PURELY COMMENTARY

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

Reaffirming Jewish Auto Creation

S

iegfried Marcus has al-
ready been fully de-
scribed as the Jewish
expert who developed the first
automobile in "Purely Com-
mentary" Aug. 3, 1990.
Two knowledgeable readers
followed up on the studies in
the Jewish News of Aug. 24,
Frank Theyleg and Henry
Politzer.
Now we have another very
illuminating confirmation of
the Siegfried Marcus ac-
complishment by a fellow
citizen.
Richard H. Rosen, a
Southfield resident, provides
us with important data under
the title "A Mini-Saga of the
World's First Car (or the
Disenchanted Inventor of the
First Car and What Happen-
ed to His Creation)."
The Richard Rosen story is
exciting and it will surely be
judged as an important
chapter in automobile
history. Here is some of the
text he compiled:
April 9, 1865, the day our
Civil War ended, was also
the date the first vehicle

powered by an internal
combustion engine was
run in public. Then again,
a device which we would
unequivocally regard as
an automobile was run in
public in the spring of 1875.
The inventor of both
vehicles was Siegfried
Marcus.
This second vehicle,
which Marcus called a
strassenwagen, was equip-
ped with four cycle engine,
electro-magnetic ignition,
carburetor, and even a
steering wheel (worm and
sector steering). It was
capable of seven miles per
hour, and so frightened
man and beast that Mar-
cus found seventeen court
summons in his mail the
morning after its first
public outing. He refused
to run it much thereafter.
Many years later, after
Daimler and Benz had
brought us cars, in some
respects less advanced,
Marcus still had refused
generous offers to
cooperate in putting his

Siegfried Marcus

basic car design into
production.
His disenchantment was
such that he said cars were
no good at all" and "a
senseless waste of time and
effort." His car of 1875 was
still advanced in major
aspects by the standards of
1898 when an automotive
exhibition was held in
Vienna with Marcus as the
guest of honor .. .

"

Of his second car design,
three strassenwagen had
been built, one going to
Holland and one to the
United States, both long
lost. The original was
preserved by the Austrian
Automobile Club which, in
1924, donated it to the
Technical Museum for In-
dustry and Trade .. .
Fourteen years later an
official first priority of the
Hitlerites in Austria was
the eradication of all
evidence of Marcus' inven-
torship of the automobile.
The car and every extant
copy of the memorial
booklet were intended for
destruction. That was not
to be, as an employee of the
museum removed the car
to a cellar. A copy of the
booklet was kept as well
and is now in this
country .. .
In 1950 the curator, Dr.
Joseph Nagler, ordered the
car restored. (The ignition
was found to be missing, so
a similar one was taken

from a Marcus stationary
engine also on display. The
mounting flanges fit exact-
ly). But it was the thought..
fulness and courage of a
minor museum employee
which has given Dr. Nagler
the opportunity to restore
and run it.
This remarkable research
spells historiography. Its im-
portance is in the serious ef-
fort to maintain accuracy.
Author-researcher Richard
Rosen drew his facts from the
following sources:
"The First Automobile" by
E.C. Lessner (True magazine);
My Father, Mr. Mercedes by G.
Jellinek-Mercedes (Chilton
Publishers); Siegfried Marcus,
Ein Erfinderleben (VDI
Verlag); "Marcus Mysteries"
by C.L. Wagner (Automobile
Quarterly).
With such excellent fact fin-
ding we add the name of
Richard A. Rosen to the
dedicated American Jewish
historians. We should
treasure him as a respected
historiographer. ❑

Anti-Semites At Our Very Doorsteps

D

Blight in the Apple
and Honey tradition
inspired by the United
Jewish Appeal Rabbinic
Cabinet proclamation, mag-
nified our salute to 5751.
With it was the admonition to
be aware of the continuing
threats to Jewry and Israel
and anti-Semitic tendencies.
We are duty bound not to in-
terrupt exposure and action
to condemn them.
The most shocking revival
of the ugliest of the anti-
Semitic canards is the
spreading of the fake "Pro-
tocols of the Elders of Zion."
That they should now have
distribution in the American
sphere is especially
deplorable.
The current exposure of
these hate-picking pamphlets

