The Jews in Berlin is a chilling, prophetic dissection of a society undergoing a psychic fracture. Written in the early 20th century, the work captures a specific moment of tension in the German capital, a city where Jewish emancipation and assimilation had, on the surface, created a vibrant and integrated culture. Yet, Strindberg’s keen eye perceives the fissures beneath this facade of coexistence. The book serves as a crucial case study in the dark pseudoscience of social relations, demonstrating how long-standing, relatively stable cohabitation between a majority and a minority can coagulate, with shocking speed, into suspicion, resentment, and ultimately, radical hatred. The central, haunting question the book indirectly poses is one that echoes through history: How does a majority population, which has lived alongside a minority for generations—sharing streets, markets, and even cultural spaces—suddenly begin to perceive that minority as an existential threat, a parasitic Other, deserving of removal? Strindberg’s analysis, woven through his observations and character portraits, suggests that this process is neither sudden nor irrational in its own twisted logic. It is a gradual, multifaceted social poison, a revolution in perception fueled by economic anxiety, intellectual justifications, political opportunism, and the fundamental human need for a scapegoat.
The Illusion of Coexistence and the Rise of “Visibility”
Strindberg begins by sketching the landscape of this coexistence. For decades, Jews in Berlin were not a distant, unknown entity. They were neighbours, doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, bankers, artists, and journalists. They were both integrated and distinct, while often maintaining their own religious and social traditions. This period of relative peace, however, creates the very conditions for the subsequent backlash. Assimilation and success, rather than leading to full acceptance, can paradoxically heighten the minority’s visibility in the eyes of the anxious majority. As Strindberg illustrates, when a minority group is confined to a ghetto, physically and socially segregated, it remains an object of mystery and sometimes fear, but it is not a daily competitor. Its successes are contained. However, when the walls of the ghetto come down—both literally and figuratively—the minority enters into direct competition with the majority across a broad spectrum of fields. The Jewish lawyer is no longer just a lawyer for Jewish clients; he is a rival to the non-Jewish lawyer. The Jewish department store owner is not just a merchant in a Jewish quarter; he is a threat to the small, traditional shopkeeper. This increased visibility and competition transform the minority from a passive, peripheral group into an active, perceived agent within the majority’s world.
Strindberg masterfully captures how this visibility is then selectively interpreted through a lens of prejudice. The successes of individual Jews are no longer seen as individual achievements but as evidence of a collective, tribal success. The ambitious Jewish industrialist is not a singularly driven man; he is a representative of “Jewish capitalism.” The critical Jewish journalist is not an independent intellectual; he is a mouthpiece for “Jewish influence” in the press. This process of re-tribalization, imposed by the majority, erases individuality and creates a monolithic, and often menacing, image of the minority. The decades of coexistence are thus re-framed not as peaceful partnership, but as a long, slow process of infiltration and takeover.
Economic Anxiety and the Zero-Sum Fallacy
At the heart of the shift Strindberg documents is economic dislocation. The late 19th and early 20th centuries in Germany were a period of rapid industrialization, urbanization, and financial volatility. The old feudal order had crumbled, and a new, unstable capitalist system was taking its place. For the emerging middle class—the Mittelstand of artisans, small business owners, and white-collar workers—this new world was fraught with peril. Bankruptcy, unemployment, and a loss of social status were very real fears. Strindberg shows how these economic anxieties found a perfect vessel in the figure of “the Jew.” In the popular imagination, which was being actively shaped by a new wave of antisemitic pamphlets and political rhetoric, Jews were depicted as the masters of this new, alienating capitalist system. They were the bankers who controlled credit, the department store owners who drove small shops into ruin, and the stock market speculators who profited from the nation’s instability. This was a powerful, if factually simplistic, narrative. It reduced the immense complexity of modern economics to a simple, emotionally resonant story: our poverty is the result of their wealth.
This taps into what social scientists call the “zero-sum fallacy”—the belief that the economic pie is fixed, and that one group’s gain must necessarily be another’s loss. The prosperity of a Jewish family moving into a better neighbourhood is not seen as a sign of general economic growth, but as a piece of the pie taken directly from the plate of the majority. This fallacy is a potent fuel for revolution because it transforms envy into a righteous grievance. The desire to strip the minority of its wealth and position is no longer mere theft; it is reframed as a act of reclamation, of taking back what was “rightfully” ours. The revolutionary energy, therefore, is not initially aimed at the structures of power or capital per se, but at the human faces, the Jewish neighbours, who are symbolically charged with representing those structures.
The Intellectual Armature: Giving Respectability to Resentment
A key insight in Die Juden in Berlin is Strindberg’s attention to the role of intellectuals and pseudo-scholars in providing a philosophical and “scientific” justification for ancient hatreds. He understood that for a revolution in sentiment to take hold among the educated and middle classes, it could not remain a mere intuitive grumble; it needed an intellectual armature. This was the era when racial theory was being popularized. Antisemitism, which had previously been primarily religious (a rejection of Judaism), was being reconfigured as racial (a rejection of Jewish “blood” and inherent characteristics). Writers and academics began to produce tracts that claimed to “prove” the biological inferiority or the parasitic nature of the Jewish race. They spoke of a “German spirit” (Deutschtum) that was noble, creative, and rooted in the soil, which was under threat from a “Jewish spirit” that was rootless, critical, decomposing, and materialistic.
