Schönerer - Hitler's Forerunner

I was rather astonished that Georg Ritter von Schönerer, the Nazi forerunner, has never been mentioned at this forum. He was the »Fuhrer's Fuhrer«. Understanding the Schönerians is fundamental for understading the Nazi movement.

Hitler's compatriot, born in 1842 in Vienna, pan-German, anti-Slav, anti-Semite, anti-Catholic, Schönerer had significant influence on Austrian and German political thought of the late 19th century. He initiated the climate of hatred and intolerance that Hitler drove to the climax about twenty years later.

Initially he wasn’t involved in politics but after the defeat of Konigsgrätz in 1866 where Prussians defeated the Habsburgs he became a despiser of the Austro Hungarian Monarchy and admirer of Bismarck. He considered the Hohenzollerns as the real leaders of all German-speaking people. He was the founder of Alldeutsches Partei (Pan-German Party); his motto was »Not liberal, not clerical but national«..

In 1885, he added the »Aryan clause« into his political program, excluding the Jews from German nation. According to him, if you were Jewish, you could not be German. This decision was adopted by many Germans who wanted to expel Jews from the society. He started the "de-Jewification" of the German nation. Their slogan became »Through purity to unity« and their sign of recognition was greeting »Heil«; their leader was the »Führer«. The Schönerians rejected the »international and Jewish art« as »decadent«.Like his political successor Hitler, Schönerer was sentenced to 4 months in prison for an attack on a Jewish newspaper and was stripped off his political rights for 5 years.

It is quite certain that young Hitler, who arrived in Vienna in 1907, fell under the influence of the Schönerians who had their newspaper, the Alldeutsches Tagblatt. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote: »when I came to Vienna, my sympathies were fully and wholly on the side of the Pan German tendency. « When he left from Vienna to Munich in 1913 he took with him Schönerer's seeds of future Nazis.

Therefore, in my opinion, the 2nd world war cannot be considered as a continuation of the Great War but as a completely new war based on new ideology founded on Schönerer's pathological hatred against Slavs, Semites and everything that could hinder unification of all Germans in the Greater German Reich, under the leadership of the »Führer«. The Great War has started for completely different reasons and was waged for territories, not with the aim of ethnic cleansing of Historically German Territories.

 

Anyone who has read extensively of Hitler has heard of Schonerer. He was one of several people whose ideas formed the basis of racial a anti-Semitism. Arthur de Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Adolf Lanz von Liebenfels, etc. It is much too simplistic to chalk up Pan-Germanism as casus belli. The desire for revenge for their defeat in WWI, the humiliation of the Versailles Treaty, etc. Hitler's reasons for conquest were many and cannot be limited to one cause.

 

As you've just said, over-simplifications may be wrong but accepting that the WWII was just a revenge for Versailles or just a continuation of the WWI is unfair towards millions of innocent victims. For their sake we must point our fingers to the true culprits.

By accepting that WWII is just continuation of WWI we swallow the lie that Nazis can be held innocent as they just waged the former Kaiser's war which is fundamentally wrong. Nazi advocates want us believe that.

In reality, WWI was a war among European Empires for dominance over Europe and the overseas possessions while the WWII was a struggle for ethnically cleansed 3rd Reich stretching from the British Chanel to the Urals. That is in fact materialization of the »Through purity to unity« opposed to Kaiser's goal to gain some new possessions and international prestige. At the time of WWI the Nazi ideology was in the development phase - the WWII was it's materialization.

 

I would submit that part of the reason Schonerer is less reguarded is due to Hitler himself who did much to create the myth that He was the wellhead of National Socialism when in fact he was really something of a latecomer to both the the movement and the ideal. It is however hard to see how Nazi movement could have come to power without WWI and its aftermath.

 

Well, if the Nazis BELIEVED the war to be so then it must be a cause. There is no doubting that the humiliation of their "incomplete" defeat played a factor in the Nazis motivation for war. Think about it. They were on French soil when the armistice was announced. Not one foreign soldier had set foot on German soil. Not one German city or civilian was exposed to the carnage and chaos of war. They--the soldiers--did their job. But they still lost. For many this was too bitter of a pill to swallow. They had invested too much of their self into the Kaiser's War to accept defeat. To borrow from a later Frenchmen, this was a "strange defeat".

As Margaret MacMillian points out in her book "Paris 1919" the terms of The Versailles Treaty were not anymore harsh the terms imposed by the Germans on the French in the Treaty of Frankfurt after the Franco-Prussian War nor on the Bolshevik Russians at Brest-Litovsk. But reality does not matter. What matters is how the Germans INTERPRETED the treaty. Do recall that the Germans surrendered on French soil. Also recall the Kiel Mutiny, which fueled the "Stab in the Back" theory. The Nazis would blame "Jewish Bolsheviks" for the calamity that befell their beloved Deutschland. That the German Communists have quite a few Jews within its ranks helped fuel the belief that Judaism and Bolshevism were the driving factors in Germany's defeat. Rosa Luxembourg being the foremost among them.The 1919 Spartacist Uprising by Communists further fueled the German far right's paranoia. It is around this time that most historians believe Hitler's latent anti-Semitism(which was not uncommon in Germany and Austria) matured into intense animosity.

