The nationally motivated hostility towards Jews did not just start with Richard Wagner or the anti-Semitic writings produced in Imperial Germany from 1871 onwards. As the study shows, even the writers of the Romantic generation in the early 19th century drew up their idea of a "German character" which was rigorously delineated from alleged Jewish characteristics. This is shown in the study using both essayistic and fictional texts by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano among others.

Marco Puschner, Nürnberger Zeitung.