Oskar Scheuer and Student Antisemitism in Vienna: Negotiating Jewish Difference
Oskar Scheuer and Student Antisemitism in Vienna: Negotiating Jewish Difference

Summary/Abstract: A dermatologist by training, Oskar Franz Scheuer (1876-c.1941) renounced his Jewish ancestry in order to embrace the German nationalism associated with the student fraternities Fidelitas and Allemannia. As the editor of the magazine Deutsche Hochschule (German University) between 1910 and 1922, Scheuer found himself at the centre of debates over Jewish difference, Zionism, Austrianness, and antisemitism. After criticising Vienna’s Zionists before the First World War, Scheuer found himself arguing for the importance of tolerating Jews once Austria’s fraternities became increasingly antisemitic. His polemics and his use of historical research provide valuable insights into the delicate balance nationalist Germans of Jewish descent had to maintain during the first decades of the twentieth century.

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