Abstract
“Reaping the Judenfrage” integrates the vast body of literature on the nineteenth-century “Jewish question” with the long-forgotten “artificial wine question” of the same period. German and Austrian Jews played pivotal roles in the wine trade, often as merchants connecting winegrowers to distant consumers. As new technologies, modern commercial strategies, and the burgeoning field of enology revolutionized the Central European wine trade, German and Austrian winegrowers struggled to remain competitive. Political parties and other pressure groups portrayed the Jewish wine merchant as the embodiment of this dislocation. In doing so, the “artificial wine question,” the single-most important debate to emerge from the trade's crisis, was explicitly connected to the by-then mainstreamed “Jewish question.” Consequently, discussions of “natural” and “artificial” as they related to wine—so influential for later discursive developments in the broader food trades—were, from their birth, marked by the overlapping ideologies of anti-Semitism and anti-capitalism.
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NOTES
1. The author is responsible for all translations from the original German. Friedrich Holl,
“Ein Irrlicht für Winzer,”
Deutsche Wein-Zeitung
, Oct.
22
, 1884
, 363
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Deutsche Wein-Zeitung
, Mar.
15
, 1886
, 89
.2. August Wilhelm von Babo,
“Hauer und Weinhändler,”
Die Weinlaube
(Jan.
4
, 1880
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–3
. The German Second Reich, or Imperial Germany, was founded as a constitutional monarchy in 1871. The Reich dissolved in 1918. Austria-Hungary was founded in 1867. Far more ethnically and culturally diverse than Germany, it was weakened by nationalist and regional tensions. It also disbanded in 1918 after defeat in World War I.3. James Simpson,
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: Princeton University Press
, 2011
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Food and Foodways
19
(Winter 2011
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Agricultural History
85
(Spring 2011
): 157
–73
. Jacob Toury, “The Jewish Question: A Semantic Approach,”
Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook
11
(Jan.
1966
): 85
–106
. The Judenfrage was a fluid category, both real and contrived. Here, I deal with its postemancipation (1867–1871) context, when it “was a fiction created by anti-Semitic non-Jews who thought that Germany, or Christendom, should emancipate itself from the [emancipated] Jews.” The original, pre-emancipation context dealt with whether or not Jews deserved equal citizenship with non-Jews. Olaf Blaschke, Offenders or Victims? German Jews and the Causes of Modern Catholic Antisemitism
(Lincoln
: University of Nebraska Press
, 2009
), 19
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: Harvard University Press
, 2006
), 586
–87
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(New York
: Simon and Schuster
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). The wine trade revolution is traditionally conceived as both a twentieth-century and French phenomenon. Leo Loubère, The Wine Revolution in France: The Twentieth Century
(Princeton
: Princeton University Press
, 1990
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: Manchester University Press
, 2000
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Food and Foodways
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. This anxiety is acknowledged by Hitler in Mein Kampf: “Notwithstanding that Vienna in those days counted nearly two hundred thousand Jews among its inhabitants, I did not see them.” Ivar Oxaal et al., eds., “The Jews of Young Hitler's Vienna: Historical and Sociological Aspects,”
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3
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. Soloveitchik argues that rabbis were reluctant to give up wine-related prohibitions, even though this was a poor financial decision, because of the challenges in amending regnant law under such practical difficulties.14. Robert Liberles,
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in Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618–1945
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Heimat am Mittelrhein
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www.kitzingen.info/fileadmin/…/juedische_geschichte_weinhaendler.pdf (accessed July 21, 2011, site discontinued). On Landau, see, Günther List, “Juden im Landauer Weinhandel: Skizze einer Gründerzeit,”
in Juden in der Provinz: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Juden in der Pfalz zwischen Emanzipation und Vernichtung
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, 1989
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. Stefan Rheingans, “Ab heute in arischem Besitz: Die Ausschaltung der Juden aus der Wirtschaft,”
in Als die letzten Hoffnungen verbrannten: Mainzer Juden zwischen Integration und Vernichtung
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: Verlag Hermann Schmidt
, 1988
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–54
. Rheingans claims that “a good third” of the three hundred thirty Jewish businesses in Mainz traded in agricultural goods, “especially in the trade of wine.”16. Richarz,
“Occupational Distribution,”
48
.17. Zahava Szász Stessel,
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(Madison, NJ
: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
, 1995
), 55
, 76
; Glenn Dynner, “Legal Fictions: The Survival of Rural Jewish Tavernkeeping in the Kingdom of Poland,”
Jewish Social Studies
16
(Winter 2010
): 28
–66
.18. Niall Ferguson,
The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker, 1849–1999
(New York
: Viking
, 1998
), 279
–81
; Otto Warburg, “Über Aufbewahrung und Verpackung von Weintrauben,”
Palästina
1
(Jan.
