Finally I learned the connection between this doctrine of destruction and the character of a race * which until then was almost unknown to me.
Understanding of the Jews is the only key to com¬ prehension of the inner, and therefore real, aims of Social Democracy.
Comprehension of that race is to raise the veil of false conceptions regarding the objects and meaning of this party, and the nonsense of Marxism rises grimacing out of the fog and mist of social phrases.
It is difficult, if not impossible, today, for me to say when the word “Jew55 first began to suggest special ideas to me. I have no recollection of having even heard the word at home during my father’s lifetime. I think the old gentleman would have seen it as an antiquated culture, if he mentioned the term in any special way. His views during his life were more or less those of a citizen of the world, and were combined in him with a strong feeling of nationality which had its effect on me as well.
In school, too, I found no reason leading me to alter the picture I had received at home.
At the Realschule I got to know a Jewish boy, whom we all treated with much consideration ; but having learned something by various experiences with regard to his reticence we did not particularly trust him.
It was not till I was fourteen or fifteen years old that I frequently met the word “Jew”, partly in connection with political talk. I then took a slight dislike to it, and could not escape an uncomfortable feeling which came over me when religious differences were discussed in my presence. At that time I saw the question in no other aspect.
Linz possessed very few Jews. Throughout the centuries they had become European in externals and like other people ; in fact, I looked on