37 pages • 1 hour read
Helmut Walser SmithThe Butcher's Tale: Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Accusations”
In this chapter, Smith discusses various denunciations that fall upon the Jews of Konitz, and analyzes psychological and social aspects of the case.
As investigations continue, the police receive an overwhelming number of depositions from people who believe they saw or heard something relevant to Ernst Winter’s murder (135). In Smith’s analysis, these depositions are a way for “individuals in the community to exercise power over the Jews, and more specifically over the Jews they knew” (136).
The testimonies also reveal the fault lines of social class in Konitz. The townspeople are predominantly poor and live in cramped surroundings. Those who accuse the Jews generally come from the lower classes and are poorly educated; some have criminal records. In some cases, female Christian servants accuse their Jewish employers as a way of settling scores and reversing the social balance. Sexual intimacy across “forbidden boundaries of class and religion” (142) provides the context for some accusations, since marriage and sexual relations between Christians and Jews were considered taboo. In other cases, Christians denounced Jews who were seen as weak and powerless—for example, Wolf Israelski, who after a trial for complicity in the murder is found innocent and set free. Israelski is an example of a man “in many ways on the margins of local society, both Christian and Jewish” (152).
One contested issue in the case is whether Ernst Winter was friends with Adolph Lewy’s son, Moritz. Moritz Lewy denies knowing Winter, but several witnesses claim the contrary. One of the witnesses, a teenager named Richard Speisinger, claims that Winter carried on flirtations with two Jewish girls in town. After prodding from the antisemitic journalist Bruhn, Speisinger further testifies that Winter and Moritz knew each other and that he saw them together several times. After this, nine other witnesses come forward to claim the same thing. At his trial, Moritz is found guilty of perjury and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Joseph Laskowski, a farmhand who did work for Adolph Lewy, offers “fantastic” testimony that Lewy sized him up for slaughter like a piece of meat (144).
Another piece of testimony involves the Jewish hardware store owner Matthäus Meyer. Witnesses claim to have seen a man enter Meyer’s shop with a petition soliciting the support of the Jews of Konitz for the ritual slaughter of Ernst Winter. At that time, Meyer had been forced to close his business and had been diagnosed with liver disease; he and his family moved to Berlin a week before the murder, adding to the suspicions against him. Meyer is charged with perjury for denying the accusations against him.
All these accusations signal a “breakdown of human solidarity” in the society of Konitz and “tell a wider story about the fragility of individual human bonds” (162).
Chapter 4 Analysis
In this chapter Smith returns to the progress of the case. As the investigations thicken, Smith delves into the psychology of the accusers, the social dynamics of the accusations, and The System of Othering.
Adolph Lewy is particularly vulnerable to accusations because of his personality: He is a “cantankerous recluse” who in the past had been quick to report others to the police (152-53). It is no surprise then that his accusers are mostly not exemplary citizens. His accusers now see denouncing him as a form of revenge. Even though Hoffmann and Lewy live next to each other and share the same occupation, they rarely speak to each other. Thus, Hoffmann’s denunciation of Lewy is “an act of power over someone increasingly powerless” (154). It also allows him to assert himself to claim dominion over that field in the area.
The denunciations are fueled by rumors and superstitions. Smith makes a distinction between deliberate falsehood and distorted memories—which may be related, since people can come to believe their own lies. It is also possible for people to take scraps of things they have seen and heard and combine them with latent prejudices to create new fantastical tales. The denunciations create a domino effect: As they increase, people feel increasingly freer to make them.
In addition to the psychological dimension of the case, Smith treats its social aspects. Christians who denounced Jews saw it as a way of redressing social imbalances. A maid named Margarete Radtke announces to the police that her Jewish employer is guilty of the murder and had tried to hang himself. It transpires that she has a history of accusing her employers of crimes out of spite.
The case of Rosine Simanowski illustrates the social consequences that can follow from transgressing imposed sexual boundaries between Jews and Christians. Simanowski accuses a Jewish man named Friedlander of planning to murder Christians and of being involved in the Winter murder. It turns out that Simanowski is a sex worker and that she and Friedlander have been in a sexual relationship for some time. Her denunciation of Friedlander appears to be a case of spite, perhaps motivated by anger for being jilted in the relationship.