1902
): 25
–26
; “Weinproduktion und Ausfuhr Palästinas,”
Palästina
2
(Feb.
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): 87
–88
. The 1900 vintage produced just under eighty thousand hectoliters of wine, with almost ten thousand hectoliters destined for Germany. The next largest importer was Egypt, with about five thousand hectoliters. “Der Palästina-Wein,”
Ost und West
4
(Apr.
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–77
.19. See, the membership list in Stenographischer Bericht; “Verwertung der Domanialweine, insbesondere der Abstaz durch Verkauf und Versteigerung,” Bd. 6, Abt. 454, Nr. 263, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Wiesbaden, Germany. See, also, Abt. 454, Nr. 334. Brokers, both Jews and non-Jews, facilitated communication, payment, and transportation between producers and consumers. This method of sales was adopted by many Rheingau estates to replace traditional relationships.
20. Franz Josef Ehrhart,
“Zum Neuen Weingesetzentwurf,”
Sozialistische Monatshefte
12
(1908
): 606
–11
; Nationalliberale Partei
, Politisches Handbuch der Nationalliberalen Partei
(Berlin
: Verlag der Buchhandlung der Nationalliberalen Partei
, 1907
), 1,112
–23
. For the behaviors and language of anti-Semitism in Central Europe, see, Shulamit Volkov, Germans, Jews, and Antisemites: Trials in Emancipation
(New York
: Cambridge University Press
, 2006
); Daniel M. Vyleta, Crime, Jews and News: Vienna 1895–1914
(New York
: Berghahn
, 2007
); Paul Lerner, “Consuming Powers: The ‘Jewish Department Store’ in German Politics and Culture,”
in The Economy in Jewish History: New Perspectives on the Interrelationship between Ethnicity and Economic Life
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: Berghahn
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.21.
“Ein Lied vom deutschen Wein,”
Deutsch-Soziale Blätter
(Leipzig
), Dec.
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. In German, Wein (wine) forms the root of the verb weinen (to cry).22.
Deutsch-Soziale Blätter
, Jan.
24
, 1901
, 47
. These trials were causes célèbres at the local level. Respected Jewish merchants were scandalized as defendants in highly publicized criminal cases and libel suits. As Barnet Hartston has pointed out, these kinds of trials mainstreamed the anti-Semitism of influential men like Otto Glagau and Adolf Stöcker. Hartston, Sensationalizing the Jewish Question: Anti-Semitic Trials and the Press in the Early German Empire
(Boston
: Brill
, 2005
).23.
“Gerichtsverhandlung gegen Julius Cahn I. in Bingen,”
Deutsche Wein-Zeitung
, Mar.
1
, 1882
, 49
; “Urtheilsverkündigung gegen Julius Kahn I. in Bingen,”
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, Mar.
8
, 1882
, 55
; Anon., “Zur Lage des Winzerstandes,”
Christlich-Sociale Blätter:Katholisch-Sociales Central-Organ
, vol. 18
(Neuss
: Gesellschaft für Buchdruckerei
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–58
.24. It is impossible to chemically analyze wine for origin and constituency with 100 percent accuracy. Nessler's method is, unfortunately, not reported. Damaris Christensen,
“The World of Wine: Can Chemical Analysis Confirm a Wine's Authenticity?”
Science News
157
(Jan.
1
, 2000
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–13
. For trial coverage, see, “Weinschmier-Prozess gegen die Gebrüder Durlacher in Kippenheim,”
Wein-Halle
(Nov.
