Abstract

Relates changes in Lessing's philosophy to his biography and sense of identity. He grew up hating his father, who cared only for success, power, and money; this became the basis for the young Lessing's self-hatred. He converted to Christianity for several years, but reembraced Judaism (and became a Zionist) in 1900. In 1906 Lessing visited Galicia and saw the degeneration of the ghetto Jews; he felt, however, that they had a vitality and genuineness lacking in the Westernized "Espritjuden", whom he satirized mercilessly. During the 1920s he became concerned with the rejection of the Jews by Germany. He saw two solutions: Zionism and international communism. Toward the end of his life he envisaged the fruitful coexistence of all these identities: rootedness in the German Heimat, in the Jewish people, and in universal values. He was assassinated in his Czech exile on 30 August 1933 by Sudeten German Nazis. An introduction by Werner Boldt, "Jüdischer Selbsthass" (pp. 11-27), analyzes first Lessing's "Der jüdische Selbsthass" (1929) and then the antisemitism and underlying self-hatred of Marx and of Treitschke. The appendices (pp. 205-310) contain selections from Lessing's writings.