THE RIDDLE OF THE JEW’S SUCCESS : VI – An Explanation with Sombart

The Riddle of the Jew’s Success

Chapter VI

 

F. RODERICH-STOLTHEIM

 

THE RIDDLE

OF

THE JEW’S SUCCESS

Translated from the German by Capel Pownall

HAMMER-VERLAG / LEIPZIG

1927

 

 

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From Metapedia

[http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Fritsch]

 

Theodor Emil Fritsch (October 28, 1852 near Leipzig – September 8, 1933) was a German antijudaist whose views did much to influence popular opposition to Jewish supremacism in Germany during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

A believer in the absolute superiority of the Aryan race, Fritsch was upset by the changes brought on by rapid industrialization and urbanization, and called for a return to the traditional peasant values and customs of the distant past, which he believed exemplified the essence of the Volk.

 

In 1883 he founded the Hammer Publishing House.

 

One of Fritsch’s major goals was to unite all Jew-resister political parties under a single banner; he wished for opposition to Jewish supremacism to permeate the agenda of every German social and political organization. This effort proved largely to be a failure, as by 1890 there were over 190 various patriotic parties in Germany. He also had a powerful rival for the leadership of the patriots in Otto Böckel, with whom he had a strong personal rivalry.

 

In 1893, Fritsch published his most famous work, The Handbook of the Jewish Question also known as the Anti-Semitic Catechism which criticed the Jews and called upon Germans to refrain from intermingling with them. Vastly popular, the book was read by millions and was in its 49th edition by 1944 (330,000 copies). The ideas espoused by the work greatly influenced Hitler and his party during their rise to power after World War I. Fritsch also founded a journal – the Hammer (in 1902) and this became the basis of a movement, the Reichshammerbund, in 1912.

 

His better known book, The Riddle of the Jew’s Success was published in English in 1927 under the pseudonym F. Roderich-Stoltheim, and dealt with the negative impact that Jewish values and the centralization of the German economy in Jewish hands had on the German people. This book was recently republished by Noontide Press, and was the subject of a media controversy after it was banned by Amazon.com and other online book sellers.

 

Fritsch held the publication rights to the German edition of Henry Ford’s work The International Jew.

 

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Contents.

[Note: Clicking on the Chapter heading will take you to that post]

Chapter …………………………………………………………..……………………………………. Page

 

I Preface ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5

II Jewish Methods in the Economic Life …………………………………………………. 10

III Particular Business Tactics of the Jew ……………………………………………….. 29

IV The International Connection and Secret League of the Hebrews ………… 39

V The Peculiar Morality of Jewdom ………………………………………………………….. 53

VI An Explanation with Sombart …………………………………………………………….. 68

VII Jewish Successes in Modern Times …………………………………………………… 72

VIII The Stock-Exchange …………………………………………………………………………. 84

IX How Sound Business Methods are Forced Out of the Field by the Jews … 98

X Jewish Trade Specialities ……………………………………………………………………… 111

XI Moral Principles in Trade …………………………………………………………………….. 141

XII The Hebrews as Supporters of Capitalism …………………………………………. 154

XIII Business and Religion ……………………………………………………………………… 183

XIV The Race Problem ………………………………………………………………………….. 200

XV Origin of the Jewish Entity ……………………………………………………………….. 220

XVI The Influence of the Jew Upon Womankind …………………………………….. 242

XVII The Jews and the World-War ………………………………………………………….. 277

Concluding Words ………………………………………………………………………… 283

Errata …………………………………………………………………………………………… 290

 

 

 

 

VI.

An Explanation with Sombart.

 

 

After we have sketched in outline our own attitude to the question, which lies before us, the task still remains to follow up Sombart’s work,* in order to supplement the same, partly by confirming it, and partly by making another comprehension valid. Sombart, himself, allows that his book is one-sided, and is meant to be. He has, in fact, supplied a written history of the economic method of the Jews, which — although the author obviously has taken pains to keep to the point, and to abstain from all appreciations — has nevertheless been written preponderatingly from the sunny side. Anyone, who did not know anything about the history of the world, would, on reading this book, easily acquire the impression that the Hebrews were the sole moving principle — not only in political economy but chiefly in Culture, that we were indebted to them alone for all great undertakings, and for all progress.

It can scarcely have been the intention of the author to create this impression, and he would simply disclaim any such explanation. But it can be easily understood, that at a time when so many disparaging remarks are made about Hebrews, the wish might arise, for once, at any rate, to muster everything, which could be said in their favour. Sombart still says — although he wishes to refrain from appreciation:

“Israel traverses Europe like the sun; new life bursts forth where it arrives; on its departure what has hitherto prospered, wastes away.”

It would be scarcely possible to utter a more pretentious appreciation of a people than the above, and it is certainly opportune, for once in a way, to examine in detail how far such a pronouncement is justified or not. Sombart has collected, out of literature, with extraordinary diligence, everything, which could possibly throw a favourable light upon the activity of the Jews.

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• “Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben” (The Jew and the Economic Life).

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[Page 68]

He acknowledges that other factors have contributed to the building-up of the modern capitalism — which seems to him to be equivalent to modern Culture — but does not wish to mention the same in his book. He is of opinion that one will search in vain throughout his work;

“to discover in any single passage anything approaching an appreciation of the Jews, their affairs, their performances,”

and yet, a few lines further on, he says concerning the Jews;

“They, above all other nations, are an eternal nation”.