10
, 1880
): 7
; “Verhandlung und Entscheidung des Reichsgerichts in Leipzig gegen Moritz, Simon und Leopold Durlacher von Kippenheim,”
Deutsche Wein-Zeitung
, Feb.
1
, 1881
, 23
–24
. Due to the trial's damage to the brothers' reputation, Simon and Leopold resettled in Hamburg, where they founded the firm Vinicola S. & L. Durlacher trading in Spanish wines. In 1892 Moritz joined his brothers, and the family became prominent in Hamburg's Jewish community around 1900. Hamburgische Wissenschaftliche Stiftung, http://www.hmb-wiss-stift.de/home/donatoren_16.php?name=13&PHPSESSID=ea1b7da1e441034eec7707509a6d3196 (accessed Aug. 31, 2012).25. Non-Jewish wine firms were also vertically integrated during the nineteenth century. Alexander Engel, series ed.,
Historisch-biographische Blätter. Industrie, Handel und Gewerbe: Seligmann Simon, Weinbau u. Weingrosshandel, Bingen a. Rh
. (Berlin
: Ecksteins Biographischer Verlag
, c. 1911
). Grandjean, “Jüdisches Bürgertum,”
sec. 5.1; Götz Aly, Warum die Deutschen? Warum die Juden?: Gleichheit, Neid und Rassenhass—1800 bis 1933
(Frankfurt
: S. Fischer
, 2011
); Stenographischer Bericht
, 16
–17
.26. Grandjean,
“Jüdisches Bürgertum,”
sec. 5.1; Ran Aaronsohn, “The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Agriculture in Palestine: ‘Indigenous’ Versus ‘Imported,’”
Agricultural History
69
(Summer 1995
): 446
.27. Carl E. Schorske,
Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture
(New York
: Vintage
, 1981
), 116
–80
; J. Seidl, Der Jude des 19ten Jahrhunderts, oder Warum sind Wir Antisemiten?
(Graz
: Verlags-Buchhandlung
, 1899
), 41
–42
.28.
“Antrag der Abgeordneten Herzog, Dötz, Malik und Genossen, betreffend das gänzliche Verbot der Erzeugung und der Einfuhr von Kunstwein und des Handels mit demselben,”
Beilagen zu den stenogr. Protokollen des Abgeordnetenhauses. XVII. Session, 1901
, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
: http://alex.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/alex?aid=spa&datum=0017&page=50952&size=45 (accessed Aug. 31, 2012).29. Abgeordneter Kühlschelm delivered at the Haus der Abgeordneten, 46, Sitzung der XVII, morning session, May 14, 1901, in
Stenographische Protokolle über die Sitzungen des Hauses der Abgeordneten des österreichischen Reichsrathes im Jahre 1901
, sess. 17, vol. 5
(Vienna
: kaiserlich-königlichen Hof- und Staatsdruckerei
, 1901
).30.
“Interpellation der Abgeordneten Johann Mayer, Leopold Daschl, Kühschelm und Genossen an Seine Excellenz den Herrn Ministerpräsidenten als Leiter des Ministeriums des Innern und des Justizministeriums,”
Haus der Abgeordneten, 254
, Sitzung der XVII, morning session, Dec. 10, 1903, in Stenographische Protokolle über die Sitzungen des Hauses der Abgeordneten des österreichischen Reichsrates in den Jahren 1903 und 1904
, sess. 17, vol. 26
(Vienna
: kaiserlich-königlichen Hof- und Staatsdruckerei
, 1904
).31. Abgeordneter Herzog, Haus der Abgeordneten, 477, Sitzung der XVII, morning session, Jan. 18, 1907, in
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, sess. 17, vol. 45
(Vienna
: kaiserlich-königlichen Hof- und Staatsdruckerei
, 1907
).32. The literature on Austrian anti-Semitism is abundant. See, Bruce F. Pauley,
From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism
(Chapel Hill
: University of North Carolina Press
, 1992
); Oxaal, Jews, Antisemitism and Culture
.33. Jonathan Karp,
“Can Economic History Date the Inception of Jewish Modernity,”
in Economy in Jewish History
, 23
; Olaf Blaschke, Katholizismus und Antisemitismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich
(Göttingen
: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
, 1999
), 264
–65
.© the Agricultural History Society, 2013
2013