The interesting part of Hitler's anti-Semitism is that it did not manifest itself until AFTER World War One ended. Hitler himself traces it to his time at a Pasewalk hospital recovering from a gas attack(In actuality hysterical blindness) where he had an epiphany: It was the Jews and Marxists who were behind Germany's defeat. While the story is most likely apocryphal it does give us a starting point for his virulent anti-Semitism. Little before this indicates a pathological hatred of Jews or Marxists.

 

Agreed! Besides all other things he was a plagiarist too!

This is entirely correct too. It is difficult to persuade people to kill. Aftermath of the WWI was exploited for instigation but the real reasons behind WWI and WWII were entirely different. If you just compare the prominent Nazies to their model - Schönerer, they are politically and mentally identical copies.

Hitler wasn't a continuation of German political thought but a political offspring of the Austrian political line - Schönerians.

 

From what I have read it is much more complicated than simply the Versailles treaty. But that was an issue which served the Nazis well. I believe that if the Nazis ytaught us nothing else they have taught us that evil is present in this world and good men must always be on guard against it.

KTK

 

Hitler himself, in Mein Kampf, stated that he first became an antisemite in Vienna!

Essentially, I do agree with you almost entirely but our views differ in a small but extremey important detail: the definition of the real roots of the WWII. It is true that Hitler fully exploited the shortcomings of the Versailles treaty to gain political power but his real objectives were entirey different: there were no concentration camps in WWI, there were no Einsaatzgruppen, in the WWI German Jews fought as German soldiers whilst one of the main objectives of the WWII was to separate them from Germans and their physical ellimination. There was no Lebensraum among the objectives of the WWI. The only apparent similarity among WWI and WWII is that Germans have started them both and the similarity ends there.

 

Yes, he claims that. But there is no documentary evidence to suggest that he was a virulent anti-Semite at that point. Aside from reading some issues of Ostara, Hitler did actively engage in anything overt anti-Semitic. In fact, one of the people who helped him sell his paintings was Jewish!

 

Agreed! Anti-Semitism is just one segment in the Nazi ideology and, as you've just said previously, the reasons for the escalation of Nazism were more complex. Let us just view the map of the Austro Hungarian Empire (aka KuK) in the 1910, shortly before the WWI has started. Territories where German speakers lived are denoted with pink color. You can find many isles of German speaking population all over the country. It is however true that migration of German population within the country was supported and encouraged by the state. Sudety (Ger: Sudeten) in Bohemia were even populated with the »foreign« Germans from Bavaria! In KuK German citizens were a privileged class. After the end of WWI many German speaking citizens of the KuK have remained in the newly formed national countries, disappointed with the loss of privileges granted by the former KuK government. Many of these served during the WWII in the most notorious SS units.

In my view, German population had great difficulties to accept the reality of the post WWI Europe, especially that they had to live in new countries where they were the privileged nation for centuries. By the way, I am located approximately at the centre of that map: about 6 km north from Marburg (Maribor) which was at the linguistic German border. That is just 250 km from Schönerer’s Vienna! During the WWII we were directly annexed to the Reich. Nobody asked anyone for permission; if was either .. or! In their heads it was their soil and we had just two options: to accept the Germanization or expulsion. I am glad that Allies prevailed!

Thank you Britannia! Thank you USA! Спасибо России!

 

How interesting. I knew a guy from Slovenia. I believe he was from Ljubljana.

 

He was lucky: Ljubljana was occupied by Italians who were more preoccupied with good meals and women.

 

The biggest part of the Versailles treaty for the Germans was the creation of Poland, and most thought should be eliminated. It was the basis for the German Soviet treaty.

 

I have a few issues here.

Hitler wrote a great deal in Mein Kampf, but much of it should be read with a measure of caution as to his motivations. It is after all a political tract from a avowed revolutionary. I suspect that Hitler's first brush with Anti-Semitism came at home at the knee of his father. It was re-inforced in Vienna of Pre-WWI, strengthened by his service in the conservative German Army only to reach maturaty with the political chaos of post war Germany of the twenties. That being said it was not an all encompassing hate for he like nearly every other German knew a 'good jew' and used his power to save Emil Maurice his SS driver/bodyguard. For me Hitler's only unassailable motivation is his desire for power and a place in history as a 'Great Man'. Everything else was open to negotiation.

While it is true there were no German Death Camps in WWI, many of the other atrocities of war were perpatrated by German forces. Terror bombing, Hostage taking, Execution of civillians, mass theft of food and other valuables, mass arrests, dislocation of civillian population's and of course the first use of Poison Gas. Compared to WWII they were no where near as 'efficiantly' done, but a great deal of expience was gained in such matters. As an aside, the Austro-Hungarian Empire cannot claim to be more civilized since their actions in Serbia were as cruel, if not worse, that Germany's. Curious that the people of the A-H Empire would serve the Nazi cause as either 'Germans' or as their allies in WWII.

