Otto Böckel

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Böckel (bottom right) and other contemporary antisemites

Otto Böckel (2 July 1859, Free City of Frankfurt – 17 September 1923, Michendorf) was a German populist politician who became one of the first to successfully exploit antisemitism as a political issue in the country.

Path to politics

A native of the Free City of Frankfurt and a librarian by profession, he initially studied law at the University of Marburg but dropped it for Volkskunde and became a noted folklorist.[1] He obtained his doctorate in 1882, having also studied at the University of Giessen, Heidelberg University and Leipzig University, with time also spent studying languages.[2]

Böckel witnessed the economic hardship of small farmers in the

Hesse-Nassau. This had several causes, such as falling agrarian prices due to international competition, backward production methods, uneconomic division of farmland and the rural depopulation because of industrialization. However, Böckel concluded that the real cause behind this were Jewish merchants and profiteers who had a strong position in the trade with farmers in Hesse. In 1887 he published a pamphlet, Die Juden - die Könige unserer Zeit (The Jews - the kings of our times), in which he attacked the Jews for their perceived dominance over German life.[3] He presented a populist appeal to the peasantry, which along with his natural charisma and good looks, made him very popular and saw him dubbed the "Hessian peasant-king" by his supporters.[2]

In

anti-capitalist and advocated some radical democratic ideals as well as being highly antisemitic.[3] He sometimes wrote under the name Dr. Capistrano, in tribute to Saint John of Capistrano, who was known as the "Scourge of the Jews".[2]

Political activity

Initially an independent at the start of the 1890s he formed his own group, the

Heinrich Class.[9] The youngest member of the Reichstag, he continued his populist appeals, holding mass torch-lit rallies of his followers, a technique later favoured by the Nazi Party.[2]

In 1893 the

Antisemitische Volkspartei merged with Oswald Zimmermann's followers under the name German Reform Party.[2]

Decline

However the Tivoli Congress killed off Böckel's political influence as the German Conservative Party adopted antisemitism and he rejected overtures from Theodor Fritsch to become part of a wider antisemitic coalition as he disliked Fritsch personally.[10] Böckel was replaced as leader of the independent antisemites in 1894 by Otto Hirschel and Philipp Köhler and his influence declined.[11] Meanwhile, his agrarian group, hamstrung somewhat by Böckel's own lack of money was, much to his dismay, largely swallowed up by the Junker-controlled Agrarian League.[8] He was attacked by conservative antisemites such as Adolf Stoecker for a supposed lack of commitment, with a comment Böckel made that "the money-greedy capitalist, never mind whether Jew or non-Jew, is the destroying angel of our people" used by his critics to claim that he had abandoned antisemitism for socialism.[2]

He lost his seat in the 1903 election but returned in 1907 when the independent antisemites had an unexpected growth in support.[2] However he had grown disillusioned with the democratic process, whilst his reputation had been damaged by fathering an illegitimate child, and he left politics in 1909.[2] Having become reconciled to the more traditional right he occasionally spoke for the Conservatives and the Agrarian League but a failed attempt to return to the Reichstag in 1912 was to be his last political activity.[2] He retired to Michendorf in Brandenburg and faded into obscurity, dying in poverty.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b Dan S. White, The Splintered Party: National Liberalism in Hessen and the Reich, 1867-1918, 1976, p. 136
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Philip Rees, Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990, p. 39
  3. ^ a b c d Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, 1970, p. 60
  4. ^ Richard J. Evans, The Coming Of The Third Reich, 2004, p. 24
  5. ^ Albert S. Lindemann, Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews, 2000, p. 152
  6. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism, 2005, p. 124
  7. ^ Bracher, German Dictatorship p. 61
  8. ^ a b Richard S. Levy, Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Volume 1, 2005, p. 76
  9. ^ Levy, Antisemitism, p. 130
  10. ^ Evans, The Coming Of The Third Reich, p. 24
  11. ^ White, The Splintered Party, p. 146
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