"Aesthetic anti-semitism": art, race and politics in Eulenburg's worldview
During his time as ambassador to Austria, Eulenburg who was a Wagnerite befriended one of the world's leading Wagnerites, Houston Stewart Chamberlain who was living in Vienna at the time. Besides their shared love of Richard Wagner, Eulenburg, who was an anti-Semite, Anglophobe and an opponent of democracy, found much to admire in Chamberlain's anti-Semitic, Anglophobic and anti-democratic writings. Eulenburg was a völkisch anti-Semite who believed Jews to be an alien race from Asia who were "poisoning" the European Aryan race in all sorts of ways.
In 1895 Wilhelm commissioned a painting from Hermann Knackfuss, depicting a nightmare he had with a Buddha wreathed in fire being carried by an Asian-style dragon threatening Europe. The painting became known as the "Yellow Peril", the name given to the perceived Asian threat to Europe. Eulenburg, who shared Wilhelm's hatred of Asians, was enthralled with the painting; on 29 September 1895 he wrote to the Empress "I am quite under the spell of this truly magnificent work. The idea is uplifting and the execution masterly. When I immerse myself in the contemplation of the picture I am filled with the feeling that all Europe must indeed answer the call of the beloved Kaiser to unite in peaceful harmony for the sake of the cross and the dearest goods, but then the uneasy feeling steals over me that the evil in those men who oppose as an enemy power the good which manifests itself in the Kaiser's being will now cause them to tear down and attack with their ingenious criticism that which has sprung from the high-mindedness and noble heart of the Kaiser". To his mother Eulenburg wrote about the Yellow Peril painting: "The Kaiser has given me a magnificent engraving of the wonderful allegorical picture executed by Prof. Knackfuss from His Imperial Majesty's sketch: the peoples of Europe, represented as female figures, are called upon by St. Michael to defend the cross against unbelief, heathenism, etc. You will like it...It is a beautiful idea in a beautiful form". Eulenburg's "unforgettable friend" Gobineau had been obsessed with the fear of the "Yellow Peril", which he had expressed in his epic 1881 poem Amadis where European civilization is destroyed by a Chinese invasion.
Much of Wilhelm's anti-Asian racism and warnings of the "Yellow Peril" very closely resembles Gobineau's writings on the Chinese, which is not surprising given that Eulenburg had introduced the Kaiser to Gobineau's theories. The American historian Gregory Blue wrote about the "Eulenburg connection", whereby Eulenburg played a key role in introducing the Kaiser to Gobineau's anti-Asian writings. Furthermore, Blue noted that the sketch that Wilhelm had drawn of his nightmare in April 1895 looks very different than The Yellow Peril painting that Knackfuss finished in September 1895, being considerably more disturbing and nightmarish than the finished product and, as much of the imagery in the painting appears to be drawn from Amadis, he argued that the "Eulenburg connection" was at work here, with Eulenburg playing a major, if uncredited, role in generating The Yellow Peril painting.
Wilhelm II always saw himself as a great artist with an intense interest in painting (especially warships) and sculpture. Wilhelm was so interested in the arts and culture that on 18 December 1901 he gave the so-called "gutter art" speech in which he denounced French Impressionist painting, modernist architecture, German Expressionism and the Jugendstil as all "gutter art" dragging the world down, and called for Germany to assume cultural leadership of the world by producing the sort of art that he approved of to save humanity from the degrading cultural effects of "gutter art". Eulenburg's status as a cultured, artistic man meant he served as both a political and cultural adviser to the Kaiser. For Wilhelm, politics and culture were one and the same. For him, the popularity of Impressionist paintings was a sign of the "degeneracy" of the French while his paintings of warships were a sign of the spiritual strength of the Germans. Like many other völkisch nationalists, Eulenburg believed in the unity of race, language, religion, culture, ethnicity, and nationality. Thus for Eulenburg, art and politics were one and the same, both being expressions of one's "race". Domeier described Eulenburg as the chief promoter of "aesthetic anti-Semitism", a type of anti-Semitism concerned with glorying on one hand a romantic, reactionary and racist understanding of German national identity that expressly rejected the values of the Age of Enlightenment while on the other hand depicting Jews as a "racial other", the antithesis of the "Aryan race", a people who formed another "race" that simply did not belong in Germany and were the principal cause of Germany's problems.
