Traces the events surrounding the murder of a German boy in 1900 and the Jewish butcher accused of the crime, piecing together the rumors, accusations, and anti-Semitic fervor that marked the case. 10,000 first printing. The invocation of the term ritual murder seems an echo of a distant, barbaric past, the stuff of superstition and wild fancy. Yet in eastern Germany, at a time characterized by industrialization and scientific advancement, such barbaric echoes resounded all too often. In this book, Smith (German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870-1914) explores the murder of young Ernst Winter in the West Prussian town of Konitz on March 11, 1900. Though the authorities suspected the Christian butcher, Gustav Hoffmann, the Christian townspeople suspected a Jewish conspiracy to kill Winter and acquire his Christian blood for their Passover matzo. It is remarkable in this pre-Hitlerian Germany that the government actually protected Konitz's Jews from the angry rioters and refused to entertain the absurd idea of ritual murder. Smith has painstakingly explored the motives of all key actors in this drama. Text and bibliography are both copiously annotated. Imbued with an appropriately eerie atmosphere, this is a murder mystery with no solution, a striking re-creation of a gruesome and sad episode. Recommended for public and academic libraries. Michael F. Russo, Louisiana State Univ. Lib., Baton Rouge Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. The supposed ritual murder of a gentile child by Jews to consecrate the Passover matzo has been a blood libel used to spark anti-Semitic outrages for centuries. Smith, associate professor of German history at Vanderbilt University, has chronicled an episode that occurred in 1900 in the relatively enlightened East Prussian town of Konitz. Here, approximately 300 Jews, most of them comfortable with their German nationality, lived in a relatively tranquil coexistence with their gentile neighbors in a town of 10,000. When the remains of a murdered, dismembered boy was discovered, the facade was dropped. Mobs screamed for revenge against the Jews, Jews were attacked, and the army was called in to restore order. The real perpetrator of the murder was never found, although Smith provides compelling evidence that suggests the culprit. This is a disturbing and often downright frightening examination of how easily "civilized" societies can succumb to their prejudices and cross over into hysterical barbarism. Jay Freeman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved An extremely significant study that will have a very big impact. -- Cynthia Ozick An illuminating microhistory of a chilling event: a gruesome murder in a small German town. -- Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University [B]rilliantly brings this collective madness to life...a lucid exemplar of social and cultural history at its best. -- Peter Gay Helmut Walser Smith is associate professor of German history at Vanderbilt University.