A Jewish Journey. Sheldon Cohen

the rest of his life, Otto Bauemler remained a potent force in keeping anti-Semitism alive in Germany. When he died, his son Karl continued the struggle.

      CHAPTER 4

      By the third generation, the upper body muscular definition of the Bauemler men disappeared as they continued in academia. The anti-Semitism was inbred, however, and Karl persisted in efforts to promote his father’s anti-Semitic legislation. Try as he might, he failed. This frustration only served to enhance his anti-Jewish mindset. He continued his father’s nationalistic anti-Semitism and amplified it to suggest that the Jew represented an international threat to the world, and Germany was the place where that threat would come to a boiling point.

      Many in the anti-Semitic German community adopted Karl’s ideas, but, at the same time, others rejected them. This was the source of great disappointment to him, and it turned him into an angry loner, but then he found a cause that he embraced with fervor. A young man’s dissected, blood drained body had been buried under the winter ice in the Prussian town of Konitz. Although the authorities suspected a Christian butcher, the townspeople fanned the flames of prejudice by insisting that the Jews had murdered the young man in order to acquire his blood for the Passover Matzo. This was a restitution of the ‘blood libel’ that had found life numerous times in Czarist Russia of old. A friend told Karl of this even before anyone else received the news. He stopped everything and rushed to the scene. He spoke with the town leaders who by the time he had arrived were ready to lynch the man they insisted was the murderer, a Jewish butcher in the town. Karl calmed their passion, recognizing that precipitous action by the townspeople could hurt his cause. However, he lent his weight to the charges and saw to it that it that Germany knew.

      However, Karl found himself up against the German Government that refused to accept the preposterous claims of ritual murder. They protected the town’s Jews rather than be faced with a pogrom that had, in the past, decimated Russia’s Jewish population and caused an international uproar.

      They never found the true murderer, and Karl found himself silenced by the power of the government and lack of any concrete evidence against the Jewish butcher. When the townspeople began to turn against him for not being able to lead them to the Jewish butcher’s arrest and conviction, Karl retreated.

      Untarnished by the episode, Karl took up where he had left off, and he went on to preach, as his father had before him, that the rivalry between Jews and other German citizens, plus the money and media power of the Jews would promote an outbreak of rage. Karl insisted the signs were evident. This would lead to a popular movement in Germany that even the military and the police would be powerless to prevent. Why Germany? Because the Jews of Germany, even though they represented less then two percent of the population, were richer and occupied a higher social position. From Germany the outbreak would spread, resulting in a Jewish exodus from all of Europe.

      In another generation, Hitler would amplify the exodus in Karl’s statement.

      Karl added another element to his thinking and was one of the first to espouse racialism when he insisted that by the grace of God, the German Nordic was the Aryan destined to dominate the world. This domination would first govern Europe and then would transcend Europe’s borders and achieve world hegemony.

      Later, Hitler and Nazi party apologists appropriated and exploited Karl’s vews.

      Karl sickened and died, but not before he had indoctrinated his son, Ernst who had been well prepared to carry on his father’s work.

      After the German defeat of World War I and the revolutions to follow, the new Weimar Constitution was to give the Jews an equality that they had never known. In spite of this, another anti-Semitic frenzy overtook Germany. Anti-Semitic societies flourished more than ever and their periodicals flooded the streets. State legislatures continued to introduce laws against Jews. For the Jews during the Weimar Republic, these antagonisms did not have the force of law, but the perpetrators looked forward to the time they would.

      Leading this struggle against the Jews was Ernst Bauemler, the son of Karl. Ernst, imbued with his father’s broadened view of anti-Semitism, was a professor at Berlin University, and an early member of the Nazi Party and friend of Nazi philosopher, Alfred Rosenberg, who adopted and amplified Karl’s racial theories greatly impressing Adolf Hitler. Through his position as a professor, Ernst was able to influence the thinking of his students and many followed him into the Nazi Party. Ernst visited the Passion Play more than once.

      Hitler praised the Oberammergau Passion Play as a “precious tool for turning Christians against Jews.” In addition, he would label the drama “a racially important cultural document for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed.” As part of their educational indoctrination to Nazi philosophy, he required that his elite SS troops witness the play. After World War II, the Passion Play was revised to cast a more even-handed blame for the death of Jesus amongst all the people and the Romans, emphasizing that the Pharisees were for Jesus and the Romans had ultimate authority for any death sentence.

      Ernst’s son was Erich, Hans’ great grandson. He was born in 1919 and learned at an early age about his ancestor’s anti-Jewish philosophy. He grew up with the Swastika decorating his room and a house filled with anti-Semitic pamphlets and volumes of anti-Semitic books.

      Nazi party members were welcome guests and even Adolf Hitler appeared once for dinner. Erich Bauemler was old enough to carry the memory of Adolf Hitler stroking his hair and commenting to Ernst Bauemler about his son’s glorious Aryan appearance.

      This virulent anti-Jewish mindset of the Bauemler family had a long and tortuous course. There were Jewish communities along the Rhine as early as 300 C.E. By the eleventh century, they developed great influence over economic matters and were desirable citizens. They were encouraged to settle in German towns, continued to enjoy complete religious freedom and followed rabbinic law.

      With the onset of church encouraged religious bigotry engendered by the crusades, the Jew was persecuted and killed. This tradition increased, as the non-Jewish citizenry turned to competitive commerce with the Jew.

      Most opportunities to earn a livelihood were in time forbidden to the Jew. Unable to engage in business and commerce, many Jews turned to finance and became money lenders. This only increased the hatred of the Jew now accused of usery.

      Ancestors of the Bauemler family had received a loan from a Jewish financier. They fell on hard times and were unable to repay, so they joined the chorus of those who accused the Jews of usery and participated in violence against the Jew. The Jewish financier had to leave Germany under threat of death.

      By the 1500s the accusations against the Jew became more vitriolic and those Jews that survived fled eastward, mainly to Poland.

      In fifteenth century Germany, Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation resulted in a schism among Christians. Protestants expressed their dissatisfaction with Catholicism by violent action against Catholic edicts that they found unacceptable.

      After failure of arbitration, Charles V, king of Germany, resorted to force in an attempt to crush the Protestant militants. The possibility of war engulfing France and Germany resulted in a compromise. The Peace of Augsburg, negotiated in 1555, formerly recognized Protestantism and established the principle that whoever rules an area may establish the religion within that area. It was unenforceable. Civil war ensued and spread throughout Europe, lasting thirty years and ending only when the parties realized that their effort to annihilate each other was fruitless. With great reluctance, they agreed to tolerate each other, and after four years of negotiations, the Peace of Westphalia (1644-1648) formalized this toleration.

      The Protestants and Catholics learned the hard way that freedom of worship is God directed and man should not attempt to control it. For the most part, they learned this in reference to each other, but, as subsequent events would prove, some failed to learn it as far as the Jew was concerned.

      The Thirty Year War devastated Germany, especially the northern section, so the Jews were allowed back to help rebuild. The old contempt for the Jew remained, however, and their struggle to gain