Eulenburg's cultural works such as his songs and poems, in which he often expressed his "aesthetic anti-Semitism," were just another means of promoting his values, as was political work. For example, Eulenburg's popular poem Sang an Aegir (Song to Aegir), while being a love poem, also contains many racist and Pan-German themes. Domeier argued that Eulenburg's cultural activities cannot be treated separately from his political activities, as both were concerned with "aesthetic anti-Semitism".
At the same time, he did his utmost to further anti-Semitism in classic political areas including diplomacy, foreign policy and culture. Aesthetic anti-Semitism can be understood as one of the many forms of aesthetic fundamentalism in the modern era as well as a cultural code used by hereditary and intellectual aristocrats at the end of the long nineteen century. As it spread throughout society by virtue of these groups' social prestige, it took on attributes of a paradigm. Aesthetic anti-Semitism found its way into the aristocracy and conservative bourgeoisie not through aggressive agitators such as Ahlwardt, Dühring, Fritsch or Stöcker, but rather in poetic shadings and nuances."
When the Bavarian government proved unwilling to subsidize the Bayreuth Festival performing Wagner's operas, Cosima Wagner turned to Eulenburg for help. Eulenburg let it be known that Wilhelm—who was also the King of Prussia—was willing to subsidize the Bayreuth festival; rather than see the Prussian king intervene in Bavarian affairs, the Bavarian government agreed to subsidize Bayreuth. Eulenburg saw the Bayreuth festival as the "cultural founding" of the empire that had failed to take place in 1871, and Eulenburg believed that in time the Bayreuth festival would become the "cultural center" of the "Germanic race". The Wagnerite Eulenburg saw the Bayreuth festival as a way of promoting not only Wagner's music, but also his anti-Semitic politics to the German public.
A vivid display of Eulenburg's anti-Semitism occurred in October 1895 when he reluctantly attended a Jewish charity concert in Vienna. In a dispatch back to the Kaiser, Eulenburg complained that he was the "sole Aryan" in the entire concert hall and stated his ears were pained to hear of "the indescribable mishmash of German spoken with Austrian, Bohemian and Hungarian accents with international cliquishness". Eulenburg went on to write of his disgust of the "drooping and enormously crooked noses", "bandy knees", "noses like tapirs", "fat lips", "prominent cheekbones", "eye teeth like a walrus's", "slanted eyes like slits", "gaping jaws with hollow teeth", and the "exposed and sweaty shoulders" of the Jewish women in their evening night-gowns. Eulenburg wrote that the Jews all paying their respects to a "Jewish greybeard" proved the old Jew "must have slaughtered and eaten many Christian children, since two dozen long yellow teeth protruded from his ghastly maw" (it is not clear in repeating the blood libel if Eulenburg was making an anti-Semitic joke or if he really believed in the blood libel). Finally, Eulenburg concluded his report to the Kaiser that the "badly behaved" Jewish children at the concert were all repulsively ugly, and that the only attractive Jew he saw at the concert was the lead singer, a young woman whom Eulenburg stated was more animal than human, albeit one who could sing very well for a Jew.
Despite his anti-Semitism, during his time as Ambassador to Austria Eulenburg engaged in a homosexual relationship with the Austrian banker Nathaniel Meyer von Rothschild, who liked Eulenburg so much that when he died in 1905 he left Eulenburg one million krones. Rothschild, who possessed great wealth, was ostracized by the Austrian aristocracy because he was a Jew (also being gay contributed to his feeling like an outsider), and he often paid aristocrats to be his friends, which is how he met Eulenburg. Eulenburg often proclaimed his hatred of Jews, but he was prepared to socialize with wealthy Jews provided that they were willing to pay well for the social prestige that they accrued by having such an illustrious man as Eulenburg in their social circle. The relative penury of his youth left Eulenburg with an insatiable desire for money, and despite his wealth, he was always on the lookout for chances to make more money.
