SCHÖNERER, GEORG VON:

Austrian politician and anti-Semitic agitator; born at Vienna July 17, 1842. He devoted himself to agriculture, and in 1873 entered the Austrian Diet, where he represented the German-National party and gave his support to the anti-Semitic movement. Having entered by force the office of the "Neues Wiener Tageblatt" (called "Judenblatt" because it pleaded the cause of the Jews), he was condemned (May 5, 1888) to four months' imprisonment and loss of his title of nobility and his immunity as a member of the Diet. Later he regained his status. He propagated his ideas in his semimonthly "Unverfälschte Deutsche Worte." In 1895 he retired from public life, but continued to be a bitter opponent of the Christian-Social party and its leaders Laeger and Vergani. He embraced Protestantism Sept. 2, 1899.

Schönerer published "Zwölf Reden" (Vienna, 1886) and "Fünf Reden" (ib. 1891). His father, Mathias, a railroad contractor in the employ of the Rothschilds, left him a large fortune. His wife is a great-granddaughter of R. Samuel Löb Kohen, who died at Pohrlitz in 1832. See Jew. Encyc. i. 646, s.v. Anti-Semitism.

Bibliography:
  • Mittheilungen zur Abwehr des Anti-Semitismus, 1891-1900;
  • Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon;
  • Meyers Konversations-Lexikon;
  • Wurzbacb, Biographisches Lexikon.
J. S. Man.
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