Hermann Ahlwardt (21 December 1846 – 16 April 1914) was a

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

, a member of the Reichstag (German parliament) and a vehement

antisemite Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

. After stealing money collected for a children's Christmas party in 1889, Ahlwardt was fired from his job as a primary school principal. He blamed his financial difficulties on Jewish money-lenders and wrote a book claiming the German government was in the pay of the Jewish banker,

Gerson von Bleichröder Gerson von Bleichröder (22 December 1822 – 18 February 1893) was a Jewish German banker. He was also a close confidant of Otto von Bismarck, serving as his financial agent. He became the first non-converted Jew in Prussia to be granted a her ...

. He was jailed for four months when it came to light that he had forged the documents he used to support the claim. In 1892, Ahlwardt accused arms manufacturer Ludwig Loewe & Co. of being in a Jewish-French conspiracy to sell defective rifles to the German army in order to weaken the country militarily and was sentenced to five months' imprisonment for this unfounded defamation but was not jailed because by this time he had been elected to the Reichstag. He had run in a by-election for a very rural Brandenberg district seat. World agriculture prices were depressed at the time and he had told this farming community that their troubles were due to the Jews. In the Reichstag he described Jews as "predators" and "cholera bacilli" that should be exterminated. The popularity of Ahlwardt and another antisemite Reichstag deputy,

Otto Böckel Otto Böckel (2 July 1859, Free City of Frankfurt – 17 September 1923, Michendorf) was a German populist politician who became one of the first to successfully exploit antisemitism as a political issue in the country. Path to politics A native ...

, in conservative rural electorates prompted the

German Conservative Party The German Conservative Party (, DkP) was a Right-wing politics, right-wing political party of the German Empire founded in 1876. It largely represented the wealthy landowning German nobility and the Prussian Junker (Prussia), Junker class. The p ...

to add an antisemitic plank to their 1892 Tivoli Congress platform. Ahlwardt's violent rhetoric alienated even other antisemitic politicians. In 1895, Ahlwardt was expelled from the German Social Reform Party and, with Otto Böckel, founded the Antisemitic People's Party (Antisemitische Volkspartei). He lost his seat in the 1903 Reichstag election and withdrew from politics. He visited the United States and on returning to Germany began campaigning against

Freemasonry Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

. He was imprisoned again in 1909, this time for blackmail, and in 1914 Ahlwardt died in a traffic accident in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

at the age of 67. During his visit to the United States, he went to New York and made a speech against Jews. A popular story told by ''The New York Times'' in 1940 has it that when he asked for police protection, the police that were assigned to guard him were all Jews. This is supposedly contradicted by news articles of the time that show the names of officers printed during his 1895 visit are not generally used by Jews, such as Cartright and O'Brien.

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), also known as Teddy or T.R., was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt previously was involved in New York (state), New York politics, incl ...

, police commissioner at the time, confirmed in his autobiography that he deliberately assigned Jewish police to protect Ahlwardt, in order to ridicule him. In addition, there have been multiple Jewish families with the last name "O'Brien" and "Cartright".''A Dictionary of Jewish Names and Their History.'' Chapter 4. Benzion C. Kaganoff.

Selected works

*The desperate struggle of the Aryan peoples with Judaism, 3 vols., 1890 **Part 2: The oath of a Jew **Part 3: Jewish tactics, at the same time answer to Mr. Ludwig Jacobowski *Der Gipfel juedischer Frechheit - Das Gesetz ist todt - Es lebe Bleichroeder, 1891 *The processes Manché and Bleichröder, 1892 *The Jews and the Germans. A supplement to the Jews, 1892 *The Great Prophet. A reminder and parting word to my anti-Semitic friends, 1892 *The Jewish question. Lecture, 1892 *Ottering, 1892 *My arrest, 1892 *As the Jew does, Lecture, 1892 *The Treaty of Germany, 1913 *Truths about a German mine in Bohemia. Rudolfstädter Erzbergbau-Gewerkschaft in České Budějovice. A reality novel of a modern kind with the usual accompaniments of suicide, madness and despair, 1913 *More light! The assassination of Friedrich Schiller, Lessing and Mozart before the Forum of Modern Literary and World History, 1914 *More light! The Order of Jesus in His True Form and in His Relations with Freemasonry and Judaism, 1919 *Mehr Licht - Der Orden Jesu in seiner wahren Gestalt 1925 (published posthumously)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahlwardt, Hermann 1846 births 1914 deaths Antisemitism in Germany People from Vorpommern-Greifswald People from the Province of Pomerania German Protestants German Reform Party politicians German politicians convicted of crimes German prisoners and detainees Members of the 8th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 9th Reichstag of the German Empire Members of the 10th Reichstag of the German Empire German male journalists German journalists German male writers Prisoners and detainees of Germany