In 1897 Eulenburg's younger brother Friedrich von Eulenburg, an army officer, was charged with being a homosexual. His older brother tried his best to have the Kaiser stop the court-martial, but the Army was unwilling to do so. In 1900, Eulenburg wrote a long memo for the benefit of his social circle about the court-martial of his brother, writing that men like himself and his brother were always threatened with public disgrace, which ended:
"Farewell, my friend! Are you certain that you have understood the story correctly? Please read it once again I beg you! So that you understand completely that the path of our lives is crossed by terrible demons, and that we should raise our hands to God in supplication, begging him, begging him fervently to defend us from them, to defend our loved ones from them!". In 1898, scandal threatened Eulenburg when the wife of Kuno von Moltke in a sealed deposition filed for divorce on the grounds that her husband was more interested in having sex with Eulenburg than with her. Moltke promptly instructed his lawyer to settle the divorce in his wife's favor in exchange for her not making these accusations public. Axel "Dachs" von Varnbüler wrote to Moltke telling him not to worry about losing the favor of "the One" [Wilhelm II] saying: "I'm sure I am not mistaken in thinking that your pain is sharpened because you cannot hide, keep at bay, all this ugliness from him, from the Liebchen ["Darling"-Wilhelm II]. But do not torment yourself unnecessarily about this -- he is man enough to put a stop to nasty gossip -- and he knows and loves you too well in your peculiarity to allow even the shadow of blame to fall upon you". After learning of Moltke's divorce, Wilhelm confronted Varnbüler, and demanded to know what was happening. According to Varnbüler in a letter written on 4 June 1898 to Moltke: "The Liebchen accosted me in the Tiergarten the day before yesterday. After he duly admired my yellow boots and colour co-ordinated riding costume, he asked me "Don't you know anything about Kuno? I can't get anything out of either him or Philly"". Varnbüler went on to write that Wilhelm used "unrepeatably energetic expressions" which indicated to Varnbüler "that he was extremely well-informed and no longer retained any illusions"."
After 1897, with Bülow in effective charge of the government, Eulenburg's role as a political trouble-shooter largely came to an end, with Eulenburg himself writing that the "great turning point" was the summer of 1897 because with the "personal rule" of Wilhelm in place, the Kaiser was now firmly in charge after struggling to assert his authority since coming to the throne in 1888. Eulenburg himself happily wrote: "No more bomb-like despatches, no more wild letters from Holstein, no more lamentations from Marschall!!!". Eulenburg had a broader vision beyond helping Wilhelm establish his "personal regime". Eulenburg was a convinced opponent of democracy and was threatened by growing demand for democracy in Germany. Germany in the 1890s was nowhere close to a revolution, but Eulenburg could see that in the long run the demand for democracy would continue to grow. Eulenburg was opposed to proclaiming martial law and ruling via terror as he argued that a regime based only on fear could not command popular legitimacy or respect, and would not last in the long run. Instead Eulenburg argued for Wilhelm's personal regime" to be based upon the Roman formula of "bread and circus". The "bread" in this case would be a greatly expanded welfare state, while the "circus" would be Weltpolitik ("World politics"). Thus, the growth of the welfare state from 1897 onwards and the introduction of navalist politics represented by the Tirpitz Plan intended to win Germany "world power status" were closely connected as part of the effort to stabilise the regime. For Eulenburg, Weltpolitik together with the related politics of navalism were initially more of a means for stabilizing the political system by gathering popular support for the regime than a goal in and of themselves. In this respect, the German historian Michael Epkenhans wrote that it was no accident that in 1897 Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was appointed naval state secretary. The charismatic Tirpitz was a born showman who quickly managed to convert much of the German public over to navalism, arguing for the formula that sea power equals world power—whoever rules the seas also rules the world. Even through Tirpitz saw his efforts as primarily directed towards making Germany the world's greater power, there was an element of domestic stabilization involved in his campaign for greater spending on the navy.
