HUNDT-RADOWSKY, JOACHIM HARTWIG°

HUNDT-RADOWSKY, JOACHIM HARTWIG ° (1759–1835), German political writer and journalist. Hundt-Radowsky was a radical nationalist and rabid antisemite whose works were frequently banned by post–1815 conservative regimes. He came to identify these regimes with the Jews as enemies of the people. In the year of the *Hep! Hep! disturbances (1819) his popular Judenspiegel, ein Schandund Sittengemaelde alter und neuer Zeit (1821) opened with the words: "Of all nations none has so thoroughly distinguished itself through vindictiveness, cowardice, arrogance, superstition, usury, deceit, and thievery like the Jews." Continuing in the same vicious vein, he accused the Jews of being parasitic and scheming for world domination, advocating that they be enslaved and castrated. Three weeks after publication, more than 10,000 copies of the Judenspiegel were sold. Another work, Die Judenschule (3 vols., 1822–23), was sarcastically dedicated to the Rothschilds, "supporters of legitimacy in Europe." Two volumes depicted the standard antisemitic picture of Judaism, while the third accused the oppressive regimes of being thoroughly infiltrated and controlled by converts, half-Jews, and bastard "sons of Keturah." In a third work, Neuer Judenspiegel, oder Apologie der Kinder Israel (1828), he executed a complete about-face, acknowledging the moral and social perfectability of Jews through reeducation (after repudiating their religion), and recognized the responsibility of Christian states for what he saw as the Jews' present state of corruption. This apology did not achieve the popularity of his other works.

bibliography:

K. Hagemann, "Mannlicher Muth und teutsche Ehre." Nation, Militaer und Geschlecht in der Zeit der antinapoleonischen Kriege Preussens (2002); S. Rohrbacher, Gewalt im Biedermeier. Antijuedische Ausschreitungen im Vormaerz und Revolution 1815–49 (1993).