German Movement). Marr eventually became the head of the secret society and began to lean towards
anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
and
atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
, founded another secret society, the "Schweizerischer Arbeiterbund" (Swiss Worker's Union) and edited the "Blätter der Gegenwart für soziales Leben" (Present-Day Papers for Social Life, 1844/45). In 1845 he was expelled from Lausanne, too, and went to Hamburg. There he became a political journalist and published the satirical magazine ''Mephistopheles'' (1847/48–1852). He belonged to the leftists of the radical-democratic "party" and was a delegate to the
National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the r ...
in Frankfurt after the March-Revolution of 1848. After the ultimate failure of the revolution he became, like so many other former revolutionaries, a proponent of the idea of
German unification The unification of Germany (, ) was the process of building the modern German nation state with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without multinational Austria), which commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of t ...
under Prussian leadership. In 1852, Marr went abroad, to
Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...
, where he tried to make a living as a businessman. Lacking success, he returned to Hamburg, worked again as a journalist, and in 1854 he married Georgine Johanna Bertha Callenbach, daughter of a Jewish businessman who had renounced his faith. In 1859, Marr was elected member of the Hamburg Parliament. In an article, in the ''Courier an der Weser'' on 13 June 1862, he attacked the elected liberal speaker of the house, the Jewish lawyer , accusing him and other Jews of betraying the democratic movement and abusing their emancipation in order to enter the city's merchant class. After extensive public protests, Marr was not reelected in 1862. Marr and his first wife were divorced in 1873. In 1874, Marr married the Jewish Helene Sophia Emma Maria Behrend, who died within the same year. Marr's first marriage was an unhappy one, and despite being financially stable, Marr was in emotional distress. Marr's second marriage was a happy one, but then his wife and child died within days of each other, which left Marr in great distress and bitter towards the world. In 1875, there was a third marriage, to Jenny Therese Kornick (whose parents lived in a Christian-Jewish mixed marriage), who bore him a son. In 1877, this marriage was ended in divorce too; Marr's last wife was Clara Maria Kelch, daughter of a Hamburg working man. Marr's speeches and articles showed first indications of antisemitism in 1848. He was influenced by the '' Burschenschaft'' movement of the early nineteenth century, which developed out of frustration among German students with the failure of the
Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon ...
to create a unified state out of all the territories inhabited by the German people. The latter rejected the participation of Jewish and other non-German minorities as members, "unless they prove that they are anxious to develop within themselves a Christian-German spirit" (a decision of the "''Burschenschaft'' Congress of 1818"). While they were opposed to the participation of Jews in their movement, similarly to Heinrich von Treitschke later, they did allow the possibility of the Jewish (and other) minorities to participate in the German state if they were to abandon all signs of ethnic and religious distinctiveness and assimilate into the German ''
Volk The German noun ''Volk'' () translates to people, both uncountable in the sense of ''people'' as in a crowd, and countable (plural ''Völker'') in the sense of '' a people'' as in an ethnic group or nation (compare the English term '' folk ...
''.


Theories

Marr took these philosophies one step further by rejecting the premise of assimilation as a means for Jews to become Germans. In his pamphlet ''Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum'' (The Way to Victory of Germanism over Judaism, 1879) he introduced the idea that Germans and Jews were locked in a longstanding conflict, the origins of which he attributed to race—and that the Jews were winning. He argued that
Jewish emancipation Jewish emancipation was the process in various nations in Europe of eliminating Jewish disabilities, e.g. Jewish quotas, to which European Jews were then subject, and the recognition of Jews as entitled to equality and citizenship rights. It in ...
resulting from German
liberalism Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostilit ...
had allowed the Jews to control German finance and industry. Furthermore, since this conflict was based on the different qualities of the Jewish and German races, it could not be resolved even by the total
assimilation Assimilation may refer to: Culture * Cultural assimilation, the process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs ** Language shift, also known as language assimilation, the prog ...
of the Jewish population. According to him, the struggle between Jews and Germans would only be resolved by the victory of one and the ultimate death of the other. A Jewish victory, he concluded, would result in ''finis Germaniae'' (the end of the German people). To prevent this from happening, in 1879 Marr founded the League of Antisemites (Antisemiten-Liga), the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany posed by the Jews and advocating their forced removal from the country. Although he had introduced the pseudo-scientific racial component into the debate over Jews in Germany, it is unlikely that he was influenced by the earlier theories of
Arthur de Gobineau Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat who is best known for helping to legitimise racism by the use of scientific racist theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Aryan ...
(author of '' An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races'', 1853), who was only translated into German in 1898, a quarter of a century after Marr's pamphlet appeared. It is, however, highly probable that Marr was able to read Gobineau in French. Furthermore, Marr himself was very vague about what constituted race and, in turn, the racial differences between Jews and Germans, though this became a feature of
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
racial "science". It remained for later racial thinkers to postulate specific differences: these included
Eugen Dühring Eugen Karl Dühring (12 January 1833, Berlin21 September 1921, Nowawes in modern-day Potsdam-Babelsberg) was a German philosopher, positivist, economist, and socialist who was a strong critic of Marxism. Life and works Dühring was born in Be ...
, who suggested that it was blood, and
Houston Stewart Chamberlain Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, and scientific ...
, an influential race theorist and husband of
Eva Wagner Eva or EVA may refer to: * Eva (name), a feminine given name Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters * Eva (Dynamite Entertainment), a comic book character by Dynamite Entertainment * Eva (''Devil May Cry''), Dante's mother in ...
,
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
's daughter, who suggested
phrenology Phrenology () is a pseudoscience which involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking." In ''Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience'', pp. 195–203. C ...
as a means of distinguishing races. On the other hand, it does seem likely that Marr was influenced by
Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new s ...
, a professor who popularized the notion of
Social Darwinism Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in We ...
among Germany's educated classes. Despite his influence, Marr's ideas were not immediately adopted by German nationalists. The
Pan-German League The Pan-German League (german: Alldeutscher Verband) was a Pan-German nationalist organization which was officially founded in 1891, a year after the Zanzibar Treaty was signed. Primarily dedicated to the German Question of the time, it held p ...
, founded in 1891, originally allowed for the membership of Jews, provided they were fully assimilated into German culture. It was only in 1912, eight years after Marr's death, that the League declared racism as an underlying principle. Nevertheless, Marr was a major link in the evolving chain of German racism that erupted into
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...
during the Nazi era.