I would submit that Lebensraum did exist within Germany of WWI but in a much milder form. Certainly the Austro-Hungarian Empire felt this way with reguard to south-eastern Europe. German had the traditional European overseas empire, but did covet eastern Poland and the Baltics. Imperial Germany saw war as the exchange of bording provences, not the absolute conquests of Hitler's Germany, but then Germany of 1914 was in a far better position politicly, economicly and militarily. For Hitler an overseas empire was out of the question, it could only be created in central-eastern Europe.

Lastly it is a great myth to me that Germany started WWI. Serbia and Austro-Hungary deserve this distiction with France getting an Honorable Mention( they wanted revenge for 1870). Russia, Germany and Britain largely entered the war because someone before them did so and in large part as required by treaty. They did so in a cynical manner with the hope of expanding their holdings, but they were not hell bent on hostilities the way Hitler was.

 

Not at all, quite in contrary! People who prefer pretty women and good dishes can't mean harm. As the matter of fact, Italians were considered as cute aggressors.

 

Dear belasar, thank you very much for the great post. I have pushed the »salute« button after reading the 1st paragraph and would like to push it for each paragraph of your post. Your point of view o the subject of this thread is remarkable.

Now, let's get back to the subject with the following quote:

»Die Österreicher haben das Kunststück fertiggebracht, aus Beethoven einen Österreicher und aus Hitler einen Deutschen zu machen.« (Eng: »Austrians fooled us all into thinking that Hitler was German and Beethoven was Austrian«) - Billy Wilder

Billie Wilder, one of the most brilliant American filmmakers and journalist, was an Austro-Hungarian born in Galicia and knew Austrians and Germans of his time very well.

Austria wasn't forced into the 3rd Reich; the sad truth is that Austrians almost unaonimously supported the unification with Germany into the 3rd Reich and efforts to attain the »unity through the purity«. Not only that Austrians voluntarily joined the Wehrmacht but they gave the most notorious war criminals. They did more than it was demanded. Austrian SS was founded already in 1934. A list of the Nazi war criminals originating from austria is long; the most signifficant were: Hitler, Beiglböck, Braunsteiner, Burger, Eigruber, Göth, Hofmann, Kaltenbrunner, Kutschera, Lerch, Malloth, Mandel, Pfitzner, Rauter, Rendulic, Seidl, Seyss-Inquart, Stangl and Wagner.

Also, extreme brutality of the Austrian army in Serbia during the WWI was a model to the behaviour of Wehrmacht in the WWII. It appears that the Austrian contribution to the Nazi's »reputation« was very significant.

 

Tamino, you can't ignore Word War I if you want to understand the rise of fascism in Europe. Such an event was necessary to bring together various forces and serve as a catalyst of sentiments and ideas present in the pre-1914 Europe. Fascist (by this I mean the Revolutionary Syndicalism, Mussolini, Marinetti, etc.) saw the War as a testing ground for their ideas and a situation to exalt values like bravery and heroism. The first Fascists were the generations shaped and molded in the WW1 trenches (Mussolini uses the term "trenchocracy" in one of his writings; he later on founded the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento from WW1 Italian veterans). A parallel can be seen in the Germany with the Freikorps units which served as an forerunner of National Socialism. The First World War was a unique situation - psychologically, politically, socially - that gave the finishing touch of what was to become Fascism and National Socialism; so in no way can you discount the conflict as irrelevant to Hitler's political ideology.

 

Hitler does not seem to have been violently anti Jewish until he arrived in Vienna. By this time he was a middle class Loser, running out of money, falling down the social scale and an "artist" whose talent was not recognised.

He was helped by several Jews, Morgenstern bought his paintings and Neuman was a friend in the Men's Home - sometimes receiving help can create a sense of obligation, inferiority and resentment - maybe the case here.

He undoubtedly influenced by Schonerer but there was difference - Schonerer's Pam German was a reaction to being an Austrian German swamped by cheap Slav labour, sucessful Jews and catholic conservatism - it was essentially negative and aimed at absorbing Austrian Germans into Germany proper. Hitler's Pan Germany aim was expansionist.

You have not mentioned Karl Lueger who was the Catholic Socialist Mayor of Vienna and another major infuence on Hitler. Unlike Schonerer whose arrogance and fixation arosed strong opposition, Lueger was skilful at playing on the anxieties of the threatened workers and lower middle class but using alliances with exisiting ruling power groups to achieve his ends. In Meinkampf, Hitler says that if the Catholic Socialist party had adopted correct Race Policies it would have been successful in achieving Germany's true destiny - an oblique reference to Lueger.

Hitler stole but expanded Schonerer's ideas and married them to Lueger's tactics - and in the early years Hitler was very flexible when necessary.

 

Of course the Nazis & Fascists have exploited discontent of their nations caused by the outcome of the WWI. There is no doubt about that.

What I claim is that the WWI has ended and Nazis have started their own new war with different reasons and different objectives. Entirely different class of people has started the WWII. Nazis aren't a continuation of Prussian or Austro-Hungarian politics. They were a novel movement based on ideas developed by Schonerians. What makes them so dangerous is that they were militant and knew how to gain a control over the country.