BolshevikJews, AryanVienna? Popular Antisemitism in ‘Der Kikeriki’ , 1918^1933 BY JULIA SECKLEHNER Courtauld Institute of Art ABSTRACT This article interrogates the use of antisemitic imagery in the Viennese satirical magazine Der Kikerikiçwhich first supported Austria’s governing Christian Social Party and then the National Socialistsças a means of political manipulation in the interwar period between 1918 and 1933. As a close analysis of caricatures from Der Kikeriki shows, the political right actively and regularly circulated antisemitic stereotypes to a large readership, building on imagery formed in the print culture of the Habsburg Empire. Most predominantly featuring the ‘Jewish Bolshevik’, the publication demonstrates that antisemitism in the popular press was widespreadça form of cultural othering that included all of the characteristics deemed not to fit the socio-political worldview such publications held. The analysis of Der Kikeriki not only underlines that antisemitic imagery was common in the popular culture of the day, but also highlights that antisemitism was instrumentalized in the problematic search for an ‘Austrian identity’, which was caught in the ideological struggles between the political left and right. A military parade of armed men in traditional Austrian dress marches in a tight group, their faces sporting large hooked noses, their disproportional bodies verging on the grotesque with curved backs, and oversized hands and feet (¢g. 1). Their leader, who is holding up his arm in a National Socialist salute, wears the Star of David on his arm, with the letter A, for ‘Austria’, imprinted on top of it. On his back pocket, a hammer and sickle denote his allegiance to Marxism. Entitled ‘Vaterla« ndische Frontç De¢lierung der Bezirksgruppe Leopoldstadt’ (‘Patriotic FrontçMarch Past/ De¢lement of the Regional Leopoldstadt Group’), the caricature was published in the ¢nal issue of the infamous Austrian satirical magazine Der Kikeriki on 23 July 1933 (¢g. 2). Banned for its allegiance with the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) in a country whose government was struggling to resist annexation by the Third Reich, Der Kikeriki ’s closure after seventy-two years of continuous publication aimed to restrict National Socialist propaganda in a fragile Austria. 1 1 Julia Scha« fer, Vermessen, gezeichnet, verlacht: Judenbilder in popula« ren Zeitschriften 1918^1933 , Frankfurt 2004, p. 47. Leo Baeck InstituteYear Book Vol. 0, No. 0,1^22 doi:10.1093/leobaeck/yby011 ß The Author(s) (2018). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Leo Baeck Institute. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/leobaeck/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/leobaeck/yby011/5068695 by guest on 11 August 2018