Carlo Mattogno - The Einsatzgruppen in the Occupied Eastern Territories: Genesis, Missions and Actions

Throughout the 19th Century, tsarist Russia was a predominantly agricultural society where many of its mostly orthodox-Christian subjects lived in serfdom to the few landowners of the nobility until the serfs were emancipated in 1861. This system might be described as a mild form of slavery, only that, instead of one ethnic or national group enslaving another, as has been the rule throughout the history of slavery, in this case the majority of the lower class of a people was enslaved by the upper class of that same people.

The abolition of serfdom by Tsar Alexander II did not change the fact, however, that most land was owned by the nobility, so that the peasantry continued to be at the mercy of the nobility to earn an income.

The Jews in tsarist Russia, although in their majority not engaged in agricultural activities, had their own grievances, most notable among them the fact that they were not allowed to settle wherever they wanted, and that they were subjected to a form of restrictive affirmative action in practicing certain professions.

Since the highly urbanized Jews of Russia were on average far more educated than their Christian fellow countrymen, Jews were overrepresented in many intellectual fields, revolutionary activities included. Although Russias Christian peasantry had more reasons to strive for radical change, they were to no small degree kept in line with the tsarist regime first and foremost by their lack of education, but also by the Russian Orthodox Church, which was to no small degree an extension of tsarist power control. It was also a main driver behind anti-Jewish sentiments among Russias Christians.

Of course, the history of Jewish-Christian animosities goes all the way back to the years when Christianity was born. During the first years of its existence, with the Jews being a powerful majority in Palestine and the Christians a powerless minority, Jewish persecution of Christians prevailed. The tables were turned when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire. Ever since, humanity has had to deal with a series of anti-Jewish measures by Christian rulers and the mob. While the uneducated masses may have been stirred up against the Jews with pseudo-arguments such as Jews killed our Lord Jesus Christ which isnt even true because, strictly speaking, Jesus was killed by the Romans, if we were to take the New Testaments narrative at face value the Christian clergy had a more-sophisticated approach to this issue, as is evidenced for instance by the Roman Catholic Churchs century-long ban of the Talmud for its anti-Christian and anti-Gentile contents, or by Martin Luthers critique of Jewish teachings in this regard in his book Von den Juden und ihren Lgen ( On the Jews and Their Lies ). While such anti-Jewish attitudes were socially acceptable in Russia and most of Europe during the 19th Century, they are severely frowned upon today, to say the least, although more-recent studies have to a large degree justified the 2,000-year-old critique of Jewish scripture and its influence on the behavior of some mostly orthodox and fundamentalist Jews (see Shahak and Shahak/Mezvinsky).

To what degree this anti-Jewish attitude was socially acceptable back then can be gleaned from the Antisemitismus-Streit , an argument among scholars and prominent personalities that erupted onto the public stage in Germany in 1879, although it had been smoldering in less-popular circles many years prior to this and had a tradition going all the way back to Martin Luther. The Jewish newspaper of record, The New York Times , commented on this argument in an editorial on 27 February 1880 as follows:

The war, which has for some time raged in Germany between the natives and the Jews, seems rather to increase than diminish in intensity. It is something more than a popular prejudice, it is a national passion and the ablest, most dignified, and most learned men have ranged themselves on either side. To us here it seems very strange that such a contest of races can be going on in a land of so much intelligence and intellectual pretension, and in the year 1880, too. The crime of the Jews appears to be comprehended chiefly in their financial prosperity. No sin is as great as success in the eyes of the non-successful. The charge is made that of the 600,000 Israelites in the empire, hardly any engage in agricultural or mercantile pursuits; but that they control trade, rule the money markets, and are eating up the country with their avarice and usury.

Societal and financial envy were only a side show of this German debate, however, while at its core was the criticism of Jewish teachings about how to regard and interact with Gentiles, as laid down in Jewish writings such as the Talmud and the Shulchan Aruch , facts which the New York Times carefully hid from its readers.

Fuel into the fire of anti-Jewish sentiments in Germany and in Russia was the publication and analysis in Russia but also in the German language of the minutes of the Council of Jews of the Minsk Ghetto (see Brafman), which undergirded the accusations that Jews are inherently hostile toward Gentiles. Since the Russian nobility was heavily influenced by German society and to a large degree related to its nobility, political and ideological discussions circulating in the German public inevitably had an impact in Russian intellectual circles.

Of course, this is also true for anti-tsarist circles, who eagerly picked up the German ideas of socialism and communism. While the German upper classes tried to cut the ground out from under these radical ideas by creating a constitutional monarchy and a parliament with far-reaching powers (after the German unification in 1871), and by implementing social reforms and social welfare, Russia seemed to be too far behind with everything to be able to keep up with the modernization pace expected by the radicals.