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  • Gebildete Doppelgänger: Bürgerliche Juden und Protestanten im 19. Jahr-hundert
  • Hermann Beck
Gebildete Doppelgänger: Bürgerliche Juden und Protestanten im 19. Jahr-hundert, by Uffa Jensen. Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 167 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005). 383 pp. €46.90.

Jensen's book examines the rise of antisemitism within the ranks of the German educated bourgeoisie (Bildungsbürgertum), focusing on the period between 1840 and the early 1880s. The university-trained Bildungsbürgertum constituted that class of the German population to which the country owed its reputation in scholarship, technical expertise, and administration. As a group, the Bildungsbürgertum enjoyed greater social prestige in Germany than elsewhere in Europe and, before the turmoil and inflation brought about by World War [End Page 170] I, a considerable measure of material security and comfort that imbued many of its members with the certainty of cultural and social superiority. The Bildungskultur—a climate fostering cultivation and self-improvement—that had formed its breeding ground originated towards the end of the 18th century. Bildung constituted an important factor in educational socialization, through which the individual became part of a larger whole. Jensen rightly emphasizes that Bildung played a central role in Protestant circles, while never permeating the German Catholic population to the same extent. German Jews, on the other hand, felt deeply committed to the ideals of Bildung and viewed the Bildungskultur as primarily a fruit of the Enlightenment, especially since being part of it (at least until the 1880s) meant sharing a certain liberal outlook. The ideal of Bildung constituted the most powerful link between German Jews and German culture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This predilection of educated German Jews toward the Bildungskultur was ultimately responsible for the tragic illusion that induced many to remain in Germany after 1933.

Jensen maintains that even in its inception the Bildungsideal became part of a German-Jewish identity since it was inherently related to Jewish traditions of religious scholarship and learning. To German Jews, who stood outside the ständisch structure of society, it was a vehicle of both integration and social mobility. German Jews contributed to the culture of Bildung, excelled in its pursuits and, as a corollary, gradually became estranged from traditional eastern European Jews. The author maintains that the adoption of bourgeois Bildung was not, however, a rejection of one's Jewish heritage but rather indirectly constituted a continuation of Jewish identity through education. By 1852, about 10 percent of all German university students were Jewish, and the 1850s and 1860s are clearly the high point of Protestant-Jewish understanding. But even during those years, the first signs of antisemitism from among the ranks of the educated began to appear on the horizon. Already in 1850, Richard Wagner published "Das Judenthum in der Musik," in which he deplored the "destructive influence" of Jews on German cultural life. Jensen argues that for Wagner Jews appeared as gebildete Doppelgänger, or "cultivated doubles": "They formed part of one's own culture but at the same time stood outside of it—therein lay the danger" (p. 100). To Wagner and others like him, educated Jews who retained their Jewish identity threatened to undermine the bourgeois Bildungskultur from within.

After emancipation and the foundation of an Empire that was welcomed by German Jews, precisely because they hoped that its society and politics would be shaped by the new Bildungskultur, the antisemitism of the educated elite grew more intense. Jensen maintains that the embourgeoisement of Jews led to an image of them as "unheimliche" (menacing) Doppelgänger who would [End Page 171] soon threaten the position of Protestants in the Bildungskultur. Thus the new, close relationship between Jews and Protestants that had grown out of the Bildungsideal in the mid-19th century led to new forms of Jewish identity, as well as new forms of antisemitism. Now even liberal, educated Protestants objected to Jewish difference. Jensen holds that it had always been the Protestants' credo that Jews remained Jews only as long as they were suppressed; now they asked themselves why educated Jews, despite emancipation and integration into German society, retained their Jewish identity.

The antisemitism of...

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