Studies On Nationalism And Anti-semitism Of Modern Germany Prior To Unification

Anti-Semitism In Germany had gone through a process of change from the hostility of religious feeling in the Middle Ages to the social and legal discrimination and agitating political mobilization, to become secular and nationalism anti-Semitism. German nationalism had also undergone two stages, cultural nationalism and political nationalism. Accompanied by the emergence and change of modern German nationalism, the concept of nation and race had been injected into anti-Semitism, casting a veil of science, rational and noble.The latter part of the Enlightenment, when the German cultural nationalism had risen, the philosopher and litterateur who had the thought of nationalism criticized the Jewish national culture and personality form the cultural dimension and showed the cultural differences between the German nation and Jew, in order to highlight the characteristics of the German national culture. After the Napoleon war, the understanding of nation went beyond the cultural identity into the nation and country, and the definition of nation shifted into the ethnic differences. That is, the feature of various nation was determined by the race, and the national characteristics can’t be changed. Afterwards, anti-Semitism is on the side of the nation, so it seems fair and reasonable that the Jewish are regarded as an enemy and oppressed.