Strindberg demonstrates how this intellectual poison seeped into the public consciousness. It allowed the average Berliner to believe that their discomfort or resentment was not base prejudice, but a scientifically and philosophically informed position. It elevated their hatred, making it a matter of national and racial duty. To distrust one’s Jewish neighbour was no longer un-Christian or un-neighbourly; it was an act of patriotism, a defense of the Volk. This intellectual framing was crucial for turning social resentment into a revolutionary ideology. It provided a grand narrative—a struggle for the very soul of the nation—that transcended petty personal grievances. It allowed individuals to see themselves as soldiers in a cosmic battle between light and darkness, rather than as participants in a local squabble. This sense of participating in a grand, historic mission is a classic catalyst for revolutionary action, as it sanctifies violence and absolves individuals of moral responsibility.
Political Opportunism and the Mobilization of the Masses
Strindberg’s work is acutely political. He observes how established political parties and emerging demagogic movements seized upon this simmering cauldron of economic anxiety and intellectualized resentment. They recognized in the "Jewish Question" a powerful tool for mobilization. For political entrepreneurs, targeting a visible minority is a strategically brilliant, if morally bankrupt, tactic. It is far easier to rally people against a concrete, human enemy than for a complex, abstract economic policy. By pointing to the Jews as the source of all ills—from high interest rates to modernist art to national weakness—politicians could offer a simple solution to a complex world. The revolutionary promise became not the arduous task of reforming economic systems or building new institutions, but the cathartic act of purging the polluting element from the body politic.
Strindberg captures the rhetoric of these agitators. They spoke in the language of hygiene, of cleansing, of healing a sick nation. This radicalize language was particularly effective because it dehumanized the minority, transforming them from neighbours into pathogens, from citizens into viruses. When a group is perceived as a disease, its eradication becomes a public health necessity. This rhetoric was disseminated through newspapers, public beer-hall speeches, and pamphlets, creating a constant, amplifying echo chamber of hatred that slowly drowned out the voices of reason and moderation. This political mobilization creates a powerful feedback loop. As politicians stoke the flames of hatred, their followers become more radicalized, which in turn pushes the politicians to adopt even more extreme positions to maintain their leadership. The center cannot hold, and the public discourse shifts dramatically. What was once considered vulgar and unthinkable—open calls for discrimination, boycotts, or violence—becomes mainstream political talk. This is the pre-revolutionary moment: when the norms of civil society have broken down, and the language of extermination begins to replace the language of debate.
The Social-Psychological Engine: Scapegoating and the Shattering of Empathy
Underpinning all these factors—economic, intellectual, and political—is a fundamental social-psychological mechanism that Strindberg’s narrative lays bare: scapegoating. The theory of the scapegoat, as elaborated by thinkers like René Girard, posits that societies under stress have a tendency to unite by channeling their collective anxieties and aggressions onto a single, vulnerable individual or group. The sacrifice or expulsion of this scapegoat creates a temporary, cathartic sense of purification and social cohesion.
Die Juden in Berlin is a textbook illustration of this process. The rapid modernization of Germany created profound anomie—a sense of normlessness and alienation. Traditional hierarchies, values, and communities were dissolving. In this climate of existential dread, the Jewish minority, which was both inside and outside the mainstream, became the perfect scapegoat. They were blamed for the very changes that were causing the anxiety—the rise of the city, the anonymity of modern life, the collapse of tradition, the volatility of the market.
Strindberg shows how this process requires the systematic shattering of empathy. The decades of living together had, for many, built a reservoir of personal familiarity and even friendship. For the revolution in hatred to be successful, these personal bonds had to be severed. This was achieved by the relentless propaganda that insisted the “real” Jew was not the kindly Dr. Goldstein next door, but the abstract, sinister “Elders of Zion” pulling the strings of global finance. The personal was rendered irrelevant by the political. The individual was swallowed by the stereotype. Neighbors began to look at each other not as fellow human beings, but as representatives of abstract forces. The trust that is the glue of any society was replaced by a pervasive suspicion. This breakdown of micro-level social trust is the final stage before revolutionary violence becomes possible. When you no longer see your neighbour as a person, but as a mask for a demonic force, then harming them ceases to be a crime and becomes a sacred obligation.
Conclusion: The Unheeded Warning
Friedrich Strindberg’s Die Juden in Berlin is a work of profound and tragic insight. It is a map of a society’s descent into a collective madness, a madness that was not inexplicable but was constructed piece by piece. The revolution he chronicles was not, at first, a violent uprising in the streets (though it would contain that), but a revolution in the human heart—a deliberate, orchestrated campaign to replace empathy with antipathy, coexistence with conspiracy, and civil discourse with a demand for purge.
The book’s enduring power and horror lie in its demonstration that hatred is not the opposite of coexistence; it is often its perverse offspring. The very proximity and familiarity bred a specific form of resentment that distance and mystery could not. The tools used to foment this revolution—economic fear-mongering, pseudo-scientific racism, political demagoguery, and the destruction of empathy—are not unique to Berlin in the early 20th century. They are a recurring toolkit, a playbook for those who seek power by dividing society.
Strindberg’s work stands as an unheeded warning. It tells us that no society is immune to this contagion. The peace of decades is not a guarantee of future peace; it is a fragile construct that must be actively maintained against the forces of division. The most dangerous illusion is to believe that because we have lived together for so long, we are incapable of turning on each other. Die Juden in Berlin reveals the grim truth: that the path to the pogrom begins not with a mob, but with a whisper, a suspicion, and the slow, deliberate work of building an invisible wall between people who have shared the same city for a lifetime. To read Strindberg is to understand that the preservation of a civil society requires constant vigilance against those who would, for their own gain, teach us to see our neighbours not as allies in a common life, but as enemies in a coming revolution.
