An attempt to answer this scientifically would bring us to the fundamental question of the mutual adaptability of Jews and non-Jews. It would touch upon the race problem that still torments the world--now more than ever--and which Bettauer knew so well. Propagandist phrases could easily slip in, phrases that would again stir up the ancient controversy between the Jewish and the Christian _Weltanschauung_. It would be unfair toward the author of this book. For Bettauer successfully escaped the temptation to propagandize. The City Without Jews was built by Bettauer, the fearless Christian. Explanation, comment, or an analysis of his purpose, would be out of place, and might be interpreted as an attempt to use his novel as political propaganda. In Europe, _The City Without Jews_, is arousing an unabating interest. In less than a year, a quarter of a million copies of the novel have been sold, an unprecedented figure in German modern literature. The translation for the American edition was made from the fifty-fourth edition, following exactly the simple, unaffected style of the original. _New York, 1926_ THE TRANSLATOR PART ONE CHAPTER I. THE ANTI-JEWISH LAW A solid human wall, extending from the University to the Bellaria, surrounded the beautiful and imposing Parliament Building. All Vienna seemed to have assembled on this June morning to witness an historic event of incalculable importance. Businessmen and laborers, fashionable ladies and women of the people, half-grown boys and old men, young girls, little children, invalids in rolling chairs--all were intermingled, shouting, debating, and perspiring. And ever and again someone suddenly felt the urge to deliver a speech before his neighbors, ever and again there burst forth the cry: “Throw out the Jews!” Ordinarily it happened at such demonstrations that people with hooked noses or conspicuously black hair were given a thorough beating. But this time nothing of the sort occurred, for not a Jew was in sight; and the cafés and banking-houses of the Franzensring and Schottenring sagely taking into account all possibilities, had closed their doors and pulled down their shades. Suddenly a deafening roar filled the air. “Hail Dr. Karl Schwertfeger--Hail, hail, hail! Hail the liberator of Austria!” Slowly an open automobile rolled through the human mass as it receded to make way. In the car sat a powerful old man, his massive skull covered with unruly tufts of white hair. He took off his soft gray hat, nodded to the jubilant crowd, and twisted his face into a smile. But it was a sour smile, somehow belied by the two furrows that ran downward from the corners of his mouth. And the expression of his deep-set gray eyes seemed somber rather than joyful.