Mein Kampf
While I was attempting to compare the two movements, Fate, hurried by my general sad situation, gave me the best of instruction in understanding this puzzle’s causes.
I will begin my consideration with the men who must be considered the leaders and founders of the two parties: Georg von Schönerer and Dr. Karl Lueger.
In purely human terms they both tower above any so-called parliamentary figures. Through the slough of general political corruption their whole lives remained pure and above reproach. My personal sympathy, however, was at first on the side of the Pan-German Schönerer, and only gradually was extended also to the Christian Socialist leader.
In the matter of ability Schönerer even then seemed to me the better and more solid thinker on problems of principle. He realized the inevitable end of the Austrian State more clearly and more correctly than anyone else. If the German Empire especially had listened to his warnings of the Hapsburg Monarchy, the catastrophe of Germany’s World War against all of Europe would never have occurred.
But if Schönerer could grasp the inner nature of a problem, he was completely unsuccessful as a judge of men.
This was Dr. Lueger’s strong point. He was a rare judge of human nature, and took great care never to see men as better than they are. Consequently he reckoned chiefly with the practical possibilities of life, of which Schönerer had little understanding. Everything that the Pan-German Schönerer thought was theoretically true; but he lacked the strength and the knack to impart this theoretical realization to the masses—that is, to put in it such a form that it would suit the capacity of the common people, which is and remains a limited capacity. Therefore all his insight was but the wisdom of a seer, which could never become practical reality.
This lack of actual knowledge of human nature eventually led to errors in judging the strength of whole movements, as well as of ancient institutions.
Lastly, Schönerer did recognize that these were questions of
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