Before Louis Baruch undertook his campaign against German faults and prejudices, or rather before he undertook the education of the Germans, he renounced Judaism, was baptized in Offenbach, and assumed the name Karl Ludwig Börne (June 5, 1818). How little he cared for the Christian faith we may judge from his remark that he "repented the money spent on baptism." He did not wish the effect of his missiles to be lessened by the prejudice which might arise from the fact of their being discharged by a Jew. It is, however, difficult to excuse a man of Börne's character for deserting, without any such struggle as Heine's with himself, the colors of the weak and oppressed, who should have been ennobled in his eyes by the very pain of degradation; deserting for a cause, moreover, in which he did not believe. Germany soon discovered that she had gained an author of Lessing's caliber. Börne's wit was felt the more keenly, because at every turn one could perceive the correctness of the picture and observe the genuineness and integrity of the painter. A glance revealed that he wrote with "the blood of his heart and the sap of his nerves," hence his words made the impression of weighty deeds.
He could not behold in silence the folly and cruelty of the "Hep, hep" year, and he wrote "for the Jews." "I should have said for right and liberty; but if these terms were understood, nothing need be said." He pointed his finger at fools, and threw light on the faces of villains. "A sort of fatal necessity," he said, "was connected in past times with Jew-massacres. They seem to have arisen from an indistinct, inexplicable feeling inspired by Judaism, which, like a scoffing and threatening spirit, like the ghost of a murdered mother, accompanied Christianity from its cradle." Börne analyzed German Jew-hatred into its constituents, and showed the absurdity of each. On another occasion (1820) he told them the stern truth:
"I pardon the German nation for its Jew-hatred, for it is a nation of children, and for this reason, just like an infant, needs a go-cart to enable it some day to stand firm, so that by means of the barriers to liberty it may learn to do without barriers. The German nation would collapse a hundred times a day if it were without prejudices. But individual adults I cannot pardon for their Jew-hatred."
Dr. Ludwig Holst, a newly-fledged Jew-hater, who had developed his cult into a philosophical system, and who, as Börne says, sounded "a metaphysical Hep, hep," was attacked by him with scoffs and sneers.
"Hatred of Jews is one of the Pontine bogs which poison the beautiful land of our liberty. We see the hopeful friends of the fatherland with pale faces wandering about hopelessly. German minds dwell on Alpine heights, but German hearts pant in damp marshes. Holst wishes to kill the Jews, and if they resist, he turns round to his circle of onlookers, and says: 'Now you see that I am right in taxing the Jews with unparalleled insolence; they will not suffer their heads to be struck off ever so little, and they sulk.' ... You hate the Jews, not because they have earned hatred, but because they earn money.... What you call human rights, which, it must be conceded you grant Jews, are only animal rights. The right of seeking food, of devouring it, of sleeping, and of multiplying, are enjoyed also by the beasts of the field—until they are slain, and to the Jews you grant no more.... Men of Frankfort, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen, answer me. You complain that Jews are all usurers, yet you prevent the mental development of those who abandon usury! I will not be turned away; I demand a reply. Men of Frankfort, tell me: Why should the practice of medicine be restricted to four Jews, and that of the law be allowed to none?... In the same way in which you in your free city now storm against the Jews, did you not twenty years ago storm against Catholics?... Do you doubt the arrival of the day which will command you to look upon Jews as your equals? But you wish to be forced! The German is deaf. You will not obey voluntarily; fate will have to take hold of you and drag you hither and thither. Shame upon you!" Börne remarks in conclusion: "I love neither Jew as Jew, nor Christian as Christian; I love them because they are human beings, and born to be free. Liberty shall be the soul of my pen, until it becomes blunted, or my hand is lamed."
But Börne wished the Jews to forget as a bad dream their history of a thousand years, and to become Germans. He did not possess the far-sightedness of Heine.
Heinrich Heine (born in Düsseldorf, 1799, died in Paris, 1854) in his innermost self was infinitely more of a Jew than Börne; indeed, he possessed to a great extent all the favorable and unfavorable characteristics of Jews. Who can paint this "wicked favorite of the Graces and Muses" (as he was called), this scoffing romancer and lyrical philosopher, with his chameleon-like nature? Börne's mind resembled transparent spring-water, which trickles over pebbles, and foams only when attacked by winds. Heine's mind, on the other hand, resembled a whirlpool, upon whose surface the sunbeams play in prismatic colors, but which drags approaching vessels into its roaring depths, and dashes them to pieces unless they are of the strongest build. For Heine was as deep a thinker as he was an artistic poet, as unrelenting a critic as he was an amiable scoffer, as full of original thoughts as he was of verses. Heine had not to search for Truth; Truth flew to Heine. She, like the Muse, revealed herself to him, jesting and playing with him as her favorite. Behind his banter there often was more earnest conviction than in the litany of a morose moralist. Heine longed for ideals which his mind could revere, and because he did not find them he scoffed at the false gods who allowed themselves to be worshiped. He has certainly given profound solutions to problems of history. He never sacrificed substance to form, when the former was of greater value than the latter. It is true that he often changed his opinions, but he did not play with his convictions. His religious views changed also; but he did not change his mind. He never wrote or acted against such convictions as he entertained at the time. If for a time he was slave to the false philosophical theory which makes a god of man, he afterwards acknowledged his error, and derided it thoroughly. Heine was certainly no pattern of virtue, neither was he so great a sinner as his sharp pen and tongue might lead one to suppose. He never lost his profound, noble nature, nor his sense of the sublime; neither did he roll in the mud of sensuality, as he would have his readers believe. He painted himself blacker than he was. He had his share of that acute sensitiveness which is the lot of poets, actors, and preachers, and this morbid state was in Heine's case connected with severe nervous suffering. In his sensitive condition he wrote things of which his sober judgment disapproved, but which he was ashamed to recall.
Heine had an advantage over Börne by reason of his sincere affection for his mother. Betty von Geldern came of a respected, it is said, an ennobled Jewish family. This educated mother, to whom he owed his bent of mind, was a religious woman, and brought up her children in the knowledge of the Jewish faith. The religious discord which had early alienated Börne from Judaism was unknown to Heine, and in his youth he strictly avoided the transgression of Jewish customs. He did not indeed learn so much Hebrew as Börne, but because he imbibed with love the little that he did learn, that little never left him, nor did he forget it later in life, whilst Börne wiped Hebrew entirely from his memory. Heine's love of Judaism, which, in spite of his mockery, was never quite dead, and especially his deep understanding of it, sprang from the fond memories of his youth, which remained with him like sweet, pleasing dreams. His soul was also filled with the charm of true Jewish family life, which gave him the proper standard by which to measure what men call virtue and happiness.
He had a warm though vague attachment to Judaism or the Jewish race, to its pathetic history and sacred books, and he was forcibly impressed by the antiquity of Judaism and its continuity of existence, defying time and myriads of obstacles. Now and again Heine felt proud of belonging to this ancient aristocracy. He felt what he wrote late in life:
"Now I perceive that the Greeks were only handsome youths, but the Jews have always been men, powerful, stubborn men, not only in days of yore, but even at present, in spite of eighteen centuries of persecution and misery. I have since learned to know them better, and to value them more highly, and if pride of descent were not always a foolish contradiction, I might feel proud of the fact that my progenitors were members of the noble house of Israel, that I am a descendant of those martyrs who have given a God and morality to the world, and who have fought and suffered on all the battle-fields of thought."