Streckfuss, Adolf Friedrich Karl°
STRECKFUSS, ADOLF FRIEDRICH KARL°
STRECKFUSS, ADOLF FRIEDRICH KARL ° (1779–1844), Prussian official and writer. In 1833 Streckfuss published a pamphlet, Ueber das Verhaeltniss der Juden zu den christlichen Staaten, in which he stated that the 1812 edict emancipating the Jews had been premature, as had been demonstrated by the unanimous opposition of the provincial estates to full emancipation. He claimed that the Jews had remained an unassimilable foreign body or "nation" within the state because of their special ritual and belief in the forthcoming Messiah. Nevertheless Streckfuss was prepared to grant conditional political rights to individuals of the thin upper layer of Jewish society. But, according to Streckfuss, the remaining mass of ignorant and superstitious peddlers and innkeepers had to remain without rights until they proved themselves worthy of citizenship. Because of Streckfuss's official position as Geheimrat (government counselor), the leading young intellectuals of German Jewry, such as G. *Riesser, felt obliged to refute him at length. Ten years later, after his retirement, Streckfuss published a work under the title Zweite Schrift ueber das Verhaeltniss der Juden…, this time proclaiming his sincere conversion to the cause of complete and immediate emancipation of the Jews.
bibliography:
F. Friedlaender, in: mgw 78 (1934), 291 305; V. Eichstaedt, Bibliographie zur Judenfrage (1938), index; H. Fischer, Judentum, Staat und Heer in Preussen (1968), index. add. bibliography: G. Riesser, in: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3 (1867), 507–64; S. Dubnow, Weltgeschichte des jüd. Volkes (1929), 9:46, 52; H. Berding, Moderner Antisemitismus in Deutschland (1988), 45–50; J. Katz, Vom Vorurteil bis zur Vernichtung… (1989), 194f.; R. Erb, W. Bergmann, Die Nachtseite der Judenemanzipation… (1989), 121.
[Uri Kaufmann (2nd ed.)]