IMG59

Ernst Mach

indicatcd by thcir crowdcd prcscncc in his lccturc hall four days lu_c “Mach’s cntrancc into thc lecturchall . . . brought stormy appl_ausć from thc studcnts.” ³⁴ But thc gcsturc of rcsignation changcd nothin Mach’s act had no cfTcct. The Theology Faculty was no longer under thc German rcctor and in thc 1890S thc last of thc undividcd facultics was split bctwccn thc German and Czech Univcrsitics.

On thc face of it, Mach mcrely carricd out his threat to resign, and that is “why” hc resigned, but causal cxplanations arc rarcly that sim-plc. Mach publicly stated that his hcalth was thc causc. Was it? O_{r Was} it a conccrn for thc rights of thc University conccrning Yicnna “in-tcrvcntion"? Or was it to protest thc Czech rcctor rccciving a Landtag seat, as one Czech writer allcgcs? Or was it mcrely that hc was tired of thc job and wanted to get back to his writing so that almost any plausible excusc for resigning would suflicc? Or was it a combination of factors? Alas, we do not know. Thcrc is cven the outsidc possibility that thc rcsignation of thc Univcrsity of Vicnna rector only shortly bcforc (Novcmbcr 27, 1883) hclped plant the idea in Mach’s rnind.³⁵ Lest we give thc wrong impression, though, rcctor resignations wcrc not common. Machs was thc only one at Praguc from 1848 to 1900. But Mach went beyond this. Hc was truły upset. In ApriI 1884 hc also resigned from thc Union of Czech Mathcmaticians and Physicists of which hc had becn a founding member.³'⁵

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Almost all of Machs best friends were Jews: Kulkę, Popper-Lynkeus, and latcr, Wilhelm Jcrusalcm, and both Theodor and Heinrich Gom-perz. Hencc, it becamc hard to remain ncutral when anti-Semitism bc-gan to takc a scrious hołd on the Praguc Burschenschaftcn and on his collcagucs.

At first, the University of Prague seemed an cxccption. Many Jews, including thc Jewish professor Horaz Krasnopolski, had vigorously dc-fended thc German position in Praguc against thc Czcchs.⁸⁷ As equally threatened minoritics it seemed foolish for Germans and Jews (who wcrc iargcly German speaking) to fight among themsclvcs. Both were nccdcd to resist Taaffe’s "rcactionary” measures. Long after student groups in Vicnna and Graz had bccome strongly anti-Semitie, Prague with its peculiar German-Czcch confrontation had bccn able to avoid organized student prcjudicc against Jews.

General objcctions against Jews indudcd lack of German patriotism,

finandal opportunism, and thc bclief that thcy wcrc largcly rcsponsiblc for many of thc cconomic dislocations rcsulting from thc Industrial KcYolution. Privatc cntcrprise is largcly admircd in America, but in Austria it was often understood to mcan Jcwish shady speeulation which undermined traditional or stablc manufacturc and commcrcc, and led to Iow wages, bad working conditions, and job insccurity. Particular objcctions camc to thc forc in a ser i es of scnsational news-paper reports during thc carly i88os on murders which wcrc attributed to Jews and their supposed need for using Christian blood for ritual purposes. Thcsc so-callcd “blood accusations" wcrc widcly bclicvcd at thc timc.

The changc in Praguc camc in 1883 with thc arrival of thc notorious anti-Semite, Professor August Rohling, to takc over a theology chair in Hebrew Antiquitics and thc controvcrsy that immcdiately cruptcd. Unfortunatcly, there arc major gaps in thc story, and thc most impor-tant of thcsc conccrn thc relationship between Mach and Rohling. Noncthclcss, there is cnough information to indicatc how scriously Rohling and anti-Semitism afTccted thc Univcrsity and disturbed Mach’s pcacc of Mind.

First of all, why was Rohling so important conccrning anti-Scmi-tism? The answer is that hc gavc academic and a mcasure of Univer$ity support to thc newspaper allegations about thc Jcwish need for “blood sacrificcs.” In thc words of L. Strack and thc Encyclopedia of Ethics: "The most dangerous of thcsc mcans [arguments against thc Jews] sińce thc i3th Century has been the ‘blood accusation’. . . . The most influential propagator of this accusation was thc canon August Rohling in Praguc in thc ycars 1883-1892.” ³⁸

The Austrian Govcrnment grcctcd Rohling’s arrival from Germany with a prohibition against him publishing any morc anti-Semitie materiał. Ernst Mach followed this up a few days latcr on thc night of his inaugural speech on assuming his sccond rcctoratc (October 18, 1883) with a commcnt that dccply offended August Rohling. Regrettably, we do not know what the commcnt was. Latcr evidence suggests that Rohling misunderstood Mach. Apparently, thc ncw professor thought Mach was either attacking him, his anti-Semitism, or was opcnly sup-porting thc prohibition. In any casc, thc gricvancc persisted within Rohling for several ycars only to cxplodc into a quite mysterious academic scandal in thc latc i88os.³" Whether intcntionally or not, Mach had madc an enemy—and a dangerous one.

In spite of Mach’s allcgcd criticism, however, Rohling quicklv g.iined

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