On 7 October 1898, Eulenburg summoned the leader of Zionism, the Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl to Liebenberg to announce that his master Wilhelm II wanted to see a Jewish state established in Palestine (which would be a German protectorate) in order to "drain" the Jews away from Europe, and thus "purify the German race". Herzl recalled that Eulenburg was a "perfect gentleman" during his visit to Liebenberg, but he made no attempt to hide his anti-Semitism, saying to Herzl's face that he believed that the Jews did not belong in Europe and that he only supported Zionism as the best way of removing the Jews humanely from Europe. Eulenburg told Herzl that he had a special relationship with the Kaiser that allowed him to "speak freely" to Wilhelm in a way no-one else could. The plan for establishing a Jewish state in Palestine came to nought when the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II rejected the plan, saying that Palestine was Muslim land that he would never cede to the Jews and, more importantly, he had no intention of giving up any part of his empire.
In 1900, Eulenburg was created the first hereditary Prince (Fürst) zu Eulenburg und Hertefeld and Count von Sandels. The princely title was entailed to the family's perpetual possession of the Hertefeld estate. The second title was in honour of the family of his wife, whose father was the last Swedish Count of Sandels. Simultaneously, Eulenburg was accorded the honorific of Serene Highness, the same style used by the German Empire's still-reigning princes, such as the rulers of Lippe, Reuss and Waldeck and Pyrmont.
In 1900, the Boxer Rebellion broke out in China. The German minister to China, Baron Clemens von Ketteler, had murdered in public view a 14-year-old Chinese boy, who had nothing to do with Boxers, as a reaction to the Boxer threat. This abuse of diplomatic immunity made Ketteler very unpopular in China, and led to him being murdered by the Chinese soldiers who were supposed to be protecting him as he travelled to the Forbidden City. Wilhelm—the man who popularized the phrase "the Yellow Peril" and who had always hated Asians with a passion—was enraged by the news that his minister in China had been murdered, and he was determined to wreck bloody vengeance on the Chinese. Eulenburg was with Wilhelm aboard the Hohenzollern on the annual North Sea summer cruise in 1900, and saw at first hand Wilhelm's viscerally hate-filled rage against the Chinese. Eulenburg wrote that Wilhelm regarded Kettler's murder as a "personal insult" and he was going to "send troops to take revenge!!!". At the height of the Boxer crisis, Eulenburg wrote to Bülow that he was utterly terrified of Wilhelm—whom Eulenburg said was not entirely sane—and that Bülow should be careful when reporting the news from China out of fear of what Wilhelm might do. Eulenburg wrote to Bülow:
"His Majesty is no longer in control of himself when He is seized by rage. I regard the situation as highly dangerous and I am at a loss as to know what to do...These things cut me to the quick. I have had so much faith in the Kaiser's abilities—and in the passage of time!—Now both have failed, and one sees a person suffering whom one loves dearly but cannot help...I have the impression that I am sitting on a powder keg and I am extremely careful. Please limit your political reports as much as possible and request decisions only where they are unavoidable."
Eulenburg added that he had sent a doctor to try to calm Wilhelm down, as he was trapped in a seemingly permanent state of rage—spending every waking moment violently ranting and raving nonstop about his hatred of the Chinese and the bloody revenge he was planning to take on them—but to no avail. Wilhelm II was not the only member of the House of Hohenzollern to have a meltdown in 1900. In October 1900, there were what Eulenburg called "appalling scenes" as the Empress behaved "like a madwoman" as she started to scream and cry uncontrollably, complaining that the Emperor did not love her, did not help with raising their children and spent all of his time with Eulenburg. The Kaiserin also accused her husband of having an affair with Eulenburg.
In 1901, Eulenburg introduced Houston Stewart Chamberlain to Wilhelm II, who first met at Eulenburg's Liebenberg estate. The next day Eulenburg wrote that the Emperor "stood completely under the spell of this man [Chamberlain], whom he understood better than any of the other guests because of his thorough study of The Foundations".
