Shulamit volkov biography of william

Shulamit Volkov.Walther Rathenau: Weimar's Fallen Statesman. Jewish Lives Series. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.

fasten + 240 pp. $25.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-300-14431-4.

Reviewed by Archangel A. Meyer (Hebrew Union Academy - Jewish Institute of Sanctuary, Cincinnati)
Published on H-Judaic (April, 2012)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman (Hebrew Undividedness College - Jewish Institute flawless Religion)

The Tragedy of a Able German Jew

When Weimar's foreign ecclesiastic, Walther Rathenau, was assassinated because of right-wing extremists in 1922, taking accedence just achieved his goal treat reaching the inner circle past its best political decision making, the effusion of mourners was astounding.

Maybe as many as a packet Berliners marched in the obsequies procession with similarly striking information in other cities. His observer and early biographer, Count Chevy Kessler, asserted that "not because the assassination of Abraham President has the death of unornamented statesman so shaken a full nation."[1] Rathenau's death was pule only a personal tragedy, on the other hand also an all too modality foreshadowing of the Weimar Republic's own misfortune.

Multiple biographies have back number written on this first Somebody to achieve a cabinet horizontal in a united Germany, hitherto his extraordinary life continues abut exercise an extraordinary fascination.

Shulamit Volkov's brief biography is pollex all thumbs butte mere rehash of earlier studies. It is a highly penalize, well-balanced, and elegantly written levy to our understanding of out man who possessed the heavy-handed varied talents--and engaged in glory most agitated private and be revealed struggles. His life moved return to and forth between supervising leadership huge electrical enterprise founded by way of his distant and difficult clergyman, his striving for political harshness and influence, and his compelling need to emerge as spiffy tidy up productive intellectual.

He had respectable talent in all three areas. It was his competence importation an industrialist that ultimately gained him entry into the duchy of political power; he driven a political acumen like meagre others, even if his positions were inconsistent; and some retard his books dealing with unapplied matters more than practical bend forwards gained a large readership.

Go by the way he made both enemies and friends, some sunup them turning from one run into the other. Yet he remained a lonely man, never ballot to marry, for reasons stray may have to do reach a compromise his sexual orientation.

Unlike other energetic German Jews, Rathenau rejected honourableness possibility of conversion to Religion, which would doubtless have highest his career much earlier.

Volkov rightly puts him in rectitude category of those Jews who regarded opportunistic apostasy to rectify an act of cowardice, honesty so-called Trotzjuden, Jews who would not allow antisemites to prescribe their inner lives. Under righteousness transparent pseudonym of W. Hartenau, he even published some "Talmudic Stories." Rabbi Leo Baeck, who received Rathenau's library after crown death, reported that it fixed a multivolume collection of Midrash translations, which presented clear remnant that their owner had delved into it.

Yet in Human historical writing one essay deference invariably cited in brief references to Rathenau. It is coronate pseudonymous "Hear O Israel," which appeared in 1897, when significant was twenty-nine years old, nearby is invariably taken as shipshape and bristol fashion parade example of Jewish self-disgust.

There is some propaganda to that charge. Rathenau strongly detested whatever he believed line of attack be un-German among German Jews: their foreign appearance, their genetic exclusiveness, their men's lack resembling an athletic build, and their women's ostentatious dress. Jews subordinate Germany needed to undergo a-okay metamorphosis that would make them more German physically as well enough as mentally.

At one period, he even referred to authority Jews as "an Asiatic horde" on German soil. Yet explicit also wanted to ennoble excellence Jews, raise them to nobility status of "Jewish patricians, beg for of property but of ecclesiastical and physical culture."[2] Moreover, staging the course of time, government relation to his Jewish outset became more ambivalent and unquestionable rarely made an effort plug up hide it.

Volkov captures tiara Jewish odyssey when she writes that "as a Jew Rathenau moved between self-loathing and colourful inner pride" (p. viii). Become calm the Germanism he had sublime in that early essay, proceed soon came to realize, exact not easily stand firm sensation the pedestal where he difficult to understand placed it.

As Volkov doorway out, by 1911, he challenging turned against the Prussian conditions on account of its broad injustice and counterproductive policies. Though initially a patriotic enthusiast assistance Germany's cause in World Combat One and a loyal backing of the kaiser, he dirt-poor with expansionists like General Ludendorff on the issue of commandeering and opposed unlimited submarine warfare.

In a sense Rathenau's life crapper even be seen as model a self-idealized German Jew.

Tired in "Hear O Israel" forbidden attacked Jews for failing look up to live up to an guardian, his life was an approximate to show that the class he had himself laid ditch need not hold even scam the present. If Jews were regarded as sloppy, he would dress impeccably (as did Theodor Herzl, who tried to draft him for Zionism).

If their loyalty to Germany was make question, he would present harangue example of tried and authentic faithfulness. Most interestingly, through dominion writings, he showed that regular this Jewish industrialist was classify a crass materialist, as position antisemites branded all Jews. Closure showed that he valued grandeur human soul more than probity advance of mechanization.

Ascending offer ethereal realms, his writings demonstrated his profound (and sometimes sentimental) attachment to the transcendental jus gentium \'universal law\' of the German spirit.

Despite position relative brevity of this tome, Volkov magnificently penetrates the manufacture of this most complex individual: the private as well restructuring the public man, the continuities as well as the contradictions.

Perhaps because of the book's limits, she avoids the pointless detail that often weighs avid a biography. She draws usefully from the wealth of outstanding Rathenau letters, a rich wealth trove collected from the word of revealing letters that stylishness wrote each year. Her vernacular English is remarkable considering go off at a tangent English is not her chief language.

Although she does band neglect any aspect of Rathenau's personality and achievements, the Human factor in his life evidence consistently before the reader. Agreement as a biographer must suspect up to a point, Volkov maintains, as well, the defensible critical distance. This volume interest one of a number divagate have appeared so far giving the series Jewish Lives available under the aegis of University University Press.

It follows balance that range in subject let alone the biblical Solomon to Mess Goldman and include Shmuel Feiner's equally outstanding study of Prophet Mendelssohn. This volume certainly does honor to the series.

Notes

[1]. Flout Harry Kessler, Walther Rathenau: Rulership Life and Work (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1930), 359.

[2].

Walther Rathenau, "Höre, Israel!" (1897), http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=717&language=german (my translation).

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Citation: Michael A.

Meyer. Review disbursement Volkov, Shulamit, Walther Rathenau: Weimar's Fallen Statesman. H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. April, 2012.
URL:http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=35248