Page 83 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

A lfred Rosenberg

II Historical overview

If one approaches without the well-worn dogma of a teary
sensitivity the entire complex of the historical fact concerning the
Jews and their relations to other nations, one can ascertain already
one thing: if the results in the conduct of all the nations against the
Jewish people alone are the same, this can be due, at least in the
main, only to the character of these Jewish people. For, the
individualities of the Persians, Spaniards or Germans are the
changeable factors ofthe history regarding the Jews, the personality
of the Jews on the other hand is the uniform unchanging factor,
heightened by strict racial breeding.
Many historical writers forced out of historical balance by
the actually existing brutalities against the Jews perceive an
advantage too easily in a purely humanitarian judgement; one must
recognise this sentimental impulse which does honour to a man but
degrades the historian in order to be able to understand history,
beyond feelings, in its deeper necessities. If one does this, and if
one uses mainly representations that are friendly to the Jews, or at
least not predeterminedly anti-Semitically oriented ones, there
appears before our eyes a really strikingly similar curve of Jewish
life, Jewish influence and Jewish suffering in all the countries of
the world. Everywhere the Jews are at first accepted without reserve,
everywhere we see them from the start consciously separating
themselves physically as well as intellectually from the native
population, everywhere they are eagerly concerned to win the favour
of the princes and, advancing them money, acquired through keen
trade and usury, for their enterprises, ensure their security and acquire
all manner of privileges for themselves. Then there emerge among
all the nations anti-Semitic movements, at first flaring up in some
places, then sweeping an entire land and discharging themselves
into a frightening fury. The reasons for these Jewish persecutions
have been diverse, whether it be that a Jew was caught with false
coins or whether a vilification of Christianity, the theft of a crucifix
or something similar, was attributed to a Jew. But if the historical
observation anywhere must note the social structure in order to

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