Der jüdische Selbsthass

Theodor Lessing: Jewish Self-Hatred. First edition: Berlin, Jewish Publishing House, 1930. The numbers in square brackets in the text refer to the notes at the end of the book. New edition, edited by Karl-Maria Guth, Berlin 2023. The text of this edition has been carefully adapted to the new German spelling. Cover image: Theodor Lessing, photographed by Will Burgdorf, around 1930. Set in Minion Pro, 11 pt. The Hofenberg collection is published by Henricus - Edition Deutsche Klassik GmbH, Berlin. About the author: Born in 1872 in Hanover as the son of an assimilated Jewish doctor, Karl Theodor Richard Lessing studied literature and philosophy in Munich. His habilitation project in Dresden fails due to the prejudices against Jews and socialists. After brief stints in Berlin and Göttingen, he returns to Hanover in 1907 and teaches as a lecturer at the local Technical University. As an extremely contentious author of numerous essays and articles, he becomes a well-known and highly controversial political writer of the Weimar Republic. Ultimately, after a scandal regarding his derogatory remarks about the later Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, he is forced to resign in 1926. In 1933, he flees from the National Socialists to Czechoslovakia. On August 31, 1933, Theodor Lessing is shot through the window of his study in Marienbad. He is one of the first victims of National Socialism.