Learning and Suffering in Vienna
particular importance to this circumstance, since after all the situation was the same at the other newspapers. Only one thing was perhaps remarkable; there was not one paper where Jews worked which could have been called really national in line with my conception and training.
I forced myself to try to read this sort of Marxist journalism, but the more I did so the more boundless my aversion grew; so I now sought closer acquaintance with the manufacturers of these concentrated rascalities.
From the editor on down, they were all Jews. I got hold of every Social Democratic pamphlet I could, and looked up the author’s name: Jews. I noticed the names of almost all the leaders; by far the most of them were also members of the “chosen people,” whether they were representatives in the government or secretaries of the unions, chairmen of organizations or street agitators. The same uncanny picture was forever repeated. I shall never forget the names of Austerlitz, David, Adler, Ellenbogen, etc.
One thing was plain to me now: the leadership of the party with whose petty representatives I had had to fight my most violent battles for months was almost exclusively in the hands of an alien people (for already I had the happy satisfaction of knowing definitely that the Jew was no German).
Now for the first time I became thoroughly familiar with the corrupter of our people.
One year of my life in Vienna had been enough to convince me that no worker is too hidebound to yield to greater knowledge and superior enlightenment. I had gradually become an authority on their own doctrine, which I used as a weapon in the battle for my convictions. Almost always success was on my side.
The great mass of people could be saved, even if only by the utmost sacrifice of time and patience. But no Jew could ever be freed from his opinion.
In those days I was still childish enough to try to explain to them the madness of their doctrines; in my own little circle I
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