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Vol. XCVHI No. 6

2

October 5, 1990

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1990

is the commendable research
by the newest of the
American weekly periodicals.
It is The Forward published
in New York emerging from
the Forvetz and the Yiddish
Jewish Daily Forward.
Revelations of the newest
hatred are by J.J. Goldberg's
newspaper's editorial reveal-
ing American publishers of
the canards.
The Forward and J.J.
Goldberg render a necessary
service in exposing anti-
Semitism by making known
the details of the hatreds we
confront. It is necessary to
know who spreads them. Just
as it was necessary to know
the enemies when Henry
Ford Sr. and Father Coughlin
were spreading lies under the
label "Protocols."
In The Forward, Mr.
Goldberg reveals following
spreaders of anti-Semitic lies:
A new edition of the
luridly anti-Semitic "Pro-
tocols of the Edlers of
Zion," published by a white
supremacist publisher in
California, is being
distributed nationally by a
black nationalist book
wholesaler based in
Queens.

The Queens distributor,
Lushena Books, also sells
"The Protocols" directly
to the public at about a

dozen sidewalk book-
stands around Manhattan.
This is the second summer
in a row that Lushena
Books has sold the same
edition of "The Protocols"
at its sidewalk book tables.
Lushena also distributes
reprints of "The Interna-
tional Jew," a 230-page
anti-Semitic tirade first
published in the 1920s by
Henry Ford. Neither book
contains any publisher in-
formation, but an
employee of Lushena
Books identified the
publisher as Angriff Press
of California.
Angriff Press was de-
scribed by the Center for
Democratic Renewal, an
Atlanta-based researcher
of extremist hate groups,
as an established neo-Nazi
publisher based in Califor-
nia. "Der Angriff" (German
for "The Attack") was the
name of a Nazi party
newspaper in pre-World
War H Germany, and the
name was revived by a neo-
Nazi faction in contem-
porary West Germany.
"The Protocols of the
Edlers of Zion," some 80
pages in length, purports
to be the proceedings of a
Jewish meeting to plot
world domination; some
editions identify the
meeting as the First World

Zionist Congress, which
actually took place in 1897.
"The Protocols" first sur-
faced in the early years of
this century in czarist
Russia, where by most ac-
counts it was written by a
Russian Orthodox monk in
the service of the czarist
secret police.
The Angriff Press edition
also includes extensive
"historical"material plac-
ing the alleged Jewish con-
spiracy depicted in "The
Protocols" in the context of
20th century history.

The Times of London in
1921 published a report by
a Middle East correspon-
dent that demonstrated
"The Protocols" to be a
crude rewriting of a fic-
tional 19th century
dialogue lampooning the
French republican cause.
This debunking, however,
has not stemmed the
book's popularity among
anti-Semites of various
stripes.
Mr. Ford's "The Interna-
tional Jew," a collection of
anti-Semitic articles from
his 1920s-era Dearborn In-
dependent
magazine,
draws extensively from
"The Protocols" to docu-
ment the dangers of the
alleged international
Jewish cabal. Mr. Ford

publicly repudiated the
magazine and the book in
1928.

It is most unfortunate that
these facts needed to be
recalled. It is vital that the
unknowing be aware not on-
ly of means that were used to
vilify Jews but also to know
the new spreaders of the
libels.

Presenting these facts adds
to the truth that "eternal

The most shocking
of the ugliest
canards is the
spreading of the
fake 'Protocols of
the Elders of Zion.'

vigilance is the price of liber-
ty." In the current instance it
also unveils the hatreds that
keep creating anti-Semitism.

The major duty is for the
youth to be acquainted with
facts like those exposed so
they can contribute actively
and vigilantly toward the con-
demnation of anti-Semitism.
This way we can share in the
vigilance. 111