Antisemitism, Antifeminism and the Crisis of German Culture in Early 20th Century
Antisemitism, Antifeminism and the Crisis of German Culture in Early 20th Century

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to identify and analyze the multilayered intersections of stereotypes regarding Jews and women in the cultural critique of pre-Nazi Germany. It follows the use of concepts such as nature, race, gender and sexuality in discourses which are significantly both anti-Jewish and misogynist and which advocate a cultural and national revival based on racial and sexual purity and a supremacy of “masculine” values. In order to narrow down the area of investigation I have chosen to examine only texts which explicitly link Jewishness with femininity and cultural decadence. Otto Weininger’s Sex and Character (1903) and Hans Blüher’s Der bürgerliche und der geistige Antifeminismus [The Civil and the Spiritual Antifeminism] (1916) and Secessio Judaica (1922) provide a central focus, while several other works by authors related to the esoteric movement Die kosmische Runde [The Cosmic Circle] are also briefly considered as illustrations of a more sophisticated and ambiguous form of bias. What all these discourses seem to have in common is a declared repudiation of reason and established institutions in favor of irrational impulses and vitalistic forces. In fact, as I shall argue in this paper, they only manage to reinforce already existing constellations of power. In highlighting their distortions and inconsistencies I am trying to confront both the paradox that lies at the center of these theoretical constructs and the potential of any anti-rationalist discourse to reproduce the structures of the system it means to subvert

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