That is a frequently expressed opinion, and yet the ancestors of Jewdom can scarcely date further back than the ancestors of other races, for it is not recognised that the incarnation of the remaining nations only happened within historical time; just as little is the national existence of the Hebrews any older than that of the other nations. It is quite the contrary — for it must not be forgotten that ancient cultures were already known in the history of the world before the Jewish people put in an appearance. And when Sombart goes on to reckon up, amongst the accomplishments of the Jews, the following:

“They have presented us with the one and only God, with Jesus Christ, and consequently with Christianity”,

this is not only an appreciation, but an extravagant eulogy, which, in the face of our modern knowledge of these matters, may even be called frivolity.

The contention that the Hebrews invented monotheism — the one God doctrine — belongs to the domain of thoughtless phrases, all the more as the most ancient Jewish documents recognise a whole line of gods, such as Elohim, El-Schaddai, El-Elyon, Adonai, Zebaoth, Jahwe etc. It was first of all Luther’s translation — which was frequently extremely free — of these names by the universal designation “God the Lord”, which is responsible for this semblance of Jewish monotheism.

[Page 69]

Moreover, it has been sufficiently established for many decades that the Jewish God has nothing in common with the Christian Father-in-Heaven, or the universal Father of the Germanic nations. Jahwe, as we have already discussed, is the exclusive tribal God of the Hebrews: he has absolutely no desire to be the God of other peoples, for he persecutes the latter with unappeasable hatred, and assigns to his favourite the task of annihilating the remaining nations, or, as Luther translates: “to devour them.” It is quite clear in this case that we have not to deal with the one and only God of all nations, but with a tribal or separate and national God. Therefore Jewdom can, by no means, lay claim to have presented “the” only God to the rest of the world. The discoveries of the Egyptologists and Assyriologists have furnished sufficient proof that these ancient, civilised nations already worshipped an only God before the Jewish nation was known of.* Our Germanic ancestors also worshipped an only God and universal Father, in the form of their Ziu (Dius), and the Egyptians did likewise with their Ptah, the Indians with their Dyaus Pitar (from which the Roman Jupiter originated), the Greeks with their Zeus, and the Persians with their Ahuramazda (Ormuzd) etc.

The way, in which Sombart misleads his readers with regard to Christ, is still more flagrant. Upon this point also we are at the present day sufficiently well-informed to know that Christ was not of Jewish extraction, but was a heathen Galilean. The enmity of the Jews towards him shows itself in every chapter of the Gospels; the Jews persecute him incessantly so that he must always seek refuge from them “in the land of the Heathen.”

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• Compare Wahrmund: “Babyloniertum, Judentum, Christentum” (Babylondom, Jewdom, Christendom.) Lagarde: “Deutsche Schriften” (German Writings); Fritsch: “Beweismaterial gegen Jahwe” (Evidence against Jahwe); Further “Hammer” No. 257: “Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Alten Testaments” (The History of the origin of the Old Testament); particularly W. Schmidt: “Ursprung der Gottesidee” 1. (Origin of the idea of God); 1912. A. Lang: “Making of the Religion” (1909). Fritsch endeavours to prove that Jahwe is identical with El-Schaddai, whom he indicates as the “Geist der Finsternis”, (Sprit of Darkness) and as the personification of the Principle of Evil. The philological comparisons upon this point are striking. (Compare “Beweis-Material gegen Jahwe”, 9. Edition, pages 77-86.)

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[Page 70]

Their hatred against him is so fanatical, because, out of his teaching a spiritual world, which is strange to them, is speaking. It is the spirit of the other race, which here opposes the Jewish nature, for the teaching of Christ signifies, in all respects, a complete reversal of the Jewish system of morality.

Christ had, accordingly, nothing in common with the Jews, neither outwardly nor inwardly. His teaching is the most pronounced contrast, yes, the most emphatic protest against Jewish morality and the view, which Jews chose to take of the world, and the whole life of Christ was a continual fight against Jewdom. The excellent Lagarde (celebrated both as an orientalist and an authority on the Bible, died 1891) said:

“No nation crucifies its ideal, and whoever is crucified by a nation certainly does not correspond to the ideal of that particular nation.”

One must read the Gospel of St. John in order to convince one’s self how, on every occasion, the racial contrast between the Galileans and the Jews bursts forth. But, when the Jews boast of being the children of God, Christ calls them the children of the devil (Gospel of St. John 8.

44—45). It would scarcely be possible to make a more trivial and thoughtless remark than that the Jews bestowed Christianity upon us, and therefore have a claim to our gratitude. But when this phrase is heard from the mouths of the Jews themselves, the very summit of senselessness is reached, and a piece of bluff is produced calculated only to deceive those, who are utterly incapable of judgement. It is only necessary to ask in return: If the Jews assign merit to themselves on account of Christianity — why are they content to pass on ungrudgingly to others, what can be proved to be a great advance in moral perception and in the ennoblement of mankind, instead of also enriching themselves therewith? And finally, above all, if the Jews of today, who still harbour the utmost contempt and enmity towards Christ and his teaching, claim merit for themselves by reason of the Christian doctrine, will they not also take over part of the responsibility for the torturing and martyring of Christ?

[Page 71]

Version History

 

Version 1: Published May 13, 2014