The Sources of Ruppin’s Weltanschauung

The man of Action

As opposed to “theory,” the concept of Weltanschauung had the meaning of “activation” (Einschaltung); a constant urge to influence reality. Ruppin’s need to define himself in terms of this concept must be understood also as part of his attempt to ‘feel’ the German habitus and to ‘correct’ in himself the prevailing stereotype of the Jew as a passive observer, detached from ‘real life.’ In one of his early reflections regarding the Jews, Ruppin imagined that:

“The Jews of the ancient Jewish kingdom were religious through and through; they had courage and a deep sense of myth and the works of nature. That is, they were farmers. Since the Jews have stopped pushing the plough, they have become degenerate; they have for the most part lost a natural, human outlook and have become a reflective people [Reflexionisten]”

(Ruppin, [26 August 1898], CZA, A107/217).

The inferior man of Action

This admiration for his German friends and their families was in complete contrast to his attitude towards his Jewish-Berliner family, whom he visited occasionally on Sabbaths.

His worshipful descriptions of his friends are typical expressions of the outsider who sees the dominant group as perfect! In the same pattern described above, Ruppin’s admiration for his two German-Protestant student friends was paralleled by his belittling of himself

"eben habe ich Wynekens Sozialismus zum zweiten Male durchgelesen. Welcher Schwung in der Rede, welch’ hoher Flug von Gedenken, welch’ geniale Auffassung des Ganzen! Ich fühle mich dabei so unendlich klein und glaubte mich doch einst zum Höchsten berufen! Kann ich nicht den Besten ebenbürtig zur Seite stehen, so hat das ganze Leben und Streben keinen Reiz mehr für mich, dann mag man mich wie einen toten Hund verscharren!"

"I have just read through Wyneken's socialism for the second time. What verve in the speech, what a high flight of remembrance, what ingenious conception of the whole! I feel so infinitely small and believed that I had once been called to the highest! I can't do the best stand by your side on an equal footing, the whole of life and striving has no charm more for me, then they may bury me like a dead dog!"

In his early university years, Ruppin internalized more and more stereotypes through his interaction with his friends. This set of stereotypes was prevalent at the time in the German universities; the Jewish students (especially those from East Europe) were considered to be lacking in any true inspiration, mere absorbers of knowledge with no inherent intelligence but only the ability to memorize and repeat, idiots savants (Gilman 1986, 215). These stereotypes suggested that the Jewish student could not “truly” comprehend the essence or nature of the German discourse, and especially of the language, in which the German soul reveals itself. The Jews were at best ‘smart’ and ‘prosaic’ while the Christians/Aryans had ‘genius’ and were ‘poetic.’ This was the difference between the merely smart and the truly creative (Gilman 1996, 110)

Ruppin’s friends presented him with a set of stereotypical models of perception, which he, in his hyper-correctional manner was inclined to adopt: “There are vague things in the soul of the German nation that we smart Jews for the most part cannot comprehend at all, or at least do not understand properly”

(Bein 1968, I, 198).

What may seem to us today as mere stereotypes were conceived by Ruppin and his friends as ‘scientific truths’, which meant, in their young, nineteenth century, positivistic minds, also ‘facts of life.’ The racialization of the stereotypes enabled them to discuss their superiority in a most explicit way:

“Things that Fiedler told me [...] ‘do not think that I obtained my position due to my work and my strength, a poor human strength. Only by the mercy of the Lord did I achieve being preferred over you and I shaped for myself a special Weltanschauung’”

(Bein 1968, 164)

Ruppin internalized this set of stereotypes and beliefs, and as a ‘good’ and ‘honest’ Selbstkritik (Self-criticism) Jew accepted his position among them:

"becomes more and more apparent to me with every new meeting with Fiedler, how great my inferiority is"

(Korolik 1981, 96).

At the end of the 1890s, Ruppin still perceived his cultural identity according to the emancipation model, and still believed his integration into German culture a possibility. Nevertheless, his interpretation of this model would gradually move away from the Jewish-German perception of acculturation through enlightenment Bildung. In those years he began to define his cultural identity through the popular racial theories concerning the Jews, and even expressed in his diary some Rassekunde reflections on the “Jewish question":

“Spiritual and physical regeneration can be achieved only through the end of inbreeding and the mixture with healthy, strong races like Germans and Slavs. Only then will there be a possible future for the Jewish spirit”

(Bein 1968, 164).