Bolshevik Jews, Aryan Vienna? Popular Antisemitism in 'Der Kikeriki', 1918–1933. (9th August 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Secklehner, Julia
• Is Part Of: Year book. Volume 63:issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 157
• Page End: 178
• Publication Date: 2018-08-09
• Subjects: Jews -- Germany -- Periodicals; Judaism -- Germany -- History -- Periodicals; Germany -- Ethnic relations -- Periodicals; 305.8924043
• DOI: 10.1093/leobaeck/yby011
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0075-8744

Abstract

Abstract: This article interrogates the use of antisemitic imagery in the Viennese satirical magazine Der Kikeriki —which first supported Austria's governing Christian Social Party and then the National Socialists—as a means of political manipulation in the interwar period between 1918 and 1933. As a close analysis of caricatures from Der Kikeriki shows, the political right actively and regularly circulated antisemitic stereotypes to a large readership, building on imagery formed in the print culture of the Habsburg Empire. Most predominantly featuring the 'Jewish Bolshevik', the publication demonstrates that antisemitism in the popular press was widespread—a form of cultural othering that included all of the characteristics deemed not to fit the socio-political worldview such publications held. The analysis of Der Kikeriki not only underlines that antisemitic imagery was common in the popular culture of the day, but also highlights that antisemitism was instrumentalized in the problematic search for an 'Austrian identity', which was caught in the ideological struggles between the political left and right.