Abstract
This paper examines the ideas of Otto Bauer (1881–1938) on national identity as a theoretical concept, the nationalities question in the Habsburg Monarchy, and the concept of a civic Austrian national identity. Additionally, it demonstrates that the experience of assimilation in Bauer’s family background affected most directly the way he wrote about Jewish identity, and finds that some of his writings reveal a degree of doubt about his own identity as a German.
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Notes
For a biography of Bauer, see Leichter 1970.
In my book (Reifowitz 2003) I look briefly at Bauer’s views with an eye towards comparing them to Joseph Samuel Bloch’s. In this paper, I have examined Bauer in a much more in depth fashion, in particular regarding Jews. Additionally, I have incorporated more recent historical literature into my analysis.
For an analysis of the personalities in this group, which also included, among others, Max Adler and Friedrich Adler, see Blum 1985. See also Bottomore and Goode 1978: 1–45. The classic analysis of the SDP and the Habsburg nationalities issue is Mommsen 1963. For a more concise version see Mommsen 1979: 127–217.
There continues to be interest in Bauer’s ideas on nationalism in multiethnic societies. The first English translation of Bauer’s masterwork appeared relatively recently. See Bauer 2000.
Scholars have written a tremendous amount on the issue of identity for German-speaking Jews in Habsburg Austria. Marsha Rozenblit has offered the most comprehensive broad discussion of the topic. See Rozenblit 2001: 3–4. For a treatment that focuses specifically on the Jews of the cultural and intellectual elite in Vienna who, like Bauer, came from acculturated German backgrounds, see Steven Beller 1989.
Marx and Engels had argued that national differences would simply fade away as industrial capitalism and global commerce brought the world into closer contact. Furthermore, national differences were nothing more than bourgeois inventions devised to keep the workers of various countries and language groups from realizing their common interests. Marx and Engels believed that when the global communist revolution succeeded, nations would disappear because they would no longer seek to exploit one another. See Marx and Engels 1999: 82.
For a broader discussion of Austrian Social Democracy and the Jews of the Monarchy, see Wistrich 1982. In this book Wistrich also does an excellent job analyzing Bauer’s ideology with specific regard to the Jewish question. See 332–43.
Renner, Der Kampf der oesterreichischen Nationen um den Staat, p. 150. For more on Fischhof, see Reifowitz 2001.
Blum does a good job analyzing the inconsistent and tortured twists in Bauer’s writings on assimilation, Jews, and Germans. See pp. 91–101.
For more on how the process of assimilation affected the worldview of these Jews, see Beller 1989: 73–244.
I want to thank Dr. Michael Ley of Vienna, Austria, who made available to me a copy of this rare volume in 1996. See also, Reifowitz 2003: 106.
Beller was quoting from a report written by Berthold Feiwel in Die Welt, published June 17, 1898, pp. 7–8. Feiwel was a Zionist eager to denounce liberal Jews, but the words he claimed to have heard do not appear out of line with the sentiments of German-oriented Jews that J.S. Bloch described in his own writings.
Rozenblit states that “Jews in Habsburg Austria” (as opposed to qualifying this by saying that ‘some’ or even ‘most’ Jews) adopted the tripartite identity. While clearly not every single Habsburg Jew did so, Bauer’s stance placed him in the minority according to Rozenblit’s assessment.
References
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Reifowitz, I. Nationalism, Ethnic Identity, and Jews in the Socialist Ideology of Otto Bauer. Int J Polit Cult Soc 30, 147–155 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-017-9259-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-017-9259-5