Honorary AH: Hugo Bettauer's "The City without Jews"
Dec 22, 2022 4:28:43 GMT
stevep and American hist like this
Post by Max Sinister on Dec 22, 2022 4:28:43 GMT
This story was published between the world wars. Bettauer was a Viennese bestseller author at that time, more famous for criminal novels. This one, however, is different.
It's set shortly into the (1920s') future of Austria, which suffers under the post-WW1 malaise, like hyperinflation (even if far from what happened in Germany), with an antisemitic chancellor being elected in a landslide. He pushes through a law that evicts all the Jews, including baptized ones, and people who have only one Jewish parent. Return is verboten, with the capital punishment for it even.
Serious topic, but still - unbelievably - done in an entertaining way. (At least, it was like that before OTL happened.) How does he manage that? The characters are very Austrian (I've lived there for some years, some people there are a bit like that), and most antisemites are rather stupid and greedy than being fanatical. And the story has a happy-end.
The unsurprising result of the law: Economy and culture detoriate further, and the promised boons never happen. Soon, even one character states it like this: "Vienna is going to the dogs without Jews, I'm telling you, and if an old graduated antisemite like me is saying that, it has to be true, I'm telling you!"
At this point, the hero / author avatar enters: Leo Strakosch, a baptized Jew, who has developed a cunning plan to bring down the regime (and be reunited with his girl). He dares to return (disguised as a French friend of him) and starts organizing resistance. Pretty soon, the antisemites lose in a landslide, although they keep just one vote more than they need to block the removal of the antisemitic law. But Leo finds a solution for that as well...
Sometimes the author's outright uncanny, like when he predicts that the government will transport the Jews out of Austria at night and from train stations outside the cities - because otherwise, the gentiles might discover their conscience...
There are two English translations of it, which unfortunately aren't in the public domain yet. The German original is, so feel free to search for "Stadt ohne Juden".
There's also an audioplay on Yt (also German) and an expressionist movie based on it, here:
The movie supposedly is set in a place actually called Utopia of 1976, but looks still like Vienna in the 1920s. The villains are further bowdlerized: The chancellor is just looking at the focus groups, instead of being the driving force behind the law; and a minor villain gets reduced from pedosexual grafter to doddering fool.
I recommend the book.
It's set shortly into the (1920s') future of Austria, which suffers under the post-WW1 malaise, like hyperinflation (even if far from what happened in Germany), with an antisemitic chancellor being elected in a landslide. He pushes through a law that evicts all the Jews, including baptized ones, and people who have only one Jewish parent. Return is verboten, with the capital punishment for it even.
Serious topic, but still - unbelievably - done in an entertaining way. (At least, it was like that before OTL happened.) How does he manage that? The characters are very Austrian (I've lived there for some years, some people there are a bit like that), and most antisemites are rather stupid and greedy than being fanatical. And the story has a happy-end.
The unsurprising result of the law: Economy and culture detoriate further, and the promised boons never happen. Soon, even one character states it like this: "Vienna is going to the dogs without Jews, I'm telling you, and if an old graduated antisemite like me is saying that, it has to be true, I'm telling you!"
At this point, the hero / author avatar enters: Leo Strakosch, a baptized Jew, who has developed a cunning plan to bring down the regime (and be reunited with his girl). He dares to return (disguised as a French friend of him) and starts organizing resistance. Pretty soon, the antisemites lose in a landslide, although they keep just one vote more than they need to block the removal of the antisemitic law. But Leo finds a solution for that as well...
Sometimes the author's outright uncanny, like when he predicts that the government will transport the Jews out of Austria at night and from train stations outside the cities - because otherwise, the gentiles might discover their conscience...
There are two English translations of it, which unfortunately aren't in the public domain yet. The German original is, so feel free to search for "Stadt ohne Juden".
There's also an audioplay on Yt (also German) and an expressionist movie based on it, here:
The movie supposedly is set in a place actually called Utopia of 1976, but looks still like Vienna in the 1920s. The villains are further bowdlerized: The chancellor is just looking at the focus groups, instead of being the driving force behind the law; and a minor villain gets reduced from pedosexual grafter to doddering fool.
I recommend the book.
