Page 191 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

This man grew up, graduated from a German school and
university, studied the intellectual history and philosophy ofEurope
and set down his views on them in numerous writings. 4 ' 1 The first
thing that is a thorn in the eye for H. Heine is Christianity. Now, we
may be very free-thinking, but never has a great European spoken
of the incarnation of Christ with insolent scorn. Christianity is only
"an entry ticket to European culture", otherwise "an extravagant
student idea", "mankind is sick and tired of all communion hosts"
and pants for "fresh bread and good flesh", "great penitential victims
must be slaughtered for Matter" for Christianity "incapable of
destroying Matter, has made It weak everywhere. We must clothe
our women in new blouses and thoughts, as after a plague that has
been overcome". 412
In this way does the idea of otherworldliness spread in the
Jewish intelligence. One can indeed be of different opinions
regarding the essence of Christianity, but the form and manner in
which Heine expresses himself shows us an intellectual disposition
that is entirely different from that of the Europeans. It is the spirit of
the Old Testament Law. In a similar way does Heine speak about
German philosophy.
He skirts round Kant's life with a witticism: "His life-history
is difficult to describe, for he had neither a life (!) nor history (!)".
The external life of strict simplicity is, for Heine, beyond
comprehension, the duty performed quietly, the reserve that does
not wash its dirty linen in public, as Heine liked to do, is to him a
puzzle. Heine's conception ofthe man Kant is limited to the bachelor
with the walking stick, whose work he claims to understand as having
accomplished an intellectual revolution.
That the witty Heine attacks Kant's style goes without
saying: "In this regard Kant deserves a greater criticism than any
other philosopher he opines and adds benevolently that he
however had earlier "an often witty style". Heine can explain the
scholastic form to himself only through the possibility that Kant

411
Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland , Gestandnisse, Nachlass, etc.
412
Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland, Kampe Verlag, p. 70. [Heine's essay
Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland was published in his
collection Der Salon II in 1 835.]
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