Page 43 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

seen already from the fact that, in 1 3 1 0, Kaiser Heinrich VII granted
the Nurembergers a "privilege" in which the Jews were forbidden
to take from citizens more than 4373 percent and from foreigners
54
more than 55 percent weekly interest. Certainly a good privilege!
In other cities of Germany it was the same, and everywhere
the people heaved a sigh of relief when the Jews had to leave the
city. The preacher Hartmann Creidius speaks in this way on the
occasion of the expulsion of the Jews from Augsburg: "And it is a
great advantage ofthe local citizenry which it has above other cities
since the cursed Jews not only suck the blood of the poor Christians
through cruel usury and excess but also take away the bread from
their mouth through all sorts ofcommerce and business so that many
citizens have been forced along with their wives and children into
55
ruin and beggary".
It would take too much time to discuss in detail the history
of every German city, and it would also be superfluous since the
same thing is repeated everywhere. In 1539, an edict was issued
throughout Germany in which one read that one should forbid usury
to the Jew, that they should be urged to do manual work so that they
may learn thereby how to earn their bread by the sweat of their
brow, like the Christians. Naturally all that was useless.
If one reads reports on the Jewish trade of the Middle Ages,
as recorded by German chroniclers, one notes in them their recurring
astonishment at the ever sprouting Jewish sharpnesses that they have
to narrate. Falsifications of exchange, fake bankruptcies, seduction
of young inexperienced people, the children of rich parents, to
dissipation, letters of debt written in Hebrew accepted in good faith
but, when translated later, containing nothing but a gross proposition,
changing packages during purchase, whereby the buyer discovers,
instead of the true wares, stones or straw, etc.
Often there is added to all the complaints a humorous note
of the writer who makes fun of the credulity of the Germans, often
he searches for images to drastically describe the relations between
54
Zeitschriftfur die Geschichte des Oberrheins, X,66, Karlsruhe, 1 859; also Wiirfel,
op. cit.
55
Augsburger Wunderpredigt, p. 508 [Hartmann Creidius (1606-1656) was pastor
of St. Anne's church in Augsburg]; Schudt, op.cit., Bk.Vl, p. 47.
20