Home > Wilhelm Marr

Marr was an unemployed journalist, who claimed that he had lost his job due to Jewish interference. A political conservative, he was influenced by the conservative pan-German movement, as expounded by Johann Gottfried von Herder, who developed the idea of the Volk, and the Burschenschaft movement of the early nineteenth century, which developed out of frustration among German students at the failure of the Congress of Vienna to create a unified state out of all the territories inhabited by the Volk. The latter rejected the participation of Jewish and other non-German minorities as members, "unless they prove that they are anxious to develop within themselves a Christian-German spirit" (a decision of the "Burschenschaft Congress of 1818"). While they were opposed to the participation of Jews in their movement, like Heinrich von Treitschke later, they did allow for the possibility of the Jewish (and other) minorities participating in the German state if they were to abandon all signs of ethnic and religious distinctiveness and assimilate completely into German Volk.

Marr took these philosophies one step further by rejecting the premise of assimilation as a means for Jews to become Germans. In his pamphlet Der Sieg des Judentums über das Germanentum (The Victory of Judaism over Germanism; 1879) he introduced the idea that Germans and Jews were locked in a longstanding conflict, the origins of which he attributed to race--and that the Jews were winning. He argued that Jewish emancipation resulting from German liberalism had allowed the Jews to control German finance and industry. Furthermore, since this conflict was based on the different qualities of the Jewish and German races, it could not be resolved even by the total assimilation of the Jewish population. According to him, the struggle between Jews and Germans would only be resolved by the victory of one and the ultimate death of the other. A Jewish victory, he concluded, would result in finis Germaniae (the end of the German people). To prevent this from happening, in 1879 Marr founded the League of Anti-Semites, the first German organization committed specifically to combatting the alleged threat to Germany posed by the Jews and advocating their forced removal from the country.

Although he had introduced the pseudo-scientific racial component into the debate over Jews in Germany, it is unlikely that he was influenced by the earlier theories of Arthur de Gobineau (author of An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races, 1853), who was only translated into German in 1898, a quarter of a century after Marr's pamphlet appeared. Furthermore, Marr himself was very vague about what constituted race and, in turn, the racial differences between Jews and Germans, though this became a feature of Nazi racial science. It remained for later racial thinkers to postulate specific differences: these included Eugen Dühring, who suggested that it was blood, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an influential race theorist and husband of Eva Wagner, Richard Wagner's daughter, who suggested phrenologyPhrenology (from Greek: φρην, mind and λογος, study) is a theory which claims to be able to determine character and personality traits and criminality on the basis of the shape of the head (reading "bumps as a means of distinguishing races.

On the other hand, it does seem likely that Marr was influenced by Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin ( February 12, 1809 April 19, 1882) was an English naturalist whose revolutionary theory laid the foundation for both the modern theory of evolution and the principle of common descent by proposing natural selection as a mechanism. through Ernst HaeckelErnst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel ( February 16, 1834 1919) was a German biologist and philosopher who popularized Charles Darwin's work in Germany. Haeckel was a physician and, later, a professor of comparative anatomy; Haeckel was one of the first t, a professor who popularized the notion of Social DarwinismSocial Darwinism is a descriptive term given to a kind of social theory that draws an association between Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, and the sociological relations of humanity. Critics of such theories argue that by asserting that among Germany's educated classes.

Despite his influence, Marr's ideas were not immediately adopted by German nationalists. The Pan-German League, founded in 1891Events January 1 ? Paying of old age pensions begins in Germany January 20 James Hogg becomes the first native Texan to be governor of that state. January 29 Liliuokalani proclaimed Queen of Hawaii March 9 ? 12 ? Powerful storm off England?s south coast;, originally allowed for the membership of Jews, provided they were fully assimilated into German culture. It was only in 19121912 is a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar) Events January 1 Establishment of Republic of China. January 6 New Mexico is admitted as the 47th U. January 17 British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott and a team of four begin the, eight years after Marr's death, that the League declared racism as an underlying principle. Nevertheless, Marr was a major link in the evolving chain of German racism that erupted into genocide during the Nazi era.