Alleged late renunciation of antisemitism

According to Moshe Zimmermann in ''Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Anti-Semitism'', a book written 100 years after the fact, toward the end of his life Marr came to renounce anti-semitism, arguing that social upheaval in Germany had been the result of the Industrial Revolution and conflict between political movements. He "openly requested the Jews' pardon for having erred in isolating the problem".Moshe Zimmermann, ''Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Anti-Semitism'', Oxford University Press, USA, 1986, pp. 9. In ''Testament of an Antisemite'' supposedly attributed to Marr but not published until Zimmerman's book, Marr explained the history of his thinking, asserting that he had originally been a "philo-Semite", having rejected "the miserable Romantic madness of Germanism". He complained that modern anti-Semitism was becoming merged with German mysticism and nationalism. Marr condemned "the beer drinking leaders, the gay 'Heil' shouters of modern anti-Semitism" and crude prejudice against Jewish writers and thinkers.


Works

* ''Pillen. Eigens präpariert für deutsche und andere Michel'', 1844 * ''Katechismus eines Republikaners der Zukunft'', 1845 * ''Das junge Deutschland in der Schweiz. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der geheimen Verbindungen unserer Tage'', 1846 * ''Anarchie oder Autorität?'' 1852 * ''Reise durch Central-Amerika'', 1852 * ''Messias Lassalle und seine Hamburger Jünger. Eine Abfertigung'', 1863 * ''Der Ausschluß Oesterreichs aus Deutschland ist eine politische Widersinnigkeit'', 1866 * ''Selbständigkeit und Hoheitsrecht der freien Stadt Hamburg sind ein Anachronismus geworden'', 1866 * ''Des Weltunterganges Posaunenstoß, lieblich begleitet und allen Gläubigen gewidment'', 1867 * ''Es muß alles Soldat werden! oder die Zukunft des Norddeutschen Bundes. Ein Phantasiegemälde'', 1867 * ''Nach Jerusalem mit dem Papst.Eine Bergpredigt'', 1867
''Der Antichrist und das Ende der Welt''
1875 * ''Religiöse Streifzüge eines philosophischen Touristen'', 1876 * ''Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum – Vom nichtconfessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet''. Bern: Rudolph Costenoble, 1879. - English translation: Rohringer, Gerhard
''Victory of Judaism over Germanism - Considered from a Nonreligious Perspective''
2009 * ''Jeiteles teutonicus. Harfenklänge aus dem vermauschelten Deutschland von Marr dem Zweiten'', 1879 * ''Vom jüdischen Kriegsschauplatz. Eine Streitschrift'', 1879
''Das Salomonische Spruchbuch''
1879 * ''Wählet keinen Juden! Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum. Ein Mahnwort an die Wähler nichtjüdischen Stammes aller Confessionen''. Berlin: Hentze, 1880 * ''Der Judenkrieg, seine Fehler und wie er zu organisieren ist. 2. Theil von ""Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum"'', 1880 * ''Goldene Ratten und rothe Mäuse'', 1880 * ''Oeffnet die Augen, Ihr deutschen Zeitungsleser. Ein unentbehrliches Büchlein für jeden deutschen Zeitungsleser'', 1880 * ''Lessing contra Sem. Allen "Rabbinern" der Juden- und Christenheit, allen Toleranz-Duselheimern aller Parteien, allen Pharisäern und "Schriftgelehrten" tolerantest gewidmet'', 1885


See also

*
New antisemitism New antisemitism is the idea that a new form of antisemitism has developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, tending to manifest itself as anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israeli government. The concept is included in some definitions ...
* History of antisemitism


Notes


External links


''Der Sieg des Judenthums ueber das Germanenthum'' "The Victory of Jewry over Germandom" by Wilhelm Marr at archive.org
* * * Werner Bergmann, Wilhelm Marr’s A Mirror to the Jews, in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History, September 22, 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Marr, Wilhelm 1819 births 1904 deaths Politicians from Magdeburg German anarchists German male journalists German political writers German male writers Members of the Hamburg Parliament