It is obvious that a fight on such a basis would worry the Jews to a very limited degree. If the worst came to the worst, a drop of Holy water would always get them out of their troubles and preserve their Juda¬ ism at the same time.
This doing things by halves destroyed the value of the anti-Semitic position of the Christian Socialist Party.
It was sham anti-Semitism and was almost worse than none at all, for people were lulled into security and thought they had the enemy by the ears, whereas they were really led by the nose themselves.
If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany he would have counted as one of the great men of our race ; it was his misfortune and that of his work that it lay in that impossible State, Austria. At the time of his death the little flame in the Balkans was already begin¬ ning to spread more greedily with each month that passed, so that kindly fate spared him the pain of seeing what he still believed he would be able to prevent.
The Pan-German movement was quite right in its theory as to the aim of German regeneration, but it was unlucky in its choice of methods. It was nationalist but, alas ! not social enough to win the mass of the people. Its anti-Semitism was based on a true appre¬ ciation of the importance of the racial problem and not on theories of religion. On the other hand, its struggle against a definite creed erred both as regards facts and tactics.
The Christian Socialist movement’s ideas about the aim of a German revival were too vague, but, as a Party, it was fortunate and intelligent in its choice of methods. It realized the importance of the social question, but was mistaken in its fight against the Jews and was quite ignorant of the strength of the con¬ ception of nationality.