Georg Ritter von Schönerer

Georg Ritter von Schönerer (17 July 1842 – 14 August 1921) was an Austrian landowner and politician of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A major exponent of pan-Germanism and German nationalism in Austria as well as a radical opponent of political Catholicism and a fierce antisemite, his agitation exerted much influence on the young Adolf Hitler.

Characteristic of Schonerer’s ideology and was the combination of radical German nationalism with antisemitism. His antisemitic rhetoric was explicitly racial: “We must thus insist unconditionally on the separating out of Jewish children and on the complete exclusion of Jewish instructors, whether baptized or not, from the schools of our race. . . . Instead, we wish our youth to receive instruction and education according to Christian-Aryan principles,” he declared in a speech in Vienna on February 24, 1888. Calling for the protection of German blood from that of the inferior Jewish race was a permanent feature of his rhetoric. His influence on the German-National movement in Austria was enduring, and its significance should not be underestimated, even though he never managed to fashion a powerful party. From the 1880s on, Schonerer cleared the way for racial antisemitism to become a part of Austrian political culture. It is no exaggeration to label him a precursor of National Socialism and Hitler, who admired his ideas.



Race (1893)

Before my arms, powerful with freedom, sank

The dividing walls that madness had created.

The boundaries of belief, party, and statute

I smashed, following only the call of freedom.

But never can I break the last bond

That encircles me with my kind.

I wish to call myself a German with those

Toward whom blood’s voice urges me.

Out of the race did my solitary self grow.

It is the seed out of which came my individuality.

Thus I stretch to my fellows in blood, unforced,

In independence my hand.

Speeches by Schönerer:

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/FacultyInformation/jking/Schoener[1].htm