Otto Böckel

Otto Bockel ( born July 2, 1859 in Frankfurt am Main, † September 17th 1923 in Mich village ) was a German librarian, folk song researchers and politicians. He also used the pseudonym Dr. Capistrano.

• 2.1 Ethnographic writings
• 2.2 Anti-Semitic writings

Life

Boeckel was born in 1859 as the son of a building contractor in Frankfurt am Main. He studied from 1878 to 1882 jurisprudence and political economy in Giessen and Heidelberg, then modern languages ​​in Marburg and Giessen. In Giessen, he was in 1879 a member of the fraternity Germania. He received his doctorate in Marburg and took a job at the university library. Böckel devoted himself ethnographic studies, especially the folk song research and the peasant culture of everyday life in Hesse. His traversed by agrarian romanticism and anti-Semitism Transfiguration of the small peasant life was very similar to Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, but also contributed to anti- conservative and anti- authoritarian streak. His anti-Jewish conspiracy theories took Böckel probably the work of the French anti-Semites Alphonse de Toussenel and Édouard Drumont.

The way in which policy

Otto Bockel saw his whole life as a fighter for the risk of the agrarian crisis peasant life world of his native Electorate of Hesse. However, he caught sight of the reasons for the decline of the peasantry not in structural problems of agriculture in the dawn of the industrial age ( as, inter alia, price erosion by the globalization of agricultural markets, outdated production methods, fragmentation of ownership, labor shortages due to rural-urban migration ), but saw the culprits in Jewish cattle dealers and lenders, which allegedly damaged the peasants by usury, their property foreclosed ( " usurers " ) to operate with him land speculation. The justification of this circulating since the Middle Ages allegations is extremely doubtful. But they were then readily accepted by many of his contemporaries, since they distract from the economic incompetence of indebted farmers and of supra-individual structural changes in agriculture.

( However, was acquitted for lack of evidence ) A spectacular trial of Conrad Hedderichstraße who had killed his Jewish creditors, Böckel motivated to become politically active.

The " Hessian Pawn King "

From then moved Böckel with some comrades as anti-Semitic agitator on the Hessian villages and found among small farmers, rural and small urban lower classes and enthusiastic among the students Marburger followers who hailed him as " Hessian peasant king". In 1886, he also held a speech at the Berlin Bock brewery, which co-funded the anti-Semitic movement. Core of his agitation was, inter alia, the slogan " Germany for the Germans ", the slogan of the German Nationalists protection and Trutzbundes 1919. His agitation was supported issued by the newspapers The usury pill kingdom money monopoly and imperial herald, the Böckel or for which he wrote (some under the pseudonym Dr. Capistrano - A medieval inquisitor who had specialized in the persecution of Jews ).

The " Hessian peasant king" did not count himself the " right " political spectrum. With its slogan " against Junker and Jews," he linked anti- conservative and anti-Semitic ideas. In the 1887 general election he was elected for the constituency of Marburg Kirchhain first independent anti-Semite in the Reichstag. Bockel ran a self-help anti-Semitism, which should make the farmers irrespective of the Jewish capital. He founded the Kurhessische Farmers' Union, but not join under its chairman, Alfred Winkler of the anti-Semitic movement. Then Böckel 1890 called the Central German Bauernverein to life. He promoted agricultural cooperatives, legal advice for indebted farmers and organized "Jew- free" cattle markets. 1890 Böckel founded the Antisemitic People's Party, which in 1893 changed its name in German Reform Party. But his real political sphere of influence was limited to the Electorate of Hesse. 1890, 1893 and 1898 Böckel was re-elected in Marburg, though he was opposed by all other parties. The authorities feared that Böckels aggressive campaign campaigns of the social democratic country agitation would abet. That's why they promoted the establishment of the Bockel movement of independent self-help organizations according to the Raiffeisen principle.

Political decline

A scandal involving an illegitimate child and the misappropriation of funds of the Central German Farmers Association for election campaign agitation led to Böckel had to leave in 1894 Marburg. When his attempt to prevent the union of its German Reform Party with the German Social Party failed, Böckel resigned from the party and faction. He criticized the vicinity of the new German Social Reform Party to the Conservatives and the Agrarian League, which he had fought in Hesse as political opponents. The revival of the Anti-Semitic People's Party together with Hermann Ahlwardt failed miserably. 1903 lost his Böckel Marburger constituency just to the left-liberals and former anti-Semites Hellmut von Gerlach. The anti-Semitic movement in Hesse had now died down and absorbed by the Federation of farmers due to the success of the cooperative movement, to finally Böckel 1897-1899 was active as an agitator. All attempts Böckels to regain a foothold in the anti-Semitic movement failed. Founded together with Paul Forster and Hans von Mosch German national union remained meaningless, and made ​​a comeback in his Marburg constituency at the general election of 1912 failed miserably.

Aftermath

Otto Bockel died at the age of 64 years in Mich. village. The Nazis stylized it a forerunner of their thought. Leading Hessian Nazis, such as the future president Ferdinand Werner, were active in their youth in the Bockel movement.

Works (selection)

Ethnographic writings

• German folk songs from Upper Hesse, 1885
• The German forest in the German Lied, 1899
• Dorfbilder from Hesse and Mark, 1908
• Psychology of folk poetry, 1913
• Soul country. Pictures of German heroic age, 1913
• The German folk song, 1917

Anti-Semitic writings

• The Jews - The kings of our time, 1887
• The quintessence of the Jewish Question, 1889
• Again, the Jews - the kings of our time, 1901