Page 37 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

up his plough, the knight his castle, the kings their jewellery, the
bishop his ring".
Thus did it occur in all countries: the frivolity and passion
for splendour combined with the meanness and usury of the Jews;
the two could be separated only through violence and the people
had to pay the costs. Thus Tuther says rightly: "I hear it said that the
Jews give great sums ofmoney and therewith are useful to the rulers;
indeed, where do they give it from? Not from their own, but from
the property of the subjects and rulers which they steal and rob
through usury . . The subjects have to give money and be maltreated
.
by the Jews. Must not the Jew laugh secretly at this, that we allow
ourselves so shamefully to be made monkeys and fools of. And
another German makes the following philosophical observation on
Jewish usury: "When one squeezes out a wet sponge, it emits water,
but it had previously sucked up the water into itself; such wet sponges
are the Jews, they do indeed give something to the general benefit
but they have sucked up the Chri stians previously through their usury.
Spiders catch flies with their webs, accommodate them, spin round
them, but to the great harm of the poor flies, for they suck them out
so that they lie dead. Such spiders are the Jews, they do indeed give
some money and make out that they do it for the best of the common
welfare, but they suck out the Christians with their usury. Jewish
monies which go to the common welfare are real spiders' webs in
which the Christians remain hanging". 44 The man had every reason
to make such melancholic observations, for Germany was no
exception in the cycle of the Jewish question and there was repeated
here, in every big city, something similar to that in Tudela,
Constantinople, Persia, and as we have seen, in Portugal and France.
Even today the fairy-tale is circulated that the Jews in
Germany have been oppressed and neglected. That is not at all the
case. They could earlier move around freely and settle everywhere.
But not only that, the equal rights with the local inhabitants indeed
went so far that the Jews could be prosecuted only by their own
judges. The oldest document which shows us this right as an old
privilege and confirms it once again dates from 1230. In addition,
44
D. Muller, Jud. Detekt.; Schudt, op.cit., Vol.2, p.205.
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